Frank

An angry man

Frank

Frank stormed wildly through the supermarket electric doors brushing his shoulder against the solid frame. He was too angry to wait for the doors to fully open. His rage was no isolated outburst, he was angry, again.

There were probably countless medical terms for his anger. Had he ‘suffered’ as a youth over qualified social workers would have prescribed boxing or karate. Childless social workers dealing with children. It was just like vegetarians trying to Cook a beef dinner thought Frank. Wankers. Teachers who had never lived in

the real world going from school to university and back to school. Wankers too. He was calm now, or more relaxed anyway. He had completed his first confrontation of the day, before 7am even.

The park was so quiet and peaceful. A few proud owners walked their dogs around the still lake. God he hated pets but pet owners he despised. He watched as one middle aged man dragged his pooch towards the corner of the park. Frank spied as Fido crouched under an oak tree. As the dog rose Frank watched the man look around. Their eyes met. Frank smiled inside. The man had no choice but to bend down and scoop up the dogs deposit. The mans face said it all, dressed ready for the office. Had Frank not been sat there the deposit would certainly have remained half hidden in the grass ready for some poor child to inadvertently tread through.

Several school kids passed by. One, barely fourteen asked Frank for a light as a bent cigarette rested on his pre-pubescent lips. Oh how so cool thought Frank with rather more than a pinch of sarcasm. With their shirts hanging out of their crumpled trousers and ties at half mast they looked as if they had slept in their uniforms. Well it would give them an extra few minutes in bed. Lazy b******s, think we owe them a living. At least they were going to school, or were they on their way to the arcade for the day? A fun filled day of dodging truancy officers and standing outside newsagents persuading older customers to buy them bottles of cider. Our future thought Frank. Frightening. Even though Frank was a father, and loved his son dearly, he still hated kids. Yeh, his life was full of contradictions and hypocrisy.

Frank was a writer, or at least that was the job description he gave to strangers at dull parties. Forty something and he paid his bills writing shite verses for birthday cards. It was a miracle he hadn’t developed diabetes from churning out all those sweet sickly rhymes. He remembered the first verse he had accepted. It

appeared on a birthday card for a sixty year old grandmother. Wow was he proud. All his friends received that card for their birthday, whatever their age or gender. Of course he would have preferred his ’real’ poetry be accepted but he couldn’t stomach another Pot Noodle or defer maintenance payments any longer. He had sold his soul to the devil. Oh yeh, we were all prostitutes.

The park was now becoming more crowded. A short cut to the High Street from the housing estate it angered Frank that most passed through without appreciating their surroundings. He had seen the ducks flying at dawn. Funny how they only fly when they think no one is watching. He has watched the morning dew dry, noticed the new blooming of the crocus. The giant oak, recently fertilised, was standing before anyone here and will probably, hopefully, still capture the summer sun long after they have all departed. Kinda strange that for a short period of its life people would look up to the tree. For hundreds of years later we will look down on the tree from that great heaven above. Franks head was rambling now.

Heaven above, heaven above he thought. He was a god fearing man. He feared his lack of faith would result in the great man striking him down one day for not believing. He dreaded the words ’Now do you believe?’ as he stood at the pearly gates staring at a sign ’No Vacancies’. But then he had sold his soul to the devil and there was always space downstairs wasn’t there? What was it all about? How could anyone put their entire faith in someone they had never met? in someone based on fairy tales told by men dressed completely in black with odd headgear. Maybe if ministers wore bright coloured clothes their tales would sound a little more credible, neh. Just like those social workers and shrinks, no children, some clergy not allowed to marry even yet there they are giving advice to families. And their source? A book written two thousand years ago by a handful of nutters following another hippie with long hair dressed in a sheet and sandals.

Where did these people get off on pronouncing death on non believers? Are people so shallow, so inept as to put their entire savings, their whole life, every decision in a tv preacher? Maybe Frank felt hijacked by religion. Adopted as a baby his teenage mother had requested he be placed with a family of the same religion. As if this mixed up, emotionally drained young girl with all this s**t going on in her head could make such a rational decision. Neh, religion is never a rational choice. It is a choice made out of desperation, fear forced on by ones peers.

Frank was angry again. Now he was annoyed with his feelings. Seated in this beautiful park, amongst gods creations, he should have been savouring the lush green grass, the vibrant, commanding trees and the colourful, fragile flowers. Instead his blood pressure teetered on boiling. The church clock chimed nine. At

least the church had one useful function. The kids had passed through, the workers already at their desks. Computers took the untravelled to far away places, their courage not strong enough to conquer their dreams. He had travelled. He had tasted real pasta in Italy, real Kebabs in the Middle East, not the junk served to drunks on a Saturday night in the High Street. He felt arrogant, better than the idiots that dined on egg & chips and spurned the opportunity to visit the local sights on a two week holiday in Spain. That was if they made it out of the country.

Too many just plumped for Blackpool again, their tenth year at the same awful guest house, same dreary surroundings because ‘We like it there’. He had friends his own age who had never travelled further than fifty miles, never witnessed the beauty of a desert sunrise or felt the history of Roman ruins. Any wonder the

country suffers from rampant xenophobia? He felt frustrated. The more you achieve, the further you want to go. He was disappointed at himself for rejecting challenges put in front of him in his younger days.

A tramp sat beside him. Frank smiled as the tramp dropped his three weathered Marks & Spencer carrier bags on the floor between his feet. This was a high class tramp, a failed merchant banker who had lost his company millions? Naturally in the greatest traditions of stereotype his beautiful wife deserted him once his high income dried up. Frank could see at least three empty park benches yet the scruffy, elderly man chose Franks airspace to rest. Frank resisted the temptation to give the man his loose change for a coffee and a bar of soap. They talked, both lonely but only Frank was lost. The tramp, it transpired, had always been a tramp. His mother had, before succumbing to the great freeze of 79, pushed a supermarket trolley through the very same high street. As with Frank, the tramp simply slipped into the family business. The closest he had been

to a banker was sitting next to the cash point machine collecting loose change.

“Buy you breakfast?” asked Frank with a tone more rhetorical than questioning.

“Why?” asked the tramp

“Because you’re hungry” replied Frank and the smell will piss off the posh ponces in the MegaBucks coffee shop.

For the first time in weeks they both smiled.