NEW YORK—A man currently on a very intense cell phone call has been walking up and down the same city block for the past 45 minutes, periodically shaking his head and speaking brusquely to the individual on the other line, sources confirmed Thursday.
Saying things like “Now, c’mon now,” “You got to be kidding me,” and “No. No, no, no, no, no, no,” the man—who onlookers speculate is in his early 30s and either talking to a coworker, boss, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, attorney, or some sort of client of some kind—took the call while walking along Sixth Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets at approximately 5:15 p.m.
As of press time, the man has not yet crossed a street, opting instead to turn around and pace in the other direction each time he reaches an intersection.
“No, see, that’s not what I meant,” the visibly agitated man reportedly said while running his hands through his hair and walking past the same Starbucks window he has now passed seven times. “He can’t do that. You have to tell him he can’t do that.”
“Did you tell him that, or didn’t you tell him that?” added the man, who then held his phone to his shoulder for a few seconds, sighed, and mouthed, “Jesus Christ,” before putting the receiver back to his ear. “Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”
Patrons of the block’s various restaurants and convenience stores confirmed that throughout the course of the phone call, the pace of the man’s walk has either slowed or quickened depending upon how heated his rhetoric has become or how rapidly he has been gesticulating.
“He’s probably been up and down the block about a dozen times by now,” Chipotle customer Amanda Warren said of the man, who was observed poking the air with his hand to make a point while saying, “You’re just not listening to me. That’s the problem.” “He seems pretty frustrated.”
“He’s rolling his eyes a lot,” she added.
Though the man has gone through several calmer stretches of slowly roaming up and down the street saying, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right,” he has reportedly stopped in the middle of the block altogether during the call’s more intense moments to laugh sarcastically and tell the person on the other line that he literally couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Thus far it remains unclear where the man was headed before taking the call, or whether or not the call itself is making him late for something.
“I think the call got dropped at some point, because he yelled, ‘Goddammit,’ and then I think he pressed down on a button really hard.” 42-year-old pedestrian Jeff Mathis said. “When he called back he must have gotten the other person’s voicemail, because he looked really angry and just said, ‘It’s me. Call me back,’ and hung up.”
In addition to repeating the phrase, “I’m just really tired of this,” the man has been observed massaging his forehead, plugging his left ear with his index finger as he told the person on the other end to speak up because a police siren was making it difficult to hear, and, at several points, slumping his shoulders while saying under his breath—almost as if to himself—that “this type of thing can’t happen anymore. It just can’t.”
Passersby confirmed the man slightly kicked the pavement during one of the call’s more contentious moments.
“Hey, could you hold on a sec?” the man reportedly said, removing the phone from his ear and giving it the middle finger. “Okay, go ahead.”