It Takes A Village

"Yeah man, apparently he's had a baby by Iggy Azalea"

Don spoke first; he's been hip and being in the know since he scored Pokémon Black 2 for Christmas. His grades were high then; they're decent now, but all he scores high marks in is the science of profit.

"There's probably a whole registry, like, of dudes who exchange their lives like it's money though.. That's probably why he's always on the lean because he has to live another person's life."

Frankie wasn't the philosophical type; he always seemed to just want to impress the lesser sex, not lesser in value but where men have no strength.

The pair have had a kinship since pizza parties in the fifth grade, but their banter had been worldly and short since Don's experience at Bonaroo, where he obviously lost his virginity. But Don will never tell. He does claim psychedelics fortified the festival, and Frankie couldn't help but tease Don like he'd gone to see a witchdoctor or something.

Maybe everybody needs a witchdoctor.

Their experiences are jointed at a seam by their shared dorm room. Outside friends here, maybe the odd frat party there, but Frankie and Don ate together; and Don's family on his mother's side are rooted in the pacific northwest's characteristic illegal cannabis industry.

Don and Frankie smoked together, as well.

But the pair could hardly be classified as potheads; they were clean and articulate. They also had a virtue: seeking authority had an odd way of anchoring the youths to the accountability of their uncharted adulthood.

Don had actually snapped Frankie back to the secular timeline with the aforementioned interjection; Frankie was finishing up reading John 14 in the New Testament.

Frankie's bible had always been an unlikely companion, but all in all Frankie had made better friends with the word than anyone will ever know.

The cull of triglycerides and complex carbohydrates bore at the students' appetites, they were probably the only two in university could keep in captivity. It was nearing high noon, and the sun was high in the sky; the nigh autumn 40 degree weather had a certain allure, so, Don, the comedian, motioned:

"Walk?"

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Frankie and Don peddled along, their destination "their" Burger King: the other Burger King. The Burger King downtown was for rich kids, posers, and squares and almost stunk of Wall Street.

There was a parting in their coniferous recreational stroll, almost symbolic. The sun shone hardly on a badly beaten-up, white paint scalded-off shack with a sole patrol car nested across the street.

"Do you see that evil marking on the wall of the house?" Don weaseled.

"Yeah, it's totally wicked bro." Frankie countered.

The scene was as real as it gets and squirmed alive as Don practically jested "Wait, don't make eye contact!"

National Geographic could not have documented a more profound exhibition of anthropological interest. The subject seemed totally unbothered by being bathed in blood; it looked as if a Methodist baptism had taken place.

"Is it me or are the cheese glowing?.. Dude?"

Frankie stood affixed. His childhood was defined by his mother taping America's Most Wanted, and various derivatives, to their hodgy TiVo his uncle claims to have won a subscription to in a raffle. It was a blessing and a curse because, as gurgled by spectating plebeians after a fight in middle school: "Frankie don't scare easy." But imagery of Charles Manson, the Zodiac, Timothy McVey, not even Jack the Ripper could convince Frankie they'd hold their steel if this con shot a glance their way. Frankie couldn't help but recall media appraising human sacrifice and the Illuminati he and Don binged, smoking pot until daylight. Because what set this con apart wasn't his gaze, but steam seemed to dance off of him like priestesses performing a sanguine libation to gods of old.

The enigmatic figure rang out from behind gold-rimmed irises "@#$% you looking at kid", but only Frankie would hear him.

Regardless, what surprised Frankie and Don the most is that there was no sound of a car door before the two were left staring off into space: alone. The standard expletive, a result of irony or confusion, railed simultaneously out of both mouths when Frankie noticed a mysterious black book nestled all nicely into the balding grass. Emphatically, the patch was the only consistent green for about 50 or 60 feet.

You couldn't miss it.

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Don pulls his face out of a cut in half Double Whopper to make very clear "I swear to God, dude, I'm gonna lose it if these people don't stop staring."

"Don. Don, dude, it's the book." Frankie ascertains. "I opened it when we were walking over here and I think I understand what happened to Adam in Eden.. y'know when he and the woman eat that fruit?"

"Do-.. d-.. you'd better not had-.." Don's voice surmounted racingly.

"What?" Frankie rattled as if lips conceived treasure alchemical belied by the humble meal before the two.

"I saw my name, your name; I saw.. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and every bourgeoisie and peon in between on the inside of this little book. It'd be a safe bet to assume this book is more of their life than their own life."

"You're trippin' bro; it's the middle of the week: we haven't even rolled anything up today." Don was firm. He continued "Let's go back to the dorm, I have to get ready for my Statistical Analysis In Medicine class. You know Bethany's in there, and I'm not worried about these losers; if Bethany talks to me we're gonna-.."

Frankie was already at the door and Don couldn't move fast enough to wrap up his franchised lifeline and catch Frankie.

"Geez, man you're moving faster than me and this is Bethany I'm talking about."

The two young men made note that it seemed space folded upon itself about how fast they'd returned to the location of their recent fated encounter; another awaited. Don exclaimed "Uh, wasn't that rundown shack on the other side coming from university?" Their voices could have tricked anyone they flanged in unison "Dunno, dude, but for sure that marks gone; some Courage the Cowardly Dog @#$% is going on around here."

"Frances." A voice chirped a throw away.

Don checked his phone "In just the amount of time she's said your whole a-- first name bro 15 minutes have passed; I gotta go, I'll see at the room." Don scurried along; he had full assurance his buddy was in the hands of the future, not the end.

"I know you. I knew you when I opened the book." Frankie's words were a counterpoint to his own name being spoken. "I understand.. the equity, the consolidation."

"Who would have thought God would sell Himself short to mortals; and that the grace of God could be mundane!" but his words were reduced to a wisp by the reassuring tone of perhaps a bank teller or registered nurse.

"Sir, I do not know everything, but principle closes more than bargains." she chisels into the exchange.

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Drumming and pitter-patter accosted the audible spectrum, yet even more judgmental the chiding of a close friend "Is it my place to say the book doesn't want you destroying it?"

Frankie and Don had since graduated from university but Frankie's face hadn't been in the Black Book since the day he and Don found it. It bodes and waits like a loyal canine exacerbating its' longing for its' master, whining, grieving, letting the world know of its' loss. Ascending to the status of alumni gave the friends a wealth of opportunity, but being the hum-drum, honest fellows they are, they settled to work their way to their definition of the top. An internship at IBM in Information Systems padded their futures like a soft mattress in a poverty-stricken neighborhood; and Frankie knew this ownership was God's way of handing over the helm: he'd fully believed the Black Book is a form of regalia. As if he'd hacked into and penetrated a simulation-based gaming platform and gained access to all of the truths available to him, Frankie stood before and entered the door to a whole new world. He'd been given the key to a world of equity, where bankruptcy could not define enterprise and economic compromise is not a factor of the value of goods.

The Black Book had bestowed Frances DeLecier a prize higher than any jewel or whole kingdoms.