It Happened One Night | Meet Frank Folds

The moon, time card punched, stares down the sun, threatening harm if it doesn’t come up on time. It’s not as if anyone in the City of Beacon will notice, the clouds all coffee klatched in a huddle along the horizon, blocking any chance of light and threatening to drop hot gossip in cool drops at any second. It’s been a long time since the sun rose anyone to attention in Beacon. It was a stroke of luck however, that the dawn and rain broke at the same time. Perfect opportunity to make the dash.

An imposing figure, 6’4” and bent to broken, steps out of a Buick Roadmaster sedan and heads across the street to the apartment over “An Open Book,” one of Beacon’s oldest bookstores, now adorned with a permanent “CLOSED” sign on a boarded window, like an old beauty queen with a fading sash. His steps are deliberate. He is counting, and he avoids every puddle, cursing the clouds for all the tears they shed last night. Though not a religious man, he thanks God they weren’t on his account as he imagines the guilt.

At the downstairs alley doorway, he extends something — not a key — into all ten locks. Bottom to top, never top to bottom. Closing and locking the door behind him, he heads into the building, pausing. Fifty-six damned steps up to the apartment! Always with the counting. The obsessive compulsion gets on his own nerves, but it’s a habit he won’t kick tonight. First things first, the steps. Toothpick wedged between clenched teeth he ascends, slowly. Another extension of himself — 5 deadbolt locks this time — and he is home, or back, at least. Breathing hard, he nearly collapses in the entry. Door closed, he gingerly removes his trench coat, the fedora . . . hangs them, and something else on the coat rack, steps out of his shoes, extends a hand to the wall, and leans.

One side of his body still necessarily adjacent to the wall, he feeds his compulsion with a cursory scan of the apartment. No time for details. The place is huge, simply appointed and offers a panoramic view of every room — as well as the street below — from where he’s standing. It’s all by design. He’s not a fan of surprises. Not a fan of company either, as the single leather club chair in the corner, situated near a Tiffany lamp-adorned end table confirms. There’s a well-stocked bar in the same corner. It looks as if Tom Collins may be his only friend. He’s obviously a gin man — Gilbey’s, Gordon’s, Booth — and clearly hasn’t heard about the correlation between gin and sin, or he doesn’t care. He likes it dry. Has a penchant for all things dry.

Thirty-eight limped steps from the doorway to the bathroom and all becomes clear. With a flash of light from the ceiling and the assistance of a huge vanity mirror, it is obvious that the imposing, obsessive-compulsive man in the mirror – is injured, torn and made . . . of paper. The entirety of his face, top, bottom, everywhere that stubble should be, is words or blank paper — the beginnings and ends of sentences, famous last words, fortunes culled from cookies. He removes his suit jacket and shirt to survey the damage further. There is more paper, an expansive “skin” of newsprint fused to a powerful chest and writhing muscles torn at the surface of his existence. He stands, staring at his reflection, vulnerable in his own eyes, wrapped like a rugged package, wondering if God did this to him because he is so very . . . disposable?

He counts. 8, 9 . . . Twelve paper cuts, received, not given; none too deep for mending in a hurry. He opens the linen closet to reveal reams of paper and stacks of newspapers, several packages of toilet paper. He jokes aloud to himself, “Probably the only man in this whole world who can wipe his own ass with himself, but I got toilet paper.” He’s a bit surprised at the hoarseness of his own voice. He grabs a stack of headlines and heads back to the mirror, now, opening the medicine cabinet. More paper —  strips, squares, large and small pieces, tape and adhesive. Rx for paper boys.

The deepest cut —lower middle chest —is painful. Nothing a night of restful regeneration won’t fix. He’s staring into a heartless chamber now, wondering what makes him tick. He adds a little ointment, a “homeopathic” potion he got from the florist two doors down, Sienna DeLuca. She didn’t even charge him for it last time. Nice girl, for a human. Classy chassis. A twin, but something off about that sister of hers. Sienna won’t tell him what’s in the ointment, but it works like a charm. He feels better already. I should stop by the flower shop and get some more. It’s a drill he knows and tolerates. Detective heal thyself.

He’s done all he can for now and walks, more upright now, back to the living room. The first-aid in the bathroom, explains the rest of the apartment — books, both for healing and inspiration, everywhere. Where there aren’t books, there’s music — record albums by the hundreds, and a record player at the end of the bar. He stores his intoxicants in close proximity to one another. There are bookcases, floor to ceiling — twelve-foot ceilings — throughout the apartment, though it’s not just about repair and survival.

He’d written ambitious, cerebral detective novels under a pen name, to his own delight and that of critics, but never found a huge following among readers. He’d always loved words and music, tried to make a living of both, though he didn’t need to. He was a trust fund kid from all the right places. Thanks to a little seed money from his father after college — ivy league — it was pulp fiction, food for the masses that allowed him to amass his own wealth, not as a writer, but as a publisher; cheap paper, fancy covers — ten cents a pop. He paid the writers a pittance and gave the people what they wanted. All parties involved got what they tolerated and he got rich. Then his father died — and he got wealthy, which didn’t help matters.

Back then, in his mid-twenties, he never looked down at the grass, let alone wonder what it was like on anybody else’s side. His grass and his money were green and he patted himself on the shoulder for tipping well and paying his own servants generously. He wasn’t a bad person, by any stretch, but Beacon was no darker then than it is now, didn’t rain any less often or hard, and he never noticed. Why? Money is a broad umbrella.

It is a ritual, this nightly self-flagellation; him remembering his life before the accident and lamenting that more than the accident itself. Maybe God — assuming his existence — DID punish him for his lack of seeing, lack of being present in the world outside him. Politicians didn’t just become corrupt. Cops didn’t just start walking the crooked line. Unnatural acts didn’t just start being disastrous. Is that the reason behind 10 years of writer’s block, ten years of inability to express his thoughts on paper, to make his feelings plain as the writing on his face?

These days he only speaks in sad clichés spewing sardonic wit counter to his actual feelings. He wants to make a difference, make a dent in all that is wrong in Beacon City, or maybe he only wants to distract himself from the endless contemplation of his own existence?

He’s always lived among both humans and peculiars – seen them as much as not seen them every day, but it wasn’t until he became a peculiar that he saw himself. But why did it take the accident, the subject and sequel of every subsequent nightmare, to make him see? Was he so deaf that God had had to scream that loudly? Was it God screaming that night — at  him, or was that the sound of his own voice, as his sleeve was caught on the printing equipment, dragging him in, under and through the fictional pages that had made him rich.

Was it God’s voice speaking the words on the pages into his ears and altering his DNA, pulping his insides, reanimating and changing him, molding him into a chorus of fictional detectives, leaving him  incomplete — two dimensions of his former self — on the other side? Or had he been incomplete all along? Regardless, he was now incomplete and completely peculiar — but determined to be a better man. THAT was how he became Frank Folds. He’s been spending the rest of his life questioning why. Most heroes jump off or step out of the page. He had been sucked in. But was he worthy?

Shouldn’t he use his wealth for the good of the least of these in Beacon?Shouldn’t he embrace the role of detective, protector, even savior that his new existence enabled? The senses and capabilities he’s lost have been replaced with “other” abilities. He is vulnerable to water and fire, true, but he can make himself into a paper airplane and FLY, dammit! He can fold and manipulate himself in incredible ways. He still has his eyes and his mind and can solve cold and forgotten cases. If not me, who?

If the accident was the back-hand of karma, this will be his penance. He will be the “Paper Hero” he is touted to be. But it’s not about the paper. God or whoever pulped his own fiction, the petty bullshit mindless disregard for co-existence of his previous life, so that he could see reality. It’s always been about the insides, always been about power of one.

In order to become the “Paper Hero,” however, he’s had to perpetrate a lie. There is no Frank Folds. It’s a DBA —  Doing Business As “Frank Folds Detective Agency.” After the accident he retained the print and publishing aspects of his business — a means of disseminating truths to the masses.

Both parents gone, no one in Beacon other than his Mentor, Vigo Novak, who rescued him after the accident, knows his real name — except his old friend and police contact, Demetrius, who is as likely to reveal his secret as he is to harm one of his own children.

He’s formed a Limited Liability Company, Hard Pressed, LLC under a separate business name and operates the detective agency as a DBA, having named “Frank Folds” as Power of Attorney for the original entity, allowing him to coordinate his own affairs — and bill himself for it.

Aside from Vigo and Demetrius, no one, including his assistant, Janet, knows that “Frank Folds” is wealthy, that he owns every building on the block — Doris’s Donuts, Novak’s Curios, What Lies Beneath (the florist shop owned by his friend, Sienna), The Open Book — every building his. He even bought the apartment building that Janet calls home, upgraded it, too. He has no idea what any of them would think if they knew, not who he is, but who he was.  How would Janet react if she knew what she thinks she already does . . . that Frank Folds only exists on paper?

This pep talk, a nightly reassurance and affirmation, is also a ritual. He’s traded his glass house for a tinderbox, has gone from blue-blood to black ink. He isn’t above suicidal thoughts. There are matches all over the house.  No longer a fan of fiction, he’s been, on more than one occasion, tempted to end it all. Light one last cigarette and wake up dead. But tonight is one of the better nights. Tonight he is determined to give up smoking — for his own good.

He shifts the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other with his tongue and decides to pack it in. He heads back to the coat rack, turning off light switches, grabs his sword and sheath and heads to the bedroom, stopping to turn the heat on full-blast. He’s not hungry enough and is too tired to peruse the kitchen.

The bedroom is simple. Frank doesn’t feel that there should be overt comfort in penance. The bed — king-sized — anchors the room, away from the window. He’s no fan of drafts and dampness. He likes to watch the rain, from afar. The sword, like him, always rests on its right side, next to the board of 2.25” x 0.625” fortunes tacked to a board on the wall beside the bed that he rubs every morning for good luck. It’s a katana sword, to be exact — an acquisition from Vigo, an excellent choice of weaponry for a paper hero vulnerable to the slightest ember from a gun blast, a match, a bonfire. Vigo “gifted” him with both the sword and Janet – introduced them in his shop.

Like the sword, she is a perfect complement to Frank. She dabbles in the occult and deviates from norms. Frank is a fan. As protective as he is of Janet, he respects her, as well and considers her family.

Eight giant steps from the foot of the bed and Frank is in the walk-in closet. Not much variety here. Just more trench coats, more nondescript clothing: white shirts, black suits, a row of hats, and a parallel row of perfectly aligned shoes. The closet chiefly exists as a location to house a huge walk-in safe, which he opens one-handed. There are more katanas (now a fetish), legal documents, cash, and keepsakes from a past that refuses to narrow in the distance.

He stows away his wallet and closes the safe door, removes his slacks — and something from the pockets — and smooths them onto a hanger beneath his jacket. Everything in its place.  A toss to the hamper and he heads toward the bed. No need for pajamas. There’s only him. He tacks a handful of fortune cookie entrails to his “good luck” board.

A flick of the radio dial and he’s listening to WDRK. “Vox” Henderson is signing off from overnights, all apple butter and white lies in a voice deeper than the average man’s thoughts. Henderson is newer in town, still a mystery, popular with listeners. Something about him, though.  Can’t put his finger on it.  “Here’s That Rainy Day” meanders through the speakers, lulling Frank to sleep.

He wonders how many nightmares will push through the concrete of his slumber, roses redolent of past-lives, petalless conjurings riddled with thorns. More rips in the paper. If the past is any indication, someone in Beacon will be dead by nightfall and another case will need solving. Best to be fresh for detecting, rested for another day of make-believe, although it’s Frank Folds he’s trying to make believe. Exhausted, hypnotized by the music and the sound of falling rain, Frank, mere mortal, papered hero, folds himself into repose.