“I thought it was gas,” recalls JoJo “Tiny” Metcalf. Mr. Metcalf, one of the most in-demand bouncers on the NYC club scene, adds “but once I heard the intonations, I knew it was God.”
Metcalf apologizes for his apartment being in a state of disarray, “between the paramedics and the phone company, things got a little intense.”
At 6’ 4” and 500 pounds, he cuts an imposing figure. Metcalf recalls coming back from a New Year’s Eve after-party “pretty blitzed. I remember staggering in, taking off my clothes, bouncing off a desk and landing on the Lay-Z-Boy. About an hour later, I heard someone ask: ‘Louise? Is that you?”
Metcalf chokes up. “I must have sat on the rotary phone and the phone answering machine. It belonged to my late wife, Louise, whom I also sat on. It was then that I noticed that both the phone cord and the answering machine wiring were sticking out of my rear end.
“I explained to God what had happened. He was pretty amused. We had a nice chat. He remembered me from altar boys. It was mostly a ‘catch-up’ talk. He told me how hard it is not to smite people left and right and how he watches a lot of sit-com re-runs to keep him cool. I told him about my plans to enter a career in interpretive dance. He was pretty quiet after that. He offered one piece of advice…lay off the chokeholds.
AND THEN THERE WAS GAS
“I then started to have real gas pains. I mean, I sounded like a foghorn. God told me I had to dial 9-1-1 if I didn’t want to die. I had a choice. Disconnect or live? God told me he’d always be around and I could find new ways of contacting him without shoving a rotary phone and answering machine up my ass.
“He coached me through the painful process of slapping my cheeks to dial 9-1-1.”
“It was the oddest call I’d ever received,” says 911 Operator Sonoma Hall. “It was really muted. Later, I realized the poor man was shouting into his navel. I was glad we got there in time.”
After a two-hour process including three paramedics, two phone company technicians and a winch, Mr. Metcalf was back to his old self. He sees the whole event as a positive life experience.
“My wife reached out to me through God, to show me the way,” he says. “Plus, I saved money. It was a local call.”
