Chapter 9: Freddy Katt

Maybe he had been too caught up in his own little world to give anyone else a moment’s thought, and perhaps it was silly of him to be concentrating on the deal he made with an affiliate of the pharmaceutical company he worked for, but Freddy Katt would no longer be sidelined by his own weakness to feel bad about things over which he had no control. There was a time when he felt guilty about almost everything, stuff that went back to his high school years, and these events still lingered in him and haunted him all the same.

He remembered a time at the academy when the school’s chaplain took him aside after he had punched another student during soccer practice, an incident he recalled as clearly as the blue sky above him. From that moment on he vowed never to hit anyone in the same manner again and swore that he would commit all of his energies towards good thoughts and a few vague moral rules that would somehow get him through life unscathed. Such a commitment would lead to good deeds that would set the goodness of the universe in motion. Nothing but goodness could result from thinking positively, he thought at the time, and maybe from that point on he could avoid sucker-punching people at play and getting into trouble over it.

But his deal with a well-known distributor to buy truckloads of a new anti-psychotic drug that had gone through rigorous testing and FDA approval just a week earlier needed only a signature by the vice president of the company, or basically, the consent of his boss. Freddy’s boss, a man he had gone to school with back in the mid-80s, was also a good friend who had engineered his promotion to head sales representative just a few years ago. The man lived on an elaborate estate just south of Innsbrook Harbor, on a sprawling palatial retreat where he took his wife and two young sons to sunbathe and swim in the ocean.

The manor-home sat upon a high dune that sloped into the beach. Freddy thought of the water and how just one visit to his boss’ home could cure him of the many ailments that stole the innocence from his life.

His boss seemed to have it all – a beautiful wife, two brilliant sons, who would probably attend Ivy league schools when they got older, and of course, he was wealthy.

Freddy also had money, but not the kind that his boss had. His boss was old money, the kind that came with disposition. Freddy, on the other hand, had at one time been flat broke and had to crawl his way to the top by working harder and faster and longer. He lived in the city, while his boss lived in both town and country, making him a well-balanced man altogether, and it seemed that nothing would stop his boss from one day becoming the CEO of the company he worked for.

Freddy stuck with him, as though he could get to the top also by riding his coattails. But because of this strategy Freddy always played second fiddle to his high school friend. That’s how things worked, and it was something he accepted without reservation. He was lucky enough to be working at such a high level in the first place, and for that he should have been thankful instead of constantly wanting more, or at least this is what he told himself day-by-day at company headquarters as his boss hung around the beach house in his swim-trunks and holding an afternoon cocktail.

He pondered this relationship with his boss as he drove his Porsche convertible along a coastal highway that snaked its way over jagged mountain rocks on either side of him. The sun splashed its warmth over him, and he tuned his satellite radio to the type of easy listening station that would normally put any other person to sleep but somehow excited him that afternoon.

‘There’s nothing like commercial-free,’ he thought to himself, as the wind tousled his hair.

Secretly he had always looked forward to spending some time at the beach home, and his suitcase full of paperwork was good excuse for a road trip. He was lucky enough to get out of the office on such a brilliant afternoon, and he didn’t need anything else but a drink and a view of the ocean.

The highway ducked into a valley, and he was soon in a quaint town that bordered the beach and vast flatlands to the east. There were a few restaurants that served vegetarian specialties, a few jewelry stores that advertised in the fancy men’s magazines he had subscribed to, and also a small eatery that served all sorts of coffee and teas, the type of place where one could see a music school dropout playing Bob Dylan or a poet reading from a tattered journal book. But there was hardly anyone in the town that afternoon. They all seemed to be at the public beach a few blocks down, as there were several cars and mountain bikes parked near there.

The road split at a dead end, and a long, narrow trail curved down to the beachfront. He was happy to see a few long-legged women in bikinis sunning themselves on the sand and also a group playing volleyball at the ocean’s edge. The only noise he could hear were the sounds of the ocean beating on the shoreline, the wind, and the occasional squawking of seagulls that had suspended themselves midair.

The trail itself was unpaved, and he drove slowly so as not to ruin his car’s suspension. The road was made more for an SUV than a sports-car, and he turned the stereo low to hear the movement of his car along the bumps, sharp dips, and ascents that typified the beach’s changing surface. The beach road ended at another paved road embellished with lush lawns and gated homes on either side of it. The homes were well guarded by walls of ivy-covered stone too tall to look over. One could only sneak quick looks through the bars of the gates to find meandering driveways that led to pillared mansions, the ocean their backyards. Movie stars lived on this road along with a host of other famous people who had played the game of life skillfully enough and seemed to have everything he didn’t. Even though he envied these people, he couldn’t deny that he really wanted to be a part of their crowd. He only got as far as his boss, though, who invited him over every so often like it was a charity event. He could taste the cherry on the Pina Colada already, and maybe he could even stay over if he played with the kids long enough.

His boss’ estate was well fortified and secure, almost like a castle that kept the strangers away, and an intercom with a surveillance camera beamed right at him and followed his car onto a circle that curved into the house. He parked his car on the gravel and checked himself in the rearview mirror before ringing the doorbell.

The maid let him inside with a slight grin, and immediately the two young boys, as blonde as sunshine over the beach, scurried up to him from another wing of the house and yelled his name over and over. It felt good to hug a couple of cherubs every once in a while.

Freddy didn’t have a family as of yet. He chose a professional life over any sort of family, and while he did miss the company of a wife at home and children of his own, he became used to his bachelorhood and the long hours he put in at headquarters. His boss sometimes tried to set him up with other women, but his blind dates were usually one-night stands. On the next-mornings he had trouble talking of mundane topics, and the conversation always returned to work and his position at the company. His women were never surprised by his suggestion that they take the latest drug for any number of conditions they might be having. He then ran off and left them, usually as they slept.

Some people had to work for it, he figured, and women who talked lazily of their night’s out with former boyfriends and far-off trips to islands in the Caribbean never really got the point that he would always have to climb mountains to be comfortable in his own skin, and the women were indeed incredibly beautiful, both in their looks and their girlish charms, but none of them wanted to commit to his kind of climb. They took the easy route, and they were probably better people for it. He saw his road, however, as hard and gruesome with no end in sight. He’d always be chasing something, and lately it seemed that he wanted everything his boss had. He even wanted the two kids at his knees who seemed a part of the same conspiracy of beauty that had always excluded him. It was an awkward feeling that never went away, and rather than fight the entire conspiracy against him, he went along with it and came to believe that more overtime at company headquarters would rid him of this misfit status within the club of the wealthy few who paid his salary. It worked for a time, but the kids at his knees, still yelling his name, reminded him of how far he had to go in order to become a part of something just a few notches greater than himself. And they were beautiful kids – the type of kids one would find on a cereal box or in a toy commercial. Their success had been predetermined, and patting their heads was the closest Freddy could get to something like that.