The Importance of Being Frank
Frank has always been a reserved person. If you were to ask his parents about why he always keeps to himself they would probably just shrug and say he was always that way. But that’s because they never talked to him. Frank used to be open and laugh instead of smirk. But nothing gold can stay. However, this message is too premature. No one can truly understand it as Frank does until his story is told. So let’s start where it began, when Frank was still a boy. Yes, back to that time when boys aren’t ashamed to tell their fathers they love him.
Today is such a beautiful day. I wonder what Miss Wylie will teach us in English class today. I hope we read more about that Frosty guy.
Frank used to walk to school from home…then he took the bus though his parents never understood why he’d deal with the bullies on the bus. Despite their best efforts, Frank’s parents had been forced to raise him in the city mainly because they couldn’t afford the suburbs. Not that they were particularly present in his upraising, but they tried. Frank, however, would never realize his parents were absent in his childhood. You can’t know how to miss a mom or dad unless you’ve ever had them. But such thoughts are pointless. What if’s, if only’s, these phrases are only dreams, but worse than dreams because they’re about the past and offer no light to the future. For years after today, Frank would live in a world of these sorts of dreams until he finally accepted that there is only one past and only one future and a man just has to make his own path and never look back.
Nowadays, Frank works from home. He was never able to escape the city. Despite his desire to be by himself Frank was able to meet a beautiful woman, Audrey, at a church retreat and slowly the two realized they were of the same soul. Once the honeymoon was over Audrey joined the police academy and was out on the streets in no time. Oddly, Frank didn’t mind that she was on the streets fighting crime. After all, she had a brute of a fellow officer and in a few years she’d be a paper pusher. As for Frank, he stuck to computer programming and usually had ivory skin to show his dedication to his work. Audrey would have made a point for him to get out of the apartment more but honestly it was much easier to have him at home since their son Zacchaeus was born. Frank was always able to walk him to the bus stop and walk him home. Frank was able to be the father he had never experienced and it felt good. Zacchaeus was going to be a great young man. He was growing more handsome as the years went by and he was much more active than his father. Zacchaeus even joined the school football team, something his father never had the confidence to do.
Going to school, Frank had always stuck to the same old route day after day and week after week. So today as he walked to school, listening to the birds chirp, it occurred to him that it would be faster to go through the alleys to get to school. In fact, he didn’t understand why it had taken him this long to realize this fact. But still the alleys were dark and it seemed like there was an odd homeless person lying in the alley floor.
Pull yourself together. This will be an adventure. Ha, I’ll take the road less travelled. Who knows? Maybe it’ll make all the difference. I can talk about it with Miss Wylie, she’d like me living out the poems.
And so Frank chose to go into the alleys. And as he left the main side walk and started to go further from the light, Frank felt eyes on him. As he continued Frank saw the homeless man with more detail. Had he been more worldly, Frank would have recognized the stench of stale alcohol and had Frank been more perceptive, he would have recognized the sight of a man who has given up on himself. Now Frank had always been taught to stay away from strangers but when this man called for Frank to come over and help him up…well what’s the harm in helping another person.
I took the road less travelled and that has made all the difference…how many people would help this man?
It didn’t take long for Frank to grasp the man’s true intention. Screaming wasn’t an option, the homeless man was homeless, not stupid, and so Frank’s mouth had quickly been sealed with ducktape. The next ten to fifteen minutes are ones that Frank would spend the next ten to fifteen years trying to suppress and forget as the homeless man took him into a house of cardboard whispering all the time that it would be over sooner if Frank would just keep still. Unfortunately for him, Frank had an excellent memory.
Once Frank was sexually assaulted to the man’s contentment, the homeless man became angry and told Frank that it was his fault for going into that alley in the morning and that everyone knew no one should go there in the mornings. The man told Frank how much trouble he was in but agreed to not tell Frank’s parents, and he suggested Frank not tell anyone either. In fact, it would be better to never utter a word about the incident since it would get Frank in big trouble and then his parents would be disappointed in him. Frank was too shaken up to argue and agreed that he never wanted to talk about what happened with anyone. Then the man told him to go to school and to not cry. The man’s last words echoed in Frank’s head as he ran to school: Make sure to hurry to school. And for godsake don’t cry. You’re a man now. Men don’t cry. Why aren’t the birds singing anymore?
Frank was a few minutes late to his English class but Miss Wylie didn’t ask him why he was late. He must have woken up a little late. And so she continued their education on Robert Frost poems. The poem she shared with them today was “Nothing Gold can Stay”:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Once she had finished reading the poem the students were all confused and no one knew how to interpret it. No one but Frank, only moments ago had Eden escaped him and he was stuck with the stain of original sin and a dull ache in his body. And so while all the other boys and girls were trying to figure out how gold couldn’t stay where it was, Frank said he had to go to the bathroom where he proceeded to stay for the rest of class crying. That was the last time he cried.
That day was a long time ago and Frank had grown into a man without ever talking about what had happened to him. Even Audrey didn’t know. But Frank no longer saw it as a rape of sorts. Now he saw it as more of a ceremony. His father never told Frank when he’d be a man but the homeless man told him he was after the deed was done. It was his induction ceremony into manhood.
Then one day, when Zacchaeus was in the seventh grade he came home crying saying his football coach took advantage of him after the other kids had left practice. Now it was Zacchaeus’ turn to notice that the melody of the birds was nowhere to be heard. Frank held Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus proceeded to cry for another half an hour in Frank’s arms. Split between what to tell his son, Frank decided to just say both of the things he was thinking. Looking at the clock, it would be hours until Audrey came home. And so Frank pulled his son from his chest and told him the two facts he had learned from his own experience.
“Son, you are a man now. Men don’t cry. So get cleaned up before your mom comes home. We aren’t to speak about this with her, do you understand? She wouldn’t understand. It may not make any sense to you but your coach has done something important for you today. So make sure not to betray him.”
Then Zacchaeus proceeded to cry even more and asked why he couldn’t tell on the coach. Why couldn’t Mom know?
And so Frank told him the second fact he had learned. But even he choked up a little as he told his son:
“Because Zach, it wouldn’t make a difference. It would only hurt her. But now you know…the truth…nothing gold can stay.”
On the rare occasions Zach and Frank would hear the birds sing a song, they couldn’t help but notice it sounded more like a dirge.
*Author’s Note: Zacchaeus means “clean”, “pure”
