Sad pay phone of the week: The pay phone at the Alemeda light-rail station

Steven Pierce

Location: Alameda light-rail station.

Number: Unknown.

Status: Operable.

Price: 50 cents for local calls.

Photo: Taken 3:30 p.m. on April 28.

Do you know the Elliott Smith song "Alameda"? The one in which he sings, "You walk down Alameda shuffling your deck of trick cards over everyone/Like some precious only son/Face down, bow to the champion"? It's a song about loneliness that exemplifies this week's sad pay phone.

Steven Pierce

Sitting in a rusted green metally/plasticy box of shame, this sad pay phone waits and waits. What may have once been quaint and original has become something out of a horror movie.

You can almost smell the fumes from the spray paint and markers used to streak the pay phone with random graffiti. Sitting in the direct April sun, it seems to suffer from a case of incurable melanoma.

The phone is so close to the light-rail tracks that probably contemplates jumping in front of a train on a regular basis. Or maybe it dreams of turning into a vagabond, kicking rocks while walking with a stick holding a bandanna full of beans over its pay-phone shoulder.

But don't worry. It's not going anywhere -- because duty calls. Stay true, noble pay phone!

For more sad pay phones, visit our Sad Pay Phones archive.