Frankie

Face scrunched in anger, he clenched his fists and turned the other way. Frankie’s legs carried him away from his crying mother — crying because of what her little boy said, crying because he was running away, and crying because of her realization: Frankie didn’t want a little sister, something that burned his mother with a hot poker and left a mark. When he ran away from her in the airport, her third trimester weighed her down too much for her to run after him. She cried for him to come back to her, and he could see her in his mind’s eye collapsing to her knees, reaching out with one hand. Nobody came to her rescue.

Frankie ran and ran until his little legs couldn’t run anymore. When they felt like collapsing in the large, packed, and bustling airport, he stopped and stumbled to the ground. His baby blue eyes stared up at the ceiling, people walking around him and practically through him. Not one person understood what had happened or why, but they didn’t seem to care. Unsure how to feel about leaving his mother behind, he had no money and what if he found a monster? He was hearing about these monsters everywhere — people who took little boys and did things to them that he was too young to understand. He heard about them on the TV, from his daddy, from his friends who thought these monsters were weird. Frankie would much rather be kidnapped by a woman.

Getting back to his feet, he scratched his chin, and began to walk. Because his mother would say they should always go to the bathroom before and after they got onto a plane, he thought that was exactly what he should do. Except, because he was always with his mommy, he wasn’t quite sure how to use the men’s room, so he figured he’d go into the women’s room instead. As he walked, he couldn’t worry about how he’d get to where he was supposed to be going, which was Alabama. Alabama seemed unimportant to him. In fact, he always had a dream of living in an airport.

Finally, he found the bathroom. Breathing a sigh of relief for his overwhelmed bladder, he pushed the door open, found an empty stall, and watched as his pee swirled down the toilet. He flushed, zipped his pants, and left the stall. Boys at school didn’t usually wash their hands, but his mother always wanted him to. Frankie also realized he should mess up his hair and tie his sweatshirt around his waist. That way, his mother would have a harder time spotting him. So, he took his hands and, with water so the hairstyle would stick, he messed up his hair in the front, in the back, and on the sides. Then, he shook his head like a dog to get the excess water off.

When he was done, he looked at himself in the mirror and frowned. He frowned because a very skinny woman of around seventy-five had come out of the stall. The woman grimaced, looking quite upset. Frankie turned to her, quizzical. Their eyes met.

The woman washed her hands, dried them off on a paper towel, and threw the towel away. “Let me help you with that, dear.” She came over to him and began flattening his hair, taking the strands in her hands and pulling them gently. “Take it of,” her soft voice cooed. Frankie furrowed his eyebrows. “Take it off,” the woman sounded more demanding now, and she was beginning to yank at his ends. “Take. It. Off.” Her voice sounded very serious, no longer sweet and captivating. “TAKE IT OFF!” She was near hysterics now and was yanking at his hair, near hysterics and was trying to tear his hair out of his head. “TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF!” Frankie tried to turn away from her, but she grabbed his shoulders and screamed in his face, “TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT —”

“NO!” Frankie finally tore away from her, his unzipped hoodie coming off in her hands. Running from the bathroom, he didn’t dare take one glance back. Instead, he sped away from there, his stomach gurgling and growling because he was hungry.

He felt a twinge of guilt for leaving his mother behind. Already knowing he’d be unable to find her unless he found a security guard to help him, he wanted to eat first, but had no money. And then there it was: a smoothie place. He couldn’t get a smoothie because they’d ask for money before he got the drink, so instead he snuck in and grabbed an organic peanut butter cookie.

Sneaking away with his prize, he heard the girl behind the counter cry, “Sir, you have to pay for that! Sir, come back here! You have to pay for that, sir!”

Frankie didn’t understand why she was calling him ‘sir’ because he was a little, eight-year-old kid. He didn’t look back, running away before anybody could find what he stole. What he really needed was to find a pay phone. Once he was away, he ripped open the cookie and took a large bite out of it, feeling greedy and hungry.

Eventually he came to a pay phone, except, he didn’t have any money. Sighing, Frankie looked underneath the phone counter, and then up on the counter itself. Thank god! Somebody had unwittingly left a quarter behind, so he slid the money inside the phone and waited for a dial tone He grinned. Dialing, he waited for his mother to pick up, but instead he got a voice that said, “I’m sorry, this number is out of service!” Frankie’s grin turned into a grimace and then into his ears. The rest of the cookie fell to the tile floor. All he could do was hang up the phone.

Shuffling away from the counter, he shuffled his way to the bathroom where he sat in a stall and cried. Thankfully, there was no one to hear him because men don’t cry, but at the moment he felt like a child, a little insignificant child who didn’t meant to hurt his mother or anybody. He didn’t mean to steal the cookie, but he had to. He really had no choice.

After a god ten minutes, Frankie got off the toilet, unlocked the door, and went to the sink. The water felt comforting on his pale, upset face.

And then he looked up and he screamed.

His face was covered in wrinkles and his hair was only gray wisps covered by a baseball cap.