Chapter 24.

(unknown date; unknown location.)

In the warm dark nothing, Frank plopped to the ground, his back against the wall that felt so smooth and spongy it seemed organic, and pulled his knees into his chest. He ached all over. A hollow pain settled behind his eyebrows, his cheek where the rock hit him throbbed, and the hand he’s broken Bo’s nose with was stiff and achy. Worse, he was stuck in this void. Blind in the pitch dark, he could never find his way around. He also lacked the Sultan’s knack for slicing holes in the void which led to reality.

Stuck: a human fly caught in one of those amber fossils his son Paul collected as a Cub Scout.

Fuck.

Now, his situation wasn’t completely grim, a small compensation. Despite being dark, the void was comfortable as a hot bath, and he sensed the sun, moon, stars and green, growing world sprouting just beyond the edges of his perception….

Knowledge which sucked, since he couldn’t see, feel, or touch that world. Instead, the universe chained him like a dog, then dangled a promise beyond his reach: a cruel joke.

Okay, I stand corrected, Frank thought, pulling possum-tight. My situation is completely grim.

Facts were, the worst-case seemed most likely: he would die here, rot here, alone, wrapped in the silent void. He sighed, praying, but stopped. What was the point? He’d never get to Severance Hall, never see Peggy perform, never see his wife, kids, or grandkids again. Otto would have one less ally against Howard and Saint George’s Chamber of Commerce-fueled power. And worse, he’d never save the chef from being lynched, or Zac from making a grievous mistake.

The Sultan was right. He was a powerless fraud, incapable of changing anything that mattered.

Sans external clues, like light, dark, sight and sound, Frank couldn’t guess how long he sat and stewed. Minutes, hours, days, weeks… how could he know? And what did it matter? Deep down, though, he realized moping and doing nothing did… well… nothing.

Sure, he had a rough row to hoe. Sure, there seemed little chance of success. But preferring grit under his nails to gathering moss, Frank forced himself upright, asking God for strength. In answer to his prayer, a Dale Carnegie quote sprung to mind: “If you want to conquer fear and apathy, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” He nodded, steeling his resolve, followed the divine intervention, and got busy.

Walking aimlessly at first, he bumped into the walls at turns as he acclimated to moving through the dark. Soon, his feet detected that the floor wasn’t flat, but curved. Following a hunch, he stretched his hand, running it up and down the warm, soft surface as he walked. As he suspected, it bowed.

Frank realized the void was cave-like: a tunnel, not a corridor with straight walls raised on level floors. Through his thin-soled shoes, he learned to sense the floor’s curvature, and he could soon detect, from feel alone, the tunnel’s central channel. Once mastering the art, he no longer stumbled, but cooked along, faring forward.

One step towards freedom, Frank thought, glad he’d heeded Dale Carnegie’s sage advice. By his lights, the self-help guru was the Muhammed Ali of thinkers: the greatest of all-time. Carnegie was no stuffed-shirt sitting on his arse, pontificating from his ivory tower. Instead, his words were practical as a shovel, and Frank loved shovels and dug shoveling… bad pun intended.

How else could you dig a hole when a hole needs digging? With your fingers or a stick?

Don’t be dim.

Having conquered the simple act of walking, Frank wondered where he’d walk to. The void rendered his keen sense of direction, which had proved handy as hell on family vacations and fishing trips, useless at tits on a bull. So he walked, counting steps from one to a thousand, cycling back to one, a ploy to keep his head engaged.

God will provide, he thought, repeating a Maddie-ism, choosing to believe his wife’s wisdom. Preach, Sister Maddie, preach: God provides.

Several thousand steps, his only measure of time and distance, he halted, doing a double-take. Because, though Frank had not noticed, his ‘gut’ had assumed command, leading the way for the past thousand-ish steps, choosing tunnels at the jumbled intersections without hesitation. No mean feat, because the void’s caves twisted, maze-like, each intersection veering in six, eight or even ten directions, with most paths climbing or dropping to different levels. He hadn’t the foggiest notion where his gut led him, but he no longer drifted rudderless.

A vast improvement.

Now, Frank possessed smarts enough to know that his gut feeling could be pure bunk. He could as easily be lost, walking in circles, as heading somewhere. But choosing his instincts gave him a sense of control, which he relished given the arse-over-teakettle day he’d had.

Right or wrong, he’d follow his instincts.

Better than moping, playing a lump on a log, he reckoned.

A snap in his step, he walked faster, singing a Beatles medley off-key in his scratchy baritone in-time with his steps, from ‘Eleanor Rigby’ to ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ amused by his awful voice but cherishing the songs.

A few thousand steps later, Frank screeched to a halt. That’s odd, he thought, wondering why. He stilled himself, a fisherman bobbing on the waves, tense with expectation and waiting for a nibble. The metaphorical fish took the bait several deep breaths later: he heard a faint, indistinct noise in the undeterminable distance.

Heard. Sounds. Faint, but there. Funny that he, Francis Aloysius O’Brien proper, hadn’t noticed, but the back of his mind had… and stopped him?

He snorted. Out-thought by not thinking? Odd thing, the brain.

Wary of reality in this dark, unreal place, Frank wondered if it wasn’t his mind playing tricks. Little today had made sense. Still, his gut had led him here, and the noises seemed real, so he followed his ears, searching for its source, glad to have a concrete goal.

Since he’d stopped counting and started listening, the lightless, twisty tunnels made time and distance harder to measure, but he reckoned it a mile later when he halted again, sizing things up. The sounds had grown louder, resolving into a faint, though still distant, hum. How far away, though, remained fuzzy. Decades of construction experience told him that the soft, organic walls would absorb noise, but how much they would absorb escaped him. That was egghead business, while he just hammered the egghead’s shit home. Nor did he know how loud the humming was. He wouldn’t venture a guess: too many unknowns. Regardless, he was closer, making progress.

That mattered.

So Frank honed on the noise, walking and thinking about music halls and soundproof baffling, which brought to mind the Theatrical and Oscar Peterson on stage that night as his mind drifted. The assorted record albums he owned with Peterson as either headliner or sideman rose to mind: seventeen, by his count. Soon he contemplated his sprawling record collection, listing the hundreds of album he owned from memory, pining after those he lacked, like the Lester Young and Thelonious Monk LPs he’d rejected at Record Rendezvous earlier that evening despite eyeing them for months.

His collection needed both. Why the heck hadn’t he snagged them? Because of dumbass Bo and five-oh, he reckoned. Still, big mistake.

He’d pick them up tomorrow.

Frank trudged along, singing under his breath, having passed from the Beatles to a rhythm and blues mix, thinking, The soft, warm walls must be why I can’t make out this music. His gravelly version of Sam and Dave’s ‘Soul Man’ ceased as he hit the brakes, asking the void, “Did I just say I heard music?”

After replaying the scene, he reckoned he had, so he cocked his right ear towards the noise. Soft acoustic music, the tune hinted at but indistinct. And he realized the back of his mind had stopped him once again, hearing sounds he missed.

What the… out-thought by not thinking… again?

Made him wonder who was in charge.

He chuckled at the notion. Nonsense. He had to get out of here, not navel-gaze, pontificating on bizarre, useless notions instead of locating the music’s source. Frank needed to find the musician… or the Hi-Fi set, or whatnot: anything that’d explain music in the lifeless void. Because music meant people, and people meant possibility. So he walked, silent so he could hear, towards the possible, his step light, suppressing a burning desire to sing ‘Soul Man.’

As he clicked along at a brisk pace, Frank recalled The Sultan, the air-strikes, the riot, and all the other nonsense he’d been through since bloodying Bo’s nose. The memories made Frank slow down. He wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Places he’d once deemed humdrum, like his backyard and dive bars, now crawled with dangerous demons, dim-witted angels, toothy dragons, and whatnot, so he reckoned the music itself could be a trap. Like the sirens in The Odyssey, his favorite book from junior high, before the Depression and food made him ditch school to dig ditches, helping feed the family. So he slowed, his senses on high alert, balancing the dual needs of finding the music’s source and staying alive.

It’d suck to crash a hootenanny only to have the goon squad bushwhack you, no?

Before the music resolved into a hummable tune, a threshold Frank sensed nearing, a heady perfume of rain, soil, grass, and flowers tickled his nose hairs. The spring-like scents sent his nostrils flaring, and he followed his nose. Ears, too, since the sound grew clearer with every step. And soon the music gained context, with birdsong weaving through the swoosh of leaves in the breeze. But when the breeze itself tingled across his cheeks, Frank nodded, a grin tightening his face.

Talk about vast improvements. Fresh air meant reality and ditching the stale, moist air of this dark tunnel. Which could lead him back home, to Severance, to his family, to his life, God willing.

Frank’s lot continued improving. Besides the music, earthy aromas, and fresh breeze, he saw his feet… meaning light. A dim light, its illumination increasing as he inched forward. Soon, he made out that the walls were a reddish pink, not the coal-black he’d expected.

Frank hoped to God this wasn’t a trick The Sultan was playing on him. He wouldn’t put it past the cruel idiot. Sure, he had followed his gut here, and it had been right. His gut sensed he had little to fear now. However, he reckoned every fish caught lured by a spinner bait, mistaking the flashing metal for prey, trusted its gut, too… and damn, were they wrong. He’d hate to end up in someone’s frying pan. So he moved on, trusting his gut… but slower and with care, verifying each step.

As he’d learned in the army, being over-eager could get you killed.

It wasn’t long before he emerged from the tunnels into an Appalachian meadow. He stopped, hands on his hips and feet wide, taking in the scene: all green and golden, wild yet domesticated, a cultivated garden ringed by the rugged mountains and cool, silent wildness of the forest, bees, bugs, and insects buzzing, faint dots in the glorious landscape. Until the memory of The Sultan and his horde flashed to mind, reminding him of his danger, so he slipped behind a tree for cover.

No frying pan for me, thanks.

Hidden, Frank surveyed the dale for a path offering ample cover. First things first: he was thirsty. Dehydration kills, so he took a risk, sidling towards a clear mountain stream. He squatted, peering for predators, before sipping water so cold it stung his teeth. After several deep gulps, he retreated to a clump of bushes to plot his course.

Paranoia, perhaps, he thought, finalizing his route with a precision he’d gained soldiering in the European countryside. Overkill, maybe. But as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.