Frankie & Formaldehyde

Chapter Seven: Friendly Neighbour

He stood silent and still in the open doorway, his hands in his pockets as he weighed his options from his front porch. His neighbour, Jack Morgan Esq., was still hunting for his beloved pooch, spatula in hand. George absently picked at his teeth, noting that the oily dog hair was wrapped in a very unpleasant way around his back molars.

"Smells good, don't it?" Jack shouted, his grin wide and white, his apron flapping at his knees like a skirt. "I bet you want to try a bit, don't you? That's grade A beef I got cooking up for breakfast here, you can't get that through the proper channels." Jack pointed his spatula square at George's chest. "I ain't sharing. Can't do it, pal. See, if you were an early investor in Osmosis 37 like I was, you could have had executive status. It's not like they didn't give you the forms to fill out. You and that hard working wife of yours snoozed and losed, just like that. Shame, really. I thought you two had more on the ball than Dopey Dolores over there."

He gestured to George's neighbour on the opposite side and George watched as Dolores staggered through her rose bushes, her martini sloshing over her housecoat as she drunkenly picked at her flowers. "Bought in early and got to reap in all the benefits. She gets to waste her days sucking back tequila and lorazepam and here you are, still struggling to bring home the bacon." Jack Morgan stretched lazily, the spatula waving and dripping fat onto George's driveway. "Mind you, this is a mature street. There's a reason it's so dead quiet."

He moved closer to George, and brought him into a mock confidence. "The Osmosis Foundation snatched up this whole block about a year ago. They figure they can get at least three holding facilities here, housing about five hundred undead wigglers each. Of course, some people are just too stubborn to die off and become part of the plan. As an executive, I'll have my pick of a new downtown condo in whatever city I want. But dead weight like you..." He shook his head. "Let's just say with the kind of payola three holding facilities generates it doesn't take much to get a bank to do some creative accounting."

"Hello, Jack!" Dolores sang to them, her droopy eyes unable to bring either of them into proper focus. She held up her now nearly empty martini glass in greeting. "So lovely, what you're doing for the neighbourhood."

"You're goddamned right about that," Jack said, and Dolores tittered, hiding her drunken belch behind a delicate palm.

He gave George a level glare. "The Osmosis Foundation doesn't take kindly to people who aren't one hundred percent behind their charitable works. If I were you, I'd be channelling all that money your wife earns into some hefty Osmosis donations. Maybe with a kind word put in by, say, a friendly neighbour for a small fee--Let's try five thousand, that should do it--and you could get a small but liveable little bachelor apartment in the heart of the city. Trust me pal. all kinds of things can happen when you're off the Osmosis naughty list." He scraped the bottom of his chin with the spatula, leaving streaks of hickory flavoured BBQ sauce on his neck. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a steak to char."

George followed him with his rheumy eyes, not moving a muscle as Jack returned to his BBQ, his calls for his missing, miserable little dog riddled with new curse words. When George did move, it was with slow deliberate plodding, a method that worked best for his increasingly out of sync muscles.

"Good morning, George," Dolores sang out to him. He turned to her, unsmiling, her blank gaze unfocused as she concentrated on his face. "Goodness, that's a nasty cut on your ear."

He stepped down the three steps that comprised his porch and made a beeline for Frank's yard, which was now fully immersed in hickory smoke. The stereo was blasting an ancient Pink Floyd tune, one that George himself had once favoured and might have even sung along to, had the situation been different. But with that jerk Jack enjoying it, it was as if his fond memories of the band and their music were tainted. Defiled, even.