Beloved Darness

When Freddy Gordon hired in at J. Carrol Grady publishing, he expected to rise to the top - not quickly, necessarily - but eventually.

This had never happened.

Since day one, if there were odd jobs, from mopping, to fetching lunch, or coffee, Freddy was the one they sent.

The phrase

"...we'll send'in the kid."

had become synonymous with he, in particular. There were other people, working numbly in their cubicles, filing papers, shuffling papers, editing grammar, formatting structure, and falling into the daily routines he had still yet to know, and may never get to know.

Freddy had a fair education, a bachelors in literature, and even some minor publishing experience, both as the publisher (he ran an E-Magazine for some time, before

everyone

discovered that

real

magazines were better), and as the published. It wasn't nothing terribly big, a few poems, and a few short stories.

Before, he was not certain where he would end up. Now, he was certain he would not end up anywhere at all.

That was the air in J. Carrol Grady publishing.

Freddy had a better life, once.

Once

.

Before his big move, he lived in a nice enough apartment, with a pretty girl who gave the above average blow job, even if she insisted she keep her virginity until they were married.

Somehow, for some reason, he was not surprised to find she was sleeping with someone behind his back. He

was

however vaguely disgusted that the person was an on again, off again vagrant. He

knew

. He would see him, time, to time, cleaning random windshields for change, or sleeping under an overpass during the spring, and summer.

Gross

.

It was a miracle that Freddy had not caught a sexually transmitted disease, though he guessed it was more likely from the abundance of a good blow job, and lack oh actual sexual intercourse.

This had all, of course, been once upon a time.

Now, he ate, slept, shit, shaved, and showered in a studio apartment with the dimensions of a giant shoebox. The walls were uneven, and the floors creaked in the dryer weather, and sagged with the slightest hints of moisture.

This was his life

now

.

"

I dunno, Chuck.

Fuck

. We'll send'in the kid.

" The last words Freddy Gordon heard, before the editor hang up his phone, and stepped out of his office.

By them, Freddy was seated comfortably as possible on a black pleather office chair, just outside the door.

The editor,

J. Carroll Grady

, peered over half moon bifocal spectacles. "Y'hear any of that, kid?"

Kid

. Freddy hated when they called him

kid

, but it was better than the names they used to call him, and not the traditional accidentals, like

Frankie

,

Finny

, or once even,

Fergus

.

"Well, son,

speak up

!" Grady's impatience was only matched by his tireless discord for the 'lessers working in their cubicles.

'Lessers. He

hated

that term, too. It was something Freddy hoped to outgrow, professionally speaking. From a 'lesser, to a better. Better was after all, better.

Grady let out an abrupt cough. "You catch a case o'the adult onset retardation, kid?"

"No'sir." No'sir. Nossir. No, sir. Freddy tried hard as he could to adopt the strange accent, and dialect Grady spoke.

It never came out a hundred percent genuine.

"So'd you hear?"

Freddy decided to lie, and shook his head. "No'sir.

Not a word

."

Grady examined him a moment, still peering over his spectacles. He gave a single, concise shake of the head. "

Ain't

goin'a move up telling half cocked shit stain lies like

that

. Work on your lying more, Feddic."

"

Freddy

"

"

Whatever

. Cooley's out sick today.

Here

's your assignment. Do this right, 'might even earn a promotion."

Freddy fought the urge to ask what failure meant, but Grady clearly had it in mind.

"Y'do this wrong -

well

- there's worse work to do here than janitorial."

"'Won't let'cha down, sir." Freddy tucked his assignment, a fresh 8x11 yellow envelope made from heavy stock paper, under his arm.

"...an'

Frieda

? Y'stop talkin' like that, 'hear?

No one

here talks like that."

Freddy bowed his head a moment, feeling red warmth in his cheeks. "Yes, sir. Won't let you down, sir."

_ _ _ _ _ _

"

Time.

Time is the fruitless attempt of control - this, these seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years - all which lead a fearful humanity away from their mortal coil.

Time, once defined, cannot be stopped, and is always in motion.

Time, which cannot, and will not

ever

explain the elusive expanse of an unimaginable eternity.

Time, our enemy, and greatest ally in the struggle to live.

Love, like eternity, is not bound by the constraints of distance, time, or space. Love is, like eternity, unbound."

Freddy reached for the CD player, struggling to find the

eject

feature, and swerving widely on the road.

He steadied the steering wheel along highway 927, his powder black primer Sentry chugging along.

The two decade old car looked like a child drew it into reality, uneven bumpers, exaggerated wheels, and all.

In all his time, in all his driving - which was usually home, to work, and from - Grady had not once acknowledged his existence. Freddy mopped floors his first year there, before being promoted to mail room, shipping, and receiving, and sorting. The majority of the staff were either sons, or nephews of the editor, young enough men that Freddy knew a

real

promotion was well out of his reach.

Nepotism at its most absolute.

The old CD player whined in protest a moment, and spat the disk halfway out in a rude buzz of grinding gears. For a moment, just a moment, Freddy feared the CD scratched.

This

assignment was a joke. Grady sent him out as a rep to sign some semi-french kid into publishing. For Freddy, the drivel he'd just listened to was a bunch of pseudo intellectual philosophy on love, time, and

who

really cared?

This was a test. This

had

to be a test... of course, if it were not, there

were

worse jobs than janitorial, and he had no doubt Grady would find him one.

Highway 927 was a long stretch of poorly kept road, uninhabited with exception to he, filled with potholes which reminded both he, and his car, that the shocks, and suspension were long gone.

To, and from work

. That's what he told the insurance agent when he drove his rolling promise of collision, and destruction into the lot.

Romance

. Existential theory was

not

romance. Grady had to have made a mistake.

No. Grady never made mistakes.

Freddy glanced at the CD player. Music - hell -

talk radio

, which he hated, would have been fine, right about now. The ride took an ass numbing turn for the worse as the road became more, and more fragmented. Freddy winced at every bump, and dent in the road, as though he were riding along the asphalt bare ass.

He rolled down his window. It stopped half way.

Goddammit

.

Rolls or cirrus clouds were gathering in the distance. Freddy saw a brief flash of light. A vague rumble spread out across the sky.

God. Damn. It.

He reached to roll up his window, and the handle creaked in protest, cracked a little, and came off the door in his hand.

"I can't believe this."

_ _ _ _ _ _

It was true, the car itself being a relic. It got good mileage, but Freddy suspected it had to do with the fact that the majority of the car was gutted out. The back seat, gone. The spare tire, gone. Heater core? Gone. Air conditioner? Gone.

It was a wonder his car was legal on the street, save the fact that both the breaks, and the emergency break worked well enough.

About ten miles back he past a white sign, paint peeling, edges rusted. The sign read:

Hope Valley Fifty Miles

The car chugged along, as usual. The skies darkened somewhere along the twenty mile mark, and the winds were tossing him all over the road. It was all he could do

not

to lose control of his car.

Then, as though the wind were not enough, it began to rain.

The real irony, though, was neither the winds, or the rain. It was not the fact that he could not roll up his window, or turn on the radio, or that his cellular phone was sitting in his locker, at work, fully charged.

The real irony was when his car broke down right

at

the forty-five mile marker.

Hope Valley Population: 78

Freddy stared at the dashboard a moment. The plastic shield that usually protected the odometer, and all of the working gears, and dials, was gone. The battery light was not on. None of the dials showed any indication of what was wrong.

He turned the key. Not even a click.

Fine

. Unbuckling, Freddy reached across the cab, leaning a shoulder down beneath the passenger seat (which was mostly a seat cover over bare springs, and a patchy foam pillow), and pulled the yellow envelope free. He opened the envelope, and put the CD back inside it.

Above, and beyond the line of duty,

Freddy thought, and allowed himself a brief smile. Five miles into town. He'd find a phone, call this Jacques kid, ask him to meet up. Then he'd make another phone call, and somebody would send

something

his way, so he could get the hell out of town.

Freddy called this his worse case scenario, and with a self affirming nod, opened his door, and rose out of his piece of shit car.

_ _ _ _ _ _

"Seventy-eight, my

ass

." Freddy said, looking around the empty, cracked streets of Hope Valley. He passed a gas station, overgrown with weeds. A young pine was growing out of the auto repair garage, its aluminum door propped up by a block of old wood. He could hear skittering echo through the dark recess of the garage as he passed by.

There was absolutely

no one

in Hope Valley. The only phone booth he saw was missing the actual phone itself, the silver metal coil had rust spots, and frayed wire hanging out in wild, stiff colors, some remnants longer than others. Others bearing bare copper wire.

Rain came now in irregular, fat drops, splattering on the dirty concrete sidewalks like insects on a bus windshield. The winds picked up in gusts now, dying down, whispering through old, dead trees, and branches, and picking up again.

The town itself was small. A village. A hamlet. There were old, boarded up houses of colonial, and Bostonian style littering random places on the outskirts of the town. In the distance, just before the city limits, Freddy spotted the warm yellow glow of soft light flickering through brightly lit windows. The Victorian style home was within walking distance (everything was, considering he had to walk anyway). He figured he would make it there soon enough.

_ _ _ _ _ _

By the time Freddy made it to the house - which in reality looked now more like a manor up close - there were no lights. The windows were dusty, however intact, and the pain was chipping off of the horizontal wooden slats of the mansion.

"Fuck my life." Freddy turned away from the house. He surveyed the open streets, realizing for the first time that there were neither cars, nor any signs that a vehicle had come this way in some time.

There was a brief click, and a groan. Freddy turned, sharply, and took an involuntary step back.

The front door was wide open.