And Before He Saw It Coming

Frank came into my life as a friend of a friend. Actually it was closer than that. His elderly Dad and Stepmom went to the same church as my Mom and Stepfather. I wouldn't say they went on double dates in their 80s, but they played dominoes every so often. Frank, the son, had an automotive repair shop. He'd fixed my vehicle or changed the oil a dozen times before we did anything but business, sharing more personal issues, like parent care.. In the beginning Frank was my Mom's friend, stopping by he home for a visit, doing little things around the house that she couldn't manage. My Mom considered Frank a good guy. She'd tease him about marrying him someday.

So years have passed since we first met at his auto repair shop, and the parents and step parent have passed on. We both have gone through emptying houses that used to be homes, and finding a place for the furniture we grew up with. Some items you part with and some you keep. Some you give/sell to a friend. I have a piano to learn on for the first time in my life now. It's in the garage where I can't really get to it because all my Mom's worldly possessions are in the garage, and not unboxed and dealt with yet. I've hadneck surgery and should not move more than 15 pounds. Unless I have help in the garage, it's not safe for me to move boxes and possessions. Maybe Frank will come help me some day.

I had an unlucky friend in my past. It was as if trouble were always just ahead of him, and he walked into it every time. Problems never seemed to be anything he initiated, but it was usually breathing down my neck when I was with him. Frank has this kind of luck, only worse.

As an introduction, imagine a friend near your own age who has a drop by anytime invitation for coffee and chat. Mom never told me what they talked about, but I got the impression it was personal. I guess he kind of adopted my mother as his own. He never went to her home when he had been drinking. Drinking was never mentioned. Either he faked her out, or he only took up serious daily drinking since my mom died. Actually, it probably started when his dad died. People grieve in different ways.

Politicians used to talk about a Domino Theory, where California would fall to communism, and the rest of th country would follow, state by state. Originally, the "dominoes" were islands in the Pacific Ocean. It hasn't happened to the USA yet, and it probably never will. But, other things fall like lined up standing dominoes.

I remember going to the family time at the funeral home when Frank's dad died. I stayed back like a wall flower to observe. There was Frank. There was a taller brother I'd never seen before. There were a couple of grand kids, a boy and a girl I hardly noticed. The young man had kind of long hair and those big circular earlobe stretchers in his ear. He looked like a radical revolutionary, and I wondered if Frank had been likewise in his younger days.

Frank's dad had helped him start his auto repair business. He'd been in the same location for 15 years, and always had the vehicle of a client or two on the property. Business dropped off a bit when his dad died. Many customers had been friends with his dad. He was the sole service man in his garage. He had a friend named Debbie who did most of his book work for him. She lived a few blocks east of me, so he was in the neighborhood often. That's when he would stop by my mom's house to chat.

Frank and Debbie were friends, nothing more, because now I know how he is. He called her home, where she lived with her mother, and was told Debbie was dead. Debbie was inher 40s. Frank said they had a heated conversation Saturday night. I could tell from his eye that he had said things he regretted. Her mother did not authorize an autopsy. Frank and the rest of her friends will never know if she died by accident or by her own hand.

Frank was shook up personally. It wasn't long, barely two months, and bills that had not been paid started catching up with him. He confided in me, one afternoon he dropped by my house with a couple of 25 ounce beers. His rent on his shop space was three months in arrears. The owner wanted him out.

"I don't want the money, I want my property back.

He worked at vacating his space. He'd work at clearing out parts and keepsakes, and then he would get overwhelmed and burned out. The owner wanted him out ASAP. I thought that meant a moth tops. He had so much stuff in his place of business, four months passed before he had enough stuff out to walk away. Some of the big things went to his dad's house in Dallas. Other items that were driven away on a trailer went to his Mom's house south of the city, kind of out in the country. When he got his shop cleared, he faced the job of vacating his blind, and now deceased mother. It was a relatively small house, but it was filled with furniture from when he grew up with his mother and step father.

Every time Frank came to my house, he was drinking a tall beer, or two. Somewhere around three beers, he gets silly, unreasonable, and destructive. I drink socially and lightly because of the meds I take. He left beer in my fridge for awhile. I decided it was a bad idea. If I don't drink, why do I need to chill someone else'e beer. That would be an enabling thing to do. Frank is a lot easier to be around sober.