Driftwood: Tales

Beloved Darkness

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

This, of course, 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 him, 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's fair education - a bachelor in literature, and even some minor publishing experience, both as the publisher - counted for nothing, here.
He ran an E-Magazine for some time - before everyone discovered that real magazines were better - and some of his works were published; 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 never caught some sexually transmitted disease, though he guessed it was more likely from the abundance of a good blow job, and lack of 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 hung up his phone, and stepped out of his office. By then, 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?"