The Almost Freedom of Fred Mode

By Jeff Warrington

Long-term unemployed alcoholic Fred Mode makes hapless attempts to improve his life, all of which are doomed to inevitable failure. But change he must and he does give up the drink, only to find that the more stubborn aspects of addiction remain.
With his attempts to reform he finds he has to make a choice that could change his life fundamentally. But can he break away from the comforting familiarity of his past and will his future be determined by factors beyond his control?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melrose Books
• Release date: Jan 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911280903

Book preview

Chapter 1

Aknock on the window Who the fuck’s that? thought Fred as he lay in bed. It was a given that his associates, his fellow jobseekers, knocked on the windows and not the door. Adjusting his pillows he tried to ignore it. No use.

Fred had a fair idea who it was. It was either Jobseeker X or Jobseeker Y. He knew it wasn’t Jobseeker Z because Fred, although unsure of the exact day, knew it wasn’t the weekend – he only ever saw Jobseeker Z at the weekends. He never asked why. Tap tap bloody tap irritating his already disturbed semi-conscious dreamscape. The knock on the cold window pane eventually dragged Fred to the fullness and coldness of reality with an arctic blast. Fucking ’ell, he muttered as he struggled with his first task of the day: putting his boxers on the right way round.

He got himself dressed to answer the door, slightly annoyed, but secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t the bailiffs. They’d knocked on the door on a couple of occasions. Previously the sound had aroused his curiosity to the extent that it got the better of his rational judgement and he’d opened the door. The knock on the door had been lupine. Fittingly, the metal knocker nailed to the door was the shape of a wolf’s head. Rational judgement told him to ignore the wolf at the door, but on the couple of occasions that curiosity, or just plain rage, had won the day and he’d answered it the exchanges had been brief.

Mr Mode? the creditor representative enquired, clipboard and authority in hand.

Never heard of him, replied Fred. He shut the door and went back to bed. They’d sent him enough letters in the last year or so for him to wallpaper the shitty flat he lived in. A knock on the window was a different matter. It was a bit like getting into a speakeasy at Fred’s. A tap on the window meant that the visitor was welcome: wilkommen, bienvenue, croeso. A call of the wild and you could fuck off.

He shifted his arse and let his mate in. It was Jobseeker X. What day is it? asked Fred.

Tuesday, I think, yawned Jobseeker X.

Good thing you woke me up, got to sign on today, said Fred with a mixture of gratitude and annoyance.

Jobseeker X wasn’t even listening. He never did, or at least he never showed much sign of doing so. He said, Stick the kettle on then; cup of Rosie. Jobseeker X was of course hinting at something other than tea. He had not called round for a cup of Brooke-Bond; the picture of a beautiful woman picking leaves off a tea plant was not on the packaging of Fred’s breakfast, but the name of some bloke who’d written something called The Cherry Orchard was. Not that there were any cherries to break the fast either. Jobseeker X had come around for that other thirst quencher: ‘little water’. Fred poured him a glass.

Is this glass clean? asked X as he held it up to the dim light. He was a fussy bugger; he’d only pour something toxic down his throat if it had come out of a clean glass. He reminded Fred, in this respect, of vegetarians. If the fruit of Checkhov’s bottle was offered from a foot spa as the only available vessel then X would have drunk it, just as a vegetarian would probably eat raw meat if he was hungry enough. This fastidiousness annoyed Fred. He thought that what was usually considered to be a right to choose was more usually a privilege to do so. Hardship and necessity determined that the condition of the vessel, or indeed its content, would be of little consequence to the thirsty and hungry.

They both sat in silence as Fred poured himself and his associate some more breakfast. Fred scratched his head with his right hand and his arse with his left. Never scratch it with your right, his mother had told him when he was a kid. It’s unlucky, she’d reasoned. Never drink out of damp glasses, his father used to say. It’s unlucky. It took a while for Fred to realise that his old man was taking the piss. He looked at Jobseeker X drinking out of a damp and unclean glass and thought about this dubious piece of parental advice. He wondered if he’d drunk out of dry glasses (whatever they were) and scratched his arse with his right hand instead of his left then would he have got lucky now and again.

What you up to today, Fred? asked X.

Told you, said Fred. Got to go and sign on.

Unlucky, said X. I don’t have to bother anymore. Fred looked at him. On the sick, he explained. Fred knew that there were any number of conditions and circumstances that prevented Jobseeker X from working, or indeed looking for work, but none of them, he would have thought, would carry much weight with the Department of Work and Pensions. By all accounts they were virtually dragging people from their deathbeds to go and look for it.

Sick? What’s the matter with you?

Bad back.

Fred felt a mixture of admiration and envy, but mostly envy. How does he do it? Jobseeker X grinned and held up his empty glass to Fred. Fred filled it up and then likewise his. He’d known some skivers and shirkers in his time, highly skilled in avoiding anything that resembled work and he was no amateur himself. But X? He made Fred look like a Stakhanovite.

That’s what you want to do, Fred. Go to the doctor and get a note. I got one for three months. You shouldn’t have too much problem there. I mean look at you, a picture of ill health. I’m sure the doctor would give you three months. X was still grinning. Six months tops.

It was the grin that Fred hated, the grin that he wore when Fred was the butt of his joke. But he’d planted a seed in Fred’s mind. All he needed was a medical term to describe his health, mental and physical.

Well, I got to make a move, said Fred looking at the clock on the top of his empty fridge.

Yeah, me too. People to see, things to do. Busy busy, and with that, X drained his already empty glass of the couple of the drops stuck to its inside and left the flat. Fred thought about him for a moment. Busy busy? Bad back? It occurred to him that in the few years he’d known him he knew next to nothing about him. He’d asked him once, a serious question in the hope that he might get some pointers as to how he might be able to alleviate his own boredom during the long hours of the day, what he did all day (when he wasn’t around Fred’s place drinking his vodka). X had replied Oh you know, this and that. Fred concluded that whatever ‘this and that’ entailed it couldn’t be that fulfilling otherwise he wouldn’t be around here almost every other day getting drunk with him. No, X’s grasp of his own reality was obviously not firm enough to bring home the reality of that reality. His life was probably as empty as Fred’s. Still, he always managed to make Fred a little uncomfortable in that he seemed to be sneering at the emptiness of Fred’s existence, made him think that when he was not with Fred he was doing something to be envied and even admired without going into any detail. The reasons for X’s self-importance were kept vague. Fuck ’im. He poured himself one last drink before going to the Office of Pointlessness. God he hated Tuesdays.

He hated them more than any other day of the week, and Tuesdays were up against some pretty stiff competition from the other six. But today as he walked down the familiar route to the Office of Pointlessness he was feeling unusually mellow. Today had been different to his usual start to the day, in that Jobseeker X had woken him up before his usual dawn chorus had got there. As much as Fred thought he was a supercilious prick, being woken by him was far more preferable to his usual welcome to the day. On a usual morning he woke up to his demons: Fear and Anxiety. Those twins were his reveille. But today X had beaten them to it and the vodka was flowing down Fred’s throat before they’d had time to clear theirs. His other demons, and they were legion, were having their usual lie-in, but he would doubtless meet them later.

On his way to the Office of Pointlessness he thought of many things. Too many, in fact. His other demons were beginning to stir. His thoughts sometimes tortured him. There was no escape from the crap that brewed up in his head. It was a bit like having some song or television theme music banging around in his head. He couldn’t get rid of it just like he couldn’t get rid of his thoughts. What is the point of going to the Office of Pointlessness? He wondered if anyone would give him a job. Certainly the good people in the Office of Pointlessness weren’t going to find him one. He didn’t want one. So what was the point? The point, of course, was jobseekers’ pocket money allowance. But it wasn’t that simple; there were obstacles to negotiate before they parted with any of the tax-payers’ hard earned cash. Fred was aware of this of course, even if it seemed to him that his dreams sometimes made more sense than his fortnightly trek. There was no chance of finding a job through this office, more likely to find one in there if they’d sacked somebody and a post, or rather a desk, had become vacant.

Deep in the depression of the Office of Pointlessness, Fred was drifting off to Noddyland. He contemplated the name Chekhov idly as he idled on the sofa. He was singing Fred a lullaby as he waited on the comfy sofa for a summons from a desk to provide evidence that he was who he was and evidence that in the past fortnight he had looked for work. He’d heard of the great Russian playwright, he thought, as he snoozed in the warmth of the central heating and the inner warmth of the little water that bore his name. Fred had never read any of his stuff. The name had probably been the answer to a question on some quiz on that mind-numbing shit called daytime TV. The sort of crap watched by jobseekers, old people and those future jobseekers called students.

Mr Mode, please.

Mr Mode to desk E, louder this time. Fred woke up from his doze and walked over to desk E and sat down with what he thought was a convincing expression that told of enthusiasm for finding work in the near future coupled with dismay at his failure to find any in the past fortnight.

Can I see your job log, Mr Mode? demanded the pilot of desk E without looking at him. Fred fought the urge to come out with some half-arsed joke and a visual accompaniment that would have at least got him escorted out of the building by security and probably arrested. He quickly reminded himself that humour of any kind was ‘strictly verboten’ in the Office of Pointlessness. Like smoking. He searched through his pockets for that piece of fiction called a ‘job log’. It was a folded piece of paper covered in illegible scrawl; a record of some jobs he hadn’t applied for in the last fortnight.

Did you know, Mr Mode, that your name is almost an anagram of ‘freedom’? Desk E smirked as she tried to read the drivel on his job log.

No, said Fred. Never occurred to me before. Bit like ‘Mr Smoketoomuch’, he replied in his usual cackhanded attempt to be humorous and civil.

Oh no, said Desk E, you can’t smoke in here. She looked at him in the face for the first time since he’d sat down opposite. Normal service resumed.

Fuck me. He’d inadvertently muttered the last two words of his thoughts.

I’m sorry; did you say something, Mr Mode?

No, eh no, Fred said. He just wanted to sign his name and get out of there.