The Jig Is Up

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. I am lying on a bare mattress, pushed up against the wall in the deepest corner of the room. An ancient lamp spewed a very modest amount of light, the only light in the room.

My head spins a little as a sit up. I try to gather my thoughts, but they’re muddled and thick with cobwebs, blocking coherent thought. I even struggled to come up with my name at first. Then it broke through the blockage, Billy Franklin. I’m Billy Franklin. I smiled. Coming up with my name felt like a minor victory.

Everything is foggy. It feels like I’ve been asleep for a long time. Not a natural sleep either. Chemically induced. That led to a number of questions. I’m just an average guy. Not someone that a kidnapper would typically target. Why would a kidnapping be your first guess on what’s happening, anyway?

I didn’t have enough information to answer that question yet. Still, I felt confident that I hadn’t gone on a drunken stroll, suddenly deciding to walk into some strange building and crash out in this decrepit room. Goldilocks might break into places for sleep, but not this guy. I have standards.

Time to blow this popsicle stand. Skedaddle and solve the mystery later. I walked to the door to make my getaway. Foiled again, as a locked door greeted me. Locked from the outside, too. And not just with a flimsy lock on the doorknob itself. This had a deadlock installed, and the door was quite solid. All of this doesn’t necessarily equate to a kidnapping, but my hypothesis that I hadn’t been impersonating Goldilocks proved correct. At least I had that going for me.

I placed my hand on the wall, then lightly tapped it. It didn’t feel hollow, so not drywall. I turned around and faced the room, then placed my foot on that same wall and used my weight to lean back. It felt pretty solid. I moved a couple of feet and tapped a side wall. This one was just typical drywall. Shit. While it's entirely possible that the walls in this room aren't uniform, I now had a sinking feeling that the walks on either side of the door have been reinforced. My assumption is the door leads to a hallway, and the hallway leads to an exit. Someone wanted to make it difficult for me to get into that hallway. This was planned out.

 I turned back to the room and studied my surroundings. Nary a window, so no way to tell where I was. Could be a basement, could be a penthouse. Well, probably not a penthouse. There wasn’t much to see. Probably a ten-by-ten room. In the corner opposite the mattress was a small, poorly built nightstand. Resting on top was a landline phone, the type in use back when the world was only in black-and-white. Also known as the 1950s. What the hell?

A dial tone greeted me when I lifted the phone to my ear, which shocked me. I didn’t believe the phone would work. The tone was faint and distant. I had zero experience with this type of phone. I didn’t know if the connection should sound that weak, or whether it mattered. My parents had a landline when I was younger, but they had at least advanced to wireless technology. Not this rotary nonsense.

I dialed 911 and waited for the connection. And waited some more. Nothing, nada, zilch. I reset the receiver and again received a weak dial tone. I redialed 911. Tension flowed through the air because dialing that damn nine feels like forever. Zilch, nada, nothing. A chill ran down my spine. I saw something lying on the floor, pushed halfway under the mattress. As I got closer, I could tell it was a cell phone. A small dollop of optimism hit my system. I bent down to pick it up, and I felt like my luck was turning. It was my cell phone.

Somehow, the phone went unnoticed by my kidnapper, or my secret admirer, or my sixth-grade teacher that always had a burr up his ass when it came to me. Or whoever the hell it was that delivered me to this room. Maybe Mr. Decker checks all three boxes?

I quickly ruled that out. Mr. Decker would have to be pushing eighty these days. Even a curmudgeonly prick like Mr. Decker couldn’t drag a two-hundred-pound man around the city.

Unlocking the phone lessened my optimism. Not only was the battery sitting at ten percent, I had no bars. I tried 911 and received a message that said, “All circuits are busy now. Try your call again later.”

I went into my contact list and shot out an SOS text to my brother, Ryan. It remained unsent. I powered the phone on and off, then tried texting him again. And got the same result. Pretending the unsent text was because of an issue with Ryan’s phone, I sent one out to my ex-girlfriend, too. Maybe me being held against my will would win her back. Of course, that text remained stuck in the ether as well. Defeated, I powered down the phone to conserve the battery.

Ignoring the urge to throw my phone against the wall, like a Nolan Ryan fastball, I instead sat down on the mattress, elbows on my knees. Think, Billy. How did I end up here? But the answers weren’t forthcoming. I went over my options, which didn’t take long. I could try to kick the door down or break through the(likely) reinforced walls to get into the hallway, à la Jean-Claude Van Damme, or kick through one of the easier walls and hope for the best. Or maybe throw a tantrum and yell for help. However, I did not know who my captor was, or if there were multiple captors, and each of these solutions were very audible in nature.

Best I could tell, the room didn’t have a camera in it, which means my captor, or captors, are not aware that I am awake. That is the only advantage I hold, and, admittedly, that isn’t a massive one. So, would it be in my best interest to play my trump card from the jump?

Probably not, I thought, because all three options were flawed. I was not likely to be able to kick through the door, at least not quickly. It felt too solid, and if I’m being honest, I am not quite as good at roundhouse kicks as Van Damme. I can’t rule out the possibility of plaster walls straddling the door, but that felt like a pipe dream now. The other walls are standard drywall, so I felt sure I could break through any of those, but to what end? I had no way of knowing where my best chance of escape was. After all, I did not want to end up face-to-face with Leatherface, chainsaw and all. As for the last option, if you’ve ever watched a movie you know yelling for help never quite suffices. Before proceeding, I need to gather one hundred percent of the intelligence available to me.

I rose from the bed and grabbed the lamp, then held it up as high as the cord would allow and scoped out my surroundings again. I hoped against hope that during my last inspection I had overlooked a big air vent that someone had painted over, or at the very least, a dropped ceiling that would let me access the ducts—though it was unlikely they could support my weight. That was all moot, because the ceiling was traditional drywall, and there were no air ducts on any of the walls.

Frustrated, but still in the game, I made my way to the door. I placed my ear on it and listened for a minute. I couldn’t hear anything. Then I dropped to the floor and placed my ear as close to the bottom of the door as I could, then listen closely again. No dice. Undaunted, I slowly made my way around the room, placing my ear up against various spots on the walls. I wondered if this room was soundproof because I couldn’t hear jack shit.

My tour of the room led me to one uncomfortable discovery: I noticed a water bottle on the opposite side of the mattress from where I earlier located my cell phone. Next to it, lying empty on its side, was a one-gallon milk container with the opening hollowed out, thus making it wider. My mindset flipped on a dime, from undaunted to very daunted, as the implication for that milk jug hit me like a Mike Tyson uppercut. That jug was a deliberate message: if I’m expected to relieve myself in this room, release won’t be happening soon.

I resumed my earlier position on the mattress, sitting down with my elbows on my knees. Head bowed, alternating between deep thought and muttered prayers. Although the drug’s effects had dissipated, I still could not remember the abduction or the immediate moments preceding it. Is it possible that I never interacted, or even saw my abductor? I nodded in the affirmative to myself. The tenet of Occam’s razor would suggest yes. But I didn’t believe that.

I returned to my head and replayed my last memories prior to the abduction. Marcy broke up with me yesterday. It didn’t exactly come out of left field, but it was a gut punch, nevertheless. Regardless, Marcy isn’t behind this. She already put me behind her.

I let the memory reel continue. After the break-up, I went to a local watering hole to drown my sorrows. I had a few drinks, but no interactions with anyone besides the bartender. Nothing stood out. However, I felt a tickle in my brain. Was there something with the bartender?

I rewound the reel and played the bar scenes again in my mind. The establishment was slow most of the evening. In fact, the bartender and I were the only ones in the joint toward the end. Thinking back, my interactions with him were brief snippets of small talk. Less than that, really, because I was busy wallowing in self-pity over Marcy. I had my grandfather’s lighter out at one point, mindlessly spinning it around in my off-hand, the one not holding a drink. He asked me about the lighter.

Another tickle. I thought it through again. I didn’t notice it then, but there was something familiar about him. Like maybe I went to school with him? But I didn’t think that was it. Maybe he just gave off an everyman vibe. A lot of bartenders shoot for that because it makes them more relatable to the customer. Greater relatability often leads to better tips. Those vibes did emanate from him, but I believe there is more to this story. His familiarity bothered me now.

The bartender definitely asked me about the lighter. He mentioned his dad gave him one just like it. Just making conversation, right? I felt like the answer was right in front of me, jumping up and down, waving its arms and demanding to be seen. Minutes later, I saw it. No fucking way! Did he call me by my name?

I jumped up and pulled my phone from my pocket at the same time. I turned it back on. While I waited for it to boot up, I picked up the rotary receiver and tried 911 again. No dice. Goosebumps had popped out all over my body. I trudged across the room, holding my cell phone up, desperately seeking a signal. Luck was not on my side. I tried 911 anyway and got the same “try your call later” crap.

Aren’t mobile phones allowed to make emergency calls even without a provider? Now I was really freaking out. My options had flown the coop. I had no choice now. I had to bust through a wall and hope for the best.

On shaky legs, I went to the wall next to the bed. I kicked a hole in it on the first attempt, then widened it with the next two. I couldn’t see anything that looked promising behind the wall. I moved to the wall perpendicular to myself and repeated the process. Then the landline rang. My spirits soared, though in hindsight that seems foolish.

“Hello, can you hear me? I need help. They kidnapped me.” This all came out as verbal diarrhea.

“Hello, Billy. Or would you prefer I call you Mason Fleming?”

I was tongue tied. My stomach fell to my knees as the remaining puzzle pieces plopped into place. I had just confirmed, without question, that the bartender had indeed called me by my name last night. My real name. The jig is up. I stood there frozen, receiver held to my ear. My mouth was moving, but there were no words.

Billy Franklin spoke again. “Cat got your tongue? I think it would be simpler for me to call you Mason. Less confusing than each of us calling the other, Billy. Make yourself comfortable. There’s nowhere for you to go, Mason.”

Yes, the jig was up.