The White Pages
Earlier today I asserted that anybody can write well enough to make any subject interesting simply by coming at it from an angle that would interest the author himself, his enthusiasm in turn affecting the rest of us. Here’s the promised example, me rising to the challenge of making the Telephone Book interesting …
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The telephone book known as the “White Pages” has many uses. For example, if I wanted to generate a name for a character in a novel I might open the phone book at random, poke my finger at an entry and come up with a first name, in this case “Chet” (truth). By the same procedure I might come up with a last name of “Webster” and, finally, a middle initial of “O.”
And there we have him, folks - - Chester O. Webster, a/k/a “Chet”.
What do we know about the mythical Chet? Well, for one thing we know he lives in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver. How do we know this? Because the cover of the (local) book says Lakewood, Golden, Wheat Ridge, but he doesn’t strike me as a resident of Lakewood (where my wife and I live) or Golden (where my daughter and her family live).
No, Chet Webster lives in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a pleasant looking community that has some unpleasant surprises in store for non-residents, see later in this post.
But for the moment let’s look at something other than using the White Pages as a name generator for Great American Novels ...
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Believe it or not the White Pages, or indeed any thick edition of any phone book, is often used by people who want to investigate or demonstrate the stopping power of a handgun or rifle.
As when Bill Whoever fired a Winchester 30-30 into the Manhattan phone book in the confines of his bedroom in his parents’ apartment in the same Queens apartment building where I and my parents lived. (Truth. And I say “Whoever” because that’s the way I like to represent a name that my failing memory refuses to retrieve.)
My ears were in agony even though I had pressed the flaps closed with my index fingertips. Bill and I were 15 at the time and he had -- are you ready for this? -- a carry permit for firearms and ammunition valid anywhere within the five boroughs of NYC. (Truth.)
You see, Bill shot competitively, or at least that’s what the carry permit said. So it would make perfect sense for him to be walking around one of the most crime-ridden cities in the USA, carrying a Winchester Model 95 in a case.
Aw c’mon, Bill. How does a 15 year old kid living in Forest Hills get to be a championship shooter? I mean, I can see a kid from 110-45 Queens Boulevard maybe being a tennis star, but a crack pistol shot? And anyway, who ever heard of competition shooting matches on Staten Island using deer rifles? It simply doesn’t happen, right? So how’d you get the permit, Bill?
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(I mentioned the possibility of Bill's being a tennis star because he and I, along with several other friends, used to play stickball in a vacant lot right next to the world famous Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. We never had to buy any balls, they were hit out of the stadium to us with sufficient frequency that all of us had large supplies of them. We would defuzz them on the cooking rings of gas stoves, which most apartments had back then.
I was a pitcher, and while hardball did and does terrify me, I was a very good and very aggressive stickball player. I had a sidearm slider/sinker pitch that was difficult to hit, and a knuckler that would travel to up close to the batter and then drop like the Space Shuttle on final.
You see, defuzzed tennis balls offer a pitcher incredible control. But I digress, so let’s ask him again ...)
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Bill, is that permit real?
Yes.
Not forged?
No.
Will it stand inspection by members of New York’s Finest?
Yes, it has done so a dozen times.
Where’d you get it, Bill?
From the office of the Chief of Police. They handle this stuff.
Well, Bill, who do you know? I mean you must have some kind of pull, right?
I only know my mother.
Okay, Bill, I’ll come out and play. Who does your MOTHER know?
Well, she knows Judge FamousName. She knows him because she’s his mistress, and he comes to visit a couple of times a week. One day I asked him if he could get me a carry permit and he said “Yes, of course. Have your mom call this guy <gave the name> and tell him I said to issue the permit, and to call me if he has any questions.”
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And so it came to pass that Bill and I were sitting around in his bedroom that very interesting day. The conversation had somehow turned to guns, whereupon Bill said
I have an idea. Would you like to see my 30-30?
Well, sure. You mean you have an actual deer rifle right here in this room?
Yes, it’s in the closet ... <Rummages around.> ... Here. Want to hold it?
Well, yes. <Handles the rifle expertly.> It’s not loaded is it?
No, but we’ll fix that. Give it over. <Feeds a single round in the chamber.>
What are you going to do, Bill? You’re not going to shoot me are you?
No, I’m going to shoot the Manhattan telephone book. Only the rifle is so powerful that the shot is probably going to go right through it. So let’s put the Manhattan Yellow Pages behind it. And some pillows behind that.
And that’s what we did, folks. We got a bunch of pillows and lined them up at the head of his bed. Then we leaned the Yellow Pages against the frontmost pillow. Then the White Pages against that one.
Now ... These are not your ordinary phone books. They are each six inches thick even though they cover only Manhattan. (Yes, everybody got the books for their own borough. I can’t recall whether people had to buy the Manhattan books as opposed to getting them for free, but everybody had them.) So between them the books provided a foot of heavy-duty stopping power, more impenetrable than an equivalent thickness of wood because of the many layers.
I sat alongside the bed and held my fingers to my ears. Bill went to the foot of the bed, levered the action to cock the rifle, took aim, and fired ...
... And the round went all the way through the White Pages. And all the way through the Yellow Pages. And all the way through something like two pillows before stopping in a third, ruining all three of them.
Isn’t your mom going to mind?
No.
And she didn’t.
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But let’s get back to Chet Arnold or whatever his name is. I promised to tell you about his hometown of Wheat Ridge, and so I shall.
Two years ago I got my first traffic ticket in fifteen years, and I got it at the intersection of Something and 44 th by virtue of a badly planned hasty left turn out of a T, resulting in my tapping the side a truck that had been speeding through the top of the T from left to right.
I had to wait around for the police to arrive, my bladder rapidly filling. It took them an hour. At one point the admittedly lovely Officer Ramirez said “Let me see your proof of insurance.” I couldn’t find the paperwork. “Look” I said to her. “Please just call the Bill Alexander agency. They’ll confirm that I have coverage.”
She did but there was no answer. She then wrote me two citations, for Vehicle Turning Left and for Uninsured Motorist, promised to call the agency again later and then let me go, whereupon I ducked into the adjacent ... ... beauty salon, the only building immediately at hand, and asked to use the men’s room. (Just kidding, folks. There was no men’s room, only the one used by the women. They agreed simply because I told them what was inevitably going to happen to the salon floor if they didn’t agree.)
Edited by xxmikexx
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