Suicide Hotline Butterfly .ch1.

Suicide Hotline Butterfly

I was rolling around in my swivel chair at the night-shift at the Suicide Hotline center, Butterfly, in our little city in Louisiana. We usually got more calls on the weekends and it was only a Wednesday so I was quickly restless. On nights like these, when you finally get a call, the ringing of the phone can really jar you.
“Robin,” I heard from the  door. I alerted myself and looked behind me at my supervisor, Daniel. He's a thin man in his mid-thirties, blonde hair usually but right below the ears. He avoids contact with me whenever possible.
“Yes sir?”
“Did Caleb clock in? I didn't see him today.” Caleb was my coworkers at the crisis center and he was very uptight about being on time for absolutely everything. And his desk being perfect. And the stock market. My list could go on...
“No, I haven't seen him either,” I responded. I really didn't feel like being torn out of my daydreams to worry about Caleb.
“Well I you do, tell him to get to me and fast.” Daniel slammed the door behind him. Sighing, I reached for my cell and called Caleb's number. Ring... Ring... and he hung up. Wherever he is, he doesn't want to be bothered and it's really not my business. Daniel can start acting like Caleb's mommy all he wants if the position is available...
I got one call; the woman was highly intoxicated on I-don't-know-what and she wanted to die.  I talked her into calling paramedics since she may have also ingested pills. I waited that long and agonizing eight minutes for the ambulance to arrive at her house, pick up the phone, and tell me they'd reached her in time.
There had been no sign and no word from Caleb at five in the morning when I left on my bicycle for my apartment' Daniel had gone home early and left me to man the place alone which wasn't too hard considering it was only a four-room little building. Here every night to save the people of Pierreville from themselves.  And now it was time to sleep.
My apartment was really just a flat. A small kitchen area, a room to sleep in, and a tiny bathroom. It was nice though; I'd decorated with a dark blue theme and a fighter fish – the kind that live in a vase with gross. My bed has tons of blankets in different colors – you'd need that many blankets as cold as it gets sleeping alone.
I hadn't been asleep long when my cellphone rang. I reluctantly answered, waking in time to take a Xanax before what I was about to endure.
“Hello?” I said groggily. It was Daniel. No one else ever really called.
“Caleb. They found Caleb.”
“Found...well why was he late?” I stretched and yawned. Daniel's shaky voice put me in a bit of panic
“In the river! They found him strangled and let in the river! A fisherman found him.” I gathered myself from the bed to my feet, pulling my jeans back on quickly.
“What do you...what do you mean?” I didn't know what was going on and time started to move slowly.
“Get down here, Robin!”
I ran the acre between my apartment complex and the river to meet with Daniel. Daniel had seen the body. A man – the fisherman – was sitting in the edge of the back of the ambulance, being questioned by officers. He looked rather shaken up. Daniel was in even worse shape.
“What the fuck...” I said quietly.
“This makes no sense. No sense at all, Caleb was doing fine last time I saw him and now...”
“Do they have suspects?” I asked hastily. “...Or did he just drown?” The river had a reputation for seeming calm on the surface and then pulling people under only to be hit by logs, knocked unconscious, and drowned.
“Just people he knows...which means us... He was strangled, looks like.” The place was swarming with cops and paramedics, even a fire truck. Panic everywhere. I decided to bow out before I got a glimpse of a dead body. Or worse, questioned. They'd know where to find me, but that would have to wait.
Daniel went back to the office to try and straighten out paperwork and to have time alone to process what had happened. I felt sick to my stomach. Caleb wasn't the type to know many people at all; he was a work-study student and never went to clubs or other shit that's popular to do here. Full-blown introvert. So who would have it out for him? For my own hearts' sake I'm glad I wasn't friends with him, or even very close to him, or I'd be grieving as badly as Daniel. When someone doesn't just die, but is murdered and an attempt to hide the body is made, you're kind of forced to look at humanity for what it really is. Something felt sick about it to me anyway. Nothing seemed right at all...
I arrived at Butterfly that night for my shift. Daniel had clearly been awake for some time and needed some rest.
“I'm clocking in,” I told him. He nodded. He stood up from his desk in the maroon-themed room, almost like dry blood which made the situation more eerie. We walked to my room of operation as Daniel explained,
“I got an intern to...fill in for Caleb... I couldn't just let the lines be taken care of on weekends by one person. I think you'll get along quite well, he's got top marks.” I didn't know how top marks had anything to do with us getting along; I didn't even graduate high school. But I walked into the room where I worked and saw Caleb's now cleared-off desk and a young man in his early twenties, a few years younger than me, standing and waiting on us. He had bright green eyes and reddish brown hair. He wore a white button up and jeans with sneakers. His face was slightly pointy but boyish.
“Hi,” the young man said energetically. “I'm Tony. You must be Robin.” He held his hand out to mine.
“Yeah, I'm Robin. You're the intern?” I was stricken with his looks for a moment and felt odd conversing with him.
“That, I am. So...you're going to show me how all this works?” he asked. His posture showed confidence that his thin physique may have allowed him to neglect. Tony's demeanor was inviting...unlike Daniel, who seemed to think if he came near me he would catch a disease.
“Right,” said Daniel. “I'll leave you two to it then.” Daniel turned swiftly and exited the room. It wasn't even eleven at night yet. I looked at the new coworker standing in front of me.
“I'll be showing you how it works, I guess,” I said. He shrugged and smiled.
“I've worked in similar. I just moved to these parts though.” Tony moved towards the desk he had been assigned, decorated now only with a laptop, notebook, and pens.  He grinned and gestured to the desk.
“Not going to be needing much for a phone job, after all,” he said in a soft and piercing voice. I studied him and nodded politely.
It was a slow night – very slow for a weekend. Tony asked me some questions about Caleb and his death, about what I liked to do. I really don't know how to tell people what I like to do, because for the most part, I sleep, work, and jog. Not much going on. He told me that he liked to try different restaurants and fish when he wasn't studying.
At some point I began to feel the need take a break; I was still upset and nervous about the days' events involving Caleb. I stood in the small, white-walled bathroom staring in the mirror at my blue, tired eyes. Brown hair – need a haircut, I thought. I was more muscular than Tony and a lot more tanned but he definitely had me beat in the looks department. It felt weird to have Caleb replaced the same day he was found murdered – like time should slow down out of sheer respect, but that can't happen when you work at a suicide hotline, keeping other people from offing themselves.
Tony and I ended our shifts at the same time, greeting a co-worker, Candice, a pretty girl with long blonde hair and awkward demeanor. She's a psychology student with Aspergers Syndrome and an avid writer. She smiled slightly at Tony who didn't seem to pay her any mind.
“Well, sleep well, Robin,” she said as we parted ways. Tony looked at me curiously.
“That's Candice. She's been working here since she was eighteen.”
“Cool. Do you have a lot of friends around here?” he asked as he got on his light blue bike. The moon was still out and the warm, humid air was actually refreshing after being inside Butterfly for so many hours.
“No, not really any,” I muttered without thinking. “Just Candice.”
“Oh, I see,” Tony smiled. “So she's your girlfriend.” I looked at him with my mouth open.
“Not at all. She has a boyfriend and well...I don't date.” I looked up at the stars. Something about Tony made me feel like I could spill these beans and many more – that fucking inviting demeanor.
“You don't?”
“No. I don't like girls.” I looked at Tony's blank face for a moment before I started thinking I had made a mistake in saying what I had. And then he smiled.
“Oh, I get it. I see, I see. Me either.”
After a short discussion on the narrow-mindedness and bigotry of this city, mostly so I could warn Tony not to be too open about “not liking girls,” he waved and we parted ways. I walked home slowly, tired but feeling surreal. Did I really just get staffed with another gay? Seems so. He didn't openly say he was gay but he seemed to get it when I was trying to “say it without saying it.”

And then it was time for my meds and my only reprieve from the abyss of my life – sleep.