All My Favourite Colours

I visit Frank the next evening. And the evening after that. And the evening after that. Each day his skin is a different shade of pasty and his voice a different level of hoarse. I’m no doctor but Frank is obviously not improving at the rate Mikey is.
I take that Friday off to take Mikey to his next session of radiotherapy. My mom is planning to go home while we’re at the hospital. I wait with Frank in their room. We, as usual, talk about nothing important really for most of the time. Music, tattoos, music, overpriced gas and music are the usual topics.
In a break from our “Top 50 rock songs ever” Frank says he gets outside for a walk every day because the doctors recommend fresh air. “I feel like a fucking vampire. As soon as I step outside I think I’m going to burn even though it’s like November.” He laughs and then breaks into a convulsion of coughs. “What’s it like to not be sick?” he asks when he’s finished. “What’s it like to not be sore, and not the way morphine makes you feel, like actual wellness.”
I pause and then say “I don’t know Frankie. It feels like your only pain is mental you know. It’s only sore when you want something really badly but you can’t have it. Or when you stub your toe really hard. Other times you don’t really have a feeling you know?”
He nods slowly and then scratches the back of his neck. Then we start talking about the smashing pumpkins.
After a while I decide to head on ask him, “Wanna leave the hospital?”
He laughs and then realising I’m serious raises his eyebrow, “What do you mean?”
“Ray says you can leave the hospital at some point. He says it looks like you can breathe on your own soon and if you can you can get out for a few hours.” He looks delighted. “We can go out to get actually nice food. Well nicer.”
“Are you asking me out?” he teases and then winks. “That’d be rad man! I’d love to eat real food or see something that hasn’t been sterilized and bleached! Actually to commemorate the no bleach can we go somewhere small and dingy?” He looks really happy.
“Let’s go to Alexander the fourths,” I suggest. “They do nice enough food and it’s sleazy as fuck.”
“Okay!” Frank beams and seems to genuinely happy for the rest of the afternoon.
When Ray wheels Mikey in I was so engrossed in a discussion about overrated bands that I didn’t notice my brother be lifted onto his bed at first.
He’s fast asleep and looks really fragile, like he’s made from crepe paper.
Ray nods at us, smiling, and backs out the door with the wheel chair.
I walk over and tousle Mikey’s hair and fix the bed clothes around him. Still fast asleep I tuck his unicorns in beside him. After staring fondly I walk back to continue my discussion with Frank.

I arrive to collect Mikey from the hospital the next afternoon and Ray says that Frank was okay to leave for a few hours. A romantic dinner at 4pm was not exactly what I had envisioned. It wasn’t going to woo Frank off his feet and into bed with me. But I’ll take what I can get.
It takes Frank a few minutes to dress and when I walk into the room he’s pulling his shirt. He has tattoos on his torso too. How is he so fucking hot!
“Ready to dine?” he says in a kind of posh voice.
“Oh indeed,” I try to reply in a posh voice no doubt sounding like an idiot, “but we need to drop Mikey home first.”
“Is he not coming with us?” uh oh. Frank hadn’t thought of this as romantically as I did. Frank had thought we were dinner party not dinner date. Shit.
“Nah he can’t he’s still too weak from whatever the fuck they did to him yesterday. He’s probably going home to sleep.”
“Okay cool,” he’s smiling, possibly more than happy…
We leave Mikey at my front door and then head straight for the restaurant. “Have to have you back by ten, Toro says” again I feel more and more like I’m taking a thirteen year old girl out to McDonalds and we’re sitting in the back of my mom’s car.
“So early?” frank groaned, “I wanted to see the city when all its worst characters come out.”
We park in my work reserved space. “Can you walk a block to get to the bar?” I ask sort of worried I’d like break Frank in an attempt to buy him a drink.
“Yea I’m sure I’ll be fine Gee,” he says and we walk off in the direction of Doyle’s Irish Pub.
At half four on a Sunday afternoon the Irish bar is strangely full. Everyone here is Irish though and the ages range vastly. We grab a booth that frees up as we enter and order our drinks.
“Irish bars are always the best,” I say, “The people are really nice and the whiskey and Guinness is better than any of the other bars.”
Frank agrees and tries to settle into the atmosphere but he’s obviously not used to it. He drinks slowly and wearily and pauses every sip or so to cough. Despite Frank’s unease the time flies like it always does when you’re at a bar with your friend.
Just as Frank finishes his second glass I hear a call from a few booths over, “Way!” I turn around to see Bob bleary eyed and smiling at me. He walks over to us.
“Didn’t expect to see you drinking on a Sunday Gerard! Oh is this your boyfriend” I feel my stomach sink. I had told Bob about Frank during work but I hadn’t clarified our relationship enough that drunk Bob would have any idea how to address him.
“Eh no, this is my, um, friend Frank. Frank, this is Bob, my friend and boss,” that could have been smoother.
“Hi,” Frank smiles at Bob, unfazed by his assumption.
“Hey. Listen Gerard, I’ve got to go back to the guys, want to join us?” Bob says gesturing back to his friends. I knew them all pretty well but not well enough to hang out with them while I’m with Frank. The last time I’d been out with Bob he kept trying to set me up with his friend Bert.
“Thanks Bob but we’re going to head on this time. Okay?” I smile at him and then knock back the last of my drink.
“I’ll hold ye to it,” Bob says and then turning to Frank says, “Don’t get him pregnant.” He laughs at his own joke and clapping me on the back walks back to his other friends.
“See you tomorrow bob,” I call after him. I turn around to see Frank grinning at me. “What?”
“Ah nothing. Your friend’s nice. He’s the one not to cross I think” he laughs.
“Yea Bob is great. Want to go on to Alexander’s now? It’s half six and we can’t have you late for Ray.”
Alexander’s is the sleaziest place you can get into without being in a gang or walking through miles of alleys. Plus the food here is actually okay. Better than any fast food chain and better music in the background.
Frank seems delighted here. He eats like a trucker, ploughing through wings and then a burger and chips then my chips.
We get some looks from people, probably trying to figure out what age Frank is or figure out whether or not we’re a couple.
When we’re finished eating I ask for the check. A bored looking woman in her twenties says “Yea sure thing sugar,” and goes off to get it.
“Uh Gee, I have no money. Like nothing at all,” Frank says ashamedly. “Whatever money I had went to hospital bills and I’ve nothing left.”
He looks so sorry that I feel the urge to hug him and tell him that it’s fine. But I can’t do that. Instead I wave him off and say, “It’s fine Frankie. I was going to pay anyway.”
“I’m sorry Gee,” he looks so apologetic and sullen it doesn’t really look like him.
It’s nine when we leave Alexander the fourth’s so I decide to stop off at the small park before we headed out to the hospital.
The park is really dark with only circles of light every few feet flickering with the shoddiness of the public lighting system.
We walk over to the “lake”. It’s too small to really be a lake but the city is proud of having a lake that that’s what they call it. We stand there skimming stones across the inky surface. Ripples warp the reflection of the night sky. You can hear cars and shouting and every now and again a gunshot but it still feels peaceful.
We don’t say anything but we both sit down at the “lake” shore and slump into each other. We stare out as the ripples slow and disperse and the lake becomes a mirror, reflecting the brown clouds.
“The city is exactly like it was before I got sick,” Frank whispers after a while.
“Nothing has changed much since I was a kid,” I reply still staring out across the water.
“I lived here before my parents died… This is where my friends all dared me to kiss a girl back in elementary school,” he says, “Nice place for a first kiss…”
Oh my god he’s queueing me I think. He must be queueing me, no one talks about how nice a place is to kiss someone while you’re slumped against them. My mind raced trying to think of some clever line to ignite the kissing but all I can come up with is; “must have been.”
Well that was shitty. Frank sat up straight and looked at me, an air of confusion about him. He must have been expecting a better line than that too. It seems to not bother him because he grabs my face anyway in both hands and lunges into me. Smooth and firm. Hungry but passionate. For someone seriously out of practice Frank was still a very good kisser.

Notes