The Phone Call

By Bob Howitt

The Phone Call brings together, in rather quick fashion as newly-weds, an African American male and a Latina in a feel good love story set against a backdrop of a struggling family fun farm featuring llamas and monkeys. The Latina's aspiring and outspoken college-age daughter from a previous marriage brings a sharpness to both conversations and family activities. Spoiler alert: the end is rather quirky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Howitt
• Release date: Apr 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215455760

Bob Howitt

Bob has had a varied career: partner of a respected Wall Street firm, Executive-Director of a well-known youth agency, initial funder of what became Uncommon Schools, board member of a longstanding non-profit organization, and leadership of the WKBJ Foundation. WKBJ has assisted over 250 financially challenged young people to attend college. The diversity of both his books and the subject matter of his essays is indicative of the breadth and depth of his interests.

Book preview

Introduction

It was early 2020. Faith was explaining another of her interesting story ideas, which can take the form of writing, drawing, and videos. I was encouraging her creativity, as I always do.

It is particularly easy to be positive when an almost twelve year-old girl, perhaps reflecting her biracial adopted background, is thinking along different lines than most of her suburban female peers. It is easy to be supportive when she reacts to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by joining her mother to participate in a memorial service and march for social justice.

It is easy to be a fan of Faith when she pursues her passion for running, especially the 3k for cross-country, and the 5k for road races. And it is easy to applaud when Faith’s big heart is reflected in her hugely successful activity to solicit donations of socks for homeless people.

Maybe it would be expected that I, a sometimes writer, would be drawn to a person with multiple creative and individual talents. I have always believed that the world belongs to the initiators, whether in the fields normally called ‘creative’ or the category of entrepreneurs in the business world. Without them, there would be no editors, no staffers, no organizational structures needed.

What does this have to do with The Phone Call?

Simple. Faith challenged me to write a story. I have written very little fiction, and none of it more than a few pages. Moreover, it has only been short essays that have characterized my non-fiction writings on education, politics, demographics, and social issues. So—I knew this would not be a walk in the park. Fortunately she has not played the role of a harassing editor or publisher.

The Phone Call is a feel-good story. The pandemic comes late, and the murder of George Floyd, even later. The story winds up shortly thereafter—well, not quite—the reader will see what I mean. Issues of love, trust, aspiration, compromise, and commitment in The Phone Call are worked out in a non-violent fashion. Cursing is almost non-existent. Personal habits are not allowed to obstruct an evolving story of the love that works through challenges, many of which might be considered trivial (by those not involved) when looked at through the rearview mirror of perspective and reflection.

Assuming you have had some exposure to adversity, the three lead characters could be anybody you know: from your family, your neighbors, your job, your school, your imagination. The biggest impediment to full understanding of each other is information and communication, not skin color.

It is clear that this is the writer’s first extended effort at fiction. It is hard to identify a singular protagonist and antagonist. At times he struggles to fully capture the appropriate dialogue of the newly-married couple, David and Silvia, and the latter’s teenage daughter from a prior marriage, Hope. She is particularly proactive, which makes transitioning among the family’s different activities and situations acceptable. But the writing is crunchy peanut butter, not creamy.

There is no attempt to create diction unique to each individual based on their specific ethnic identity—that skill set is not mine. The critics will love this omission. Neither is there an attempt to be current with the shorthand associated with social media interactions.

There is serious attention given to creating consistent characters. I have always been in awe of those who write entire books. My appreciation has grown even more as I have functioned here as author, editor, critic, and proofer. Consistently searching for the best word, sentence structure which fits the situation, and appropriate phrasing imagery is a monumental exercise in self-discipline. Almost forgot, there are llamas and monkeys in The Phone Call. I believe this is caused a tease.

Most importantly, it was fun writing The Phone Call, even if it took the tragedy of a pandemic to free up the time needed to put the words down on paper, as we used to say. Thank you, Faith. I love you, Bob.

Forward

Two divorcees, one a laidback African American from San Diego, David Jones, and one an intense Latina from Chicago, Silvia Gonzalez, accidentally meet at a November, 2018 conference at the McCormick Center in the Windy City for people who run family fun farms, as David does. Its animal occupants are llamas and monkeys, plus two dogs that belong to David.

David is taken with Silvia and calls her when he returns to California. He pays for Silvia and Hope, her 17 year-old daughter, to fly out for a visit.

Stunningly, while they are at the San Diego Zoo, he proposes and Silvia accepts. Hope is distraught: a big decision has been made without much in the way of homework having been done on the man involved. Besides, she does not want to share her Mom or leave her many school friends.

Shortly after the wedding on February 14, 2019, too soon seemingly, David asks Hope to manage the farm. This is the beginning of a long period in which the relationship builds for Hope, eventually leading her to call him Dad.

Ironically, her mom is initially more stressed about the marriage, despite the quickness with which she agreed to the union. She needs good advice from two college friends and from a therapist.

In time, though, Silvia works her way past a big argument with David and some extended soul-searching, eventually arriving at a comfort zone and complete love.  Hope’s growing fondness for her new Dad is itself an important factor in the evolution of Silvia’s emotions toward David and her attitude about the sustainability of their relationship.

Hope is a curious and good student, and an avid reader with a big heart. She has an idea for something called a ‘Commonality Test,’ which occurred to her as a result of observing her new father and his interaction with her Mom.

She has a boyfriend, then she doesn’t, through no fault of her own. She has her eye on a new guy in her Psychology class, a possible major of hers, not of his. Hope has mixed thoughts about the usefulness of her test as the Jones family is involved in numerous getting to know everything about you situations.

A consistent theme is more understanding by Silvia and Hope that David has multiple layers. His murky financial condition, one of those initially undiscussed layers, is straightened out by Hope and her adoring friend Elizabeth, with an assist from the Internal Revenue Service.

As they become more comfortable as a married couple, David and Silvia reach out to socialize with friends and, eventually, with the neighbors when they move to a new location for the farm. At home, regardless of their frequent apparent reaction to Hope’s pleasant aggressiveness, inwardly they are proud when she consistently introduces dinner table conversation topics which neither of her parents would seek to initiate.

Faith’s Fun Farm, the tangible asset brought to the marriage by David, consists at the outset of only llamas and monkeys, as mentioned. When they move the farm further away from the city in order to sharply increase its size, they add exotic deer.

As the story moves into 2020, there are two developments of major importance: a pandemic (COVID-19) and the murder of George Floyd. There is much to be said here in the latter part of The Phone Call as the story ends on June 30 of that tumultuous year.

DATELINE: FOURTH QUARTER, 2018

Section 1

David Jones and Silvia Gonzalez meet in Chicago

David Jones was not a veterinarian.

He was not even a vet tech. Nonetheless, he was the sole proprietor of a semi-rural plot of land, technically still in the city of San Diego, that the prior owner had turned into something called ‘Faith’s Fun Farm.’ At this point, the occupants were David, his collies Bella and Rocket, four llamas, and four monkeys.

A divorcee who lived alone, David did everything at the farm. He took a head count in the morning to determine that none of the animals had jumped over, climbed, or punctured the farm’s six-foot high fencing during the night in pursuit of more luxurious surroundings. He fed them. He cleaned up their excrement.

Entry to the farm was available to the public for a modest ticket price. David was able to pay his bills (not all of them as it turns out) and that was it. The whole deal worked for only two reasons: he had paid a ridiculously low price to acquire the property and he loved animals, without which the price would have had no meaning.

David was an intelligent guy. There was no necessity, or money, for a high-priced consultant to tell him that the farm was not destined to become a wonderful economic proposition. He knew he needed assistance, either ideas or a partner for the farm or a plan, something to prevent the opposite, a complete collapse.

Lacking the veterinarian credential, and, to be fair, a certain level of confidence, David had never traveled to one of those industry expert conferences where everybody tries to show they are smarter than everybody else. He would be a fish out of water in his view. Besides he could not afford the $1,000 which was a typical all-in cost of those gatherings.

One quiet Monday, a day when the farm was almost always closed, David’s mail brought a brochure of the type he normally quickly discarded to the recycle bin. In this case, the pictorial heading—a young man feeding a llama—caught his eye and stopped David from tearing it up on the spot.

There was to be a national conference specifically aimed at people who ran family fun farms, defined as having interesting animals to see, feed, and pet. It was to be a share your information and experiences meeting at Chicago’s well-known McCormick Center on November 29-30, 2018.

David decided to put his skepticism and nervousness aside and attend. He found a cheap flight on Alliant Airlines and equally inexpensive lodging at LaQuinta Motor Inn (a brand he knew from his college track team travels), and prepared to make the trip. Both the plane and the room were paid for by a friend named Sam Gilbert. David’s out-of-pocket costs would be limited to food and the $100 rental of an exposition booth.

He persuaded his boyhood friend and 2004 Olympic teammate Jamal Adams to sleep over and mind the store while he was gone. His instructions were succinct: Count the animals when you wake up, feed them in the morning and evening, and keep the sign I made visible: ‘Closed for winter clean-up; re-opening December 1.

The evening of the 28th, David took a local taxi to the San Diego airport. From the moment he climbed in, Abdul Mandeza, the turbaned driver of the aging Honda, talked non-stop through his headset with his brother or mother or stockbroker or girlfriend, David could not tell which. The quiet passenger marveled at how fast a person could talk without stopping for a breath, except when he dropped David at the airport and requested his fare.

Security check-in was no problem. David had nothing but a full backpack. After the priority boarding passengers were called plus those in groups 1-4, group 5 passengers were finally invited to get on. These represented the cheapest tickets. David’s seat was at the absolute rear of the Boeing 737 twin-engine airplane. He could have cared less; it was his first time up in the air in over a decade.

As flights go, it was uneventful. David spent most of the time replaying in his mind the logic for this trip. Perhaps most important emotionally was that he needed a break from what had become a daily grind for him, his love of the animals notwithstanding. Longer-term, something he had avoided thinking much about, as indicated he knew he was not up to speed on in terms of managing a farm. Besides these fundamental reasons for the trip, he had never been further east than Colorado and was curious about Chicago and its nickname of the Windy City.

Kamil Zaston (David has a habit of noting full names of people he may never see again, probably something he picked up at the schmoozing job he had prior to owning the farm), the cab driver from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago to his LaQuinta Motor Inn could have been a cousin of the San Diego driver and was equally oblivious to his passenger. That was fine with David. As they approached the skyline of Chicago proper, he realized this was the major leagues. When you see for the first time a big city’s myriad of high-rise buildings: office, residential, cultural, governmental, whatever, there is a bit of wonder at what architects, engineers, builders, and planners have been able to accomplish.

No disrespect to San Diego, which is not exactly hicksville with 1.4 million people, but it cannot match the scope and complexity (nor the violence) of Chicago.

There were several inches of snow on the ground, with more flakes coming down in large quantities. David could see cars slipping and sliding as their drivers tried to find traction on the interstate highway. When he was dropped off at his LaQuinta, he asked the clerk (whose elaborate name tag read, "Welcome to the heart of America; if you need anything, ask for me, Bob Evanston) if this weather was normal.

After laughing a bit, Bob said, Totally. And when the wind is blowing with more serious intent, it gets quite interesting to even walk around.

David’s prior trip experience had been almost entirely limited to track meets in the southwestern region of the United States, where you had to be up at a serious altitude to see a glimpse of snow, if then. The one exception could have been the 2003 Olympic Trials in Colorado, but the weather was fine there, balmy as David recalled.

After completing the check-in process, which required documenting that he was the David Jones that Sam had booked the room for, David took the elevator to room 567.He tossed his backpack on a chair, showered, and plopped down on the bed for a fitful night’s non-sleep. His mind wandered among different subjects. None of the nocturnal topics were capable of being recalled when he was awakened by an intrusive alarm on his cellphone.

Without any breakfast, he grabbed a cab, this time driven by Ronald Howlett, an Englishman who did not talk fast but whose speech was otherwise unintelligible. He attributed that to a regional accent inherited at birth in the north of England (at least that’s what David thought he said).

A few miles on newly plowed roads and David was at the McCormick Center. Several food trucks were lined up to serve early comers. David got himself a coffee roll and a cup of coffee, redundant as it might seem, and went inside. McCormick Center seemed endless to him, easily stretching over the equivalent of several football fields. Inside, the exposition hall, one of many he would learn, was equally immense.

He saw maybe a hundred booths, each awaiting somebody to put something in them. David had brought 100 copies of a one-page description of his farm, plus a half-dozen 8x11 photos. He tried in vain to avoid feeling intimidated.

From the conference brochure, he knew his booth would be 15’ x 15.’ Beyond that, there was no special information provided and David had arrived clueless about how to make his assigned booth into a destination worthy of visiting. He assumed suggestions for that were available somewhere. As he looked around, his eyes met a woman whose badge read ‘Booth Layout Coordinator.’

***

David was quite happy to talk with the woman wearing the badge, Silvia Gonzalez.

Silvia was a divorced nurse who relished the opportunity to ditch her hospital clothes, put on an attractive dress, get out of the apartment she shared with her teenage daughter, and work per diem at the Center. She had been doing it for three years and was an early call when a new exposition was being set up. In this case, something about family fun farms appealed to her, maybe reflecting a distant personal or handed-down memory from her parents and their life in Colombia.

When she arrived at McCormick Center on the 29th and saw a good-looking guy who clearly needed help, let’s just say that Silvia did not go in the opposite direction.

Hi, my name is Silvia, can I help you.

My name is David and help is what I need! he said with an engaging smile.

They worked together for an hour or so, after deciding to have the booth focus on its unusual combination of llamas and monkeys and their appeal to kids in particular. Silvia copied the few photos, framed them, and arranged everything in an eye-catching manner.

To her credit, David rather quickly had a must-see location which won praise from all the conference attendees who stopped by.

It’s the authentic look of a small family fun farm run by its African American owner. People are desperate for re-creations that portray a simpler life than that of the 21st century was Silvia’s admittedly stretched opinion as she deflected praise from David.

More importantly, not too many people had heard of llamas and monkeys hanging out together at a family fun farm or anyplace else for that matter.

David’s view was that she had made his farm look both attractive and professional.

Having done her thing for David, Silvia moved on to other booths to dispense advice. David did not see her the rest of that day, much as he would have liked to.

On the 30th, aka day two, aka the final session of the conference, Silvia returned to David’s booth to see how it was going. When there was a lull in the visitor count, David asked Silvia to be his presenter while he walked around to see other locations. She readily agreed.

What he saw was not what he remembered, it was what he heard. The message was clear: having adorable animals you love is necessary but not sufficient to have a successful enterprise. Family fun farms fail because they are not well managed, because they are oblivious of the increased regulations involved in the business, because they do not handle money well.

David winced. He might have dwelled on each of these descriptors, completely relevant to his situation. Instead, his mind was more on Silvia.

David’s divorce was a decade ago. He had no children.

He could not help himself. He had to get this woman’s phone number, find out if she was married, ask if she ever came to California. Yes, he was impatient. It had been a while.

Stunningly, and possibly surprising even herself, Silvia only hesitated briefly before giving David her cell number.

To herself, she thought ‘so what, I don’t have to answer a call. Besides, nothing will happen when he gets back to his farm in San Diego, 1500+ miles away. Out of sight, out of mind characterized her opinion, if that is still applicable in the age of technological communication.

Section 2

Descriptions of David, Silvia, and Silvia’s daughter Hope

David was simultaneously disbelieving and optimistic. Uncharacteristically, he could not tell you the name of the cab driver who took him from the LaQuinta to the airport.

He might have shunned any transportation and floated out of Chicago except he was too old for that imagery, an ancient 35, with an inevitable residual wariness from his previous marital relationship. Slim (when he wanted to be), 6’2", an animal lover (obviously), good-looking (by anybody’s standard), usually positive (although not so much recently), and mostly laid back (at least on the surface), David typically pretended he did not hear anything when an idiot within earshot made a negative reference to his skin color.

David had run the 800 meters in the 2004 Olympics, where he achieved a personal