LITERAL : STORIES
THE UNFORTUNATE DEATH OF FRANKLIN DELL
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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE AND TWO
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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE AND TWO
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Franklin Dell owned a knife shop. He boasted to all of his customers that he was training to become a knife thrower, and he boasted to all of his friends that he lived on the edge of everything: life, safety, sanity . . . . When he was at his knife shop, he always tossed or juggled knives to pass the time, sometimes scaring people with his seeming carelessness. When he drove home at night, he always drove as fast as he could until his scanner told him a cop was nearby, but then he would still go five over. When he went to the movies, he always snuck in his own food, and if he thought he could get away with it, he would also sneak in bottles of beer. When he listened to his music (usually death metal), he played it loud enough to feel his eardrums tingle. Everything Franklin Dell did, in fact, he did on the edge, and he never ended up with scars to show for it. His luck—even though he didn't believe in the concept—was unparalleled, so he gave himself tattoos in commemoration of his particularly dangerous accomplishments. His friends called him Freaky Frank because of them. On his left arm, he had one that commemorated his victory at a street-racing contest, one that portrayed a motorcycle stunt he successfully landed, and one that memorialized his battle with a boa constrictor. On his right arm, he had a tattoo that told of the time he tried to pick a fight with a bear, one that showed him bungee jumping, with tally marks to indicate how many times he had done so, one that honored his knife fight with a man who tried to steal his drink (it ended in a draw), and a few more that depicted various small accomplishments. Obviously, Franklin was most comfortable when he was least certain of his safety. It’s ironic—or perhaps fitting—then, that his life should be brought to an end by his one foray into mediocrity.
One day, while working at his knife shop, Franklin received a call from his friend Millie, a mild-mannered, mediocre woman who owned the quiet Thrifty Gifty gift shop down the street. Millie explained to Franklin how she was going out of town for a couple of days and wanted someone to look after the store, and since she trusted Franklin—and he actually had one employee who could watch his store—she figured he might be able to help out.
“I’ll buy you Quibbie’s for a month if you do this for me, Frank,” pleaded Millie. Quibbie’s Sub Shop was a nice little place where they met for lunch every Friday to talk about business and the occasional movie—but always in between bites.
Franklin happened to love Quibbie’s (when asked, though, he would always blame their constant presence there on Millie’s steadfast insistence), so he replied, “Fine, but does that mean every day, or just our usual Fridays?”
She laughed, “Just our usual Fridays, but if you happen to want Quibbie’s on another day, I’d be happy to buy it then, too.” She knew she was safe since he would never admit to loving Quibbie’s that much. She asked him to come over to her shop that Thursday to get acquainted with her procedures and the store’s stock. He foolishly agreed.
His troubles began that night.
Generally, when you start thinking about something hard enough, more instances of that thing start showing up around you (e.g., if you buy a new car, you start seeing more of that same car on the road), and Franklin started thinking about Millie’s mediocrity. He had been to her shop once before, and it was so quiet and nice that he found it almost repulsive; he worried about trying to survive in such an ordinary, uneventful setting, even for just two days, and as a result, he began noticing increased instances of mediocrity throughout the rest of his day: almost all of the customers from that point on were merely browsing, and usually found the store a bit too nonconforming for their tastes; all of the people who passed by the windows wore drab colors with no flair at all, as though they were following some socialist dress code; even the stop lights on the way home seemed more dim, as though they were just doing their jobs like everyone else instead of torturing Franklin with their bright reds and yellows. Everything about that day became progressively more mundane, as though Millie’s commonplace nature had somehow infected Franklin’s life over the phone. He hated it. He had to get out of it. He had to do something completely insane to shake this feeling, so he decided to take a nearby mountain pass and drive dangerously close to the edge—while speeding, of course. He felt much better when he finally made it home. He had shaken the feeling, and he slept like the dead that night.
That Thursday, Franklin made his way down to Millie’s shop after lunch. “Hey, Millie,” he said as he walked in the door. “I’m ready to begin just as soon as you are.” He wanted to get this training session out of the way as quickly as possible.
“Hi, Frank. Yeah, let’s get started while I don’t have any customers.” She motioned him to the back room, where she proceeded to show him the stockroom and its organization. She liked her stock room to be in a very particular order, and Franklin found his head spinning when she finished showing him her organizational methods. She then took him out to the register and said, “Now, I know you have a fancy computer program for your register, but mine is from the Stone Age, so I need to show you how to work it. It’s very temperamental.”
“Actually, this is the same program I started off using when I opened my knife shop. I only recently upgraded. I know exactly how finicky this system is.” He lied, but he wanted to get out of there, and he knew such an old program couldn’t be that complicated.
“Fair enough. Let me show you the daily procedures then, because I like things done in a certain order. Call me obsessive compulsive or anal retentive or what-have-you, but I just find it easier when things are done this way.” She started showing him an order that was so particular, he thought she might actually die if he didn’t paper-clip the receipts exactly one inch from the edge or leave the pens tip down in the pen cup with the caps all the way on. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. When she had finished showing him the store’s daily operations, she started showing him the closing procedures. “When you finish counting down the money in the drawer, just grab the vacuum and give the whole store a good once-over. But I want to show you how to work this vacuum, because—“
“Hey, if you’ve seen one vacuum, you’ve seen ‘em all,” he interrupted. “You don’t need to show me how to work it, Millie.” Not only was he still trying to get out of there, but his ego didn’t like the idea of someone showing him how to run something as simple as a vacuum cleaner.
This would have been a good time for Mild-mannered Millie to finish her sentence, because her vacuum cleaner was a top-of-the-line Dustbreaker 3000, complete with a patented Cyclone No-Loss suction system, a self-driving Speed Turtle motor with five-speed control, a three-setting power button, a quick-release bagless dust chamber, and a digital clock—this was the kind of vacuum cleaner that NASA engineers and Cal-Tech high-energy physicists used; Franklin’s own “vacuum” was nothing more than a simple electronic sweeper with a power button. Needless to say, Franklin was out of his league, but Millie didn’t want to upset the considerably more aggressive and ill-tempered Franklin, who already seemed edgy, so she simply nodded and said, “Then that’s all there is to it, Frank.”
“Oh, is that all?” he questioned sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Too-Good-For-My-Shop.” She smiled. “I’m leaving tonight, so if you have any questions at all, call me on my cell.”
Franklin left immediately and headed straight for home. As he had the other night, he felt pure mediocrity creeping over his body like an infection. He had to act quickly, and since his employee Jake was closing up shop tonight, he opted to visit his local shooting range. He sped home, grabbed his guns, and sped to the shooting range, anxious to work off this blasé feeling. After he had been shooting for about an hour, three of his old shooting-range friends showed up and joined him. Since they hadn’t seen him in so long, they decided to take him out for a night on the town when they were done, so they kept shooting for about half an hour more and then headed to the nearest bar.
Franklin related his upcoming stint at Millie’s shop to them—and his feelings of apprehension about it.
“That’s big of you, Frank. It’s more than I’d have done,” said Jesse, whom Franklin had known the longest.
“Yeah, I agree. And normally I’d say trust your gut, but in this case, I think it’s just mental. I really don’t think you need to be worried. Someone as cool as you shouldn’t have trouble with something so trivial,” said Kip, Jesse’s smarter, younger brother.
“And you’re getting free food out of the deal, too. That’s always a plus,” said Gil, who was quite obese. “And hey, it’s on the edge for you, right? It’s not your normal fare, anyway.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that. I suppose you’re all right. Thanks, guys.” Even though their responses had given his ego a boost, Franklin didn’t feel any more at ease, so he decided to drown his worries in alcohol. “Let’s celebrate! Bartender, new drinks all around. I’m buying.” None of the others objected, and they stayed at the bar until three in the morning. At that time, Jesse, Kip, and Gil had to call it a night (and take taxis home), but Franklin wasn’t ready to hit the sack. He didn’t feel at all drunk, and he still couldn’t lose the feeling, so he drove home and blasted death metal the rest of the night. He never fell asleep.
The sun rose and Franklin realized that he only had a few hours before he had to open Millie’s shop. He hadn’t fully shaken the feeling, but he had finally done enough to forget it for a while (and his ears were still ringing, which gave him something else to concentrate on), so he showered, changed his clothes, and went out for breakfast. Unfortunately, mediocrity was up just as early: the service at The Village Shack, where he ate breakfast at least once a week, was uncharacteristically second-rate; the drivers on the road that morning were driving like zombies, not paying attention to anyone or anything around them, plowing through stop lights without so much as a glance in either direction (he was almost involved in five wrecks within ten blocks—none his fault); and the sun was doused behind a cloud cover, which usually comforted him, but today even those clouds seemed ho-hum, and they only made him uneasy. “This is going to be quite an interesting day,” he said to himself. “Quite interesting indeed.”
He pulled up outside of Millie’s shop and simply stared at the door. “What would Millie say if I didn’t open it today? Would she go completely berserk? Would she have a breakdown?” he thought, entertaining the idea of going home and sleeping. He sighed. “This is it, then. Plainville, here I come.” He slowly exited his car and shuffled up to the door. He fumbled for the key she had given him, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, but he finally made it inside and had to face it head on. It was a good thing he brought his death metal CDs.
The day started off as expected, and Franklin drudged through the opening procedures to get the store ready for business. He tried to imagine that he was opening his knife shop, and in fact he called Jake to check up. It helped, but not enough. He opened the doors and went to the back room to put on one of his favorite CDs, but he turned it down to a whisper when he heard the door chime.
Unexpectedly, he heard a woman’s voice yell from the doorway, “No way! Was that Deathhead Raven? I love that band! Turn it back up, Millie!”
Franklin didn’t know much about Millie’s personal life: he didn’t know the other friends she had; he didn’t know her favorite color; he didn’t know if she had ever been married—basically he only knew her name and her affinity for Quibbie’s. It’s not surprising, then, that he knew nothing of her friend Vera, a woman whom Millie called “a female Franklin Dell”. Vera worked at a gothic shop across town. She had more piercings than a sprinkler and just as many tattoos as Franklin. Her favorite pastimes were rock climbing, motorcycle racing, and knife throwing. Neither did Franklin know that Millie had decided to play matchmaker between Vera and Franklin (which is actually why Millie chose Franklin, of all people, to watch her shop while she was gone), nor that she had asked Vera to come in to the shop on Friday morning because she had a surprise for her (Millie would later wonder why she didn’t just send Vera to Franklin’s shop directly, but at the time, she justified, she was thinking it would be better for them to meet out of their element, so they would concentrate only on each other). Now Vera was standing in the doorway, waiting for Millie’s surprise, which promptly ran around the corner.
Franklin came running from the back room, and had intended to greet this unknown person with “You like Deathhead Raven?! Can I get your number?”, but when he saw Vera, this picture of dark beauty, this gorgeous creature with arms like graceful murals, what he managed to get out was, “You . . . you . . .” and he stood speechless, his mouth hanging open.
Vera, on the other hand, had the opposite reaction. “Wha—who are you?” she asked, obviously worried. “Where’s Millie?!”
Franklin hung on every word. He didn’t even realize what she had just said; all he knew was that he wanted her to say it again.
“Who the hell are you? Are you going to answer me or just keep standing there like a complete moron? Okay, I’m calling Millie. Where’s my cell phone?”
Finally it sunk into his head what she was saying, and he stuttered, “I—I, um—oh, you’re not—wait a minute!” He regained his composure and said, “No wait! I’m Frank. I’m watching the shop for Millie while she’s gone on a trip!”
“Oh yeah?” she retorted, incredulous. “Well, it just so happens that she asked me to come by this morning because she had a surprise for me. Why would she do that if she were going on a trip?”
Franklin had no clue. Had Millie actually asked someone to come without realizing—but then the phone rang. Eager for an escape, Franklin grabbed it and said, “Thrifty Gifty, this is Frank . . . Oh, hi, Millie! What great timing—what’s that? Oh, um, hold on.” He cupped his hand over the receiver and said to Vera, “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
She glared at him and sighed. “Vera.”
“Vera,” he thought, “What a gorgeous name!” He spoke into the phone again. “A woman named Vera just walked in. She says she’s a friend of yours . . . Oh, you want me to put her on? Okay.” He handed the phone to Vera.
She grabbed the phone from him, still in disbelief. “Hello? Oh, hi, Millie! What the heck is going on here? I came over like you asked me to and this guy who calls himself Frank . . . He’s watching the store for you? Wait a minute. Where are you? You told me you had a surprise for me!” Millie told her about her decision to play matchmaker. “You did what?” Vera examined Franklin and realized that he looked like her type, and wasn’t bad looking, either. “I told you not to do that any more. I hate it when you play—well, when you do that. But . . . this time it looks like you’ve actually done well. Just don’t ever scare me like this again, okay?! I thought he was robbing you!” Franklin could hear Millie laugh mischievously in Vera’s ear. “Alright, alright, crazy lady, just call me when you get back so I can get my revenge.” Vera handed the phone back to Franklin, who just hung it up. She didn’t know quite what to say. She had just accused him of being an intruder, and didn’t believe him when he denied it. She felt so embarrassed she wanted to melt away, but when she looked at him again, she realized that he was just waiting for an answer. He didn’t seem upset at all. “Um, I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.
“It’s okay. I’m Frank,” he said nervously, and extended his hand.
Vera shook it politely. “Yes, I know. And I’m embarrassed. Let’s start over, shall we?”
“Sure. You like Deathhead Raven?” he said with a big grin and wide eyes. He was completely smitten.
She laughed, relieved; Franklin took her to the back, where they listened to Deathhead Raven’s newest CD. The conversation that ensued lasted for hours, only stopping when customers came in: they talked about Millie’s crazy matchmaking scheme, music, origin stories, tattooing and piercing, knives, love, the future—Vera was everything Franklin could have hoped for, and Franklin was everything Vera had been looking for. Millie had done something incredibly right by organizing a meeting between these two people. They were soul mates, and things could only go up from here.
But, alas!, it came time for Vera to leave. She had a previous engagement she had to get to, but she and Franklin exchanged numbers and promised to call each other. The rest of Franklin’s day went by wonderfully, and he was on Cloud 9. He was in love, and he could already tell. Nothing that happened to him in this mundane setting could faze him. The foreboding feeling he spent all last night trying to shake was gone, and he could finally relax!
A few hours later, it came time for Franklin to close, but he found himself distracted, spacing off, dropping coins as he counted, constantly forgetting what he was doing. All of his thoughts were on Vera: her fiery eyes, her swaying hips, her slender, tattooed arms—he just wanted to hold her right then and there. He was so distracted by thought of Vera, in fact, that it took him until ten o’clock to close the store, and with his lack of sleep from the night before, he was getting tired. He just wanted to go home and dream of Vera, but on his way out the door, he remembered the vacuum cleaner. He begrudgingly dragged himself to the back room and opened the closet where Millie kept the vacuum cleaner. “Good God!” he exclaimed when he saw it. “This thing isn’t a vacuum, it’s a rocket ship on wheels!” And indeed this vacuum cleaner looked like no vacuum cleaner he had ever seen: there was no bag, there were tubes encircling the whole thing, and it looked like it was ready to launch into space—it even had a clock! When he got over his horror at seeing the Dustbreaker, he wheeled it out to the front. “Now how do you turn this monster on?” Then he spied a button on the handle that was marked with a 0, a 1, and a 2. He had no idea what the numbers meant, but it looked like a power button, so he clicked it all the way to 2. Nothing happened. He clicked it back to 0 and then to 1 and then to 2 again, but still nothing happened. “What the hell?” But then he saw the power cord rolled up on the back. “Well, what’s so fancy about a vacuum that has to be plugged into a wall?” he said, thinking of his own battery-powered sweeper. He tried to unroll the power cord but found it to be an infuriatingly slow process; if he had opted to listen to Millie, however, he would have known that the cord could be released quickly by turning one of the knobs that held it in place. His frustration continued to build until he finally reached the last loop. “For crying out loud, that took forever! Now where’s a plug-in?” As luck would have it, there was an outlet directly in front of him, underneath the glass shelves along the back wall. “At least something about this monster is going smoothly.” He walked a few steps to the outlet, but when he realized he would have to kneel down and put his head under the glass shelves to reach it, he groaned; he continued to groan as he kneeled, and he grunted as he bent over. “I’m not twenty anymore,” he said between grunts. Finally he plugged the cord into the outlet and the Dustbreaker sprang to life.
Another thing Franklin didn’t know about the vacuum was that whenever Millie used it, she used it without the motor (setting 1), but when she did use the motor (setting 2), she had it set on the fastest speed (setting E in the hidden speed control panel), so she left it there all the time. When Franklin plugged in the vacuum, the ensuing chaos looked like a stunt scene from a Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin movie: since Franklin had left the Dustbreaker on power setting 2, and Millie had left it on speed setting E, it started moving forward at an incredible speed—right at Franklin, who was so tired and distracted that he hadn’t moved from under the glass shelves. When the Dustbreaker hit his foot, he thought someone was behind him, kicking him, which startled him so much he thumped his head on the bottom of the lowest glass shelf, which in turn shook the wall that held it (a cheap, flimsy wall that was only flimsy because Millie went with a cheap contractor), which in turn shook the ceramic trinkets off of the shelves, and they crashed on the floor all around Franklin; the biggest, heaviest ceramic piece (a heavy vase, which was directly above him) hit him square in the back. It hit at such an angle that it temporarily paralyzed him, so he was stuck in a crouching position when the top glass shelf (which was actually made up of several smaller glass pieces) decided to come clean off of its brackets and break the shelf below it, which caused a chain reaction of breaking glass, sending large, sharp shards of glass into his back. The commotion of the wall twisted the power conduits leading up to the outlet in front of Franklin, which shorted out the outlet itself, and it sparked right into his face, burning him. Luckily, his temporary paralysis wore off at this point, so he was able to move his hands to cup his face in pain; unfortunately when he did so, he lunged backward and lost his balance entirely, and when he landed on his back, the floor drove the glass pieces in further. One of them punctured his heart. He laid motionless.
The coroner couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of Franklin Dell’s death: was it the glass that pierced his heart, did he bleed to death from the multiple lacerations from the other glass shards, or was it heart failure from the shock of the entire incident in combination with his exceptionally high blood alcohol content? The only thing the coroner could do was announce that Franklin Dell died some time between 10:00 and 10:15 PM, and that he had no chance to survive any of the mishaps that befell him.
Millie was grief-stricken. Someone had died in her store—a close friend—because she wanted to go with a cheaper contractor to build her dividing wall. She closed up Thrifty Gifty, withdrew into her house, and became a hermit. It took Millie five years to stop blaming herself for her friend’s death, but she was never the same, and she actually decided to get a tattoo in memory of Franklin, which prompted her change to Franklin’s brand of extremism. Now her arms are covered in more tattoos than Vera’s.
Vera was heartbroken. She only had one encounter with the man she knew was her soul mate, but she felt like she had lost a life-long partner. She quit her job at the gothic shop and took over Franklin’s knife shop, but her lack of experience caused it to go bankrupt five years later. She had made a point of visiting Millie every day to try to get her to snap out of her depression, so when the store went bankrupt, she started visiting with the purpose of obtaining Millie as a business partner. Millie was thankfully receptive to that prospect.
Millie and Vera opened a new shop that sold gothic giftware, cutlery, and knives. They called it The Franklin Dell Edge, and it prospered amazingly well in the same neighborhood both previous shops had been in. Their lives eventually moved on, but neither woman forgot Franklin Dell or the lessons they learned from his death: firstly, don’t hire a bum contractor to build a dividing wall for you—especially if you’re going to load it with heavy ceramics; secondly, if you’re going to play matchmaker, take the direct approach and don’t rely on elaborate schemes; and thirdly, and most importantly, don’t fear change—or at least don’t fight it—for it was Franklin Dell’s unfortunate fear of change and subsequent attempt to fight it, not his submersion into mediocrity, that ended up pushing him over the edge.
One day, while working at his knife shop, Franklin received a call from his friend Millie, a mild-mannered, mediocre woman who owned the quiet Thrifty Gifty gift shop down the street. Millie explained to Franklin how she was going out of town for a couple of days and wanted someone to look after the store, and since she trusted Franklin—and he actually had one employee who could watch his store—she figured he might be able to help out.
“I’ll buy you Quibbie’s for a month if you do this for me, Frank,” pleaded Millie. Quibbie’s Sub Shop was a nice little place where they met for lunch every Friday to talk about business and the occasional movie—but always in between bites.
Franklin happened to love Quibbie’s (when asked, though, he would always blame their constant presence there on Millie’s steadfast insistence), so he replied, “Fine, but does that mean every day, or just our usual Fridays?”
She laughed, “Just our usual Fridays, but if you happen to want Quibbie’s on another day, I’d be happy to buy it then, too.” She knew she was safe since he would never admit to loving Quibbie’s that much. She asked him to come over to her shop that Thursday to get acquainted with her procedures and the store’s stock. He foolishly agreed.
His troubles began that night.
Generally, when you start thinking about something hard enough, more instances of that thing start showing up around you (e.g., if you buy a new car, you start seeing more of that same car on the road), and Franklin started thinking about Millie’s mediocrity. He had been to her shop once before, and it was so quiet and nice that he found it almost repulsive; he worried about trying to survive in such an ordinary, uneventful setting, even for just two days, and as a result, he began noticing increased instances of mediocrity throughout the rest of his day: almost all of the customers from that point on were merely browsing, and usually found the store a bit too nonconforming for their tastes; all of the people who passed by the windows wore drab colors with no flair at all, as though they were following some socialist dress code; even the stop lights on the way home seemed more dim, as though they were just doing their jobs like everyone else instead of torturing Franklin with their bright reds and yellows. Everything about that day became progressively more mundane, as though Millie’s commonplace nature had somehow infected Franklin’s life over the phone. He hated it. He had to get out of it. He had to do something completely insane to shake this feeling, so he decided to take a nearby mountain pass and drive dangerously close to the edge—while speeding, of course. He felt much better when he finally made it home. He had shaken the feeling, and he slept like the dead that night.
That Thursday, Franklin made his way down to Millie’s shop after lunch. “Hey, Millie,” he said as he walked in the door. “I’m ready to begin just as soon as you are.” He wanted to get this training session out of the way as quickly as possible.
“Hi, Frank. Yeah, let’s get started while I don’t have any customers.” She motioned him to the back room, where she proceeded to show him the stockroom and its organization. She liked her stock room to be in a very particular order, and Franklin found his head spinning when she finished showing him her organizational methods. She then took him out to the register and said, “Now, I know you have a fancy computer program for your register, but mine is from the Stone Age, so I need to show you how to work it. It’s very temperamental.”
“Actually, this is the same program I started off using when I opened my knife shop. I only recently upgraded. I know exactly how finicky this system is.” He lied, but he wanted to get out of there, and he knew such an old program couldn’t be that complicated.
“Fair enough. Let me show you the daily procedures then, because I like things done in a certain order. Call me obsessive compulsive or anal retentive or what-have-you, but I just find it easier when things are done this way.” She started showing him an order that was so particular, he thought she might actually die if he didn’t paper-clip the receipts exactly one inch from the edge or leave the pens tip down in the pen cup with the caps all the way on. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. When she had finished showing him the store’s daily operations, she started showing him the closing procedures. “When you finish counting down the money in the drawer, just grab the vacuum and give the whole store a good once-over. But I want to show you how to work this vacuum, because—“
“Hey, if you’ve seen one vacuum, you’ve seen ‘em all,” he interrupted. “You don’t need to show me how to work it, Millie.” Not only was he still trying to get out of there, but his ego didn’t like the idea of someone showing him how to run something as simple as a vacuum cleaner.
This would have been a good time for Mild-mannered Millie to finish her sentence, because her vacuum cleaner was a top-of-the-line Dustbreaker 3000, complete with a patented Cyclone No-Loss suction system, a self-driving Speed Turtle motor with five-speed control, a three-setting power button, a quick-release bagless dust chamber, and a digital clock—this was the kind of vacuum cleaner that NASA engineers and Cal-Tech high-energy physicists used; Franklin’s own “vacuum” was nothing more than a simple electronic sweeper with a power button. Needless to say, Franklin was out of his league, but Millie didn’t want to upset the considerably more aggressive and ill-tempered Franklin, who already seemed edgy, so she simply nodded and said, “Then that’s all there is to it, Frank.”
“Oh, is that all?” he questioned sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Too-Good-For-My-Shop.” She smiled. “I’m leaving tonight, so if you have any questions at all, call me on my cell.”
Franklin left immediately and headed straight for home. As he had the other night, he felt pure mediocrity creeping over his body like an infection. He had to act quickly, and since his employee Jake was closing up shop tonight, he opted to visit his local shooting range. He sped home, grabbed his guns, and sped to the shooting range, anxious to work off this blasé feeling. After he had been shooting for about an hour, three of his old shooting-range friends showed up and joined him. Since they hadn’t seen him in so long, they decided to take him out for a night on the town when they were done, so they kept shooting for about half an hour more and then headed to the nearest bar.
Franklin related his upcoming stint at Millie’s shop to them—and his feelings of apprehension about it.
“That’s big of you, Frank. It’s more than I’d have done,” said Jesse, whom Franklin had known the longest.
“Yeah, I agree. And normally I’d say trust your gut, but in this case, I think it’s just mental. I really don’t think you need to be worried. Someone as cool as you shouldn’t have trouble with something so trivial,” said Kip, Jesse’s smarter, younger brother.
“And you’re getting free food out of the deal, too. That’s always a plus,” said Gil, who was quite obese. “And hey, it’s on the edge for you, right? It’s not your normal fare, anyway.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that. I suppose you’re all right. Thanks, guys.” Even though their responses had given his ego a boost, Franklin didn’t feel any more at ease, so he decided to drown his worries in alcohol. “Let’s celebrate! Bartender, new drinks all around. I’m buying.” None of the others objected, and they stayed at the bar until three in the morning. At that time, Jesse, Kip, and Gil had to call it a night (and take taxis home), but Franklin wasn’t ready to hit the sack. He didn’t feel at all drunk, and he still couldn’t lose the feeling, so he drove home and blasted death metal the rest of the night. He never fell asleep.
The sun rose and Franklin realized that he only had a few hours before he had to open Millie’s shop. He hadn’t fully shaken the feeling, but he had finally done enough to forget it for a while (and his ears were still ringing, which gave him something else to concentrate on), so he showered, changed his clothes, and went out for breakfast. Unfortunately, mediocrity was up just as early: the service at The Village Shack, where he ate breakfast at least once a week, was uncharacteristically second-rate; the drivers on the road that morning were driving like zombies, not paying attention to anyone or anything around them, plowing through stop lights without so much as a glance in either direction (he was almost involved in five wrecks within ten blocks—none his fault); and the sun was doused behind a cloud cover, which usually comforted him, but today even those clouds seemed ho-hum, and they only made him uneasy. “This is going to be quite an interesting day,” he said to himself. “Quite interesting indeed.”
He pulled up outside of Millie’s shop and simply stared at the door. “What would Millie say if I didn’t open it today? Would she go completely berserk? Would she have a breakdown?” he thought, entertaining the idea of going home and sleeping. He sighed. “This is it, then. Plainville, here I come.” He slowly exited his car and shuffled up to the door. He fumbled for the key she had given him, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, but he finally made it inside and had to face it head on. It was a good thing he brought his death metal CDs.
The day started off as expected, and Franklin drudged through the opening procedures to get the store ready for business. He tried to imagine that he was opening his knife shop, and in fact he called Jake to check up. It helped, but not enough. He opened the doors and went to the back room to put on one of his favorite CDs, but he turned it down to a whisper when he heard the door chime.
Unexpectedly, he heard a woman’s voice yell from the doorway, “No way! Was that Deathhead Raven? I love that band! Turn it back up, Millie!”
Franklin didn’t know much about Millie’s personal life: he didn’t know the other friends she had; he didn’t know her favorite color; he didn’t know if she had ever been married—basically he only knew her name and her affinity for Quibbie’s. It’s not surprising, then, that he knew nothing of her friend Vera, a woman whom Millie called “a female Franklin Dell”. Vera worked at a gothic shop across town. She had more piercings than a sprinkler and just as many tattoos as Franklin. Her favorite pastimes were rock climbing, motorcycle racing, and knife throwing. Neither did Franklin know that Millie had decided to play matchmaker between Vera and Franklin (which is actually why Millie chose Franklin, of all people, to watch her shop while she was gone), nor that she had asked Vera to come in to the shop on Friday morning because she had a surprise for her (Millie would later wonder why she didn’t just send Vera to Franklin’s shop directly, but at the time, she justified, she was thinking it would be better for them to meet out of their element, so they would concentrate only on each other). Now Vera was standing in the doorway, waiting for Millie’s surprise, which promptly ran around the corner.
Franklin came running from the back room, and had intended to greet this unknown person with “You like Deathhead Raven?! Can I get your number?”, but when he saw Vera, this picture of dark beauty, this gorgeous creature with arms like graceful murals, what he managed to get out was, “You . . . you . . .” and he stood speechless, his mouth hanging open.
Vera, on the other hand, had the opposite reaction. “Wha—who are you?” she asked, obviously worried. “Where’s Millie?!”
Franklin hung on every word. He didn’t even realize what she had just said; all he knew was that he wanted her to say it again.
“Who the hell are you? Are you going to answer me or just keep standing there like a complete moron? Okay, I’m calling Millie. Where’s my cell phone?”
Finally it sunk into his head what she was saying, and he stuttered, “I—I, um—oh, you’re not—wait a minute!” He regained his composure and said, “No wait! I’m Frank. I’m watching the shop for Millie while she’s gone on a trip!”
“Oh yeah?” she retorted, incredulous. “Well, it just so happens that she asked me to come by this morning because she had a surprise for me. Why would she do that if she were going on a trip?”
Franklin had no clue. Had Millie actually asked someone to come without realizing—but then the phone rang. Eager for an escape, Franklin grabbed it and said, “Thrifty Gifty, this is Frank . . . Oh, hi, Millie! What great timing—what’s that? Oh, um, hold on.” He cupped his hand over the receiver and said to Vera, “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
She glared at him and sighed. “Vera.”
“Vera,” he thought, “What a gorgeous name!” He spoke into the phone again. “A woman named Vera just walked in. She says she’s a friend of yours . . . Oh, you want me to put her on? Okay.” He handed the phone to Vera.
She grabbed the phone from him, still in disbelief. “Hello? Oh, hi, Millie! What the heck is going on here? I came over like you asked me to and this guy who calls himself Frank . . . He’s watching the store for you? Wait a minute. Where are you? You told me you had a surprise for me!” Millie told her about her decision to play matchmaker. “You did what?” Vera examined Franklin and realized that he looked like her type, and wasn’t bad looking, either. “I told you not to do that any more. I hate it when you play—well, when you do that. But . . . this time it looks like you’ve actually done well. Just don’t ever scare me like this again, okay?! I thought he was robbing you!” Franklin could hear Millie laugh mischievously in Vera’s ear. “Alright, alright, crazy lady, just call me when you get back so I can get my revenge.” Vera handed the phone back to Franklin, who just hung it up. She didn’t know quite what to say. She had just accused him of being an intruder, and didn’t believe him when he denied it. She felt so embarrassed she wanted to melt away, but when she looked at him again, she realized that he was just waiting for an answer. He didn’t seem upset at all. “Um, I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.
“It’s okay. I’m Frank,” he said nervously, and extended his hand.
Vera shook it politely. “Yes, I know. And I’m embarrassed. Let’s start over, shall we?”
“Sure. You like Deathhead Raven?” he said with a big grin and wide eyes. He was completely smitten.
She laughed, relieved; Franklin took her to the back, where they listened to Deathhead Raven’s newest CD. The conversation that ensued lasted for hours, only stopping when customers came in: they talked about Millie’s crazy matchmaking scheme, music, origin stories, tattooing and piercing, knives, love, the future—Vera was everything Franklin could have hoped for, and Franklin was everything Vera had been looking for. Millie had done something incredibly right by organizing a meeting between these two people. They were soul mates, and things could only go up from here.
But, alas!, it came time for Vera to leave. She had a previous engagement she had to get to, but she and Franklin exchanged numbers and promised to call each other. The rest of Franklin’s day went by wonderfully, and he was on Cloud 9. He was in love, and he could already tell. Nothing that happened to him in this mundane setting could faze him. The foreboding feeling he spent all last night trying to shake was gone, and he could finally relax!
A few hours later, it came time for Franklin to close, but he found himself distracted, spacing off, dropping coins as he counted, constantly forgetting what he was doing. All of his thoughts were on Vera: her fiery eyes, her swaying hips, her slender, tattooed arms—he just wanted to hold her right then and there. He was so distracted by thought of Vera, in fact, that it took him until ten o’clock to close the store, and with his lack of sleep from the night before, he was getting tired. He just wanted to go home and dream of Vera, but on his way out the door, he remembered the vacuum cleaner. He begrudgingly dragged himself to the back room and opened the closet where Millie kept the vacuum cleaner. “Good God!” he exclaimed when he saw it. “This thing isn’t a vacuum, it’s a rocket ship on wheels!” And indeed this vacuum cleaner looked like no vacuum cleaner he had ever seen: there was no bag, there were tubes encircling the whole thing, and it looked like it was ready to launch into space—it even had a clock! When he got over his horror at seeing the Dustbreaker, he wheeled it out to the front. “Now how do you turn this monster on?” Then he spied a button on the handle that was marked with a 0, a 1, and a 2. He had no idea what the numbers meant, but it looked like a power button, so he clicked it all the way to 2. Nothing happened. He clicked it back to 0 and then to 1 and then to 2 again, but still nothing happened. “What the hell?” But then he saw the power cord rolled up on the back. “Well, what’s so fancy about a vacuum that has to be plugged into a wall?” he said, thinking of his own battery-powered sweeper. He tried to unroll the power cord but found it to be an infuriatingly slow process; if he had opted to listen to Millie, however, he would have known that the cord could be released quickly by turning one of the knobs that held it in place. His frustration continued to build until he finally reached the last loop. “For crying out loud, that took forever! Now where’s a plug-in?” As luck would have it, there was an outlet directly in front of him, underneath the glass shelves along the back wall. “At least something about this monster is going smoothly.” He walked a few steps to the outlet, but when he realized he would have to kneel down and put his head under the glass shelves to reach it, he groaned; he continued to groan as he kneeled, and he grunted as he bent over. “I’m not twenty anymore,” he said between grunts. Finally he plugged the cord into the outlet and the Dustbreaker sprang to life.
Another thing Franklin didn’t know about the vacuum was that whenever Millie used it, she used it without the motor (setting 1), but when she did use the motor (setting 2), she had it set on the fastest speed (setting E in the hidden speed control panel), so she left it there all the time. When Franklin plugged in the vacuum, the ensuing chaos looked like a stunt scene from a Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin movie: since Franklin had left the Dustbreaker on power setting 2, and Millie had left it on speed setting E, it started moving forward at an incredible speed—right at Franklin, who was so tired and distracted that he hadn’t moved from under the glass shelves. When the Dustbreaker hit his foot, he thought someone was behind him, kicking him, which startled him so much he thumped his head on the bottom of the lowest glass shelf, which in turn shook the wall that held it (a cheap, flimsy wall that was only flimsy because Millie went with a cheap contractor), which in turn shook the ceramic trinkets off of the shelves, and they crashed on the floor all around Franklin; the biggest, heaviest ceramic piece (a heavy vase, which was directly above him) hit him square in the back. It hit at such an angle that it temporarily paralyzed him, so he was stuck in a crouching position when the top glass shelf (which was actually made up of several smaller glass pieces) decided to come clean off of its brackets and break the shelf below it, which caused a chain reaction of breaking glass, sending large, sharp shards of glass into his back. The commotion of the wall twisted the power conduits leading up to the outlet in front of Franklin, which shorted out the outlet itself, and it sparked right into his face, burning him. Luckily, his temporary paralysis wore off at this point, so he was able to move his hands to cup his face in pain; unfortunately when he did so, he lunged backward and lost his balance entirely, and when he landed on his back, the floor drove the glass pieces in further. One of them punctured his heart. He laid motionless.
The coroner couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of Franklin Dell’s death: was it the glass that pierced his heart, did he bleed to death from the multiple lacerations from the other glass shards, or was it heart failure from the shock of the entire incident in combination with his exceptionally high blood alcohol content? The only thing the coroner could do was announce that Franklin Dell died some time between 10:00 and 10:15 PM, and that he had no chance to survive any of the mishaps that befell him.
Millie was grief-stricken. Someone had died in her store—a close friend—because she wanted to go with a cheaper contractor to build her dividing wall. She closed up Thrifty Gifty, withdrew into her house, and became a hermit. It took Millie five years to stop blaming herself for her friend’s death, but she was never the same, and she actually decided to get a tattoo in memory of Franklin, which prompted her change to Franklin’s brand of extremism. Now her arms are covered in more tattoos than Vera’s.
Vera was heartbroken. She only had one encounter with the man she knew was her soul mate, but she felt like she had lost a life-long partner. She quit her job at the gothic shop and took over Franklin’s knife shop, but her lack of experience caused it to go bankrupt five years later. She had made a point of visiting Millie every day to try to get her to snap out of her depression, so when the store went bankrupt, she started visiting with the purpose of obtaining Millie as a business partner. Millie was thankfully receptive to that prospect.
Millie and Vera opened a new shop that sold gothic giftware, cutlery, and knives. They called it The Franklin Dell Edge, and it prospered amazingly well in the same neighborhood both previous shops had been in. Their lives eventually moved on, but neither woman forgot Franklin Dell or the lessons they learned from his death: firstly, don’t hire a bum contractor to build a dividing wall for you—especially if you’re going to load it with heavy ceramics; secondly, if you’re going to play matchmaker, take the direct approach and don’t rely on elaborate schemes; and thirdly, and most importantly, don’t fear change—or at least don’t fight it—for it was Franklin Dell’s unfortunate fear of change and subsequent attempt to fight it, not his submersion into mediocrity, that ended up pushing him over the edge.
BLOOD, DEATH, AND STRAWBERRIES
(a snippet)
It was a dark, stormy morning in a town with more trees than people. The birds still chirped despite the gloom, but the rats were at work underground, out of sight. Somewhere on a bleak street called Happy sat a plain building that looked like it could have once held life. Inside of it, on the second floor, sat an even plainer office with an ancient, fogged glass door emblazoned with the words "LeChat Detective Agency" in a classy sans serif typeface. Into this office, under a damp hat and a damper frown, walked Detective Tom LeChat, uneager to get to work, his mind distracted as it was by thought of his upcoming vacation. He wanted to get lost in Guadeloupe, a beautiful woman's eyes, and a tall martini glass, but yet he knew he had to wrap up this last case before he could go: the case of the debutante's missing daughter. He only took the job a week ago, but it was already the toughest of his career. He sloughed off his coat, dropped his hat on a hook, and slumped into his chair. "Here goes nothing," he said, then picked up the phone to tell his wealthy client the sad news that her daughter was dead.
His heart didn't want him to do it. He thought of his own daughter, and how distraught he would be if someone delivered that news by phone. His mind reminded his heart that it was not only necessary, but the key to cracking the entire case: it was paramount that the woman really thought her daughter was dead, because this was a gambit, a ploy to draw out the real culprit. It was going to break her heart into pieces, he knew, but at this point, it was the only way. That's what he reminded himself as he lifted the receiver and dialed. It rang only once before someone answered.
"Hello?" came the feeble voice from the other end. It was the client.
"Mrs. Broder, it's—"
"Oh, Mr. LeChat, I was hoping you'd call. What news have you?"
He steeled his jaw and his resolve, and reminded himself again of the goal. This was going to break his heart, too. "Mrs. Broder, I'm afraid I have bad news."
There was only silence from the other end.
"Casey is dead."
He heard a thump as the receiver hit the floor, followed by a loud, but muffled sobbing. He wiped tears from his face as he waited—a good fifteen minutes—for her to recover and pick up the receiver. She had given up all of the pretense of her station: all of her precision, and all of her dedication to keeping a stiff upper lip. Her daughter was all she had left. "H...how do you know, Mr. LeChat?" she asked between sniffles.
"Please come down to the office. Let's discuss this in person. I shouldn't have told you over the phone." Of course, he knew he needed to. It was important that she hear it over the phone because it was important that the offending parties hear this conversation and its impact. It didn't make it any easier, or him feel less guilty. He thought of her, slowly and defeatedly asking her chauffer to drive her down here, weakly opening the door to the stairs that led to his office. Before long, though, she had arrived in person. Alone.
She entered the office, peeked back through the door into the hall, and stared for about ten seconds before closing it and turning around with a huge smile on her face. "I know what you're up to, Mr. LeChat."
For the first time during this case, he was caught off guard. "I...what..Mrs. Broder, what am I up to? What were you looking for in the hall?"
"You've found her. I know you have. She's alive, I just know it. I realized it halfway here. That's why you had to tell me by phone. I don't know the specifics, I just know you're trying to draw them out. Come on, tell me. Tell me everything."
He just stared at her wide eyed, trying to figure out which one of them knew more about this case. She was the client, though, and obviously the jig was up, so he decided to come clean. "Yeah, she's alive. How do you know?"
"I knew it!" she yelled, before covering her mouth with her gloved hand and looking around sheepishly. "I knew it. Oh Mr. LeChat, you're worth your weight in gold!"
"Look, I need to know what you know before I divulge more. This is dependent upon you believing she's dead, so I need to know that you can—"
She looked back up at him with a horrified expression, and said, "She's—she's what?! How dare you?! I won't stand for this! I won't st—" and her speech devolved into uncontrollable sobbing as she planted her head on his desk and folded her arms around her.
"Mrs....Mrs. Broder?" He genuinely didn't know what to make of this. Split personalities? Schizophrenia? What was going on?
She whipped her head up and exclaimed through gritted teeth, "Got you! You didn't know I was an actress in a previous life."
He didn't. That was an oversight he wouldn't repeat. He should have done more digging on his client.
"Mr. LeChat, I will easily and handily play any part you need me to play if it means Casey comes home, but do not try to make of me a fool."
His heart didn't want him to do it. He thought of his own daughter, and how distraught he would be if someone delivered that news by phone. His mind reminded his heart that it was not only necessary, but the key to cracking the entire case: it was paramount that the woman really thought her daughter was dead, because this was a gambit, a ploy to draw out the real culprit. It was going to break her heart into pieces, he knew, but at this point, it was the only way. That's what he reminded himself as he lifted the receiver and dialed. It rang only once before someone answered.
"Hello?" came the feeble voice from the other end. It was the client.
"Mrs. Broder, it's—"
"Oh, Mr. LeChat, I was hoping you'd call. What news have you?"
He steeled his jaw and his resolve, and reminded himself again of the goal. This was going to break his heart, too. "Mrs. Broder, I'm afraid I have bad news."
There was only silence from the other end.
"Casey is dead."
He heard a thump as the receiver hit the floor, followed by a loud, but muffled sobbing. He wiped tears from his face as he waited—a good fifteen minutes—for her to recover and pick up the receiver. She had given up all of the pretense of her station: all of her precision, and all of her dedication to keeping a stiff upper lip. Her daughter was all she had left. "H...how do you know, Mr. LeChat?" she asked between sniffles.
"Please come down to the office. Let's discuss this in person. I shouldn't have told you over the phone." Of course, he knew he needed to. It was important that she hear it over the phone because it was important that the offending parties hear this conversation and its impact. It didn't make it any easier, or him feel less guilty. He thought of her, slowly and defeatedly asking her chauffer to drive her down here, weakly opening the door to the stairs that led to his office. Before long, though, she had arrived in person. Alone.
She entered the office, peeked back through the door into the hall, and stared for about ten seconds before closing it and turning around with a huge smile on her face. "I know what you're up to, Mr. LeChat."
For the first time during this case, he was caught off guard. "I...what..Mrs. Broder, what am I up to? What were you looking for in the hall?"
"You've found her. I know you have. She's alive, I just know it. I realized it halfway here. That's why you had to tell me by phone. I don't know the specifics, I just know you're trying to draw them out. Come on, tell me. Tell me everything."
He just stared at her wide eyed, trying to figure out which one of them knew more about this case. She was the client, though, and obviously the jig was up, so he decided to come clean. "Yeah, she's alive. How do you know?"
"I knew it!" she yelled, before covering her mouth with her gloved hand and looking around sheepishly. "I knew it. Oh Mr. LeChat, you're worth your weight in gold!"
"Look, I need to know what you know before I divulge more. This is dependent upon you believing she's dead, so I need to know that you can—"
She looked back up at him with a horrified expression, and said, "She's—she's what?! How dare you?! I won't stand for this! I won't st—" and her speech devolved into uncontrollable sobbing as she planted her head on his desk and folded her arms around her.
"Mrs....Mrs. Broder?" He genuinely didn't know what to make of this. Split personalities? Schizophrenia? What was going on?
She whipped her head up and exclaimed through gritted teeth, "Got you! You didn't know I was an actress in a previous life."
He didn't. That was an oversight he wouldn't repeat. He should have done more digging on his client.
"Mr. LeChat, I will easily and handily play any part you need me to play if it means Casey comes home, but do not try to make of me a fool."