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Frank
by Fred Petrovsky
FRANK. Copyright © 2001 by Fred Petrovsky. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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First edition: October 2001
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“The premise is fantastic.”
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About the Author
“All my writing is an attempt to reveal who I am and what I aspire to be.... I’ve wanted to tell stories since I was ten years old, when I began writing small tales. I read Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island and imagined myself painting similar worlds of music and adventure.”
FRED PETROVSKY was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1958, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His nonfiction works have been published in TV Guide, Midstream, Attaché, and The Arizona Republic. Frank is his first novel. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with wife, Amy, and their three children.
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For Amy
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?
—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein
Prologue
Driven by a deliberate hand, a needle pokes through the thin gray rubber seal of a small vial until it is immersed in a thick milky fluid.
A careful repositioning of hands inverts the small bottle so the needle’s hollow eye can seek the solution’s center. The plunger eases back, and the cloudy substance is drawn into the syringe’s measured belly. There it joins with another liquid in a concert of muted frenzy.
The syringe has been specially prepared for the still, fleshy arm of a man who, lying quietly beneath white covers and a golden blanket, relies on an unending regimen of medicines to fight infection, rejection, and a dozen other evils that constantly threaten him.
Now the same hand that prepared the syringe rubs the man’s skin with an alcohol pad, its touch almost like a caress, and inserts the needle.
1: Howard Lavery
This is not a perfect thing that I have consented to.
In fact, trapped here in my dark world, I sometimes think that if I had the chance to do it over again, I would choose differently. I wonder about that a lot.
Still, though, I can hear the doctors, nurses, and my loved ones and, in a fashion, communicate with them. On Monday I felt for the first time that I was actually connected to my new body. My shoulder itched and I moved it. Or at least I thought I did. Dr. Bernstein tells me it was a phantom sensation and not to expect anything for a long time, if ever.
I’m grasping at straws, I know. But the long, desperate hours of my thoughts roiling, folding in upon themselves with nowhere to go have made me a dispirited prisoner.
Catherine came by this morning and held my hand. I’ve been practicing that—my hand. It used to be someone else’s. Frank’s hand. But now it’s mine and Catherine sat by the bed and held it for a long time, telling me so.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked, her lilting voice coming to me through what seemed like a long tunnel filled with water. Though I can’t hear well, it has made all the difference.
I concentrated for a while and finally heard my mechanical voice say, “Good.”
To enable me to communicate, a small electrode was implanted near the part of my brain that controls my hands. The implant picks up electrical signals when I try to make a fist with my left hand, but I must focus. I zero in on my hand and visualize it moving in order to mentally tap out an abbreviated numeric stenographic alphabet that I’m learning. These signals are then relayed to a speech synthesizer that actually talks for me. It’s a robotic, disconnected-sounding voice that speaks each word slowly and then waits until I’ve completed the next one.
“That was a fast response, darling. That was very good. Can I get you anything?”
I know that was a rhetorical question. She didn’t really expect an answer. What could I possibly need that I don’t already possess? I have my music. More CDs than I could listen to in a lifetime, really. And that’s about all.
But she asked a question. She expected an answer.
I thought W-T R U D-N-G and the computer said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sniff. “I was just sitting here and looking at you and missing you, and thinking how much I love you and how I can’t stand this. It’s hard.” Catherine had mastered the you part of me. Because, of course, it isn’t me. It’s Frank’s body. I inhabit his husk.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
I wanted to get her thinking about something else so I asked, “What’s new?” I want to know what was happening in her world. I wanted to hear about her job, our son Neil, the grandchildren.
“Oh, nothing, honey. Really nothing new since yesterday.”
I hated that and wanted her to leave immediately because it wasn’t true. Her life and our home must be a noisy mess of phone calls and lies and making up stories for our friends, news about Neil and about why he hasn’t been to visit me, and invitations to our grandchildren’s preschool plays and bills to pay and scheduling problems with her volunteering and a strange sound that the car was making and a call from the nursing home where her mom was planted or, I hoped, her longing for my touch. How late did she stay up last night? Was she already burning for another man’s caress? Since I saw her yesterday
she had lived a thousand lives and made dozens of decisions, and she dismissed them all with her callous answer: Nothing.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
I heard a small sob, then quiet.
She said, “Everything’s okay, really. It’s quiet around the house. Neil came by with Emily and the kids. You should see how big Jacob is getting. He’s a handful. And Joshua? They’re potty training him now. He ran around the house naked waving his diaper over his head. Then he peed on the carpet. Neil wasn’t happy, but I didn’t care. He and Emily asked about you. They’re worried. Neil said he was going to come by later today. He says he has a surprise for you. I really think he’s going to come this time. Emily took me aside and said that Neil is doing better with this thing and that he misses you. So do I.”
Catherine stopped talking, and I could hear her sigh. I think she held her breath.
“I miss you so much. I hurt for you,” she said.
I told her that I understood. But I could not comfort her much. I wanted to tell her that she did not have to miss me because I haven’t gone anywhere. But I know it’s not really me that she’s missing. It’s the active me she misses. The other me. The representational me. My body. That other person once recognized as Howard.
“Touch me,” I asked her, something I’ve pushed upon her before. I wanted to learn about my new body again. Partly for me. Partly for her. I needed to know who and what I am. And she needed to understand and realize that, as bizarre as it seems, her husband was still alive. Flesh and blood. She knew what I wanted.
“You have a strong jaw and a proud nose. Very good looking. Your lips are generous and open. Your hair is growing back.”
“Kiss me,” I asked her.
“Okay,” she said, and she did, though I couldn’t feel it. “I’m pulling down the sheets now. There’s still that thing in your throat.”
She could have lied about touching me and taking off the sheets because, after all, I have no physical sensation.
“What do I look like?”
“Howard, you have a young, healthy body. Very handsome. You look younger than the thirty-five they say the donor is. I’m pulling up your gown.”
“Touch me,” I told her. “Touch me and tell me.”
“I’m doing it. You have a very smooth chest. Your skin has an olive tone. Your shoulders are broad. You’re beautiful.”
I thought I felt something when she touched my neck and shoulders. A flutter. A bit of pressure. Was the nerve regeneration gene therapy working?
In my mind I thought about Catherine sitting next to me, the covers pulled back and my torso exposed. I looked down on the scene from above as if I were floating near the ceiling detached from my body. I saw her hands moving over me, touching me, caressing me. She leaned forward and laid her cheek against my chest.
“Go on,” I told her. She knew what I meant.
“I’m touching your legs. They seem fine. Strong legs. Sturdy like an athlete.”
“More,” I urged.
“You have a fine penis,” she said.
“Describe it. Please,” I said.
“It’s a little bigger than your old one,” she said, stumbling when she said the word “old.” “And fatter. It’s soft and warm. Your balls are full and loose from your body.”
“Touch it again,” I asked her. “Touch it. It’s yours, too.”
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When she left I had one of my bouts of desperation. If I could scream, I would have done so loudly. If I could have smothered myself or pulled some plug to end this I might have done so. Because I thought of Catherine and about how things used to be. About our love and our closeness before the accident. About our lives and intimacy together.
I thought about my new penis and about what it would feel like if I could take it for a spin. Except for our honeymoon years, Catherine and I did not have spectacular fireworks sex. Ours was a familiar, even passion that evolved comfortably. Still, our sex was welcome, regular, and very satisfying. Sex in our fifties was very good and it was something I missed more than I can say.
I longed to hold Catherine and inhale her scent, my nose against her neck, my fingers skating along her thighs, my tongue darting in her ear. I liked to turn against her and raise my leg over hers, molding to her body, my chest against her side, my penis folded against her leg and filling with desire.
My Catherine!
When the nurse came in I asked for some music. Rossini’s overtures this time. La Gazza Ladra and Semiramide. The most exquisite sounds. Tremendous variety in texture. His overtures tell stories and cast images in my darkness. Sometimes I can see the orchestra, bows sliding through the air, horns opening up, the conductor’s unruly tuft of gray hair. Then I draw further inward and a cinema explodes with castles and lovers walking along a river and rolling clouds and birds darting about humorously and great ballrooms with hundreds of people turning at the same time and secrets and violence and women talking in corridors and great ocean waves crashing upon metal ships. It’s easy for me to forget what I am and float away into another world or, very often, to revisit the events of my life that my brain has chosen to save.
My mind takes a turn to a September after Neil went away to college. Catherine felt the empty nest and was, overnight, a changed woman. Sad and distant. I knew it would pass. She would move on. We both would. Find new lives. That old cliché. I came home one Friday with tickets to New Orleans and saw her find her smile again, rushing to pack. I pinched her fine bottom and she smacked me away playfully. We walked down Bourbon Street on a crowded weekend evening sipping hurricanes and tripping over each other. We stopped at a so-called voodoo shop, breathed the incense and explored the walls of brightly colored masks, cases of herbs and spells and dolls and skeletons. In the back, Madame Sonja told the future in a small curtained room for fifty dollars.
Madame Sonja welcomed us into her realm, a dark chamber lit by twelve very thick black candles. She was a big woman, but how large there was no telling because her costume had multiple layers of faded gypsy patterns, tassels, and scarves. Her face was puffy and mostly featureless in the shadows. Her upper arms sagged.
She motioned for us to sit down and immediately took Catherine’s hand. She held it and looked at Catherine’s face. Then she turned Catherine’s hand palm up and studied the lines. My hand next. Her hands were soft, fleshy, and warm. She caressed my hand and pressed my palm. She said nothing.
Then she pinched something that looked like soot out of a jar and flicked it into the air. A deck of tarot cards appeared in her hand and she began to slowly peel off cards, laying them upon each other. She touched each card as it revealed its face. Halfway through the cards she spoke.
“You have lost something,” she said. “I can’t see what it is. Something about water disturbs me with these cards. Stay away from it. Be careful.”
Catherine and I giggled nervously, holding hands.
Madame Sonja turned a few more cards then stopped suddenly.
“Your love will last,” she said slowly, “but there’s something else. I see that you will marry again.”
“Who?” asked Catherine.
“You,” said the fortuneteller, pointing to Catherine. “And you, too,” she said, gesturing at me. “You will both remarry.”
Madame Sonja went on with a few more predictions, none of which I remember because I was shocked by her marriage prediction. Catherine and I left without saying anything but eyed each other suspiciously. We took one of the quieter streets back to the hotel, still holding hands, but the joyous mood was gone.
“What do you think she meant?” asked Catherine.
“She’s just an old nobody,” I said. “She can’t predict the future any more than I can. You really don’t believe what she said, do you?”
“Well, no,” she said unconvincingly. “But she seemed so certain.”
“This is crazy,” I said. “She has no idea what she’s talking about.”
“I don’t know,” said Cat
herine quietly. “A lot of people believe in the supernatural and things like that. What if she’s right?”
“She’s not right,” I said. “We shouldn’t have gone in there.”
I stopped walking and pulled her close to me. “I love you,” I said. “And nothing can change that. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me and that’s all there is to it.”
Catherine gave me a weak smile and a loose hug. I could see that she was worried. She was thinking about a life without me, I could tell. She was thinking about her next husband and who he would be.
Then I looked up and saw that we were standing in front of Two Rings Chapel, a small church strategically located in the heart of the French Quarter for only one purpose. Quick weddings.
“Then let’s make Madame Sonja a prophet,” I said, and Catherine and I stepped into the garish doors of the chapel, paid our $175 for the Lip Lock package, an extra $25 for two tin rings, and yet another $10 for the chapel to provide a witness. Then we waited with another couple until it was our turn.
The other couple was very young. I doubt if either had seen twenty-one. They smiled at us. The groom gave me a thumbs-up signal and said, “Way to go, dude.” Then they were called and Catherine and I were left alone sitting close to each other. We didn’t say anything.
The Reverend Josia Marmot presided over our wedding. A woman whom I supposed could have been his wife played a lugubrious rendition of the “Wedding March.” A pock-faced man was the witness. I don’t remember much else because I was too busy looking at Catherine and trying to calm my strange nervousness.
After we exchanged the rings, after we said our “I do’s” and embraced, after the pock-faced man tossed a handful of rice in the air, and after we stepped out of the Two Rings Chapel and walked away, everything was back to normal. Catherine clung to my arm and rested her head against my shoulder, saying “I love you” several times.
Frank Page 1