“Marvin bosses me.”
Marvin is shaking his head. He whispers, “I will vacate.”
“Marvin won’t boss you.”
“He say I drivin’ him crazy,” Frankie says.
Marvin’s nod affirms it. “That’s why he won’t boss you. He doesn’t want to be crazy. Frankie, Open. The. Door.”
After a brief silence the knob clicks. I wait for him to come out.
Marvin smiles, puts both hands in the air. “See, buddy? No boss here. I’m leavin’ you with the Goddess of All Things Strange.”
Frankie says, “See ya.”
Marvin whispers as he passes, “Dismissive little shit.”
“So, wanna go play?”
“Uh-huh,” Frankie says.
“Inside or out?”
He looks through the window. Bright and sunny. Warm. “In,” he says.
I say, “Out.”
He wrinkles his nose.
“Go downstairs and grab some trucks and a couple of superheroes. Get the bucket and the shovel.” We’re only a few minutes from Manito Park playground. There’s sand there. Swings. A little water park. “Get your suit.” As often as Frankie shows up here without notice, Momma keeps an “emergency Frankie drawer” full of clothes and toys, etc. He comes up in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt that looks way too hot to me.
“No suit,” he says. “No water.”
“Bring it anyway. We don’t have to use it.”
At the sandbox at the park I snatch Frankie by the back of his shirt as he tries to take another kid out for messing in his sand and getting close to his trucks, and plop him in a corner facing away from all possible combatants. He plants a super villain figure upright in the sand, crashes into him from behind with a dump truck. “Fuck it for you, Butch!” he yells, and runs him over again.
“You gotta whisper that word,” I tell him.
He crushes Butch once again and in a very loud whisper, says, “Fuck it for you, Butch.” He hides “Butch” behind a sandy mound, but the dump truck plows through and mows him down.
“Is Butch real or pretend?”
Frankie glares, brings a foot down on Butch.
“Frankie, who’s Butch?”
He seems not to hear.
“He a boss?”
“Not my boss,” he says, stomping Butch. “I kill him.”
“You don’t like bosses.”
“Nobody’s the boss of me. I be my own boss.” Stomp!
“Is Butch at your mom’s place?”
He looks away.
“Does he live at your house, Frankie?”
“He’s not the boss of me!” Frankie yells, and jumps up and down on Butch’s sandy grave.
I flash on the fights that have turned physical in my life, shake it off, and nod toward the water station, where kids splash, man the rotating water machine gun, stand under revolving, randomly tipping buckets of water. “Hey, guy, I’m hot. Let’s get wet.”
He absently touches the upper arm of his shirt. “Huh-uh. Too cold.”
“Frankie, it’s ninety-five degrees out here.”
“NO!”
“YES!” and I wrestle him into the sand, bounce up, and crouch into a wrestler’s stance.
Frankie charges and crashes against my leg, and I let him pull me down.
“Great tackle! You’ll be drafted out of grade school.”
I’m on my back, Frankie straddling my chest, fist cocked. I catch his arm mid-swing. “Illegal use of the hand! Come on, buddy, you can’t play like that. Somebody gets hurt.”
He swings with the other arm. I block it, jump up, and haul him toward the water. Frankie squeals in fake protest, obviously forgetting his aversion to cool water in ninety-five degrees. In seconds we’re standing beneath a bucket, soaked to the bone. I run to the mounted water machine gun, swing it around, and fire; Frankie drops to his belly, crawling like a soldier through the stream yelling soldier threats. I throw off my soaked outer shirt and kick it out of the way. Frankie does the same, and I cease fire.
Frankie yells, “Keep shootin’!”
I drop to a knee, take his arm. A dark bruise over swelling covers his entire biceps. He tries to cover it.
“Lemme see.”
“I forgot,” Frankie says, staring at his arm. “I done it. I falled down. It wasn’t Butch. It doesn’t even hurt.”
I touch the wound and he flinches.
“Is this why you were driving Butch into the ground with your truck, Frankie?”
“Butch don’t hurt nobody,” Frankie says. “Him a good guy.”
“Who told you that?”
“Butch.”
“Frankie, how did this happen?”
“We was tradin’ punches.”
I close my hand gently over the bruise. “Come on, bud. Let’s go back. You can watch a show.”
“That didn’t take long,” Marvin says as Frankie scurries up the front walk.
“Breaking news,” I say. “Sheila’s not the only one scuffed up.” I don’t explain, and instead ask Momma if it’s okay to take the car, then hurry into my room to grab my cell.
Me: Sheila’s address
Nancy: Who wonts to no
Me: I wonts to no. Give me the goddam address
Nancy: Don’t be snoty
Me: Sorry. Give me the address please
Sheila’s address pops up on my screen.
“Hey, Sheila.” I stand on the porch staring at her through the broken screen. She does look rough—bruised cheek and swollen lip, dirty jeans with a hole in the knee that she didn’t buy to look that way, ratty blouse that I recognize came from Nancy.
“How’d you find me?”
“Siri.”
“Who the fuck’s Siri? What are you doing here; is Frankie okay?”
“Depends on what you mean.”
“I mean is he still at your place?” She looks at the ground.
“Yes.”
“So why are you here?”
“Somebody here named Butch?”
“No.”
“You lying?”
“Shut up, bitch. I said no. He’s not here.”
She didn’t say she doesn’t know Butch. “Where is he?”
“Thanks to Frankie, gone.”
“What did Frankie do?”
Her eyes narrow. “He didn’t do nothin’, that’s what. Nothin’ Butch told him.”
“Right, so Frankie wouldn’t behave and Butch put bruises on him.” It kills me that Sheila can’t remember what it was like to have some new guy show up and take the reins when he had never learned to ride, guys who thought that nothing but time on the planet qualified them to be the boss.
“Frankie hit ’im,” she says, “so Butch hit ’im back. Told Frankie to take his best shot.”
“Trading punches.” Jesus.
“Frankie’s gotta learn not to hit. Butch was just teachin’ him. . . .”
“Not to hit by hitting him.”
“He was showing him how it felt, you dumb bitch!” You can tell when Sheila
