Freddie

I touched the large round button in the door ever so gently, and watched the panel rise smoothly up over my head, opening up the cabin.  Ah, the future. 

"Shall I come in with you, or wait?" Charles asked.

"Do as you like; this is your actual job after all," I told him.  "Right?  Aren't you a guard or something?"

"Yes," he nodded, but he said no more about it.  "I'll wait here, then, circle around till I see you come out." 

With that I strolled into Preus Hall (ugh, what a perfect name for such a dreadful place), quietly humming the song I'd heard last on Charles's music- and yes, it was more BJ fucking Thomas.  I tell you, the man was stuck in a musical rut.  I made up my mind to ask for something different when I got back into the car; there's a limit to how many times a person can listen to "Raindrops" in a span of twenty-four hours.

That little gnome of a scientist, Dr. K, sat waiting for me by the lift in the lobby, hunched over some sort of nature magazine laying open in his lap. I know that much because there was a picture of a family of lemurs on the page, and Danny had told me lemurs were his favorite animal- which is the reason why I even noticed what kind of magazine K was looking at, otherwise it's unlikely I would have given any sort of damn in the first place.

I stood waiting for him to look up, but the cover story about the bloody monkeys was clearly too enthralling, so finally I trilled, "Hellooooo?"

His head jerked up.  As soon as he saw me, he sprang out of his seat and didn't say one word until we were safe, sound, and beginning our descent.

"Right on time; great job," K told me. 

I shrugged.  "I'm very lucky, Charles was the one who showed up at the house, reminded me I had someplace to be."

It was true; at half-past eight that morning while I was working on that new little song (which was coming along quite nicely now, I might add), Charles simply showed up on the front stoop, said I had an appointment at nine, and I hadn't so much as called him to give him notice. I didn't even know the bloke's last name, yet Charles was basically becoming my temporary personal assistant- and the best part, it was strictly volunteer work.  But even so, I just wish there was some way I could pay him for it without dipping into Julia's own finances.

Absently nodding, K studied me a bit more closely.  "That was a good idea, taking off the mustache.  I almost didn't recognize you myself at first."

Just then, my coat pocket vibrated once.  Frowning, I reached inside, but the only thing inside it was Danny's phone, which he had mistakenly left on the kitchen counter that morning.  I pulled it out to see the little display on the cover say "1 Message: Uncle J."

Hesitantly I opened it up; why, I don't know, by all means I shouldn't have so much as brought the silly thing along in the first place, but there I was, silently reading what was sent to the phone.

It said, "Danny, who is that man in the photo?"

I was of half a mind to respond, say something overt and ridiculous to mess with "Uncle John's" head a little, except I didn't exactly know how to go about it- and asking the sluggish K would likely get me nowhere fast.  So I closed the phone and stuffed it back in my pocket.

The lift doors opened, and there was the quiet, empty hallway. 

"What am I in for today?" I coughed.  "Another zap?"

"One of those- plus a little extra stuff for the sake of progress reports.  Shouldn't take too much time.  You are still taking your pills, aren't you?"

"I only took one of them last night," I told him honestly. 

Some of the color left K's already pale face.  "Which one?"

"The, uh- black one, the little one," I replied, feeling better as I watched him relax at the news.

"Good; if you have to skimp out on any of them, skip the pink pills.  The black ones- they mean everything- but in the future, be consistent, if you would, please."

"Right, whatever, I just- I don't know.  Blame it on the film, perhaps; the pink pill looks too much like the goop he was covered in, and I just didn't have the guts for that yesterday."

Certainly not when every five minutes Julia had to make some comment about the beauty of one Keanu Reeves, I grumbled to myself.  It's bad enough she's that way about Richard Dreyfuss, but come on.

I'm not going to go into what all kind of tests he ran on me, because that's far too boring to write about and I imagine even more boring to read by consequence.  I'll simply stick to the dialogue, and there's quite a lot of that; all the while we made idle conversation, with K asking most of the questions and I doing my best to dodge them where possible.

"So how've you been holding up thus far?" he asked.

"Oh, well enough, I suppose."  I laughed.  "Fry is a bit of a strain on my patience, but nothing too horrible."

"I can understand that, especially since you're a cat person, right?"

I sighed.  "I am.  I have quite a few now, actually, the little darlings."

"You miss 'em?"

"I do." 

"I bet.  Oh!  Speaking of which," K went on. "How have you two been getting along?"

"Mm?"

"You and Julia."

I made a face. Whatever caused him to make that connection?

When I didn't answer right away, K cleared his throat. "Okay. Who threw the first punch, and how hard-"

I had to laugh. "K, no one's hit anybody yet. Not to say we haven't thought about it, but- it hasn't happened so far."

He nodded solemnly. "Then things are going well."

"Well enough, like I said before," I added. "Last night was nice, for instance."

"What happened?"

So I gave him a bare-bones rundown of the evening, excluding Roxie's brief appearance.  I didn't feel like going down that road and risk saying too much about it.  Danny knowing what he knew was problem enough in itself.  But I did mention the Christmas tree decorations, and the "photo shoot."  Just thinking about those moments made me smile.

"I tell you, this will be different," I mused aloud.  "This will be the first Christmas I've ever spent away from home."

K shook his head.  "Oh, God forbid.  No way will you be here that long.  Whatever it takes, we'll have you home well before Christmas comes around, I can promise you that."

I could actually feel my face fall at that.  "Oh.  I see."

K grinned reassuringly.  "Don't you worry, the cats won't even have known you were gone- and neither will Jim."

"What?"

"Your, uh- boyfriend. Isn't that his n-"

I bolted upright, eyes narrowing, voice hardening. "How would you know about him?"

"I - just do- this morning, I saw-"

"Is that what Julia's been telling you?"

"No!"

"Did she tell you that I have a boyfriend?"

"Julia's hardly said a word about you, Freddie," K protested. "She hasn't told me Jack about what happened all those years ago; all I know is what I saw myself. It has never come up between us."

"It probably never fucking comes up at all," I mumbled, "with anyone."

"Now, just hold still, one more thing we need to take care of," K said, but I wasn't listening.

I tell you, I wish I could forget someone that easily, move on with my life at the drop of a hat, I told myself.

Now, to be honest, I could. I'm not proud of it, but I was and am quite practiced at getting over most anyone. My past is littered with lovers and friends I have left behind through the years, whose faces I've forgotten and whose names have all but slipped through the cracks.

Why couldn't Julia have been among them?

I couldn't quite understand why (though to be fair, I wasn't exactly trying to understand, I was content instead to merely lament the situation), but the constant reminders of how little an overall impact being with me had made on Julia never failed to pierce me to the core. Indeed, what were the chances I had so much as fucking crossed that analytical mind once during all this time; what place did something as unnecessary as myself have in her hard, practical heart? Yes, she was kind. Yes, she was generous. Yes, she had been bending over backwards to try and accommodate me in almost every way imaginable. But I just knew that as soon as they sent me back, Julia would give me no more thought than before.

What's it to me anyway? It doesn't matter one whit, the slate will soon be clean, they'll erase the- oh great. Here we go.

And just like that, I found myself drifting off, singing softly, "It started off so well/ They said we made a perfect pair..."

But I snapped out of it as quickly as I'd slid into it.  "Tell me, K, what is taking so long?" I asked- but with difficulty, as there was now a rather frighteningly large robot-machine hovering two inches from my nose and scanning my skull for something.

"With Speck?"

"Mm."

"Oh, just a few, um- unforeseen consequences, things we weren't expecting to happen at all."

"Like what?"

"You grabbing Julia's wrist and coming along for the ride, for starters," he said glibly.

I hesitated.  "Is - that what happened?"

"I'm afraid so.  See, the only reason she even went in the second time was to get Danny out of there; he sent himself your way on accident."

I swallowed, seeing the situation in a new, uncomfortable light.  "Then I suppose this is all my fault after all?"

K neither confirmed nor denied my words.  "Point is, we're doing our best, and as soon as we know what to do and how to do it, we'll have you out of here."

This is all my fault- and Julia hasn't said a word about it being my fault, I realized.  Why did I even grab at her in the first place?  I wasn't trying to come along.  Was I trying to keep her there?  What the fuck was I thinking? 

The red light glowing between my eyes turned green; apparently the scan was complete.  The machine then moved back little by little.  God, what a frightful apparatus. 

"That's the Crebinator," K replied when I asked what it was.  "That's what we're going to use when the time comes to send you back, as far as memory erasing is concerned.  I just wanted to get a rough original estimate as far your most recently made memories are concerned, see where they were stored.  That way we won't have to spend as much time searching for them later, get you back sooner."

"That's terribly thoughtful of you, dear," I murmured.

"I do what I can."  He clapped his hands twice.  "Well!  I think that just about does it, actually.  You're free to go."

"K, tell me," I blurted, unable to keep it in any longer.  "You're a fairly good friend of hers, aren't you?"

He blinked, a bit taken aback.  "I mean, I'd certainly like to think so."

I sat up.  "Close enough to know about how- uh-"

"What?"

"How Danny- happened?"

"Oh!  You mean, who was his father?"

"Right.  I mean, it's not important or anything, I was only curious."

He looked me over.  "Uh-huh."

A pause.  A little more impatiently, I repeated, "So who was he?"

K swallowed, took a deep breath.  "I only met him once, a long time ago- and I know very, very little about him."

"A little is a lot.  I'll take anything.  Go on."

K just looked at me for the longest time, till finally he shrugged, letting out another heavier, unhappier sigh. 

"She loved him," he replied at last.  "She loved him very much.  That's all I know."

Well, obviously, I tried to quip inwardly, or else she wouldn't have had his baby.  But even as I thought this, here came that same twinge, that wretched ache of longing- except this one was stronger. 

I came very close to asking whether he thought the same thing as Roxie, as far as "what the poor kid's been through" in the past decade, but I thought better of it.  He likely would not be of much use there either.  But that didn't stop me from wondering.

"Let's go," K muttered, glancing at the time. "Quick, before they finish up."

I frowned.  "Who?"

"People who would have both of our heads if they saw us down here."

My lips curled in a smile that likely looked as sour as it felt.  "Preus?"

"That's right."

Fortunately, we weren't spotted or detained.  In fact, it was quite casually that I walked out of the lift, leaving K to return to the "meeting" or whatever.  You would never have thought we were running from the way I strolled on out, as carefree as you please.

Before I could go too far, however, K put a hand on my shoulder.  I turned, waited for him to speak.

He cleared his throat.  "Be nice to her, Freddie," K said.  "It's been an interesting ten years."

My eyes widened.  I took a step closer.  "How?  What's happened?"

But he pushed me back out, pressed the button that pulled the doors shut, and vanished with a wave and a wink. 

"Dammit," I whispered.  but I didn't go after him; I'd have to find my answers in other, more roundabout ways.  Nothing came easy around here.

No sooner had I walked out of Preus Hall, than Danny's phone seemed to erupt into spasms.  If only to make the thing stop, I fumbled through the pocket and pulled it out, flipping it open.  Thankfully, the vibrations ceased. 

But the voice on the other end didn't.

"Hello?" The word was tinny and distant through the speaker.  "Hello?  Danny?"

What could I do?  I lifted the phone to my ear and spoke, "Uh... Hello?"

"Hi!  Who's this?"

"I'm F- This is Rick."

"Oh! Perfect!  Just the man I was trying to reach.  This is Wes.  You know, your neighbor?  I mean, Julia's neighbor?  Lauren's Dad?"

"Of course, of course, I remember," I replied, searching in vain for Charles's yellow car to appear careening back down the icy streets.  "What's going on, dear?"

"Listen, I know this is really short notice, but- Wait, no.  First of all- I mean, I don't want to assume you do, so I'll go ahead and just ask: do you, uh, happen to have any experience in radio?"

My first thought was of the earlier days, way back when my friend Kenny Everett was interviewing me and spontaneously had me read off the weather report- which I botched handsomely, to his and the listening public's amusement, not to mention all the times my songs had played over the radio airwaves.  Certainly that qualified, didn't it? 

"Some," I replied.  It was here Charles turned the corner, slid smoothly up to the curb, door lifting so I could step in.

He let out a joyous whoop.  "That's great!  Then if you're, uh- I know we barely know each other, but if you don't have anything on your plate this morning, could you help a brother out?  They'd pay you and everything-"

Wes Adams said more, but I'd been hooked in the moment he said "I'd pay you."  Of course, I wasn't cheap- but I was listening. "What do you need?"

"Look.  My Tesla is giving me holy hell today, and so is the dealership, so I may not make it in at eleven, and my boss hates it when I'm even five minutes late, and all my subs are already on vacation or sick, you're my only hope-"

"Name it, dear," I cut in, perhaps a little too eagerly. 

So he did.  "Could you sub in for me at the radio station?  It'll only be for half an hour at the most, and DJ-ing isn't half as hard as it seems, so-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Hang on, did you say- DJ-ing?" My voice quivered a bit- and I could have sworn I saw Charles smile.  "Like, a disc jockey or something?"

"It's easy work.  The computer does most of it for you, and half the time, it's nothing but commercials as it is.  What stuff you do have to say between breaks is practically fed to you anyway.  So can you?"

Even with as much of my life I had devoted to the stage and recording, I felt myself breaking into a cold sweat.  I didn't know the first thing about disc jockeying, computers, or commercials.  "How much are we talking?" I asked.

"Five hundred dollars."

I nearly fell over. 

"For one half hou-" I hesitated, leaned over to Charles and whispered, covering where I assumed the mouthpiece would be, "Hey, is that a lot these days?"

"Hm?"

"Five hundred dollars.  Is that a lot?"

He shrugged.  "Meh."

To me, "meh" automatically means "Fuck, no!" and I was in no mood to waste time negotiating. I lifted the phone back up to my ear, about to turn him down cold- when I stopped.  Five hundred dollars was better than nothing- and certainly would reimburse Julia for what little I had spent with the credit card, not to mention give good Charles something of a dividend for his troubles.

But I didn't agree right away.  Usually I had agents and assistants to make these negotiations for me, but I was on my own now- and I needed to think this over. 

"Can, uh- can I call you back?  I- uh-" I fumbled briefly for an excuse, said the first thing that came to my mind.

"I need to speak with Julia first."

"Oh, absolutely!  Just let me know as soon as possible, okay?"

"I'm calling her right now, and I'll let you know as soon as I'm through.  What's your number?"

"I don't remember offhand, just use the call history."

"What?"

"Thanks, man!"

Click.

Quite suddenly I remembered I had a previous engagement.  Julia and I were practicing driving today at noon- and if this fellow wanted me there at eleven, something would have to give- and I didn't want that something to be the driving lesson. 

At the same time, he spoke of money...

"Hey,is that a flip phone?" Charles exclaimed.  "Wow.  I thought those things were extinct!"

"Sorry to disappoint you," I muttered.  Another message had come in from that same Uncle J while I was on the phone, this one reading a little more rudely, "Danny Boy, I've got to know, I need you to tell me, and I can't wait till later.  Tell me who that man was."

Good Lord, but I was in high demand today.

"Hey, Charles, how does one go about sending a message on these things?  This chap's about to have kittens if I don't do something."

He didn't even have to look.  "There should be some kind of microphone looking icon thing on the keypad."

"What does that do?"

"That turns on 'text-to-speech'.  Don't forget to hit 'Reply'."

"So many fucking buttons," I murmured. "God, I feel so old."

With a little extra coaching from the technologically-savvy Charles, I managed to write a very simple reply.  I didn't even attempt to pretend Danny had responded, I merely talked into the thing from my own point of view, saying, "That man is me, Richard Dubroc.  Who are you?"  Without much further ado, I sent it.

And then I realized I didn't know Julia's private number.  "Fuck."

"What's wrong now?"  Charles asked evenly.  When I told him, all he did was shrug.  "No big deal, you can just call the Psychology department number, and they'll put you through to her office that way."

"You don't happen to know what that number is, do you?" I asked.

"I know a lot of things," he replied, "and that happens to be one of them."

"Would you mind dialing it for me then?  God knows I'll push the wrong thing and, you know- call the FBI on us or something."

With a chuckle and a nod, Charles took the cell phone from me and begun pressing the numbers into the keypad.  "Don't worry, Rick; I still forget my own wife's number."

My brows rose.  "Are you married, Charles?"

He smiled.  "No, actually, but I'm going to be; I think of her as my wife, but she's still just my fiancee.  I'll catch up with the rest of my siblings in a few months; they're all married with families."

They're ahead of me, then, aren't they?

"Brothers or sisters?"  Why I cared, I don't know; what I should have been asking was this bloke's last name. 

"One brother, two sisters.  All older."  He handed me the phone.  "It's dialing now."

"Thank you."

Charles's smile seemed to widen.  "I admit, it's very sweet of you to check with your wife first, see if it's okay."

I squinted, before I realized by "your wife" he meant Julia.  "What?  Oh!  No, no, Julia isn't my wife."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Not at all.  I mean, well- all right, once, yes- for about five minutes, but not anymore.  We're old friends, is all."

Charles didn't verbally respond to that- and I didn't have the chance to fully notice.  The woman at the front picked up then.  "Oh!  Hello, I'm calling for my wi- Uh, sorry, no, I mean, my friend, Dr. Samue - Ms.- oh, fuck it.  The pretty one."

The receptionist paused.  "Is this call for Ms. Samuels?"

I sighed wearily.  "Right.  May I talk to her, please?"

The dear lady put me on hold, then. And Charles just sat there and smirked like a Siamese cat, both hands on the wheel. 

In K's voice I reminded myself, just in case, "Be nice to her."  For in spite of the way she did or didn't feel, I was growing rather tired of treating her any other way.

TO BE CONTINUED...