Two Hearts

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by David Connor


  Frank hadn't revealed he was now a human bug zapper. "It hasn't been that long," he'd fibbed. Then he screwed up his courage and bathed that very night, using a huge balled up bath towel wrapped around the plunger as his washcloth.

  Soon, Frank was back to showering daily, and also peeing bare-handed. After doing it without a mitten first thing out of bed by rote since age six, one day, he simply forgot to put it on. He never even gave it a second thought, until after he'd gulped a cup of coffee and had to go again. Frank had no idea why he could touch himself, but he could.

  The same way he forgot the protection in the john, he also forgot not to let his feet, knees, or thighs touch in the bath. Though he'd continued to use the huge, balled-up towel to scrub himself for days, eventually, he came to realize he was being quite foolish. Skin to skin contact, even wet, was apparently not a danger. The scientific reason for it was one Frank hoped to someday understand. Maybe it was the same explanation as to why two electric eels could mate without electrocuting one another. Frank smiled at that. So far, the whole thing had to be filed under the heading "unexplained phenomena". He still had not found a single encyclopedia or medical journal to explain what he was now—how he was. As for touching others, well, he avoided that completely, for fear they would end up like the flambéed fly. Frank had missed only three days of work after electrocuting it, before Vaughn had insisted he return.

  "Vaughn, I shouldn't."

  "Franklin! Now do as I say, or explain to me the reason you cannot."

  Frank considered revealing the truth. Vaughn might very well overlook yet another oddity. What if he didn't, though? The man had his superstitions. If he forever after thought of Frank as cursed, then one more person might reject him—one of only two left.

  So, Frank went back to the mortuary, but was careful to keep his distance. It was Vaughn who got him back to the little gas station store as well, many days later. "Now that your aroma is not so off-putting, I need you to go for cigarettes."

  "I just can't, Vaughn."

  "Is it because of the girl who works there?"

  "No," Frank had lied. "Sort of, Vaughn. Yes." Frank had missed Melissa terribly. He'd stayed away for weeks, petrified his presence could bring her harm.

  "Because you have feelings for her and you are too shy to express them." Vaughn had made the statement—statement, not question—with his hands on his hips.

  "Feelings? What are you talking about?"

  "Would it change your mind to know how much she misses you?"

  "Melissa misses me?"

  "Her eyes light up when she asks how you are, Franklin. She has shown great concern. I dare say she is in love with you too, son."

  "Love? Too?" How flustered Frank had been.

  "She referred to you as, and I quote, 'a hunk who often reminds her of Moondoggie reciting Beowulf.' I only understand half the reference, but I assume you may grasp the whole meaning. Sounds like she's infatuated to me."

  Frank had stomped his shoe on the floor so hard he'd left a black scuff. "Vaughn… She is not."

  "She is."

  "Well, I'm not in love with her. I'm never going to be in love with anyone. And I'm never going back there!"

  Eventually, he had, of course, because he knew things were fine most days, as long as he obsessed about electrical conductors, like metal counters and water, versus safe materials, like Styrofoam cups, paper napkins, rubber mats and soles of shoes, and also plastic spoons. Melissa had never said a thing about any sort of romantic feelings, though, and that was for the best too.

  Though Frank now functioned with relative normalcy, he still could not always control his powers. Walking down the appliance aisle at Wrangle's Department Store last February, he'd discovered lightning wasn't the only thing that triggered a surge.

  A dozen TVs all tuned to The Secret Storm, blenders, newfangled microwave ovens, refrigerators, and ginormous chest freezers plugged in, plus carpeting underfoot had proven to be a dangerous combination. Looking back, Frank realized he'd sensed something straightaway. A shiver that would have meant nothing to anyone else should have been due warning. Engrossed by the inner workings of a dishwasher on display with a glass-front door that allowed shoppers to watch as it cleaned, however, he'd pushed any sense of foreboding aside. The splashing suds were hypnotic. Frank had reached for the window to see if it was hot. The glass was barely warm, but was wet from condensation. Maybe the carpeting caused a spark, like one of those little jolts one gets by rubbing their socked feet on the living room rug.

  BOOM!

  A blinding flash came next, as every fluorescent lightbulb above shattered in succession—Pop! Pop! Pop! Fridge doors flew open. The dishwasher front exploded, sending water, suds, cereal bowls, and silverware a dozen feet or more. No one ever tied the incident back to Frank, but he knew. He hadn't left the house for two weeks afterward.

  "I can't come into work, Vaughn. I'm… I'm sick." Cough. Cough. Cough.

  But once again, Vaughn had soothed him. He'd drawn Frank back out with caring words and sternness. "Not this again. You sound and look healthy as a horse," he'd said upon visiting the trailer. "Let me feel your forehead."

  "No!" Frank had stood in the doorway. Vaughn had stood on the front steps, because Frank refused to allow him inside his tiny metal home. "There's no fever. It's more of a… pulled muscle thing."

  "And yet you are not hunched or hobbling. Franklin, what affects you is likely in your head as always. Being alone is not a solution. Now listen here! We miss you down at the mortuary. Marion misses the singing you do when you labor, and quite honestly I'm tired of doing all the work alone. Get back in the morning or I will drag you there by your ear!"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And I shall need a pack of cigarettes."

  So Frank had obeyed. Somehow, after each occurrence, he had always returned to his everyday routine. It was a metaphor of sorts. No matter what one faced in life, as long as their heart beat, tomorrow always came. There were still things to learn, but thoughtfulness, caution, and thorough planning—common sense, in a far from common situation—seemed to keep Frank and others safe. He went to work. He went to the store and spoke to Melissa, standing almost six feet from the counter and the brand spanking new microwave the owner had put in, at first.

  "I've missed you," she had said, the first time and again after the scene at Wrangle's. "Why do you keep going away?"

  Frank couldn't tell her why. "I have missed you as well," he simply said.

  Stepping through the door to his little trailer in the present, after the run-in with Renny and his cohorts, Frank desperately wanted to believe someone could truly see past the scars to have feelings for him someday. The "Freaky Frank" chant still playing in his head, the closeness to Renny still tempting his swollen penis, he suddenly remembered it was even more painful when someone did. Frank made the decision not to turn on a light once inside. Now, if the TV was on in the trailer, the lamps were unplugged. If Frank wanted to make toast, nothing else was connected to power. Life was livable. The most horrifying moments, like the day at Wrangle's and one last Halloween with Renny—an event which pretty much cemented Frank's single status for all eternity—those, like Frank's happiest times, were all most likely behind him.

  On the bright side, he had once brought a squirrel in the woods back to life, a bird as well. One time, he'd actually restarted a human heart. It had happened during hunting season, sometime right before Thanksgiving. Hunters were rare in Frank's woods, but that day, at least two were there. Frank had been talking to a doe from a distance, warning her to avoid the men with the shotguns, when he'd heard the thud and somehow knew what it was. He had briefly deliberated, but then, knowing it was the right thing to do, he'd headed toward the sound. Wearily looking over his shoulder instead of at the ground, Frank had simply tripped and then fallen onto the overweight hunter. The man, quite gray already, had gurgled and gasped, and then took breaths in and out. The younger, slimmer outdoorsman who showed up right after
—possibly the sickly one's son—used the word hero. "How can I thank you?" He held out his hand. Frank couldn't take it. "Thank God you know CPR."

  "It was accidental heroism, if that." Frank knew he might still be debating what to do had he not stumbled and dropped. After stopping Renny's heart the previous autumn, he also knew what he had done for this man was not something taught. "I'll go for help," he had said. Then he'd fled for his trailer, to phone for an ambulance.

  Frank thought back to his wish to be a teacher one last time that day. "The fear of frightening a pupil with my hideous face is nothing when compared to electrocuting one as I leaned in too close while helping her learn her ABCs." The mourning dove perched upon the wet porch railing even after most other winged creatures had gone to roost for the night seemed to be listening. "Perhaps I should enter the medical profession." Though the bird flew off when the sirens sounded on the road not far away, Frank kept talking. "But no. I'll stick with cadavers, with the caveat I not see one too soon after their demise, for fear I might accidentally bring it back."

  So far, so good.

  Frank stripped off his sopping wet clothes and slipped into his bathrobe with nothing underneath. The end of May was quite warm, and besides, he was in for the night. Why dress? In fact, why not just turn in? He looked at his empty bed. "Too early. Even for me." He turned on the TV, instead. Ten minutes later, he was ready to shut it off. "I've got a secret too, Steve Allen. Maybe you can have me on sometime." Frank put on a record—a nice, soothing Mozart concerto, as opposed to the rock and roll he'd find on the radio. The loud and flashy part of the storm was over, so he listened to the music, the rain outside oddly complimentary as it still fell hard against the tin roof. It soothed Frank, like a lullaby, and soon had him calm and sleepy, despite the early hour.

  Settling back against his pillow just minutes later, he adjusted the blanket rolled up beside him to take the place of the person who wasn't there. Frank's last thought, as he drifted off to more wailing sirens in the distance, was how he wished there was someone around to make the coffee at dawn. That walk to the kitchen to set up and start the percolator when the floors were cold and clammy was loathsome, even in the summertime.

  Frank would awaken from vivid, heart-gripping dreams several times. Not frightening, twisted nightmares, but sad ones. Frank was always on the sidelines in his dreams. Sometimes people were playing baseball or Parcheesi, and he wasn't allowed to join in. Sometimes his lover—some nameless, faceless, nude, and handsome man meant to be his—would be amongst a group of other undressed, aroused, fellows, everyone paired off or in threes, engaging in loud, sweaty, uninhibited erotic acts while Frank would try desperately to work his way in. For unseen, unrealized reasons, only a heavy heart and desperation, Frank could never reach his man. The feeling in the dream always lingered when Frank awoke. One did not have to be a psychology major or Dr. Joyce Brothers discussing the subconscious on The Merv Griffin Show to interpret the meaning. Frank knew.

  The next day, at the mortuary, Vaughn Hellier told him they had two bodies coming in. "There has been an accident, Franklin, on the highway. A tragedy. So young."

  "Oh?" Frank immediately thought of the sirens, and though he was not heartless, nor was he terribly upset. Death was their business.

  "The girl at the convenience store—"

  Frank gasped then. "Melissa?"

  "Yes. I am sorry. And a young man with her."

  Frank wondered if it was Renny. There was a good probability. If Melissa and Renny really were together as a couple, it would make sense they would travel in the same car. "How terrible." He was too afraid to ask—and also dizzy. He had to sit.

  "Yes. So very young," Vaughn said again. "The driver had been inebriated. What a terrible waste." Vaughn shook his head. He lit a cigarette and repeated his take on the sad situation. "What a terrible waste."

  "And a crime." Frank inhaled several times to catch his breath, inhaled air and Vaughn's cigarette smoke. He leapt to his feet. "What is… his name, Vaughn? I must know the man's identity. Is… Is it Renny?"

  "It is Lawrence."

  "Renny." Frank sat again. "Renny Watson."

  "If you say so, Franklin. Either way, Watson is the surname… yes. They are both coming here from the hospital."

  Frank hated Renny Watson then—more than he even had before. How could Renny do that to Melissa? To his girlfriend? To Frank's friend? "I don't hate him. I can't."

  "Excuse me, son."

  "Nothing. Never mind." How could the only two people Frank had ever allowed his heart to almost love romantically both be gone in a single reckless act?

  "You knew him?" Vaughn asked. "This boy?"

  "The boy. The man. I knew Renny… once upon a time, yes." The fairytale image those words conjured seemed appropriate, except in a fable there'd have been a happy ending.

  "And I know the girl held a place in your heart… and you in hers. Forgive me if I did not break the news gently enough. I am sorry for your loss, Franklin. Truly."

  "I am too, Vaughn."

  "There is a parcel for the post office." Vaughn turned and looked. "Ah. There it is." He walked to a shelf across from where they stood. "The ashes for the out-of-towner we cremated the other day. If you would rather tend to that… drive it into town for—"

  "Excuse me, Vaughn." Frank had started to cry. To his surprise, outside, away from judgment, he sobbed, not just for Melissa, but also Renny. Renny had been a complete menace from the tenth grade, right up until high school graduation day—beyond that, if one counted the night before that horrid morning Frank now wished had never come. It was six years back Frank went in his memory, though, to May and June of 1959.

  Frank had stumbled over something in the cafeteria weeks before school had ended for good. He could still hear the laughter that had echoed off the walls as his tray flew into the air—on spaghetti day, no less. Renny had looked so damned pleased with himself. Frank hadn't tripped. He'd been tripped. The successful prank was repeated at commencement. As the senior classmen who played in the band had walked over to rejoin the underclassmen already seated to play a selection, Renny had stuck out a shiny dress shoe this time, sending Frank into the huge chime stand, creating a dissonant clang throughout the auditorium that lasted almost as long as the shocked gasps and titters of amusement from the crowd.

  The scene had all seemed never ending, as Frank had tried to get to his feet, fighting the flowing fabric of his graduation gown, and kicking at and stepping all over the clanking tubes. Every time he'd thought he had his footing, he'd stumble again and another bell tone would ring out. "You still got both your eyes, Freaky Frank." Renny smirked. "Don't need both ears to see, do ya?"

  Why would someone be so mean, Frank had wondered over the proceeding half a decade? Last Halloween, he'd finally gotten an answer, a lifetime it seemed after the fact. Though Renny's explanation offered some modicum of solace, it still did not take away the hurt.

  "I want to loathe you, stupid jerk!" Frank tried to, but he couldn't, now that Renny was gone from his life forever. "I will always love the thought of what might have been." He looked toward the heavens, desperately hoping the pain Renny had endured throughout his final moments and entire life was now not even a memory. "I truly will miss you both. Peace be with you."

  A few hours later, Frank stared at the naked corpse on a slab—Renny, and Melissa right beside him. It was probably best that most family members—most people—had no idea what went on behind the scenes at a funeral home. Melissa was already dressed and then covered in butcher's paper up to her neck. "I thought it might be difficult for you to see her otherwise," Vaughn said. It was as if he had read Frank's mind. "I can dress the boy too." Renny's nude body was mottled and discolored, some the result of the accident, some from the biological attributes of death.

  "I'll do it," Frank said. He stared at the many marks on Renny's chest in shades of grays that would have been red had his heart still pumped. There were incisions and stitches, bruises
and scrapes, old scars and new. The doctors had tried hard to save him, it seemed.

  "So young," Vaughn repeated once again.

  "She deserved a long, happy life," Frank said, stroking Melissa's mucked-up hair, still sticky with blood, not yet readied for viewing. "She had the sweetest soul. I wonder sometimes, Vaughn... People often say, in a cliché turn of phrase, that one has a 'sweet soul', or once had, as I just did. Or possess a sweet heart… Someone is a 'sweetheart', right? But do kindness and compassion really come from the organ that pumps blood through arteries and veins, or is it part of one's intellect, from the brain, the mind, perhaps?"

  "I do not know, young Franklin. Perhaps those qualities develop and emanate from a part of the person not found in an anatomy book." Vaughn glanced at Renny then, and Frank wondered if he should say something nice about him as well. Despite the grief and the shock, or maybe because of them, he could not think of one kind word.

  "We were friends some years ago," he finally stated. "Best friends… as little boys."

  Renny had dark hair, like Frank. It was curly, whereas Frank's was straight. Frank had a lot of hair on his body. Renny didn't. He was smooth, and also tan, even early in the season, on only the second unofficial summer day, which he had not lived to see. The flesh was no longer golden brown, of course, as it was mere hours ago when Renny breathed. But disparate skin tones between the top and lower half of his fully bare, exposed body still indicated what the sun had recently done. Frank had never seen Renny naked before. Shirtless, yes, but not completely nude. His immediate thoughts felt completely morbid, woefully inappropriate, and utterly shameful. He looked away and blushed.

  "No longer little," Vaughn said, as if reading Frank's mind again. He touched it. "What a waste." And then Frank blushed harder. "One mother said hers was a pianist. Wonderful hands. The other loved to read. "I do not recall which was which. That is information for the minister. It does not pertain to us."

  "No." Frank couldn't picture Renny as a reader. He couldn't picture him playing the piano, either. Renny did once have a nice singing voice, back in grade school music class. Maybe that translated to the piano later on. Suddenly, Frank was remembering a slew of complimentary things he could say about Renny Watson. He wondered what Renny had made of himself over the past six years or so. They lived in the same town. "How could I not know?"

 

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