25...

Already, exhaustion was setting in, setting up house, setting Frank up for a fall. He felt it when he sat once more in front of the dreadful telephone. He was suddenly sure that the world’s bad ideas could flow through this contraption, contaminating his already turbulent life.
“Don’t call her!” Bryan sounded panicked. Frank looked up at him standing in the bedroom doorway. His eyes were wide and shiny with worry. “I don’t… It just doesn’t feel right or something.”
“I don’t even know her fucking number Bry.”
Frank put his forehead in his hand and stared at the phone. He could feel Bryan watching him and there was something comfortable in that; safety in numbers. He felt this irrational tug in his brain of this sick and symbiotic desire for some sort of stability in his life, same sort of sameness, and this powerful, violent and sexy need to fuck all that up. Pulling a small pad of paper towards him, Frank picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling then?” Bryan asked, still standing in the doorway and hugging himself a little bit.
“Lou Deeds,” Frank said thoughtfully as he squinted slightly at the numbers on the paper. He slowly and deliberately punched the numbers in, fighting off a sense of destiny clicking in closer with every digit. “I’m just going to get some information.”
Pushing the last number in, Frank sat back and listened to the connection makes it story known. He looked at Bryan standing there and sort of chewing on his lower lip. He thought about how much weird shit, just straight up bullshit he had forced Bryan to put up with in the time they had known each other. Unconsciously mirroring Bryan, Frank began to chew on his own lower lip. He felt a bright, red flash of pain there that woke him to another degree.
“Ow,” he said, distractedly putting his free hand to his mouth.
The phone on the other end began to ring. He could hear it pushing through the clicking wires, like a bad idea being birthed through skeleton insects. His heart began to beat faster and his bowels clenched. He momentarily cursed Bryan for spooking him so badly. The final ring fell away through the sound of a tornado in a sealed jar and Frank realized that he was holding his breath.
A connection was made on the other end and there was a long, dry pause before any reaction.
“Hey, this is Lou,” the voice warbled from the other end, as if from a tape that had seen better days five years ago. There was some hint of accent in Lou’s voice that brought to mind thoughts of farms and integrity and clean, honest living. “I’m not in right now. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back when I can. Thanks.”
There was a beep that sounded made from drunken bees.
“Hey Lou, this is Frank, Mary’s friend. I had… I had a question for you, just looking for a little information. If you could give me a call at…”
Frank trailed off and squint his eyes closed. He always forgot his own phone number. Bryan threw the digits out in his best bemused voice. Bryan always gave Frank the number.
Frank repeated the number into the far away message machine and hung up the phone. He looked up at Bryan with a tired smile.
“Are you going to work today?” Bryan asked with a trace of his own smile.
“What is today? No, I doubt it.”
“Why are you calling? Why are you getting involved in this… whatever this is?” Bryan did not seem terribly worried anymore.
Frank gave him a genuinely huge smile that spoke volumes, but mostly asked why he didn’t already know the answer to his own question.
“Why the hell not?”