AND NOW.... OUR EXCITING CONCLUSION, WITH NO FURTHER COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTIONS
PART 5
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<ding>
"Who just came on?"
"Hey Craig it's Todd. Who else is on here?"
"Just the two of us."
"Slow night... usually there's more people on at this time."
"Yeah, it's pretty dead. You just missed a really hot sounding chick here."
"I did?"
"Yeah... really breathy, sexy-sounding voice. And she was all over Mike like flies on shit. I could barely get a word in, and he gave her his phone number and they were gone."
"Which Mike? You mean Mike from Granada Hills?"
"Yeah, him. Some chick named Tara. Never heard her before. The second she came on here, she was in love with Mike or something. It was so bizarre."
"Craig... are you sure about that? You sure the name was Tara?"
"Yeah, I mean, that's what I remember hearing. Really hot voice. Like she could totally do phone sex. Maybe that's what she actually does!"
"It's not a 'she', it's a 'he'. Tara is a man. I know it sounds nothing like a man, but it's a man. Unless it's a different, aggressive Tara with a breathy voice, which I doubt."
"You serious?? No fucking way. No way that could be a dude. How would you know that, anyway? Did you meet her and a big dick popped out of her dress or something?"
"Long story, doesn't really matter. But it's a man. Trust me. Craig, I've gotta make an important phone call, but do me a favor and spread the word that Tara's a man. I don't want her fucking with more guys' heads. If she comes back on here, tell her that you know her name is really David."
"Uh, okay. Kinda hard to believe what you're saying, but I'll take your word for it. I'll let people know. Should I call Mike and warn him?"
"Nah, fuck that guy. Always hated him and his arrogance. Let him figure it out for himself."
"<laughs> Okay, we'll let him find out when the dick is wagging in his face."
"That'll be hilarious. Okay, Craig, I'll talk to you later. Spread the word."
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A FEW MINUTES LATER...
<ring>
"Hello?"
"Eddie, we've got a problem," I began, ready to break the bad news.
"What is it now?"
"It's Tara...umm... I mean David. He's back," I explained. "Calling the Triangle Line, believing we were both confined to Carl's Line and wouldn't catch it. Guess he didn't realize that most people who call one valley line call them all."
"What? You heard him on there?", asked Eddie, starting to get agitated all over again after a week of relative calm.
"No, but you remember Craig from Tarzana? He was on there. He heard her call in and jump over this other guy named Mike. Same description of the voice, same pattern of quickly jumping on the first guy she talked to and getting him on a private phone call. Same name of Tara. Had to be her... er, him."
"I knew it! I knew this would happen!", exclaimed Eddie in a frustrated tone of voice. "Didn't I tell you this would happen? I knew that lying fag wouldn't keep his word. We should have gone down there last week. That would have put an end to all of this. So now we gotta call and warn this Mike guy?"
"No, I don't like him. I don't give a shit about that guy," I explained. "But you're right, he's not going away. He can't help himself. I think this is his only sexual outlet, especially since he doesn't seem to like other gay people. He told us what we wanted to hear, laid low for a week, and now is stalking the other lines for new prey."
"Well that's it, we gotta do something. This is never going to end. I'm not letting him off the hook for what he did to me if he's turning right around to fuck with other straight guys now. The fucker just doesn't learn. He doesn't give a shit. He needs to be taught a lesson," said Eddie.
I had mixed feelings at this point.
Like Eddie, I was pissed that David lied to us AGAIN. We caught him red handed deceiving both of us in a pretty nasty fashion just to get his sexual jollies, and we decided not to pursue it further because at least we thought we scared him from ever doing this sort of thing again. We were wrong. Just a week later, he was back to his old tricks, both breaking our agreement AND pretty much shitting all over the "apology" he gave us. This guy was truly a selfish, no-good piece of shit. We should have known not to trust the word of a guy willing to lie about his sexual preference and romantic feelings, in order to con a woman into financially supporting him.
At the same time, while David was truly a reprehensible character, I didn't feel any kind of violence was the answer. His behavior was vile, but not quite to the level where he deserved to be physically beaten for it. Furthermore, I didn't want Eddie -- or even myself -- to get in trouble for anything like that. "He was pretending to be a chick on a party line and tricked Eddie into phone sex" wouldn't be an explanation which would stand up as a defense in criminal court.
"What exactly are you suggesting we do about this?", I asked Eddie, hoping it would be something more reasonable.
"I don't know," he replied. "We've gotta go down there. We've gotta go down, knock on his door, maybe be holding bats or something else to freak him out when he answers. Something at least to scare the shit out of him, let him know we mean business."
"I don't think that's the right way of doing things," I answered. "It could escalate. It could turn into something we wouldn't want. No... let's handle this over the phone. Maybe if we put him on notice that we're pretty much watching every party line in the area, he'll disappear. He's stayed off Carl's Line, so obviously he's scared to call anywhere where he thinks we can hear him. I bet telling him that we're watching is good enough."
"The little fag's just gonna lie to us again," warned the skeptical Eddie. "I don't see the point of calling, but go ahead. We'll see what happens."
I three-wayed on David's phone number. Being slightly after 10pm, I thought we had a good shot of reaching him. There was no caller ID in 1991, at least not in California, so we didn't have to worry about him seeing our call and not picking up.
<ring>
"Hello?", answered David in the Tara voice, sounding upbeat and jovial.
"Oh shit," groaned Eddie. "Not this again."
"Oh my GOD!" barked 'Tara', "What do YOU guys want? I thought you're not going to call me anymore."
"David, can we quit with the fake voice?", I asked. "We have to talk about something serious here. I'm not in the mood to talk to your alter ego."
"What are you talking about?", asked 'Tara'. "Who's David? What do you guys want?"
"Do you have amnesia or something, David? You already admitted everything a week ago. You spoke to us in your David voice," I reminded her. "You promised not to call any of these party lines and trick guys anymore. Not only do I know you've still been calling, but you answering in this phony girl voice is even more proof that you're still tricking people."
"There's no phony voice here, this is how I sound," Tara responded. "I don't know any David. What I do know is that you guys said you were going to leave me alone, and you're not. Now I'm hanging up, and if you call me back one more time, I'm calling the police."
"WAIT ONE FUCKING MINUTE YOU QUEER, I...", began an enraged Eddie.
<click>
Tara hung up.
"FUCK!!!", shouted Eddie, and I heard the sound of his fist banging a table. "I swear I want to kill that little lying, condescending piece of shit. We've gotta go down there. Right now. Come pick me up. I know you're kinda far, just come get me. We'll get there by 11:30. We'll bang on his door. We've gotta teach him a lesson."
"I agree something has to be done, and it doesn't look like we can get it accomplished on the phone," I conceded. "But it's too late to start this, and I'm not driving this far right now. I'll come down in the afternoon tomorrow. I have a plan. Be ready at 3:30pm."
"We're gonna go over there?", asked Eddie. "Should I have the rifle ready? Some bats?"
"No, none of that stuff," I answered. "We won't need any weapons for what we'll be doing. I'll explain further tomorrow. I'll call you when I'm on my way."
--------------------------------
It was 3:30pm the next day. I picked up Eddie and went over the plan with him. At 4:00, we went over to David's apartment.
It was a crappy, old building, in a semi-lousy neighborhood. As we walked towards his door, a realization came over me. This was kind of crazy. We were about to knock on the door of some crazy person who spent his nights pretending to be a girl on party lines, and he would know we were visiting with hostile intentions. What if he attacked us? What if he grabbed a weapon of some sort? Were we foolish to come with no weapons of our own, even if just for self defense? What would be awaiting us on the other side of that door?
We reached the door. I rationalized that there were two of us, and we had the advantage should anything start to go wrong. I took a deep breath and knocked. I looked at Eddie, and I could see that he looked nervous, too.
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The door opened.
What we saw was probably the most polar opposite of "Tara" you could ever imagine.
Standing before us was David, who was fat, slovenly, shirtless, disheveled, and had a mustache and very hairy chest. My accurate records indicated he was 23, but if I had to guess, I would have put him more around 30. He was one of those guys who already looked old in his early 20s. He clearly didn't take care of himself at all.
"Yes?", said David nervously, not knowing if this visit had anything to do with his nighttime extracurricular activities.
"Hi, David. Guess who?", I started. "I told you we needed to have a talk."
"I'm sorry, I don't know who you are," meekly replied David.
"Yeah, I think you do," I quickly replied. "I'm here to deliver an important message to you."
"So this is Tara," said Eddie. "Unbelievable. You're the blond haired, blue eyed, FHM model. Fucking unbelievable."
"I'm sorry," replied David. "I really don't know..."
"So wait, you have no idea who we are?", I interrupted. "You've never talked to us before? Never called party lines? Never answered the phone number 995-3923 which is located right inside this apartment?"
"Well yeah that's my number, but I've never talked to you," said David.
"And you've never called a party line? Nobody in this apartment has ever called one?", I inquired, already knowing the obvious answer.
"Well...", murmured David, realizing he had to give some kind of answer to make us go away. "My brother, well, he lives here too. He calls lines sometimes. Maybe you talked to him."
"David, you're an only child", I quickly shot back.
"No, I have a brother," he protested. "He's probably the one you talked to. But he's not here right now. Ummm, if you have a message for him, I can tell him you stopped by."
I glanced at Eddie. He was just standing there. He was surprisingly calm and passive, perhaps in a state of disbelief looking at the 'Tara' with whom he had all of those dirty conversations.
"Okay, I'll tell you what. See that tape recorder Eddie is holding?", I said, pointing to the portable cassette player in Eddie's hands. "We recorded the conversation we had last week with your 'brother' where he admitted to everything he was doing, including the fact that he was using the woman who lives here for financial support. It also has him admitting he's gay, and that he has phone sex with men all night while pretending to be a woman, all while his old lady girlfriend sleeps. So tell your BROTHER that if we hear him on a party line one more time, we're going to show back up and play that tape to the woman who lives in this apartment, right when she gets home from work. Which I'm guessing should be in about an hour or so. Think you can relay that message to your BROTHER?"
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"Uhh, yes," replied a very nervous David. "I'll let him know all that."
"You do that," I replied. "See you later, Tara."
We both turned around and walked away.
When we got to the car, we assessed the situation as it stood.
"You think he bought it?", asked Eddie. "I was shitting my pants that he was gonna ask us to play that tape."
"I wasn't", I replied. "He knew we could have taped it. He had no idea that we actually didn't. But we easily could have. I think this worked. I don't think he's willing to give up the free room and board he's got going on here."
"Can you believe that fat slob was Tara?", asked Eddie, still somewhat in shock. "I just kept looking at him and remembering the conversations. As hard as I tried, there was no way I could put it together. Like, I knew the truth, but my mind just couldn't put it together."
"It was weird for me, too," I answered. "It's one thing to hear the male voice... it's another to be standing right in front of that big hairy stomach, and knowing it's the same person behind that Tara voice."
"Yeah, and you know what's funny?", continued Eddie, "I wasn't even that pissed when we were up there with the guy. Like actually seeing him, he was just so pathetic, I just thought, wow his life must suck. He's gotta bang some old woman to keep a roof over his head, and he doesn't even like women, and then his entire life revolves around being some hot chick he could never actually be. Like, it's sad."
"The guy's a piece of shit, he doesn't deserve any sympathy," I countered, "But good that it sounds like you're kind of over it all."
"I am," said Eddie. "Let's just hope we never hear of him again."
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We never did hear Tara on the lines again. Looks like our threat to expose him to his girlfriend was potent enough to really scare him off for good.
As for Eddie, he moved with his parents to northern California a few months later. We maintained our friendship, but I noticed Eddie lost touch with all but one of his other LA friends.
I visited Eddie out where he lived in 1993 for a weekend, and even ended up making out with one of his female friends (who was hot but never did anything with him).
He visited me in LA twice in 1994.
But after that, we started to lose touch. By 1996, Eddie and I weren't calling each other anymore, and that was that. I haven't heard from him in over 20 years.
About two months ago, I got curious and tried to look him up. No Facebook account, no Twitter, not even a mention on Google.
I actually got concerned that he died, so I looked him up in my public records database. I found he moved out of state, and saw one single reference to a marriage...
Just kidding. Eddie was married to a seemingly nice Catholic woman, and they had two kids together. The marriage took place about 8 years ago. She had Facebook, and it was fully open. A quick browse of her friends list confirmed that Eddie did not have an account there.
I considered contacting her and having her ask Eddie to call me, but I figured he could easily find me if he ever wanted to, so I didn't bother. I asked a few of his other early-90s LA friends if they've heard from him, and the rest of them hadn't been contacted by him since 1992.
Nevertheless, I did promise Eddie that no one would ever know this story. Unless he told someone (which I doubt), David and I are the only people who know that he spent 2 weeks having phone sex with a man pretending to be a woman.
I intend to still keep that promise, which is why I changed Eddie's name for this story.
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