Henry Franks

by Peter Adam Salomon

  “What words end in ‘ORD’?” Henry asked, bending his head forward to speak to her neck, not really sure how to be the one to actually initiate a conversation with her. Her skin glistened in the heat, a stray strand of hair sticking to her back.

  Her head came up but she didn’t turn around.

  “In one of the old pictures of me and my dad, he’s wearing a shirt that says ‘ORD.’ I’m thinking Stanford.”

  “Oxford,” she said, her voice soft. Then she turned around, her eyes lighting up with the words. “There’s Oxford, too, in England. Probably lots of others. You think that’s where he went to school?”

  Henry smiled back at her and shrugged. “You okay?” he asked.

  Her smile wavered, but she stayed facing him with her arms on the back of the seat. “I told you my mother wouldn’t be happy.”

  “Bad?”

  “She’s a little old-fashioned.”

  “Old-fashioned?”

  “She’s forbidden me to date you.”

  “We’re dating?” Henry asked.

  She laughed, then closed her eyes and stilled her smile. “No. Just … damn, she saw us holding hands.” Justine barely said the words out loud and a fine blush ran up her cheeks. “I don’t know, Henry. What are we doing?”

  The bus pulled into the high school and the noise grew in volume. Henry leaned closer, resting his forehead on the green plastic of her chair. When he finally looked at her, he was smiling.

  “Will you sit with me on the way home?” he asked.

  Justine held her backpack in front of her as they made their way off the bus. “Yes,” she said before walking into school next to him.

  In the hallway in between classes, her pink toenail polish passed by. When he looked up to wave she was looking back, but there wasn’t time for much more than that in the crowded hall. Before the bus pulled away to take them home, however, she squeezed in beside him. Her fingers rested in her lap before he reached over and traced her thumb. She wrapped her hand over his, holding it against her thigh, and they drove the entire way home just looking at their hands, joined between them, in silence.

  They walked together from the bus stop, but she’d let go of his hand before they got off the bus and they didn’t touch as they approached Henry’s house. Next door, her mother popped her head out.

  “Later?” he asked.

  “I have a plan,” she said, before turning away and running home.

  In his house, Henry trudged up the stairs to his room and tossed his backpack in the corner. His computer booted up with a touch and he sank into his desk chair, studying the pattern of pushpins in the wall.

  There was a knock at the front door. Another, louder, more insistent, and he scrambled down the stairs.

  “It’s hot out here!” Justine said, her fist preparing to knock again. “Can I come in to help with your homework?”

  Henry shut the door behind them. “We have homework?”

  “Had to think of something, and she probably sees right through me, but … ” She smiled. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Henry shook his head, trying to clear it. “This was your plan?”

  “I’m here, how about we leave it at that?” She reached for his hand as they walked up the stairs. “So, Stanford?”

  He sat at his desk, Justine standing next to him, and brought up the alumni website. “No access, so I gave up.”

  “Call them,” she said, pointing at the contact information taking up the bottom quarter of the screen.

  He laughed, a short bark of a sound. “No.”

  “Why not? It’s either that or hack their site, and I can’t do that, can you?”

  “No,” he said. His shoulders slumped and he looked up at her.

  “Let’s call; they’re three hours behind us.”

  “And say what?”

  She smiled then shook her head. “Hi, my name is Henry Franks?”

  “Not a chance,” he said with a laugh. “You can call, if you want to.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Henry stood up, the desk chair rolling back. He looked at her bright eyes and big smile as she stared back at him.

  “I was kidding,” he said.

  “Phone?” she asked.

  He fished his cell out of his backpack and they sat on the floor with it as Justine dialed.

  “What are you going to say?” he asked.

  She shrugged as the line connected and she clicked the speaker on.

  “Stanford Alumni, may I help you?”

  Justine closed the phone, cutting the connection, and turned bright red. “Oh, damn, I’m sorry,” she said, laughing.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” she said, still red, still laughing. “I’ll be serious. Seriously, I will be.”

  She sat up straighter, a frown forced onto her face.

  “Serious?” he asked.

  “Serious.”

  Justine flipped the phone back open and clicked redial. She took a deep breath as the ringing came through the speaker.

  “Stanford Alumni, may I help you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her southern drawl just a bit more pronounced than usual. “We must have gotten disconnected.”

  “No problem, happens all the time.”

  “I’m hoping you can help me,” Justine said. “My future father-in-law went to Stanford, and he was telling me the other day how much he regrets losing his yearbooks in a fire a while ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Well, I was thinking what a wonderful gift it would be if I could replace them for him.”

  “I’m sure he’d love that. Do you know when he attended Stanford?”

  Justine looked up at Henry, his fingers pressed over his mouth to keep from laughing and his skin a couple different shades of pink. He shook his head and shrugged.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Justine said. “I just came up with this idea, so I’m not really sure.”

  “Let me look him up and see what I can find for you. What’s his name?”

  Henry grabbed a notebook out of his backpack and scrawled a name across it.

  “William Franks,” she read. “Dr. William Franks.”

  “A doctor? Maybe he went to our med school.”

  “I’m not sure, sorry.”

  “I’ll check for you. Can you hold?”

  “Absolutely,” Justine said as music floated softly out of the speaker.

  “I can’t believe you!” Henry whispered.

  “You have a better idea?” She smiled at him, resting her fingers on his arm. “I can’t hack a computer but I definitely know how to talk.”

  “Are you there?” the woman asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Justine said.

  “I have 27 ‘William Franks’ at Stanford, but that’s stretching back to well over one hundred years ago. I think we can narrow that down a little. How old do you think he is?”

  Justine looked at Henry, who scribbled a number down, then added a question mark after it.

  “45ish?” Justine said. “Maybe. Somewhere in that neighborhood.”

  “Well, undergrad might have been mid-eighties, med school late eighties. Let me check.” The clacking of keys came through the speaker as Henry wrote down the dates.

  “Three for the decade of the eighties. None of them in the med school. One of them was a late-eighties undergrad so that’s probably wrong. Leaves a William Franks graduating in 1983 and 1985. Does that help?”

  Justine jumped up, the phone rocking in her hand. “Yes, yes, of course. How would I be able to replace the yearbook, though?”

  “The Alumni department stores leftovers offsite so I’d have to check on the year, but do you really want to order both?”

  “Oh,” Justine said as she collapsed into the desk chair. She rolled over next to Henry and rested her fingers on his shoulder. “Any suggestions?”

  “Can you hold a moment?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said as
music piped into the room. “We found him!”

  “Maybe,” Henry said from the floor.

  “Spoilsport.” She stuck out her tongue at him.

  “Then what?”

  “‘Then what’ what?” Justine asked.

  “We see what he looked like; what do we do with the information?”

  “Oh,” she said as the music stopped.

  “Are you there?” the phone asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We do have both years in storage. Do you have an email address? I can scan their photos in and you can tell me which year you’ll need. Will that work?”

  Justine rattled off her email and slowly closed the phone, a bright smile on her face. She stood up, shaking her fingers. “I can’t believe I did that! And my mom says no good can come from being talkative. Ha!”

  She spun around, then jumped, pumping her arms in the air like a prizefighter after a knockout.

  She stopped, pulled Henry up beside her and forced the frown back on her face. “Serious enough?” she asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Very much so,” he said.

  “I’m gonna go check my email. I’ll forward what they send me.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Walk me home?” She smiled, taking his hand and leading him down the stairs.

  Justine spread her fingers as they stepped outside, her palm sliding away from his, and looked over at her house.

  “Sorry,” she said, not even looking at Henry.

  “It’s all right, I guess.”

  “Friends?” she asked, walking so close that she kept brushing her shoulder against him.

  “You’d be the only one.” He squinted against the sun dipping toward the horizon.

  “Friends,” she said.

  “I’d like that,” Henry said.

  “Me too.”

  His computer was waiting for him when he sat back down at his desk after dinner. He explored the Stanford alumni sites, both official and not, but there was nothing of interest to find. Not that there was a Step Two if Step One provided any answers. Knowing where his father went to school didn’t solve his problem, or resurrect his memory or his mother.

  From his backpack his cell phone started ringing and he flipped it open. Justine’s voice sounded thin and distant, muffled.

  “Henry? I just got an email from Stanford.”

  He sank into his chair, staring at the logo on his monitor. “And?”

  “It’s not him.”

  His shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes.

  “Henry?” she asked.

  “I’m here, sorry,” he said. “Not him?”

  “One’s African-American and the other one is deceased, died in 1991. Not him.”

  “Thanks for trying,” he said after a long pause that threatened not to end.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought … I mean, I … ”

  “It’s okay, Justine. It’s not your fault.”

  “There’s Oxford,” she said. “And probably others, and maybe hundreds of high schools, Ridgeford and Washford and Stepford and Fordford, I don’t know, there has to be, don’t you think?”

  “Going to call all of them?” he asked, releasing his breath in a long slow stream, almost a whistle.

  “I’m sorry, Henry.”

  “Me too.” He looked up, moved the cursor to the X in the top right-hand corner of the screen, and closed the Stanford window.

  “You all right?”

  He shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “Not really sure what I was going to do with the information anyway.”

  She laughed. “You could always just ask him, couldn’t you?”

  “We don’t—” His voice cracked on the word. “It’s not that easy.”

  Henry turned off the light, crawling on top of the sheets with the phone on speaker lying on his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Not your fault. I’m used to it.”

  “Still sorry.”

  “Thanks,” he said, then let the silence play out. If he listened carefully, he imagined he could hear her breathing. The breeze blew a stray branch against his window, a light tap, followed by the whisper of her breath that seemed so close it was almost as though Justine was in the room with him.

  “Justine?” he said.

  Silence, save for the hiss and the tap.

  “Hello?”

  He picked the phone up in the darkness just as it started to ring.

  “Sorry,” Justine said. “Got disconnected. Must have lost the signal there for a minute. Did I miss anything?”

  Still, the hissing and the tapping, so close.

  “No,” he said. “Nothing. Just the wind.”

  “Night, Henry.”

  “Good night, Justine.”

  “Sweet dreams,” she said before the phone went dead.

  Victim of Beating Wakes

  Savannah, GA—August 24, 2009: Brunswick Police Department spokesperson Carmella Rawls has confirmed that Elijah Suarez, 27, has recovered sufficiently from his injuries to provide information to authorities.

  According to Major Daniel Johnson of FLETC, a growing profile of the random attacks that have occurred in the Golden Isles this summer has been enhanced by the active participation of Suarez.

  “[His] back took a beating,” said a spokesperson for Memorial Hospital in Savannah who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the hospital. “Multiple contusions and breaks. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  Patrols on Jekyll Island have, at the request of the Jekyll Island Authority, been supplemented by National Parks Service personnel on loan from Skidaway Island, Crooked River, and other park locations throughout Georgia. In addition, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations has provided logistical support to the task force.

  “We continue to support the efforts of all law enforcement here in Glynn County in order to resolve this unfortunate situation as quickly as possible,” said Mayor Monroe.

  Brunswick Man Identifies Assailant;

  Police Say No Apparent

  Connection to Previous Murders

  Brunswick, GA—August 25, 2009: Unofficial sources have confirmed that Elijah Suarez, 27, of Blythe Island has provided a detailed description of his attacker to the police.

  “There wasn’t a lot of moonlight that night,” said one police officer on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the information. “Suarez got one look at her and was able to assist a sketch artist in producing the first real break in this case.”

  Stepped-up patrols have blanketed Glynn County with the sketch of a woman who appears to be in her late 40’s or early 50’s with cloth bandages covering her hair. A Caucasian female with partially healed scratches on her face, wearing ratty clothes; she is estimated to weigh about 130 pounds.

  According to Suarez, she didn’t say a word as she clubbed him with her fists and a length of pipe, and police have been advised that she appears to be highly dangerous but unarmed.

  “She spit at me, no tongue or something; couldn’t understand a word she said,” Suarez said through an intermediary from his room at Memorial Hospital.

  “At this time, despite the injuries sustained by Mr. Suarez, we are still unable to tie this particular attack to any of the previous incidents that have happened here in Glynn County over the past few months,” said Major Johnson. “We are dedicating all of our resources into locating the alleged suspect and resolving this matter.”

  Margaret Saville, PhD

  St. Simons Island, Glynn County, GA

  Tuesday, August 25, 2009

  Patient: Henry Franks

  (DOB: November 19, 1992)

  “How’s school?” Dr. Saville asked, her pen tapping against the pad.

  Henry looked out the window trying to follow the path to its end. Behind a scruffy palm tree, a brief glimpse of ocean. Heat warped the air, distorting his vision.

  “H
enry?”

  “Studying Shakespeare,” he said without looking at her.

  “Poems or plays?”

  “‘To sleep, perchance to dream.’”

  “Hamlet. Is that it?”

  He closed his eyes and turned toward her, “No,” he said. “Nothing.”

  “Justine?”

  He blinked, once, twice.

  “You’re smiling, Henry, and blushing. Justine?”

  “I had another dream,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.

  The pen stopped tapping. “Justine?” she asked again.

  Against the fabric of the seat, his fingers flexed, stretching out and back, before he pushed himself off the couch. Two steps brought him across the room and the doctor shrank back between the high arms of her chair as his shadow fell over her, blocking the light from the window.

  “Henry, please sit back down and let’s talk.”

  “I had a dream.”

  “About Justine?”

  “No,” he said, staring at the white path in the garden leading nowhere.

  “Have you been practicing your breathing exercises?”

  He shrugged. “I breathe. Does that count?”

  “Will you be standing there long, Henry?”

  He rested his forehead on the glass, absorbing the heat through the window. His hands rested on the smooth surface, fingers pressing down. He counted to ten in silence, then shrugged again.

  “Where does the path go?”

  “The path?” she asked, rising to stand beside him.

  He pointed, his discolored finger tracing the route against the glass. “It goes nowhere.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  With a sigh, he turned to face her. She held the legal pad between them, the pen clutched in her fingers.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember if I like gardens.”

  “Process.”

  “I know,” he said, then walked away and collapsed back onto the couch. “I don’t think I want to remember any more.”

  “Why?” she asked, leaning back against the windowsill.

  He closed his eyes and the silence stretched out with his breathing.