Placing Requests

For reasons far beyond my simple ken, I am often approached by people who have requests to make. They aren't things like "Can you recommend a good dentist?" or "Do you know anyone who's looking for a roommate?" or "Can you tell me how to get to Mott St. from here?" (Though my sense of direction is not bad, when called upon to give directions to others, I inevitably panic and point them down the path of certain doom.) It's not even things like "Will you write this for me?I have no money to pay you," or "Can you get my book published?" (Even though those crop up plenty, too.)

No, instead, these people I'm referring to wonder if I might be able to find something for them, or put them in touch with someone or some thing. All of these requests are out of the ordinary. Beyond that even, they're all just?off?a little bit. Enough so to make me wonder, especially since all the people who make these requests inevitably say the same thing: "I'm told you're the person to talk to."

It's not that I feel put-upon by any of this. It's not that I resent it at all?it's just that it confuses me. I don't think I've ever made any claims (not recently, anyway) about all my important "contacts" or my "access to inside info" or my ability to obtain even the strangest and most obscure of things.

If I did, I shouldn't have. I must've been drunk. Fact is, if anything, the number of "contacts" I have continues to dwindle on an almost daily basis.

Yet as recently as last Friday, these requests continue to roll in. I got a phone call from a fellow I know. I don't get that many phone calls (and prefer it that way), so when I do, I'm usually taken aback.

I've known him for several years now, and I was happy to hear from him. He's quite an intelligent man, and was calling last Friday to see if I might be able to help him out with something.

"I find that I'm in possession of some?arcana?" he began hesitantly, "that I was hoping to sell." He told me that a mutual friend suggested that he give me a call.

"Uh-huh?" I said.

"I have six buttons here, from various Nazi parties across what seems to be much of Northern Europe. Norway, Sweden?and of course several from Germany."

"Uh-huh," I said again. "And you were told to contact me why, now?"

The sad fact is, I knew damned well why he'd contacted me, even before he said that he'd been told I might know someone who was interested in buying them. Regardless, I asked aloud, "Why is it that the Nazi questions always get shunted my way?"

"It's a sign of true friendship," he offered.

"Oh."

Perhaps even sadder than knowing why the question was sent my way is the simple truth that I knew exactly who might be interested in the merchandise he was selling. Several people, actually. I guess that's my own damn fault. As it turned out, though, nobody was in much of a buying mood that week, though they all made it clear that they appreciated the offer.

One of the earliest cases of being confronted with a request that I simply did not completely understand (though maybe I sort of did at the time as well) came while I was working as a bill collector in West Philadelphia. It was an unpleasant job, and I was an unpleasant man (and a bit of a speed freak), so I guess it was a perfect match.

One day not long before I left both the job and the city, my phone rang. It was an odd occurrence at that office, too, since I was generally the one who made the phone calls to people who didn't want to hear from me.

"Yes?" I asked, a bit suspiciously after picking up the receiver.

The man on the other end was someone I had never heard of, but he identified himself as a friend of a friend. Again, it was the mutual friend who not only suggested that he call me, but gave him my work number to boot.

"Uh-huh?"

"Well, I'm directing a local production of Sam Shepard's True West?you know the play?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, I wanted to make it as, you know, realistic as possible, and as you may remember, there are several guns involved."

"Uh?huh?"

"I don't want to use toy guns because they would look too phony."

"And so you were calling me?why, now?"

"Well, [the mutual friend] told me that you'd be able to loan us a few real guns?just for the show. I'm looking specifically for a double-barreled shotgun and a big handgun. A .357 or something."

"Uh-huh."

"You'd get a credit in the program."

"Really."

Now, I have never owned a gun. I know very little about guns. At the time I knew full well that if I ever got my hands on one, however briefly, that I'd just use it on myself, whether intentionally or not. It also happened, however, that I knew several serious gun collectors in the Philadelphia area. Men who owned exactly the types of guns this youngster on the phone was looking for. Very angry men, most of them. Men whose good sides you'd like to remain upon, just in case. Along with being angry, they were also very protective of their weapons. Most of them had shown me their collections, which always remained behind lock and key. I knew better than to ask any of them to part with one or two so's some youngsters could use them in a play-acting show.

"Yeah," I told him, trying (but not too hard) to be nice, "y'know, that just ain't gonna happen. Not with the guys I know at least."

"But she told me you'd help us out!"

That just irked me. Call me up out of the blue with some cockamamie request, then start whining when I say no? It just convinced me further that putting some firearms in his hands would be a terrible idea.

"Listen," I told him, "you wanna call these guys and ask them yourself if you can borrow a few guns for a while?"

As it turns out, he didn't, and that was pretty much that. Later, when I mentioned this scene to a couple of the collectors (they prefer not to be called "nuts"), they thought it was really funny.

One of the most intriguing and challenging requests came a few years ago. A woman called me at the office here to ask if I could put her in touch with a few midgets who might be interested in working a party in the Baltimore area.

I thought about that one for a bit.

"They'd be paid well," she offered.

"That's good," I said.

Now, personally, I know more pinheads than I do midgets (that's just the way things work out sometimes), but I did know a couple people in Baltimore who might well be able to help her out.

One fellow ran the American Dime Museum and published a magazine about sideshow culture. He'd know a few. More than a few, even. Real professionals. I thought, though, that an even better shot might lie with a journalist down there who had strong connections among Baltimore's criminal freak population. I knew he knew a few midgets, and I knew that they were midgets who'd be hungry for a few bucks in exchange for an evening's worth of servitude and humiliation. This party gig sounded easier than being tossed around a bar by drunkards for a few hours.

"Let me make a call," I told her.

A week later, I discovered that everything had worked out just fine for everybody.

When you get right down to it, that's the kicker?I guess I've always been able to help these people out, much to my surprise, in one way or another. Even the woman who wondered if I could tell her the best place to get an old banjo uke repaired.

The only question in these situations was whether or not I wanted to help these people out. That's why I still feel kind of bad about the guy with the buttons.