Frankford

My personal discomfort is swallowed and internalized in favor of keeping things on an even keel.

I usually write fiction and poetry, but this is a true story.

He’s a good boy. Takes care of himself. Doesn’t ask for much. Really, he’s the perfect pet.

One night he followed me and Janine home. It was before sunrise, the sky was still dark with daylight threatening to break through at any moment. We were leaving a warehouse party and coming down from an acid trip. Walking toward the Frankford El we caught him trotting behind us just a few paces.

Janine noticed him first. She poked me and squealed, “Oh my god he’s just so cute.” 

The three of us climbed the stairs onto the platform to wait for the train. Janine was buzzing, immediately smitten with his wide shoulders and woolen hair. He took notice of her, too, plopped his big head onto her lap and breathed gently, moistening the velvet of her skirt with the scent of moldy oranges. When the train arrived, we all boarded, huddled close together in the empty car. At our stop, we got off. And he followed, scampering behind us the whole way home. 

“Let’s call him Frankford,” Janine said as she cut open a large cardboard box next to her bed for him to sleep on. Without a question, he belonged to her. No one asked me if I wanted to take on an extra boarder, but I didn’t put up a fuss. I didn’t want to sour the vibe. Healthy boundaries and the ability to set them have always been a hindsight thing for me. My personal discomfort is swallowed and internalized in favor of keeping things on an even keel. Maybe it’s another one of those child-of-an-alcoholic learned behaviors that stick with you and are hard to shake in adulthood without professional intervention. 

Janine and I had been living together a month at that point, and had only first met a few weeks before she moved into my place. It was one of those fast friendships. Convenient and sensible. You know the type. Or maybe you don’t. 

The two of us met one day when I was picking up an ounce from my dealer. She was sitting on the black pleather couch, clutching a blunt roach all wild eyed and friendly, acting like I was the most interesting thing in the room, asking me what my big three are and telling me I needed to read Kathy Acker. Right from the start the banter was great, like our dialogue was lifted directly from a Gilmore Girls episode, all quick volleys of cultural references and one-upping each other’s last line.

She told me she was living with her ex and needed a place to stay so right then and there I offered her my spare room. My hours at work kept getting cut, and I was trying to avoid taking on a second job to help with the rent. It seemed like a win-win. And after my own rocky breakup which involved getting my locks changed and enrolling in firearms training classes, I was definitely glad to have some company. At first. 

With Frankford, we became a happy little unit, working our shifts and coming home to share the responsibility of caring for our new addition. Feeding him, bathing him, making sure he always had a clean bowl of water. We divided the duties evenly, but anyone could tell he belonged to Janine. It was her voice he responded to. Every night after getting home from the bar she took him on a long walk so he could relieve himself and get some exercise. It was the best part of his day; before she could even get in the door his whole body would shudder uncontrollably, somewhat grotesquely, in thrilling anticipation. I envied the apparent love he had for her, couldn’t understand what she had that I didn’t, but I was happy to have my bedroom to myself. Frankford took up a lot of space. 

After a while, living with Janine started feeling like a second job for me. Whatever surface level similarities brought the two of us together didn’t have much staying power. It wasn’t easy living with her. 

Once the honeymoon phase of having a new friend and housemate started to wane, there were these tendencies she started to exhibit that really bugged me. 

Like anytime I wanted to share something about my day, she would interrupt me, loudly finding something in her life to relate it to. 

She only had like two pairs of pants and maybe five blouses so I would let her borrow my clothes whenever she wanted. Even with full access to my closet, she never said thank you or seemed grateful. When I smelled moldy oranges in my underwear drawer while getting dressed one morning i wanted to blow up on her, but resigned myself to quietly washing my bra in the sink in lieu of starting an awkward argument.

Frankford helped gloss over any resentment that was building on my end. He was an ever-present distraction and kept us both busy. And when my manager at the grocery store got fired for stealing gut cleanse kits from the supplement section and selling them on eBay I was able to pick up some extra shifts.

Some time last spring, a couple months after we first brought Frankford home, Janine took him for a walk and didn’t come back. I was in my bedroom watching the season three finale of Dexter on my laptop when I heard them leave the house. Season four of Dexter was just kicking in when Frankford returned alone, banging his head on the door repeatedly to be let in. Without looking at me, he retreated to Janine’s room, leaving a trail of dark goo behind him. 

Despite the fact that we had grown to dislike each other, I didn’t think Janine would just leave like that. Especially without Frankford. I wasn’t sure if I should report her as missing, it didn’t seem like my problem,  but I did take the time to stop by the cafe where she worked to see if anyone had seen her, then reached out to her ex on Facebook so he could let Janine’s family know in case they wanted to look into it. 

Frankford started acting weirder after that night. He spends his days now slack-eyed and sluggish, his large body spread out on his cardboard bed drooling pus onto Janine’s favorite sweatshirt, mangling the threadbare stitches of her fading scent with his own, and only relinquishing after midnight to lug over to the kitchen to slurp the slurry I leave out for him. 

Frankford never paid much mind to me, and still doesn’t. There are moments where he can be sweet but he knows that I pity him. When I go into Janine’s old room and navigate around his messes, I see what I can only describe as pain in his big cow-like eyes. Maybe even shame. I do my best to keep the place clean, to be the kind of friend to him that Janine was, but I’m a cheap replacement. If only I could do more. 

Once I went through Janine’s closet in an effort to put Frankford in a brighter mood. I undressed and slipped into one of my sweaters that Janine had laid claim to. My thought was if he could still smell her on me, maybe he might like me more. But the gesture was transparent. He knew I was tricking him. I think I even caught him rolling his eyes. I know I’m not the one he chose, but I try to make him happy. I hope he knows that. 

Every now and then, but always when it's still dark, before dawn, I am able to coax him out of his bednest and we walk together under the tracks of the elevated train, only a few stops away from where he found us that night. He leads me there. He stands over me and moans, staring off into the distance, perhaps hoping to catch sight of Janine. Or someone more similar to Janine. 

I think some day in the future he will run off and find someone else to follow. One day he will leave me and that will be that.