Frank

Frank felt tired.  Tired and much older than twenty and sick of the world.  He sat up and looked around his room.  It was messy, strewn with papers covered in half written stories and song.  Propped in one corner was his sax case and guitar, both covered in anarchist and counter culture stickers.  The room smelled of mold from the window above his bed and alcohol and cigarettes from the empty two litters scattered carelessly on the floor.  He groaned and climbed out of bed, rubbing his eyes and swearing, and stumbled to the door.

He opened the door and turned right, past the other room and into the bathroom.  When he finished taking a leak he walked past his room in tho the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of soda, and headed out into the glaring brightness and heat of another hundred and fifteen degree day for a smoke. As he was smoking, he saw the mail come, and pushed casually off the wall he was leaning on to saunter over and grab it.  Then he retreated from the heat and light back to his cool dark apartment, like a cowardly knight fleeing a fire breathing dragon.

Once inside he rifled through the mail, found nothing worth noting, and went to pound on the door of the other room.  He heard grumbling from the other side, and walked in.  His room mate and best friend Daniel had passed out on the floor without making it to the bed, so when he opened the door it slammed into his friends legs.  Daniel awoke with a shout, swearing and grabbing at his leg.  "What the hell was that for?"  He yelled.

"How the hell am I to know that you've fallen asleep in front of the door again, you dork!"  Frank said right back. "Get up, we have to play tonight and I want to get some practice in before hand."

"Fine fine.  Do we have a set list?"  Daniel asked, obviously still mostly asleep.

"Yeah, we have a set list."  He replied testily, "and if you don't get your ass off that floor and come eat I'll kick it from here to the nearest star."

As they took a break before practicing, Frank lit a cigarette.  It's glow reflected off his purple skunk stripe in sandy hair and his washed out green eyes.  He was thin and lanky, and looked like he never ate.  If you had said that to any of his friends they would have laughed at you, having frequently seen him devour four or five medium pizza's in one sitting.  He was a drastic counter point to his friend.  Daniel was average height, but built slightly more stockily.  He had long brown hair that he let fall around his shoulders and brown eyes that sparked in any light.

"Those things will kill you one day." Daniel said, gesturing vaguely at the death stick in his friends mouth.

"They already have, I just haven't bothered to lay down yet." Frank thought, but he replied with a simple "Probably."

After breakfast they practiced for a few hours before heading out to the "venue."  The "venue" as they called it, was shady corner of a strip mall.  They got there and set up, throwing out a hat while Frank tuned his sax. They played for about four hours before a rent-a-cop told them to move along.  Grumbling and swearing under their breaths they complied, having learned long ago that resistance just led to taser fire and beatings.

"How much did we get?" Asked Daniel.  The hat was Franks, so he got to count the money.

"Fifteen buck and fifty-six cents."  Frank replied cheerily.  When he saw the disheartened look on his friends face he said, "It'll buy dinner, and let's play the college before we go home."

"Okay."

When they got there it became apparent that no one on the campus was interested in donating money to help two punks eat, so they began to play whatever they felt like.  It was half way through one of their favorite songs, one of the only Frank would sing along to, that Daniel noticied a strange absence.  As if the air were missing a certain neccesary quality.  After several moments of wondering, he looked around at his friend and the music fell apart in his hands, like grasping at sand in a river.

There was Frank, laying face down with blood pooling around his mouth, crimson and dark against the dirty concrete.  Daniel broke down and cried out for help, dropped his guitar, and started to shake his friend desperately.

"Frank, wake up man!  You can't let me fight this alone!  I need you, you dick!  Whose going to keep my spirits up and help me change the world?!  Snap out of it you asshole!"  Daniel cried on and on, even after the EMT crew showed up and took them both to the hospital.  Even after the doc declared Frank dead.

Years of smoking and chronic bronchitis had caught up to Frank, and singing the song was the last straw.  His heart just gave up do to lack of oxygen, and his lungs filled with blood as his heart stopped pumping it out.

When Daniel got back to the house crying and shaking, and not entirely sure how he got there, he went directly to the freezer and pulled out the bottle of scotch they'd been saving.  As he turned around to pour the drink, he noticed an envelope on the counter with his name on it.  Inside was a brochure for the local college and a letter.  This is what the letter said.

"Daniel,

You're a good man, even though some days you're lazy and you'd forget your ass if it wasn't attached.  You've made the last years of my life an awesome experience, and I'm sorry I won't be here for much longer.  The docs say my heart is too weak and that I should put my affairs in order, since I can't afford the surgery.  I don't know when it will happen, but I'll be gone soon.  When I go, I want you to go back to college.  I know we dropped out together to change the world, and that they system is completely screwed up, but over these past years I've learned that it's going to take all kinds to fix it.  Beggars, drifters, teachers, lawyers, and even scumbag politicians.  So go fix the world, finish what I never could, and live you life to the fullest everyday.

Here's to the day everyone stands on level ground,

Frank."