Free Nowhere by Joshua David

a minute late tomorrow, I’m calling it quits with you Richard. Don’t call me back, just show up for work you hear me.”
                  Message 4 : Wednesday 9:45 AM : “Richard, I’m just dropping a line, I got a call from your Supervisor, a Mister Victor Thrift today. Apparently you haven’t been showing up for work the last few shifts. I know I don’t have to reiterate that I’ve cleared you for work, so maybe you can call me when you can and we’ll just talk. Let me know if there’s something troubling you. Also, I hate to even mention it, but if your friend Steven shows up or if he’s even the reason that you haven’t shown for work, I need you to call so we can talk. Just let me know what I can do.
                  Message 5 : Wednesday 3:15 PM : “Richard its Walter from 108,” Mr. Ming said in his slow drawn South Vietnamese accent. “I wanted to tell you that a Police show up today, he ask for you, but I tell him you out. He ask if you seem ok and I said I know you not dead cause I see you just leave. I lie for you, keep you out of trouble, now you pay rent!”
                  Richard called into work, knowing that Vick would be there by now, but he did not answer. He left a message hoping to express how sorry he was in hope of softening the blow of the next morning. Then he set the phone down and let it charge on the kitchen counter. He went to bed, partially in shock from all this unraveling, partially worried that he would wake up tomorrow and find out it had lost more days of his life to this illness he now had. What surprises would tomorrow hold?

 
    Chapter 6 : Work
     
     
     
     
                  “Please Vick, I need this. I’ve gotta pay rent, I’ve gotta have money to buy food.”
                  “Yea, so does everyone else Richard! So much so that they’re willing to come in early and stay late, skip out on breaks and work holidays. I need reliable people like that. You’ve got these issues going on that really affect your job Rich.”
                  Richard had woken up at 2 in the morning, dressed and driven himself to work early in hopes of restoring his image with Victor a little. Typically he road the bus, but this morning, since he didn’t know the exact outcome of what today would bring, just in case it went bad, he didn’t want to be left helpless and stranded by the slow mid morning bus schedule. He knew that this conversation would be short. The belt started at 2:45, no matter what was going on, the belt would start at 2:45 and this conversation would be over. It would either work for or against Richard. Either Vick would give his grace and get Richard out on the belt before go time, or he would send him packing.
                  “I mean you don’t show up for work after you’ve already been gone for weeks now. I announced to the boys that you were coming back the other day and then you miss three consecutive shifts, and now I got eight guys looking at your shifts like hungry wolves at a steak dinner. I got Tucker on in your spot now, but the kid just isn’t as good as you. He can’t remember numbers as good as you, he misses his stuff on the belt and we gotta stop so we can send it back up." Victor sighed the sigh of a frustrated supervisor. "That being said, I still can’t use the fact that you need money as a reason to pull these guys off your rotation. Especially with the holidays coming up.”
                  Victor pulled a large cigar out from the drawer in the middle of his desk. It was an old behemoth of a desk, forest green in color and made of steel. It was as a permanent fixture to the building, something that would last till they tore the facility down.
                  Richard always had trouble with the smell of Vick’s office. He didn’t know exactly what it was, perhaps it was just the smell of wet dust, or perhaps it was the way Vick’s