Character: Frank
Time/Location: The Mothlight, 3:00 PM
Scene Status: Open. I mean, if you really want to deal with all of
that.
Tagging: N/A
The Day Before
Or: The Franky Horror Picture Show
After Grace screamed, pummeled him, and stormed off in a tizzy that can only be described as 'a woman scorned', Frank took the time to furiously masturbate before eating a bag of expired Funyuns from the vending machine around the corner and taking a six-hour nap. He dreamt he was the God King Emperor Half-Prince of a fantasy-cum-apocalyptic wilderness, riding his three-headed pegasus through a war-torn battlefield. Wielding a gun that shot lightning in one hand and a sword made of chainsaws in the other, he laid waste to the roiling goblin hordes as they emerged in waves of green from their deep dug warrens. The whole thing was soundtracked by Dio and Slayer playing simultaneously.
In the end, he fucked a reverse centaur. So, that was fuckin' cool.
Needless to say, Frank woke up and groaned the loudest groan that has ever been groaned as reality came crashing down on him like a ton of bricks. He didn't know what time it was, but it was already getting dark outside, so that was another day successfully wasted. "Well, shit," He thought as he sat up in bed. "Guess I better get to drinkin'." Functioning alcoholism is a funny little critter. Like most other addictions, it's insidious and gets under your skin and lives there until the day you die, but, hey! At least you can still hold down a job, right? You can make ends meet. In the right angle and the perfect light, you're just a Funtime Johnny! Life of the party! Your reckless decisions are tempered by the knowledge that you've mostly got your shit together. Chances are, you'll never see rock bottom unless you go looking for it.
That and several other reasons were why Frank wasn't a functioning alcoholic. That's the punchline. Badum tss.
So, it was up and at 'em. Frank threw on an offensively lurid Hawaiian shirt and a pair of jeans that hadn't been washed in over a month. He combed his mustache for the ladies, ate an entire roll of Tums to keep his stomach from revolting, and splashed himself with just enough cologne to make sure they could smell him from three towns over. Regarding himself in the bathroom mirror, Frank saw the peak of masculinity; every woman's dream and every jealous husband's nightmare.
"Franklin D. Liddle," He said. "You're such a goddamn legend."
He kissed the mirror (because of course he did) before scouring the entire motel room for spare change or anything valuable enough to barter with. Thirty minutes later, he had come up with three dollars and eighty cents in pennies, a most likely used Amazon gift card, a single quarter that had rust on the edges, and a Sacagawea dollar. He traded the gift card to his neighbor next door for a ride into town. By 8:00 PM, Frank stood outside of The Mothlight with a head full of dreams and a heart full of calcification. He was going to let this whole goddamn town hear his knuckles crack.
Well, he would have, if there had been anybody around. Netherland Avenue was nearly deserted, which was probably to be expected considering that it was a Sunday, the weather was calling for snow, and what had transpired the night before with all that violent-death-in-the-streets business. With the shrug of either shoulder, Frank headed inside. A few of the regulars were around, but it was a slow night in The Mothlight. That little looker Virgil had brought on to run the bar while he dealt with all that godforsaken grief of his was there, but Frank knew better than to shit where he ate, so he kept the sultry comments to a bare minimum. Besides, she wouldn't know what to do with such a tiger of a man if she had the chance. Slamming the sack of pennies down on the counter like it was a bag of gold, he all but shouted, "You still got that real cheap beer in the back, honey? The one that tastes like piss and vinegar? Virg's been sellin' it to me for a dollar a bottle, please and thank you."
Frank wasn't under the delusion that he was well-liked in The Mothlight, but he had gone to great lengths to make himself part of the general scene. Virgil had threatened to ban him for life a hundred times over, but it never happened, and Frank doubted it ever would. Blame it on a soft spot at most and a lack of wanting to deal with the fallout, at the very least. Fifteen minutes and three beers later, Frank used his only begotten quarter in the jukebox to play what he considered one of the greatest songs to ever be written in the history of all mankind:
"Jump" by Van goddamn motherfucking Halen.
If there were an award for poetry, it should've gone to David Lee Roth every year, as far as Frank was concerned. As that synth line blared through the speakers and the entire bar audibly groaned, Frank shuffled his feet in a makeshift dance that resembled something between the 'electric slide' and the common 'skank'. It was every bit as off-putting as one might imagine. However, in his fit of hubris, Frank had forgotten all about the beer bubbling in his belly and the stress it was putting on his already death defying kidneys. Alas, the lizard needed to be drained and it would not abide for another single, solitary second. Thankfully, there were speakers in the bathroom, so Frank wouldn't miss one moment of Eddie's delirium-inducing guitar solo.
In the bathroom and at the urinal, Frank muttered the lyrics beneath his breath as he did his business. There was the sound of someone shuffling inside a stall a few doors over, but that did nothing to affect Frank, his already waning buzz, or the pure joy he felt as the song segued into its second verse.
Oh! Hey you! Who said that? Baby, how you been? However, when that shuffling became coupled with the sound of low, stifled moaning, that caught Frank's attention. "Ah jeez, buddy!" He called out before tucking Frank Jr. back into his pants. "The cookin' in this joint claims another victim, huh? Hang in there! Yer doin' great, champ!"
Satisfied with his act of wanton camaraderie, Frank went back to singing his tune as he made his way over to one of the sinks. What? You didn't expect him to wash his hands, did you? He's a fuck-up, not an animal! Anyway, a squirt of soap, a little lather, a bit of water, and⦠Frank looked into the mirror. His eyes went wide, his jaw went slack, his entire body went stiff, and his vocal chords moved on their own volition to force out the only three words that could possibly give meaning to what he saw:
"What the fuck?!"
There, standing behind him in the now-open stall for more than just a blink of the eye, was a ragged and mud-greased Morris Blevins. He stood with one outstretched hand, the other arm hung limp by his side, mouth agape as little trickles of ruby red blood made their way down his chinny chin chin. It took a moment for Frank to conceptualize what he was seeing, his mind refusing to believe it even as his eyes revealed the full extent of the truth.
When his brain finally caught up with the rest of him, Frank turned on a heel to face the waylaid spirit only to see an empty stall where Morris had been standing a few seconds prior, the door still swinging on its hinges just ever so sightly. Frank stood there with his back against the sink for a good long while. He held onto the porcelain for dear life, his knees gone weak and his stomach churning in a way that made him regret every life decision he'd ever made that led him to that moment in time, in that place, there and then.
Eventually, 'flight' superseded 'fight'' and Frank made a beeline for the bathroom door. He had never left a bar quicker in his entire life, skin gone star-bright pale and a tongue tied to the roof of his mouth. That wasn't okay. None of that was okay. There wasn't a goddamn less okay thing in the entire history of the concept of 'Okay'. Palpitations started in his chest that eventually reverberated through his entire body by the time he was out the front door and back on the streets.
Frank started down the sidewalk.
An icy wind was blowing.
From the speakers of a Honda Civic driving down Netherland Avenue,
a song played.
The Day Of
Or: When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro
Ghosts, man.
Fucking ghosts.
Frank believed in a lot of things he probably shouldn't have believed in. Aliens? Abso-fucking-lutely. Bigfeet? Yeah, probably. Loch Ness monster? Wouldn't be surprised. Hell, Frank was fairly confident he had seen a wolfman drinking a pina colada at Trader Dick's (his hair was perfect, for the record). Ghosts, though. Frank had never even entertained the idea of ghosts. In general, the idea of any sort of afterlife actually being a real, attainable thing sent him for an absolute loop. It was so far beyond Frank's very, very narrow understanding of life, the universe, and everything that if someone told him he'd been plopped down in the middle of a story being written on a website somewhere on the Internet, he'd be more likely to believe that.
Heh.
So, as the snow began to fall and a new existential crisis reared its ugly head, Frank decided to do what had to be done.
With a tennis racket attached to either foot and his body wrapped in a matted fur coat from God knows where, Frank trudged through the snow piled streets. He carried a hysterically large black sack slung over his shoulder, filled to the brim with all manner of misshapen objects. The frost clung to his mustache as he marched right down the center of Netherland Avenue, his expression stone cold serious as he approached the warm glow of The Mothlight's neon inside.
Through the front door and inside, Frank didn't make his usual stop at the bar. He didn't say hello to any of the patrons, most of which were only happy that he had chosen to ignore them for once. Instead, Frank made a beeline towards the men's restroom, pushed open the door with his elbow, slung the black sack down on the relatively clean floor, draped his coat over the nearest sink to reveal himself dressed entirely in white, and cracked his neck as he stared at the empty stall where he had seen the phantom of Morris Blevins lingering between this world and the next.
Opening the sack and reaching in with either hand, Frank pulled out all the supplies he had brought along: a book called Haint Hunting For Dummies, a pack of multicolored chalk, three different Ouija boards, a copy of Patrick Swayze's 'Ghost' on VHS, several packs of matches he'd stolen from the front desk of the motel, a handheld transistor radio to communicate with the dead, a bundle of sage that may have actually been kale, a Dollar Store makeup kit, and a baggie filled with a little over an eighth of 'shrooms. God only knew where it all came from, but there it all was, laid out neatly on the ground at his feet.
Once upon a time, Ancient Egyptians believed painting their eyes with kohl was a surefire way to ward off evil spirits; after all, the eyes were the window to the soul and matters of the soul were momentous above all things. Unfortunately, their cosmetics were made by crushing lead sulfide into black powder. This led, no pun intended, to more mental illnesses than you can shake a stick at. While Frank didn't have any lead sulfide on hand, he already had a whole host of undiagnosed disorders running rampant in his head, so he was halfway to Cairo without even trying. He did his makeup in the mirror, tracing the shape of his lids with liner before finishing it off with a severe amount of shadow, blended imperfectly to create a messy, if dramatic, smokey eye.
In short, he looked ridiculous.
Down on his knees, Frank took the chalk and drew geometric patterns on the tiles in front of the stall, consulting his book to make sure he had it right; he didn't, but it's the thought that counts, right? Coming back to his feet, Frank took the videotape of Ghost and sat it in the stall, carefully balanced on the lid. Finally, he lit a cigarette with one of the matches and then used the cigarette to set the sage (read: kale) on fire.
"All right, motherfucker," Frank said to thin air. "I ain't afraid of no ghost."
Somewhere in Calabasas, Ray Parker Jr. felt someone walk over his grave.
Fuck it. Play the music, I guess.
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