FRANKIE AND JEANNIE

In classic battered mode, i kept going back. I worked as a carpenter. Honey worked in a Telegraph Ave. boutique. I wrote and interviewed some Nazis and my neighbors from the People's Temple. Although Honey didn't smoke pot, her expertise was invaluable in growing the back porch plants. She checked ph and added bat guano. The plants were 10 footers. Take away the crazed fights and we had a pretty good relationship. We shared in the cooking and cleaning and made each other laugh. Apart from the rabbit ,Honey had a Keeshound called Froo- Froo. If you looked in the window you would be jealous of our seemingly cozy life.
One day i got a phone call from home. A good friend Frankie was missing in Florida. I guess back in those days we were all a little bit criminal. Miami was the U.S. city of supply for almost all of the coke shooting up the noses of America. Fortunes were being made by people who had never known such money. This was before "Just say NO." Coke was mainstream. Even my old man made jokes about the tiny spoons and golden bottles his stock brokers carried in their suit pockets. It wasn't demonized like today. So when I got word about Frankie I knew it could be bad.
A year before I had visited Fla. and had dinner at my cousin's, who was married to Frankie's sister. We all sat around a big table of shrimp and Bavarian Busch, laughing and ripping into the fresh seafood. Then Frankie pulled out a .45 automatic, dropped the clip in his hand and tossed it on the chair. He looked at me and smiled a sly grin. "Sis doesn't approve of firearms at the dinner table." His friend who hadn't said much, followed suit, tossing another automatic on the chair. No one paid the least bit of attention, concentrating on the shrimp and hot sauce. I felt like i should've pulled a sawed off shotgun from my pant leg, just to be polite. I thought of this little scene when I got the call. I didn't know specifics, but I had my theories.
Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. No word of Frankie. I wrote a note of concern to his parents. When they saw the Cali post mark they thought for sure it was their son. I meant it to be comforting. It backfired, giving them false hope for a few minutes. Never does a good deed.... I was trying to turn the interview with my neighbor into some sort of performance text when it came over the radio. She, her husband and daughter were all murdered the night before. The prime suspect was her son- Eddie Mills. These were dark days in the Bay area. First came the Dan White murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. Then the headlines switched to the mass murder/suicides in Guyana. Jim Jones became a household name. You could smell the blood in the air. Nevermind. That's just that septum again.
I called the Berkeley cops and told them I had a cassette tape of Jeannie Mills talking about being afraid her children would someday kill her. They came over and picked it up. Two months later I tracked Eddie Mills down. He wasn't hard to find. He and his skeezy, peach fuzzed buddies had taken over the family house. The DA said there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. They couldn't find the gun. The door was open. I knocked but no one came. I climbed the stairs towards the Buzzcocks blaring through a closed bedroom door and knocked again. Eddie emerged, scratching and sniffing. I asked about his mother and his years in the Temple. I should have been afraid of the punk but wasn't. "Just life." he shrugged "I didn't have much of a choice."
You think as the years pile up you'll have closure. You think someone will be prosecuted for Jeannie's murder. You think Frankie's bones will turn up and like on Miami Vice, a couple of bad guys will trip up and implicate themselves. But it doesn't work that way. A generation grows up. People get old and die or lose their minds and just mark time until a welcome end comes. Mysteries remain. R.I.P. Frankie and Jeannie.