Frick Thompson

         Frick Thompson swept the sidewalks of his town with a pushbroom. He rode around on an old golf cart to get to where he needed to go. He sought out the places where clean sidewalks were needed most. When he spotted trash, he was ready to pick it up and throw it into a big plastic garbage bag. When he found dog poop, he scraped it up with the help of a garden trowel, put it into a little plastic bag, and threw the little plastic bag into one of the big plastic garbage bags. He had a whole box full of empty garbage bags on his cart, all pregnant with the opportunity to be filled with refuse and offal.
During the winter, he cleared snow and ice off the sidewalk with a big flat shovel instead of a pushbroom. It was much harder to find trash and dog poop during the winter, as it was often buried under the ice and snow.
         One afternoon, Frick came home from a dirty day of drudging toil and found himself staring into the mirror. The figure that stared back was hardly recognizable to him. The last time he had really looked at himself he had been stunning to behold: lean, tan, with a flowing head of blond locks. Now he was pudgy, pale and his hairline seemed to be running away from the mirror.
         “Who are you?” he said to the man in the mirror. There was, of course, no response. This fact irked him somewhat, but rather than give in to his frustration, he decided to do something about it.
         Suddenly remembering that his mother had written him before she died, he went into his bedroom and retrieved a letter from his dresser. The paper was faded and old; it had been opened and refolded many times. Frick had read it often over the years. He found the words comforting in troubling times. Right now, he certainly needed to be comforted.
         The letter said:
         ‘My dearest Frick. You are a boy now, but some day you will become a man. Things will happen to you that you won’t understand. A lot of things will happen that you won’t like. If you succumb to these bad things, then you will forget who you really are. Don’t let that happen, my son. Remember who you are. Remember that I will always love you. All you can do in this world that really matters is love.’
         Inexplicably, Frick didn’t feel any better. That had never happened before—he’d always felt better after reading his mother’s letter. Sometimes, it was almost as if she were in the very room, speaking to him directly. He had always imagined he could feel the warmth of her embrace and hear the sound of her encouraging words. Then, the world receded, along with all of its nasty problems, and the only thing that remained was the succor of a mother’s love for her child.
         But today, he felt nothing but a vast emptiness. If anything, he actually felt worse than before. Something had really changed inside, and Frick didn’t know what to do about it. All he knew for certain was that he had done what his mother had warned him never to do: he had forgotten who he was.
         For a time he wracked his brain for an answer, but it was futile. There were no answers to be found up there. The only thing left for him to do was to find someone—anyone—who might know how to help him.
         And so he stuffed the letter into his pocket, got into his golf cart and rode the streets.
         Frick had not gone very far before he had his first encounter. A basketball rolled into the street and struck his golf cart with a thud. It bounced away and began to roll down the slope of the street. Frick, kind-hearted as he was, stopped the golf cart and got out to retrieve the ball. He picked it up and turned to see its owner, a tall lanky teenager with glasses strapped around his head. The teenager held out his hands expectantly.
         “Before I give this back,” Frick said, “Can I ask you one question?”
         “Um, ok, I guess,” the teenager said.
         “Who am I?”
         The teenager made a face. “The hell kind of question is that?”
         “I’m trying to figure it out. I thought you might be able to help me answer, ‘Who am I?’”.
         “Aren’t you that faggot that picks up dog shit off the sidewalks?” the teenager said. “Can I have my ball back now?”
         Frick returned the ball to the teenager and rode off on his golf cart. He sighed. That hadn’t gone very well. He hadn’t been looking for an angry answer. If the right answer was angry, then he would accept it, but for some reason he suspected that the answer he was looking for was not at all angry. Perhaps he was asking the wrong question; or perhaps it was necessary to preface his question with a different question—soften up the person a little bit before diving right into the heart of the matter. Yes, he decided. He would try that next time.
         In a place where the houses were few and far between, and the trees were low and broad with fuzzy branches, he stopped his golf cart. An old man was on his porch smoking a tobacco pipe, rocking slowly back and forth and watching the sunset. The old man rarely touched the pipe with fingers. He just sat there and puffed, working his lips. Occasionally, he would run his hands over his knees, back and forth, or run his hand over his balding head, always from back to front.
         Frick was halfway to the porch when the old man called out, “I don’t want none of whatever it is you’re selling.”
         “But I’m not selling anything,” Frick said.
         “You’re not?”
         “No, sir. I just came to ask you a question. You look like you might have the answer.”
              The old man looked slightly taken aback. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “All right then. Come on up here and have a seat.” He gestured to the empty rocking chair beside him. When Frick had taken a seat, the old man said, “I don’t have many visitors these days. There used to be visitors aplenty, when the wife was around. After she passed away, things got real quiet around here.”
              Seeing his opportunity, Frick struck with the question. “Where did she go? Your wife, I mean.”
              The old man’s mouth hung open. The pipe in his mouth nearly fell  onto his lap. At last he pulled it away with his hand and jabbed it toward his guest’s face like a fire poker. “What kind of question is that? My wife’s been dead these nine years, that’s where she went.”
         Frick panicked a little. The old man was getting angry, and he didn’t want that. He would never get the answer he needed out of anger. He had to do something to placate the old man, get him back to a congenial frame of mind. “That’s a sad thing, sir. I lost my mother. She’s been dead these nine years.”
         The widower popped the pipe back into his mouth and tore his gaze away from Frick. “I’m sorry to hear that, son.” He began to rock back and forth and look off into the distance. “You know, loss is something that everyone faces in life. And it ain’t ever easy. When it happens, it tears a hole inside.”
         “That’s right!” Frick cried. “That’s exactly how it feels.”
         The old man gazed at his guest for a moment, a strange expression on his face. After a moment his face softened, and his eyes shimmered with warmth. “So what was it you wanted to ask me?” he said.
              “Well, sir, I was wondering if you could tell me who I am.”
              Such a terrific peal of laughter erupted from the old man’s mouth that Frick almost fell out of his chair. Many moments passed as the laughter continued. Frick thought, ‘Well at least he’s not angry with me’. He waited patiently until the old man’s spasms died down.
When the old man could at last manage to keep his mouth clamped onto the pipe stem long enough to smoke it, he murmured through red cheeks, “Son, you are an interesting character. And I’m glad you came by to visit me today, if for nothing else than a good laugh. But I’m sorry, I can’t tell you who you are.”
              Frick’s shoulders slumped. “I see,” he said in a very quiet voice, and got up from his chair to leave. “Very well. Thank you for your time—.”
              “However,” began the old man.  “I think I can send you in the right direction to find your answer.”
              Eyes widening, Frick turned. “Really?”
              “Oh, yes. You see, I believe everyone is essentially asking the same question that you are. Some people don’t realize it. Others have an answer already, but it’s the wrong answer to their question. Or, worse still, they don’t think it’s important enough to ask.”
              Frick waited patiently, not speaking.
              “You are looking for an answer, and that tells me that you will find it. Sooner or later. You will find it in action, my friend. In living! And no one but you can ever say this or that is the right answer, though they certainly will try. Don’t believe them!”
              Equipped with this new way of thinking, Frick continued on his journey. He was very excited—the answer he was looking for would come, and all he had to do was keep living! That should be easy enough, he imagined.
            Unfortunately, Frick continued along the road he’d been going down for only so long. The answer he sought wasn’t forthcoming and he grew very impatient. He concluded, therefore, that he must be doing something wrong. He decided that he would continue to live as he had been living all along, but that he would get some help along the way.
              He met a very nice and very wise doctor that administered some tests and had him wait for the results in a room that smelled like rotten cedar. Other people were there in waiting room, too. Some of them were coughing. Some looked gray. It was a sick place.
              “Frick Thompson,” the nurse called. She held a clipboard in her hand and swept it around in front of her like a doggie treat. Frick raised his hand. “Come on back, the doctor will see you now.”
              The walls of the doctor’s office were decorated with framed certificates and pictures of crocodiles. There was even a small statue of a crocodile on top of the desk. The high backed chair on which the doctor sat was made from a dark, ridged leather that could very well have been crocodile skin. Fortunately, the doctor looked human enough—not even vaguely reptilian in appearance. He had clearly been spending a great deal of time looking over Frick’s test results. He was studying them over the top of his eyeglasses when Frick entered the room.
            “Have a seat,” the doctor said without looking up.
            Frick was very excited, and didn’t want to sit down. He clasped his hands together and cried, “So you can help me answer my question?”
            The doctor looked up and over his eyeglasses. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said with a grin. “Now, please take a seat.”
            When his patient had done so, the doctor set the folder on his desk, removed his glasses and placed them on top of the folder. He assumed a very businesslike demeanor. “Frick, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is you’re not mentally retarded.”
            Reality pumped out a heartbeat, and Frick missed it.
            “The bad news is you are an incredibly troubled young man. Fortunately, we see this kind of thing very often. An individual is equipped with everything he needs to get along in life, but the next thing you know he gets caught up in all sorts of problems. His own brain is fighting against him. So, naturally, since he can’t defeat his own brain, this person begins to lose to his problems. He begins to lose at life. It’s very sad to see people waste away like this, especially when there is an answer.”
          Frick brightened. “An answer!”
          “Of course,” the doctor said. He tossed something through the air that rattled. The poor patient, not expecting to be involved in an impromptu game of catch, was too slow in reacting. The object struck Frick on the chin and fell into his lap.
          The doctor chuckled. “Sorry about that. But you know, your missing my throw illustrates my point exactly. Had you been able to deal with life head on, you would have caught that, no problem.”
          Holding the translucent brown bottle up to the light, Frick frowned at the little pink pills marked with tiny little crocodiles. “This is my answer?”
          “You can think of them that way. Yes, do that. Take those once a day, in the morning with breakfast, and the answers will become much clearer. I can say with confidence, you will feel like an entirely different person!”
          Before Frick could protest that he didn’t want to be someone else, the doctor was ushering him out of the office. The doctor directed him to the front desk, so that he could pay for his brand new bottle of pink crocodile pills. Frick left the doctor’s office that day wondering if it were true that the answers would become clearer and easier to see.
          But hadn’t there only been a single question?
          It didn’t matter, he decided. His brain was fighting against him, and it was a battle he couldn’t afford to lose. Certainly, if he won that battle, then life would be better. Frick could be Frick, the way it was meant to be. And then he could start loving again, living life the way his mother had encouraged him to in her final letter.
          And then it happened.
          Frick Thompson stopped asking the question. Ten years passed and he found love—her name was Freisha. She was a plump little brown girl that worked at the Art Center. She painted with her fingers. Together, the couple hung dozens of her fingerpainted canvases in their home. Frick didn’t understand the pictures his wife painted, but according to Freisha his lack of understanding was actually a lack of imagination. She encouraged him to see the pictures within the picture. If he was the only one who could see the picture within the picture, then that was just fine. After all, everyone saw different things, and who was to say his or her opinion was right or wrong?
          So Frick gave it a try, and discovered much to his amazement that he could see things hidden on the canvas. He saw little goblins waving forks and spoons over human entrees and toothy animals suffering from rabies and mange.
          Once, he got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and gazed into the canvas hanging over the toilet. For a moment he saw his mother staring back at him with empty eye-sockets, her face drawn like she hadn’t eaten anything in weeks.          
          Frick ran from the bathroom with his underwear dangling around his feet. He dived under the covers and shivered.
        “What in the world is wrong, Darling?” Freisha asked. She turned on the bedside lamp.
Without pulling his head from underneath the covers, Frick muttered, “Oh, nothing, Pumpkin. It’s just really cold out there.”
        Freisha wrapped him up like a bundle in her plump little arms. “I’ll keep you warm, then. You are silly, though. It’s not even cold in here.”
        “Sometimes I just get a chill.”
        “Did you forget to take your medicine today?” Freisha asked.
        Frick poked his head out from underneath the covers. “I suppose I did,” he said.
        “I’ll get your pill,” Freisha said. “And a glass of water. Stay right where you are!”
        “OK. I’ll be right here when you get back.”
        The next day, Frick came home from a long day of work and found his wife sitting in the den painting canvas with her plump little fingers. The picture that was coming to life looked like a stork with basketballs for feet. Frick sat in the foyer and watched. Sometimes, when the day was long and he felt so very tired, he liked to come home and watch his wife paint. He enjoyed watching her as much as what she was doing. All day long he felt like a traveler making his way through a dense fog, but when he saw Freisha doing what it was that made her truly happy, it tugged on his heartstrings. Struck with such powerful emotion, life almost seemed lucid.
        As Frick watched, he rubbed his hands on his knees. Once in a while he would run his hand over his head, always in a single movement from back to front.
        “Your stork plays basketball,” Frick said. His wife had encouraged him to own his interpretation of art; he had long since been trained to make evaluative or opinionated comments into statements of fact.
        “Those are supposed to be lilypads, Dear. What makes you think of basketballs?”
        She was testing him, he was sure. With a private smile to himself he said, “I used to play basketball, when I was younger. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw your… lilypads.”
        Freisha duplicated his smile. “I love the way your mind works.”
        A thought fell from the heights of Frick’s consciousness, meteoric as it zoomed through the vast depths of his thoughts, evasive as it bounced around in the chambers of his brain, and mysterious as it ejected itself straight into the cosmos, never to be seen again.
        Meanwhile, Freisha stepped away from her work and gave it an appraising look. After a moment she nodded to herself and picked up a towel. She wiped off all of the excess paint from her plump little fingers. “Want to go outside for a smoke?” she asked.
        One of the first things that Frick had noticed about his wife was that she smoked a tobacco pipe. Many would find such a habit peculiar in a woman, but not Frick. He was fascinated by it. On their dates he often asked her to smoke so that he could smell the rich aroma of the tobacco as it burned. Eventually, Frick picked up the habit himself. They would spend their evenings sitting in rocking chairs on the porch, puffing away on their tobacco pipes and watching the sun go down.