Frank 'n' Stan's bucket list - #2: TT Races - Poignant, uplifting and sublimely funny - one to put a huge smile on your face!

by J C Williams

  Presently, Stan leaned over the sink and spat blood into the porcelain bowl. “Thank you,” he offered. “I think he’d have killed me if you hadn’t stepped in.”

  Frank didn’t immediately answer, instead, just watching over his old friend cleaning himself up. “Here,” he said, providing a towel which someone had presumably left behind from a gym class. “Use this to wipe the blood.”

  Stan looked in the mirror and pulled his lips back, baring his teeth, to review the extent of the damage. “Shit,” he said, disgusted at the sight he was presented with. He turned away from the mirror and fell back against the wall. He looked at Frank, broken. He went to speak, but the emotion caught up in his throat had other ideas. He used the towel in his hand as a shield to hide the tears that ran down his face.

  Frank walked over and placed the palms of his hands on Stan’s shoulders. “It’ll be okay, pal. Don’t let that arsehole worry you, Stan.”

  Stan took several deep breaths to compose himself. “You didn’t ask why he was kickin’ the crap out of me,” Stan suggested.

  “I didn’t need to, mate,” Frank replied. He smiled at his friend reassuringly.

  “You know?” asked Stan.

  “Of course I know, you silly sod. I’ve always known. I think I knew even before you did.”

  Something approaching a grin worked its way through the pain on Stan’s face. “How?”

  Frank stroked his chin thoughtfully, as if it were covered in a beard. If he’d been smoking a pipe, now would have been the perfect time to take it from his mouth before speaking. But, just before he could say, “Why, elementary, my dear Watson,” the door opened and a younger pupil appeared. “Bugger off!” Frank growled menacingly.

  Now, Frank and Stan weren’t exactly physically imposing, either of them. But the sight of Stan covered in blood, with teeth missing, was enough to convince this young chap that finding another toilet was not so bad an idea at all.

  “How did you know?” pressed Stan, once they were alone again.

  Frank placed his finger to his lips and thought for a moment before answering.

  “Right, well you know when my sister used to try and paint my nails, and I’d go mental?” he said. “The fact that you didn’t go mental if she wanted to do yours, and often suggested it? I suppose that may have been a clue.”

  “I wouldn’t call that conclusive,” tendered Stan.

  “No, but I just knew. I’d be trying to climb trees, for example, yeah? Whereas you’d be wondering what flowers would prosper in autumn.”

  Stan screwed up his aching face. “There’s nothing wrong with that!” he insisted. “It’s science!”

  “No, I know,” replied Frank, hands now up in submission. “I’m just saying that you were perhaps a bit more sensitive than most, and not your typical boy more intent on climbing things and breaking things and mischief-making and such.”

  “I can so make mischief!” Stan protested. “Surely there was that time… erm, there was that time… that one time…” Stan thought hard for a time, but came up with nothing.

  Frank laughed amiably. “Yeah, so I’m not saying there was anything wrong or anything. And it’s not one particular solid thing I could place my finger on, as such. It’s more all things considered together, and just an overall feeling I had. I’m just explaining that’s how I knew.”

  “Herm,” Stan said, taking this all in.

  “And, Stan, you should know, it never bothered me then and it still doesn’t bother me now. So long as you don’t try and kiss me or nuthin, that’s all I’m sayin.”

  “I can promise that,” said Stan with a chuckle, despite the pain.

  “What, are you saying I’m ugly, then?” Frank replied, messing about.

  “I couldn’t anyway, even if I wanted to,” Stan explained with a laugh. “I think part of my lip is caught under Wayne’s nail.”

  The days couldn’t pass quick enough for Frank. He was fed up to the core of high school. The exams were now all complete, and, for many, a nervous wait for results was the topic of conversation. Not for Frank, though; if he passed he passed, but if he didn’t, he wasn’t bothered because he had a plan. He’d saved every penny he could and was going to buy his own taxi. He didn’t want to just drive a taxi like his dad – it had to be his; he didn’t want to give away most of his cash to someone else. Frank, unlike most, had a plan.

  The beatings for Stan didn’t ease up, unfortunately, despite Frank’s efforts, and each day Stan would shuffle through the school corridors like a broken man. Frank did what he could, but there was only so much. The beatings were relentless. “You have to stand up for yourself,” Frank encouraged him on numerous occasions, but Frank knew that would likely only make matters worse. It was an impossible situation. The school couldn’t care less, the police were more concerned with Wayne’s wider family who were responsible for the crime rate in the area, and Stan couldn’t punch his way out of a wet paper sack.

  Frank was in celebratory spirits leaving Prenderghast’s class for the last time. There may have been some less-than-discreet hand gestures offered by Frank as the school bell approached, but his joviality was interrupted when he left the school building.

  “Your mate, the gay boy,” said a pupil from the year below. “He’s just had a proper kicking from Wayne.” There was some concern in his voice, and ‘gay boy’ wasn’t so much an insult as it was a simple descriptor.

  Frank’s shoulders dropped. “Fuck. Where is he?” asked Frank of the younger child.

  The boy shrugged and turned to be on his way.

  “Where did he go?” shouted Frank, gripping hold of the boy’s shoulders.

  “He ran towards Albion Wood about twenty minutes ago. Now let go of me!” said the boy, shaking loose of Frank’s grip.

  Frank caught sight of Wayne running through the school grounds, presumably making some other child’s life a misery. So one small mercy for Stan, at least, was that Wayne was not in pursuit of him.

  Albion Wood was only a short walk away, but was a vast expanse of trees covering several acres. Frank and Stan had spent countless hours playing there when they were younger due to it being a paradise for children eager to explore. There was one tree, Frank couldn’t help but recall, that Stan was receptive to climbing. It was a soaring oak tree, but the branches formed in such a way as to act almost as steps. For someone not overly adept at climbing trees, this one was an ideal compromise and served as a wonderful base of operations for the two intrepid explorers.

  There were thousands of trees in the Wood, but Frank was certain that’s where Stan would be: in their old, familiar base, where nobody could hurt him.

  “Stan!” shouted Frank once amidst the trees, but there was no answer. It’d been years since Frank last visited there, and the overgrowth made progress more difficult than he remembered. He reached for a sturdy branch on the forest floor, fallen from one of the huge trees above. Frank swung it back and forth to clear a path, and, for a moment, imagined using the branch to clear a path straight through Wayne’s skull.

  “Stan!” he shouted, walking towards their customary tree. “It’s me! Frank!” he said once more, but, again, nothing.

  Perhaps he’s not here? thought Frank, scouring the area. A few more thrashes of his arm and a grin crept across his face. He looked at the tree they’d spent so much time together in, and, there, at the base of it, he could see a pair of shoes in view, attached to the ends of two outstretched legs. Frank approached the tree reverently, and played his fingers across the coarse bark, looking for the various markings they’d carved as small boys. “Remember this one?” asked Frank, as much to himself as to Stan, and with his nose a few millimetres from the trunk. “Frank and Stan’s – Keep Out!” Frank laughed, caressing the grooved letters, each one in turn, not really looking at them, his eyes far away, as if he were reading Braille.

  “Stan. I heard that massive fuckstick Wayne Stanhope gave you another thrashing. Are you okay, pal?” he said. “How badly ar
e you hurt?”

  “Do you remember when we did this carving, Stan?” he asked again, making his way around the tree’s considerable foundation. “Stan,” he repeated. “Stan?”

  He froze, staring down at what he saw once Stan was in full view.

  “Fucking hell, Stan. Stan, what the hell have you done, mate?” he said, dropping to his knees. “No. Oh, no.”

  “Stan! Fucking Stan!” Frank cried, searching for any signs of life from the limp form slumped against the tree.

  Frank looked desperately around him. “Help me!” he shouted. “Fucking help!” But it was useless – they were too far away from anyone for them to hear. Frank placed his hand against Stan’s cheek. “Wake up, Stan. Please, wake up!” he pleaded.

  Stan’s cheek was clammy and cold. He didn’t rouse, in spite of Frank now shaking him like a horrid, frustrated parent shakes a fussing baby. “Wake up!” shouted Frank again, gripping Stan by his arms now, pulling on him. Stan’s head lolled back like a lifeless doll.

  Frank couldn’t make sense of the image he was presented with. “What’s wrong with you??” he demanded. “Wake up,” he said, but this time weakly as the emotion ran through him. It was then that Frank noticed his hands were covered in blood, and his grip on Stan was slipping. His eyes raced across his friend’s body to determine the source of the injury, and he recoiled when he caught sight of Stan’s wrists.

  Frank fell back, looking about, hopelessly, for someone to assist. “Help,” he asked faintly, to no one. “Help me.”

  Frank wiped his hands on his shirt. He could scarcely comprehend the extent of blood marking the leaf-covered floor where Stan lay. He ripped his school tie off and placed it around Stan’s left wrist. In a moment of clarity, he grabbed Stan’s tie and repeated the process on the other wrist, pulling the ligature tight. Frank felt the presence of a pulse, thank goodness – weak, but still there.

  With no other option, Frank wrestled Stan away from the tree and with every last ounce of strength in his body forced Stan over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. His knees were bursting, struggling to right himself, swaying back and forth under the increased load. How he managed to make it back to the school grounds with the dead weight of Stan on his shoulders, he didn’t know.

  (Frank wasn’t exactly an athlete at any stage of his life. They didn’t often speak of that dark, dreadful day, but whenever a snide comment would be made about Frank being unfit or carrying a few extra pounds around the midriff, Frank was always quick to give Stan a knowing glance – one that, in the end, always brought a tender smile to Stan’s face.)

  The issue of the human maggot known as Wayne Stanhope was not going to go away. “Fuck it,” declared Frank on the day that Stan was being released from hospital. He’d made a decision. Frank knew that by remaining, Stan’s life would continue to be a misery. And so, with a week or so of school remaining and no plans for the future, Frank made the proclamation that the two of them were going on a road trip around England.

  Frank used the money he’d been saving for a taxi, investing it instead in a yellow VW Camper which he’d gotten cheap on account of it having had its engine stolen. (They did live in a classy neighbourhood, after all.) After procuring an engine – with the one purchased likely being the very engine stolen from the van in the first place, such was the nature of things – Frank and Stan buggered off on their road trip.

  They hadn’t dwelled on it at the time, but that road trip probably saved Stan’s life. Another legacy from that time in Stan’s life was his penchant for cosmetic alteration. Then, it was fixing his broken teeth and the jagged skin on his wrists. But the habit stuck, and, years later, when money was less of an obstacle, it was hair plugs and Botox injections.

  They never did have the honour of Wayne’s company again, but when they heard, during their time of travelling, that he was spending fifteen years at Her Majesty’s pleasure (Wayne and his collection of half-witted brothers had decided, as it happened, that robbing a post office would be a good idea), they certainly slept a little easier, under the stars, in their cosy little yellow campervan – which they’d named Daisy. Frank had called it that simply because daisies were yellow, but Stan was keen to point out the daisy was also a hardy aster that, as it happened, bloomed well in the autumn.

  Chapter Six

  F our sugars?” asked Susie, with teaspoon poised. “Is that right, Stella? I just want to be certain.” She strained her eyes through the cigarette smoke, seeking confirmation.

  “Only four sugars,” barked Stella. “I’ve told you before, Susie. I’m trying to cut down on calories so I’m starting with my sugar intake. You probably haven’t noticed, because I carry it so well, but I’m sporting a bit of excess poundage. More of me to love, granted. Still. I need to think about my health,” she went on, flicking her fag in the general direction of the overflowing ashtray. “A girl needs to look after herself,” she said, removing the wrapper from a pork pie.

  “Only four sugars it is,” said Susie, hovering, mug-in-hand, looking for an area of Stella’s desk which wasn’t coated in ash. “I like the mug, by the way,” remarked Susie, nodding in approval. It was black with an embossed image of their company logo – a smiling cartoon face of Dr Frankenstein’s famous creature (a pun on Frank & Stan) – and with simple wording underneath (Stella. Shareholder.) in reference to her newfound company ownership. “Very smart,” Susie added.

  Stella chomped down on her meaty treat. “Matches the shirt,” she said between bites, extending her chubby thumb to the same logo on her shirt.

  Susie smiled. She had a genuine affection for her work colleague (and now, it would appear, boss). She was polar opposite to Stella: demure, reserved, petite, and, well, yeah, everything opposite to Stella. But while Stella was brash, vulgar, aggressive, and very often hungry, Susie was able to chip away the abrasive exterior (granted, an exceptionally large chisel was required), and reveal the nearly-identical though still-slightly-less-abrasive layer underneath. And, so, what had been genuine fear when she first joined the company had turned to fondness. She wasn’t sure if that fondness were reciprocated, but life, at least, was never dull in Stella’s company.

  Susie took a KitKat from their biscuit barrel shaped like a London taxi, but then placed it back in. Ordinarily, she’d offer Stella a biscuit with her coffee, but in view of Stella’s current health-conscious attitude, Susie didn’t want to appear to be placing temptation in her way. “It’s a bit quiet, Stella,” she remarked by way of conversation. “You know. Without Frank and Stan.”

  Stella turned five degrees to her right, in her well-worn leather chair. She had a solemn expression, and, for a moment, Susie was concerned she’d somehow caused offence.

  Stella cleared her throat and wiped the remnants of the pork pie from her chin. “Are you taking the piss?” she said with a voice akin to a gravel crusher.

  “What? No. Sorry, Stella, I just thought it was a bit–”

  “Oi. Where’s my KitKat?” Stella interrupted, pointing to her coffee. “You know I never drink coffee without a KitKat,” she grumbled. “What are you playing at? I need that KitKat, to fortify me for the day ahead.”

  “Oh, yes, sorry, Stella. I just thought, you know, about the sugar and all…” Susie answered, trailing off.

  “Are you mad?” Stella replied. “That doesn’t apply to KitKats. Obviously. On account of their health benefits.”

  “Here you are,” said Susie, handing over two biscuits – one extra to redeem herself.

  Stella accepted her customary single biscuit but put the additional one firmly back in the biscuit barrel. “I told you, I’m cutting down on sugar,” said Stella, shaking her head, causing her tightly-wound perm to wobble. “Bloody hell, what’s wrong with you today?”

  “It’s quiet around here,” Susie remarked again, tapping her pen against the rim of her mug absently. “Quiet without them two,” she reiterated, now using the pen to point out Frank and Stan’s part of the office. “Do you miss him?�
� asked Susie. “Arthur, I mean.”

  Stella lowered her head, and for a moment Susie worried she’d overstepped the mark.

  “I do miss the soppy old bugger,” said Stella, picking up the framed photograph next to her phone. She had a not-often-seen expression of tenderness in those beady eyes – beady eyes that nevertheless still looked like two piss-holes in the snow.

  “Aww,” said Susie, circling into Stella’s airspace. “At least you guys made his final months memorable and gave him a sense of purpose, what with the charity work and everything.”

  Susie laughed, staring over at the picture of Stella and Arthur.

  “You know, Arthur almost looks like he’s in some sort of distress in that picture,” Susie offered. “His face is all blotchy and his false teeth are about to drop out,” she said with a chuckle. Susie strained her eyes. “Hang on. Stella…” she said, moving closer. “I’ve never noticed it before now, but it almost looks like you could be choking Arthur in that picture.”

  Stella nodded. “I was,” she replied dispassionately. “Arthur,” she said, with a brief pause to light another cigarette. “Thought it was a good idea to borrow my stapler and not return it. Discipline, Susie. If you don’t nip these things in the bud, they fester. Today it’s a stapler, but, if you don’t do anything, before you know it they’re taking your underwear off the washing line.”

  “What…?” replied Susie, thoroughly confused. “I don’t–”

  “But that’s another story,” said Stella. “Frank took that picture and I like it. Happy times,” she said. “Happy times.”