Desperate By Dusk
By Alexander Salkin
Desperate By Dusk © 2019 Alexander Jon Salkin
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
Dedication and Acknowledgements
To my beloved wife Shari and my family for their understanding and patience. I love you all.
Special thanks to Geza Letso for his early editing assistance on this long term project. Hopefully, I learned something.
And to the State of New Jersey. This is about us. The parts they don't see. The things they can't control. And all the beauty we sometimes forget.
Lastly, this book is dedicated to the memory of Sheryl Dale Seader. You are not forgotten.
Preface
Desperate By Dusk began twenty years ago as a small hobby project. I lived in Milltown, New Jersey, and I was learning to do webcomics as a hobby at to help pass what were then rough times. I don't recall exactly how the story got its motivation, only that I particularly liked the idea of it when I came up with it. So, I practiced making a webcomic with an earlier incarnation of the Desperate By Dusk storyline, using dubious illustration skills, a second hand scanner, and an extremely out of date copy of Photoshop Elements, which I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I still use to this day.
Several of the characters in this story were present back then and their designs, as well as their motivations, have been mostly consistent from then to now. The original webcomic was an utter disaster. It had little to no audience for many reasons involving my own lack of skill at the time and receiving absolutely awful advice about the minutia of technical details from a then established webcomic creator. It was grainy, faded looking, and all around bad. I think I canned it before it even reached two dozen pages.
As time would go on, I would eventually revisit the idea of Desperate By Dusk's story, sometimes hashing out certain details through role playing games with friends who perhaps unbeknownst to them, were inspirations for some of the more important characters. Another time, I attempted to write Desperate By Dusk, only for the entire story to be lost on a computer dying. And then, there was the time a thumb drive containing an earlier prototype of the story vanished into that dimension where missing socks probably go. Regardless, something about DBD spoke to me. I've always believed that the difference between a gimmicky design/idea and something worth doing is the whether or not it still fascinates you long after you've conceived of it. And so, here it is. I hope to be able to tell you the further tales of Desperate By Dusk in the future as well.
On a final note… Desperate By Dusk is in some ways a love song to New Jersey's innate strangeness and potential, while not being in denial of the many problems haunting it. But more importantly, it's a story about people. It's about all of us. About what we are, who we were, and what we could be. It’s about how empathy, loyalty, and beauty can be found in the bleakest gardens.
Until then, mundus vult decipi.
-Alexander Salkin, March 16th 2019
CHAPTER 1
What happened?
What caused all of this?
Where were we but right here when these things came to be?
How did life slip from our clutched fingers
as grains of sand do
When we held our palms ever tightly.
Somewhere along the way, we got lost. And then we were separated.
Why must it be in the crossroads; we find each other at last?
When did we even begin? I can't remember anymore.
I wonder if we ever did now.
Why is reality like some horrible dream;
seemingly meaningless and unbelievable even if truth?
What is it all about? Does it have any worth? Do we?
Was there some shooting star in my mind's eye- I failed to wish upon? Some truth I doubted? Was there something, anything, anywhere at all?
Or am I the alleged dog who cannot see the range of colors
And never had the ability to know otherwise?
I find myself forever wandering, wondering...
seeing my world in grey indistinct tones.
It is said that ignorance is bliss.
For that, I disagree.
It frightens me like nothing else.
Know this:
This is not my story alone, nor am I the writer.
This is the chronicle of many.
This is our story.
I hope someone will understand when it's done.
Like so many industrial burgs of the current day and the gold boom towns which arose overnight some century and a half ago, the backwater of Dresden Port was just another casualty of modernization and the changing of the times. Between the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, it was an important stop over along the Brierberry Canal for trade, fishing, and regional transport. In its heyday, Dresden Port was founded by one Brywin Dresden, an experienced riverboat captain who recognized a viable middling point where the waters stood smoothly enough to harbor small interstate merchant vessels, while the nearby pine filled land had suitable lumber to host new homes, fish markets, and wagons, the latter of which would handle land based mercantilism. The area was dotted with many small yet bustling villages, all of them forming early European settlements in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Black Mountain. Heiowah. Georgeton. All of them fed by the once circulating blood of Dresden Port.
The modern day is not kind to what created it, of course. People end up in silent graves, their stories unrecorded and unknown. Towns are swallowed up into obscurity. Roads are rerouted. Lifestyles are changed. No one can own the land or the time they live in, although some might just define it. But such a fate, should the concept exist, is no guarantee of either fame or infamy. Even things that have changed the known universe may wind up in an effective Potter's field.
Today, it was raining. And so it had been for several days now. It was late spring, but it felt more like the middle of autumn. The trees were greening, yet a persistent chill in the air wouldn't depart the eastern state. Of course, anyone living there who was paying attention would tell you the weather had a mind of its own. The temperature wasn't known as being generally warm or usually cold. The climate was simply New Jersey. The concept was a bit harder to understand for those who lived outside its borders, much like their seemingly magical jug handles and U-turns.
Wondering if he truly should still be seeing the mist of his breath at this point in the season, a young man of his late twenties drove a gurgling work van down the Dresden Port backroads. It was grey. Or faded blue. It was hard to tell, but it was definitely a nineteen ninety Vandura, regardless of how one looked at it. Today, it was painted to the eyes with all the majesty of an old retired battleship. Rain fell erratically on his windshield, with either fury or gentleness, depending on the direction of the road. He sighed. He really needed to spend for some new windshield wipers already. These ones were only efficient at smearing loudly.
It had been a long day of work. Run this here, deliver that there, hand drop off this... same shit, different packaging was the dogma of the cour
ier. And it was cold. Damp chill wasn't Simon's friend. His knees weren't old whatsoever, but sometimes they felt it. Somewhere, a thieving old man was walking in stride on days like this. Maybe one day he'd deliver a manilla folder to his house and ask for his functioning joints back as a tip.
A traffic light at the Kerren Avenue intersection. Coming to a stop, he looked both ways with a lazy glance. Asphalt surrounded by weed strewn dirt road to his right. Asphalt surrounded by slightly more scrub brush pocked dirt to the left. He just wanted to go straight on. There was no one coming. There never was. Why in the nine hells did they ever need a crossing light here? There wasn't a store for half a mile down the road. There were barely even people out here.
Listening to fuzzy grunge music on the radio from a station well outside the area, he sat there. Willingly or not, Chief Madley installed one those horrible four way cameras on the traffic pole some months ago. Simon could never tell if they were recording anything, just as the authorities liked it. But he wasn't wealthy enough to chance it. His friend Jessie would probably analogize something along the keywords of 'big brother poverty control conspiracy' if Simon ever put the situation to discussion. Maybe someone in a modern automobile could chance it. Simon was just tired.
In any event, it was Friday, heading into evening now. With the deluges lately, tonight was going to be an absolute hassle, he was sure. It would be just like every weekend the boys could be gathered together. A quick stop off for extra large coffee at the only twenty four hour convenience store in Dresden Port and then a clandestine journey into the abandoned sites in the area. Or as Jessie simply liked to put it, 'ghost hunting'. When you're in a small town all your life and you became a cow tipping stereotype-? You broaden your horizons. Not that Dresden Port had many bovines to begin with.
The light turned green. With a skid of less than quality tires, the Vandura headed past the dubiously watchful eye of what was mainly a scarecrow in the machine. People would watch themselves if they felt paranoid enough, after all.
Simon arrived home some several minutes later. It was a little ramshackle of an abode. Old peeling white paint on wooden boards from the fifties. Roof badly in need of new shingles. Hard pressed dirt driveway with no intentionally planted grass in the yard... the likes of which couldn't be discerned from the rest of the more-or-less barren landscape. This was 'rural without the farms'. Simon's nearest neighbor couldn't even be seen without squinting down the dirt lane. On foggy nights, one wouldn’t know anything was out here, if not for the power lines on their old crooked wooden poles.
Checking inside as he shook off the wet cold for something decidedly less soul destroying but just as dank, Simon turned the lights on. It was a simple place. One large living room with a basic cable television. This main room also served as a dining room, game room, and bedroom when he passed out from reading on the couch. In reality, it connected to a small kitchen with a backdoor and a hallway leading to his actual mess of a bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and one room he kept permanently locked. That was his late father's room. As far as Simon was concerned, it would forever stay that way until he moved out, whenever that might be. Property taxes of this era were reason enough to go, but heavy enough chains placed by the state would suggest he never could. Again, such was New Jersey and its many faces.
Simon immediately kicked off his mud stained boots upon an old bristle door rug, undressed, and went for a shower, leaving his cell phone to charge. A warm shower was really all he wanted right now. Well, that and a good night's sleep. Rain made him restful and today was par for course. Perhaps there was time enough even for that. The boys, assuming no one welched out and cancelled, always met around eleven to midnight. But with weather like this, who knew? Maybe one of them would.
In the bathroom, Simon stared at the mirror as he started up the reluctant hot water. Listening to the soft drizzle in the tub and the more aggressive patter of what was on his old roof, he blearily gazed into his own reflection in a water spotted medicine cabinet mirror. Cleaning was not his strong point.
He took a quick shave. His short brown hair, culminating in woefully out of time sideburns, was easy to maintain too. It did lend a sense of style to him, but Simon wasn't a particularly loud or flamboyant person. It was just enough to give a sense of identity that he was comfortable with. Or at least, enough that he would bother with, anyway. As he placed the disposable razor on the bathroom sink counter, he found himself staring back at the man in the mirror, not merely for inspecting his work.
Simon found the expressionless man on the other side was him and despite the obviousness, it still amazed him somewhat. Beneath that vacant look with prescription strength John Lennon sunglasses (worn regardless of the hour) was someone who was lifeless and ultimately drifting through his existence. How could someone have such blue eyes and lack a sparkle of vibrancy within them? One day, that face would be wrinkled and several times more weary. Would he still feel the same? More importantly, would he feel anything?
While it couldn't be said that Simon was a true stoic, his life was routine and mediocre, giving rise to his own spiritual apathy. He often thought about such things even while driving and peeking into the rear view mirror, although there the expression looked back at him with anger, if just from the angle of the viewer. Every day was mainly the same and he wasn't motivated enough to figure out a way to make it more worthwhile. He knew he had no one but himself to blame, but at the same time, he made little effort to change things. He felt stuck within his own ennui and uncertainty of what to do. Late twenties, working a dead end job with an old well used van and a beat up looking house in the middle of nowhere. He dreaded the thought of being the elderly sod working out of necessity on the graveyard shift at a fast food restaurant in his winter years. He'd seen that poor lonely man in almost every town, while making a late night snack run with his friends.
Things such as the ghost hunting somehow made the work week a little more bearable. Ironically, it was a light at the end of the tunnel, while looking for those who apparently stepped away from that very same. Simon and Jessie had some interest in the unknown and unexplained. It made him feel a little more as though he was alive, if just by comparison to the subject matter. Extinguished factories, ominous woods after dark, and cemeteries. It began one night with a cheap thrill done on a bored whim and sometime later, evolved into a weekly passion for the mysterious. That something was far and away from the doldrums of his life. It felt more real than he was, at least.
His gaze shifted slowly down from his own dismaying reflection to the off-white certainty of his ceramic sink. His little hobby with his friends had grown into something else entirely since they began their treks roughly a year or two ago. Simon was looking for something he couldn't find in his job, in his house, or even amongst the immediate company of his friends. Somewhere within the maze of the unknown and the unexplained, he hoped some quiet corner of his mind or soul would click with recognition. Inspiration perhaps, caused by an experience he could not define.
He couldn't explain it well, at least not amongst sober friends, but he felt inexplicably certain that one night while engaged in this activity, he might just find what he sought more than anything else. It was deceptively simple and yet abstract all at once. That thing... it was a hunch and truly nothing more, but he believed he might recognize it for what it was when he saw it. And it would rouse him from this restless sleep of a half alive existence. He was sure of it. Of course, maybe his friends would bail tonight. Maybe this soft neutral coma would continue on a bit longer like a mother's blanket- peaceful yet stifling the longer it was left on.
Awakening with a start later that same night, Simon found himself passed out on the living room couch. He was sure he had only rested his eyes when he found hours had passed and his rather basic cell phone was chirping angrily every few seconds. He never really got a comfortable feel for the sounds those things made, yet he didn't care to download something less annoying. Seemed like a waste of money for what it was.
It was a text message. And the telltale rumbling of an old Ford engine could be heard past the creaking walls and storm outside. Simon didn’t even need to check his phone. Ramone was waiting. Simon checked for his wallet and dug out whatever he might need in the pocket of his jeans that would not be easily soaked outside. He was going sans umbrella. The last one broke a month ago.
Ramone was the kind of alpha male that most other guys wanted to be. He was a handsome guy of some Italian descent and the girls loved him, especially with that smooth slicked back shoulder length ebony hair of his. He worked on cars for a living from the Peterson lot and got to borrow whatever he wanted from the old man's stored collection. And he was in great shape. Of the three friends, Ramone’s occupation probably was the overall best suited for him. His life was stress free from what anyone could tell. More so, he was almost universally likable. He could be an ass like anyone else at times, but his charisma kept people coming back. He just had a way about him.
While it’s worth noting that Simon went to high school with Jessie, he spent a majority of his school years in some class or another with Ramone. If they hadn’t grown up together, they might not have associated, as they were different as night and day in most respects. Ramone was simply on a higher social level, with some new lady friend on his shoulder every other month or so. On his even more stellar days, both shoulders were occupied.
During his senior year in high school, Ramone was recorded in the yearbook as having been voted most popular student by his peers, only losing first place to a fellow classmate who saved a family from a burning house. He played football. He even led in the high school play, despite having no background in acting, much to the impotent envy the drama class clique. Sometimes, Simon didn’t see him much back then despite their shared schedule. It was only after high school that Ramone seemed quite content to leave behind what transient glory he’d had.
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