Easement

I got a letter from the government claiming an easement on my leg. I had just moved into this house and must not have looked at the paperwork carefully. A few months later, an official in a yellow vest and hardhat knocked on my door. He was carrying a machine that looked like a hole punch, but larger. He said he was here for my big toe.

“You’ve received the easement notice?” he asked.

I nodded.

The removal was swift. Before I could say “ow” he had placed my big toe into a Ziplock bag and was sealing it up. He said he would only need it for a few days before he would bring it back. I felt a little wobbly without my big toe, but I did my best to conceal my unsteadiness. If I focused hard enough, I could walk normally. I only needed to get by for a few days.

After the man left, I slipped on some closed-toe shoes so I wouldn’t have to look at the gap where my toe should have been. Several days passed, and he didn’t return. I was afraid I’d been scammed. I pulled out the easement letter and took a closer look at it. I realized just then that anybody could write a letter like that. Maybe there was no easement. Maybe I was stupid for giving him my toe without asking more questions.

I’d already been the victim of scammers who called my phone all day. At first, I’d thought they were trying to sell me things, but whenever I picked up, they hung up. I couldn’t get any of them to explain why they were calling me. I soon found out I wasn’t the only one targeted. When I went in for a pap smear, my O.B. received several calls while I was in the stirrups. She said her lines were tied up and patients in labor were often unable reach her. That’s really a shame, I’d told her. We commiserated over the unpleasantness of this puzzling scam.

Later, I met a hang up caller while in line at the DMV. He was never not calling someone, even when it was time for his appointment. As we walked out to our cars, I asked him what his end game was. He said he was paid to disrupt the peace.

By whom? I asked.

He shrugged. He said it was one of those jobs you could get in the gig economy, like providing rideshares or delivering groceries. He had no idea who had hired him. He’d gotten his jobs off a task website. Task Jackal? I asked. He nodded. I was angry at first. I told him I was sick of being hounded by people like him. It didn’t matter if I was on the toilet or trying to sleep—the phone kept ringing. If I turned it off, I risked missing an important call from my elderly parents.

I asked the man how he could live with himself ruining people’s lives like that. He shrugged and said a person had to do what he had to do to get by. He needed to pay off his sister’s medical bills. She’d been in a car accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. I told him that was no excuse for destroying people’s mental health and that he should find a respectable career.

A few months after I met the hang up caller, I was laid off from my job as a weatherperson due to declining ad sales. I needed to find work fast. My rent had crept up and so had the utilities. Water was expensive those days. There was so little of it. I tried driving rideshares for a while, but the job didn’t pay enough, so I switched to disrupting the peace.

I made hundreds of calls each day. I was given a special phone number that was exempted from the phone bank and didn’t ring all day so I could make maximum use of it. What’s the scam people would ask when they picked up the phone. They sounded desperate to know. Sometimes I would shout, There is no scam! I’m calling to piss you off! I liked to give people answers. I found it thrilling to be the one who called.

By the time the toe thief had come along, I thought I was wise to scams, having joined the ranks of the perpetrators, yet somehow, it seemed I might have fallen victim to a new one.

I went to the police station down the street. A lumpy detective was assigned to my case. His phone rang loudly. He held his hands over his ears. I had to shout as I filed my complaint.

Someone stole my big toe, I told him.

He asked me to repeat myself, so I tried shouting louder, but I wasn’t a very good shouter. My voice was small even though I considered my personality big. This incongruity had always bothered me. I wasn’t treated with as much respect as my fellow weatherpersons because I couldn’t make my voice boom.

You get these calls too? the detective asked.

Yeah, I shouted. These weirdos bother me all day.

He asked for a description of the person who took my toe. I told him I couldn’t recall much. The man was young. He was wearing a yellow reflector vest with a hardhat. But what about his face, the detective shouted. He handed me a megaphone.

Try this, he said.

 

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