Frankie

Frankie

Frankie and I were never great friends but we had been in the same class and scouts together. That was about twenty-five years ago when we were both twelve year old kids growing up in Brooklyn, New York. He was pretty much a loner. Maybe it was because he was one of those war orphans brought back from Rumania after World War Two. I once heard my mother talking to a neighbor about Frankie. She said that he was a gypsy and that his real family died in a concentration camp during the war. He even had a slight foreign accent that the other kids used to mimic and tease him about. But he never seemed to mind. He just kept to himself pretty much. At Saint Anselm’s, the local Catholic grammar school, we were taught by nuns and brothers. They were pretty tough but they knew how to maintain discipline. In the seventh grade, our teacher, Brother Donal must have had some sadistic tendencies because he seemed to enjoy inflicting physical pain on kids who got out of line and even some who didn’t. We were all afraid of him, except for Frankie. I still remember the day when Frankie, who was always quiet in class, accidentally dropped a book on the floor while Brother was writing on the blackboard and had his back to the class. Brother turned around and saw Frankie picking the book up. You could tell from his expression that he was really pissed off. He called Frankie to the front of the room while he got the pointer stick, his main instrument of terror. Usually when a kid was ordered to come up front for punishment, you could see the fear on his face and some kids would even tremble. Not Frankie. He gained enormous respect from us as he calmly walked up to Brother Donal who was wearing his "I’m gonna kill ya" face. Frankie didn’t wait for Brother to make him hold his hand out. He offered it up himself and calmly waited for the stick to come down. He glared at Frankie. "Maybe this will help you to be less clumsy," he said. Brother raised the pointer and aimed at the steady, extended palm. Whack! All the other kids winced but not Frankie. He just stood there with that same blank expression on his face. Even Brother Donal seemed a bit surprised by Frankie’s stoicism. The pointer went up again and this time it came down harder. Whack! The other kids winced even more but Frankie didn’t flinch. He just stood there as stone-faced as ever. Now, Brother was frustrated which was something you did not want to cause in this man. This time, the pointer came down really hard. WHACK! Normally, the number of whacks for such an offense was three. But now, Brother made an exception. He was going to get Frankie to acknowledge his pain even if it killed him. He came down with the pointer three more times and still Frankie didn’t react. On the seventh whack, Brother really put some muscle behind it and his pointer broke in half on Frankie’s hand. Brother was now incensed. We thought he was going to kill Frankie right then and there but he just told him to get back to his desk. We were awestruck as Frankie sat down and calmly folded his hands in front of him and stared straight ahead. I think it was then that we became a little afraid of Frankie although no one knew exactly what it was about him that we were afraid of.

A few weeks later, I was on my way to a meeting of my Boy Scout troop. Troop meetings were usually held once every two weeks in the church basement and scouts who had uniforms were required to wear them. On this night, I ran into Frankie who asked me about my uniform. Like a good scout, I told him all about the benefits of scouting. He seemed to become more interested when I mentioned summer camping trips to the woods far from the city. He wanted to know all about the animals that might be encountered in the woods. At first, I thought he might be afraid of animals and I assured him that it was only the bears you had to watch out for and that the raccoons, rabbits, deer, bats and other such wildlife were harmless. A couple of weeks later, Frankie joined the troop and wound up in the Wolf Patrol with me. He became a little friendlier than before but he still kept his distance. Being in the same class and now the same scout patrol with Frankie, I started to notice some other odd things about him, aside from his amazing tolerance for pain.

We were both working in shop class at school one day and I was busy carving a piece wood trying to fashion an Indian talisman. This was the project that would earn me my Arts and Crafts merit badge. Frankie was next to me using a sander on something else. The awl I was using slipped and gashed my hand. I let out a yell as my blood flowed quite freely from the wound. Before I knew it, Frankie grabbed my wrist and applied pressure with a grip that was incredibly strong. I wasn’t able to move my arm at all. The strength in his hand was unbelievable but that’s not what I found so odd. It was the expression on his face as he gazed at the wound and the blood that had now smeared his own hand. His eyes were fixated on the wound and his lips began to quiver as if he was having some kind of seizure. Then, he actually drooled. A second later, Mr. Kearney, the shop teacher, was there with a large compress. He had to slap Frankie to get him to let go of my wrist. What happened next was even weirder. As Mr. Kearny applied the compress and sat me down on a stool, the other kids, except Frankie, gathered around to see the action. I noticed Frankie across the room standing near the sink with the water running. He was staring at his own hand stained with my blood. As I watched, he stuck his tongue out and was about to lick the blood off when he furtively looked around and saw me watching. I must have had a shocked look on my face because he then quickly turned away and stuck his hand under the stream of water in the sink. Then I was hustled off to the nurse’s office. After this, I became even more curious about Frankie. That’s when I started to watch him more closely.

Being in a Catholic school, we were required from time to time to attend church services as a class. On one occasion, I sat in a pew behind Frankie and noticed that he appeared almost reverent sitting there in church. When I say reverent, I mean he kept his head bowed and his eyes lowered. The other kids would look around at the ceiling or the murals on the walls of the church to such an extent that a brother or nun was usually snapping their fingers and casting threatening looks at the offenders. Frankie never looked around; he always kept his eyes on his shoes, it seemed. I figured maybe he was very religious and had a vocation to become a priest someday. Maybe this was the key to understanding this kid who remained so much apart from the others. I decided that I would try to be his friend and since he took religion so seriously, I would give him a gift that he would appreciate. The next day after school, I caught up with him and thanked him for helping me when I cut my hand the previous week. He just nodded and muttered something about it being no problem. I told him that I had a gift for him and he asked what it was. I asked him to hold out his hand. I reached into my pocket and took out a silver plated crucifix on a chain carefully concealing them in my hand so I could surprise him. I placed them in his open hand. He reacted as if I had stuck the business end of a red hot poker in his hand. He dropped the gift on the ground and grabbed me by the front of my shirt lifting me off my feet like I was a rag doll. He rammed my body up against a parked car and with his contorted face close to mine, he hissed something about killing me if I ever did that again. He then dropped me and stormed off. I no longer thought he was a priest in the making.

Frankie avoided me after that, which I didn’t mind at all. But he stayed with the Boy Scouts. On the first camping trip that summer, we were bussed to the Catskill mountains where we hiked up to a plateau camping area and we set up our tents. Frankie wound up in a tent with another kid named Herman whose main hobby was eating stuff like chocolate Ring Dings and his size showed it. One of the Scout Leaders had to stay with him hiking up the mountain because he had such a hard time getting his fat ass up to the camp site. They finally arrived, with Herman huffing and puffing, about a half hour after everyone else. When Herman once complained to me about the Scouts, I asked him why he didn’t quit. He told me that his father wouldn’t let him.

Everything went pretty smoothly until the third day when all the scouts were either playing Capture the Flag, working on crafts or hiking nearby nature trails. I was busy making a knot display board when Herman came running into the camp site as if he was being chased by a bear. He ran up to the Scout Leader and started babbling something that no one could understand. Once the Scout Leader managed to calm Herman down a bit, he told us that he had been with a group of six scouts walking along a trail in the woods. He said that he saw Frankie leave the group and go off onto a side trail by himself. He decided to secretly follow Frankie to see what he was up to. He let Frankie get a good distance ahead of him because he didn’t want to be seen following. But then he had a problem keeping up with Frankie. At one point, Herman couldn’t see Frankie anymore but he kept going in the same direction. After a while, Herman was about to give up trying to find Frankie and he turned back for the camp site. As he made his way along a path, he heard a strange sound that seemed to come from the other side of a small hill off the path. He stood still and listened. Yes, it was just on the other side of the mound to his right. He quietly crept up the mound darting from tree to tree for cover. When he got to the top, he saw Frankie kneeling over a dead fawn. He was biting the fawn’s neck and blood was streaming down the animal’s neck to the ground. Herman then stepped on a twig - crack! Frankie bolted upright and looked directly at him. Herman, almost hysterical again, said that Frankie’s face was grotesque, It wasn’t just the blood on his face; It was his eyes - they were red and his skin was a montage of green, yellow and blue shades. The Scout Leader had to calm Herman down again before he could continue. Herman told us that he ran as fast he could back to the camp site. He was terrified that Frankie was after him.

Just then, Frankie appeared looking quite normal. In fact, he was as cool, calm and collected as usual. He approached the group who had gathered around Herman. When Herman saw him, he moved closer to the Scout Leader as if for protection. Frankie looked at Herman and asked him why he ran away. Herman just yelled at Frankie to stay away from him. Frankie just looked perplexed by Herman’s attitude. He explained that he was only trying to help an injured fawn and that when Herman came along, for some strange reason, he panicked and ran away. It was then that Herman screamed that Frankie was a vampire and pleaded with the Scout Leader to go home. I tried to help calm Herman down by telling him that Frankie couldn’t be a vampire because he had been with us outside in daylight. This caused Herman to pause momentarily but he couldn’t be convinced nor could he be coaxed to stay one more night in the same camp site, much less the same tent, with Frankie. The Scout Master drove Herman home that evening. There were no more incidents and Frankie had a tent to himself for the last three days camping.

The following June, Frankie and I graduated from Saint Anselm’s. Two weeks later, my father changed jobs and we moved to Kansas City. But I had heard about him at the twenty-fifth class reunion.

I didn’t recognize Herman at the reunion when he approached me. He had slimmed down quite a bit. When I asked about Frankie, he told me that he had disappeared about ten years earlier and hadn’t been seen since. Then Herman told me about the murder.

Brother Donal’s body had been found in Keating Park. His blood had been drained from his body and there were puncture marks in the neck. The really odd thing though was that the victim’s hands were crushed. Herman’s hair stood on end when he heard the story, he said. He called the police immediately and told them about Frankie but when the cops went to question Frankie, he was gone. Herman said that the cops are still looking for him but that they would never find him. When I asked Herman why he thought that Frankie would never be found, he told me about what he had learned about vampires. He said that Frankie had been able to go camping in daylight when we were kids because he was not yet demonicus. This was the mature state of vampires who had drunk human blood. Immature vampires lived on animal and insect blood and were able to age, and live as normal people, more or less. Once they drank human blood, aging and the inability to live in daylight gradually ceased. Brother Donal had been Frankie’s first victim. If the police wanted to find Frankie, Herman said, they had to look for a twenty-five year old man and God help them if they find him.

Now, whenever I hear about serial killings or missing persons, I think of Frankie. He’s out there somewhere.