I’m not proud of it, but when you receive one of the calls about your car’s extended warranty, it’s sometimes me.
I’m a writer, a published writer with an agent and a bestseller and everything. Five years ago, I was number three on several bestseller lists. Five years ago, Oprah featured my book on her book list. Five years ago, I sat on Ellen Degeneres and promoted the shit out of my book, a move that netted me the house I now live in. It was a good year for me, and when my agent suggested that I write a sequel, I jumped at the chance.
Five years later, that sequel is finally coming together, but the bills don’t stop just because your royalties and your residuals stop rolling in. My wife went back to her job at the grocery store, something to help pay bills while I was working on my book, but it just wasn’t enough. We had lived a little too grandly for the last four years, and now the money was gone. I told her I was paying the bills out of the residuals, but in reality, it was the salary I made working call center jobs like this one.
Call center jobs were pretty easy, all things considered.
You read a script, you call gullible people and offer them goods and services, and you rake in little bonuses when you manage to trick the old and the infirm. It also allows me to work from home so I can proofread pages and research chapters while I cold call people in my pajamas. You get a lot of hate, a lot of people playing games, but that kind of thing is easy to ignore. Hell, I did retail for eight years when I was young and it had given me a pretty thick skin. It was easy to ignore when you realized that whether you made sales or not you were still going to receive a check at the end of the week.
It was a pretty good gig until I cold-called someone I shouldn’t have.
The voice that picked up the phone was deep, cultured, and I should have known that it wasn’t the voice of someone who’d be fooled by such a cheap trick.
But he was the last number on my sheet for the day, and I figured I had nothing to lose.
“Yes sir, I’m calling you about your car’s extended warranty. Do you still own the 2013 Linc,”
“Does this ever actually work?”
I stumbled for a moment, choosing to roll on with my script rather than break character.
“Lincoln? The warranty is nearing its expiration and we’re offering select customers a,”
“This is about the fifth call I’ve received from your company today, young man. I started to ignore it like I’d ignored the others, but I figured I would pick it up this time and see what was so important. I see now that the answer was nothing.”
I tried to stay in character, but it was hard in the face of his frankly honest facts.
“Look, I’m just doing my job, sir. I’ve got bills to pay and a family to feed, same as you. If you aren’t interested, then I’ll,”
“Oh, a family man. Is that why you take the elderly for their pensions and scam the mentally handicapped for their hard-earned money? Such a provider, I’m sure your children would be proud of their father.”
He said it with such a matter of factness, that I almost didn’t register that I had been insulted. I could have hung up on him, he wasn’t the worst offender I’d had all day, but something about his words rankled me. Where did this guy get off? He was going to sit here and tell me how rotten it was to make my money this way like I didn’t know it already? Where the fuck did he get off?
“Look, buddy, there’s no reason for any of that. We’re just calling to let you know about our warranty program. If you don’t want it, then I’ll just,”
He cut me off again, “ Don’t worry about it, friend. I’m sure you’ll have more prevalent things to worry about soon enough. Ciao.”
The line went dead then and the silence seemed ominous.
I sat the phone down like I thought it might blow up. I had been threatened on the phone before, but this one felt different. There had been no screaming, no cursing, no invitations to screw myself, or questions about how I slept at night. I shuddered a little, suddenly feeling like a goose had walked over my grave, and jumped a little as I saw my son standing in the doorway, scratching his neck.
Michael had wandered into my office while I was on the phone. I turned to him as he stood scratching, his hands moving up and down his back, before asking if he was okay? He had been napping, something he would have to give up when he started school next year, and it seemed that his itchy back had awoken him slightly ahead of schedule.
“Daddy, my back is so itchy.”
I told him to go lay in bed while I grabbed his creme and the lotion. His mother and I call it triceratops creme, something that always makes Michael laugh, and it seems to be the only thing that helps when his eczema gets really bad. It’s something he’s suffered with since he was very young. We’ve had to wash his clothes with dye-free detergent, use special soap during his baths, and stay away from things like wool. I grabbed the creme and the lotion so I could lather him up and bring his itching to an end.
As I slid his shirt off, however, I worried there might be something else going on here.
Michael’s back was covered in boils. A swath of small pustules with whiteheads were scattered over his pink skin, and they looked a little like pimples. They were clumped together in small patches, islands of blight on a sea of normal skin, and I was honestly a little afraid to touch them. Nevertheless, I mixed the creams together and rubbed them onto his back, feeling him jump as some of the boils burst beneath my fingers. He seemed to relax when I finished, thanking me as he slid his shirt down gingerly.
That was how it started.
I wish I could say that was where it had ended.
I was proofing today’s pages when my daughter, Michelle, arrived home from school.
She stumbled into my office, her hands scratching at the back of her neck absentmindedly as she hugged me and told me about her day. We’d done this every day since her first day of school, and it was one of her daily rituals. She’d taken a test she believed she’d done well on, found a dollar in the storm grate near the house, and had told Jenny that she was being mean to Sara so the two of them were no longer friends.
I listened to her in a detached way, nodding and mhming as she talked, noticing her scratching her neck a couple of times. The scratching didn’t seem peculiar. People scratched sometimes, but I couldn’t help but notice the red patch of skin on the back of her neck as she left to go start her homework.
I turned back to my work but sighed as I noticed the time. I saved my work and locked my computer. I had hardly gotten through half the chapter I was working on, but it was time to get started on dinner before my wife got home.
The pork chops were cooking in the air fryer when my wife came through the door. I smiled as I turned to pull her against me, kissing the top of her head, as she leaned warmly against me. She shuddered a little as my hands touched her back, but said it was just some back pain from standing all day.
“Mary called out, again, so I was the only one working the register, again. It was eight straight hours of standing behind the register and listening to people complain. How’d your book proofing go today?”
I turned away from her, pretending to stir the potatoes as I answered.
Stephanie could always tell when I was lying.
“Pretty good, lots of progress. I’m sure it will be ready for my agent in a few weeks.”
“That’s fantastic, dear,” she said as she pressed a kiss to my stubbly cheek, “I’m sure it will be as much of a hit as the last one.”
I smiled, but I really wasn’t so sure. It all came down to this latest book, it seemed. I just had to finish my book. I just had to write another hit. I just had to find my way back onto the Best Seller list and get myself out of dutch.
Easy, right?
The next morning, I awoke determined to get some work done today. I would make up for my lack of work the day before and end the day with some real progress. I still had over two hundred pages to proof and if I didn’t get them done in fairly short order, there would be no time to send them off and, quite likely, have to sit through notes on a second draft.
As I went to wake my daughter up for school, however, I heard the hoarse cough coming from my son’s room. I cracked the door to find him lying on his stomach, his shirt off and his back worse than the day before. His skin was broken out in red, angry boils and the small white-headed blemishes of the day before had become larger and redder, their tips filled with translucent puss. He was softly moaning, his eyes begging me to make the pain stop as the pustules pulsed.
My wife came out of the bedroom then, getting ready for work, and saw Michaels back.
She ran to him, careful not to touch any of the spots, and asked me if he’d had these since yesterday?
“He was broken out,” I said, honestly startled by the sudden appearance of the large angry boils, “but not this bad. I put lotion and cream on him and he seemed to feel better.”
Stephanie started talking quietly to herself, mostly arguing with herself about whether she could find someone to cover for her, but I told her that I could take Michael to the pediatrician. Heck, what was the point of me being at home all day if I couldn’t take my son to the doctor? She asked if I was sure, she knew I had work to do today, but I told her that it was nothing. I told her to go to work, and that I would handle things here.
I told Michael to stay in bed, not wanting him to aggravate any of the blisters he had on his back and went to wake Michelle up so she didn’t miss her bus.
I was in for another surprise when I got to her room. I opened her door and was immediately buffeted by the sound of her racking cough and her low groaning from the bed. She was warm to the touch, not overly so but definitely fevered, and I asked her how she was feeling? She said it felt like she had the flu. Her throat hurt, she was hot, and her body ached. My wife was getting ready by then, stepping into the shower before she stepped into her uniform, and I figured it would be just as easy to make an appointment for two kids as one. I told Michelle to get some clothes on and that I would make an appointment for her and Michael. With all the Covid paranoia still floating around, it was pretty easy to get a last-minute appointment with the symptoms they were presenting.
One phone call to the after-hours nurse later and I prepared to trade all my editing and proofing time before work for time spent sitting in the car while we waited for our turn in the back to come.
It was an hour and a half before we made it in and I tried to make the most of it by doing some editing on my phone. It was slow and tedious, the two of them glued to their phones or their gadgets in the back seat as they hacked and coughed, but I managed to get a little bit of work done before they sent me a text saying they were ready for us in the back.
Thirty minutes later, their pediatrician came back with very little by way of explanation.
“Well, they don’t have Covid, or flu, or anything else we can test for here. What they do have is high fever, a very wet cough, and troubling boils all over their backs.”
“Michelle too?” I asked, having been unaware that she was sporting the same boils.
“Michelle too.” she confirmed, “Her outbreak isn’t as bad as Michaels but it’s getting worse. I’d recommend that you keep them at home until it clears up. Don’t touch the sores with your bare hands, and if you happen to by accident, be sure to disinfect your hands with alcohol. Wear gloves and a mask when you interact with them, and go to the hospital if you or your wife start presenting symptoms. I’m hoping it clears up on its own, but it doesn’t in a day or two, take them to the hospital.”
I bundled them back into the car, a handful of prescriptions in my pocket, and called my wife as I went about getting their medicine and getting them home. All of this, the meds, the visit, everything, was going to cost some, and I needed to get them settled so I could log some hours at work.
My wife’s insurance wasn’t very good and the money I made would be crucial if I didn’t want to go into debt.
I also had to find some time to work on this book, knowing in the back of my mind that it was the secret to solving all my current problems.
Stephanie picked up on the third ring, and the cough she rumbled into the phone sounded suspiciously like the ones in the backseat. She swore it was just allergies and commiserated with me about the diagnosis. She wished she could be there, but said that she would likely be late this evening. Mary had called out again, and she was the only one working register today.
It was noon before I got everyone medicated, set up in their rooms with lunch and toys and entertainment, and sat down at my computer so I could begin my day.
As I took calls and proofed pages, I felt a little bubble of anxiety every time someone picked up the phone. I was still a little rattled by yesterday’s call, but all of my calls today seemed normal enough. I actually had two people give me their information and buy one of the garbage warranties we offered. I had no idea whether they worked or not, but the company was paying me to make calls, not research our products. In between calls I peeked in on the kids to make sure they were okay. Michael spent most of the day sleeping, his breathing heavy and wet, and Michelle just looked at me whenever I peeked in on her, seeming listless and barely there. I gave them more meds, made sure they had juice and liquids and kept an eye on their temperatures as I took calls in between my nursing duties. As the sun set, I began to get worried about my wife. She should have been home by now, should have been home half an hour ago, and I was just about to call her when I heard the door pop loudly open.
She was laid out on the floor of the living room, her cough deep and wet, her own blemishes peeking up from the collar of her work shirt.
I took them all to the hospital then, just bundled them into the car, and went.
The ER didn’t know what to make of them, but we’ve all been quarantined upstairs now as I try to figure out why I haven’t yet been stricken with the same symptoms as the rest of my family. They are working hard to manage their fever, all three are up around one hundred and three, and they are laid out on their stomachs as their boils have become very fragile. They are afraid that popping them might lead to sepsis, but the longer I look at them, the more intrigued by them I become.
I’ve been sitting in this room for the last few hours, my only company the beeping of their machines, and as I sat next to my wife, I noticed something strange. The boils on her back seemed to be forming a pattern, the swoops almost looking like a picture. I sat stroking her hand, Stephanie groaning in and out of consciousness, and the longer I looked, the more I recognized the swoops as words.
Moving over to Michael, I can see that he has similar words, all picked out in the pulsating boils that mar his baby-fine skin.
I brought out my phone and snapped a picture of their backs, the three of them requiring a little turning and moving before the message was visible.
I’m sitting here now as I contemplate telling her doctor what I’ve found. I don’t think it will help, but I don’t know what to make of it either. It can’t be what I believe it is, but I can’t think of any other explanation for the words I can read swirling across the painful backs of my family.
The message reads, “I’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”