frank...

If I should fall from grace with god 

Where no doctor can relieve me 

If I'm buried 'neath the sod 

But the angels won't receive me 

Let me go, boys 

Let me go, boys 

Let me go down in the mud 

Where the rivers all run dry 

—Pogues

the freight train's been rolling all damn day...

chugga frikkin choo...

the boss is out with child...

and we have a lot going on...

so it's chugga frikkin choo...

but even when the train keeps a rolling...

the bastard will glance at the book of face and the train had to stop for this.

when the bastard was a little shaver...

back in small times...

frank was the first look i ever had into the qv's street life.

my old friend, the pensioner and i had words with the squint, who's story may be told another time perhaps...

and it came to a head over by our lady of lourdes.

the pensioner was stepped to by frank and they mixed it up. bats an the squint waited for me to get in but it was over as quick as it started and nothing was decided that night.

flash forward...

it's 1990something and frank and i are having a beer in alley pond park with the neighborhood massive.

events of the past had become long past and we all drank as a hood thanks to matty aces.

"love the one your with" by the doobie brothers blasts out of the speakers and frank dances on a picnic table with a cold busweiser in his hand.

the police roll in...

pounding what seemed like 50 miles an hour across the park, the cruiser bounced all the way across the uneven grass.

flood lights on, the cop gets on his p.a.

"i don't care if you all get drunk, smoke pot, drop acid and get naked, clean up yah mess"

lights went down, cops drove away, frank kept on dancing

in the winter of 2006...

which may be the last time i saw frank i was at a show at fuzzys bar on braddock and he asked how i was doing.

always had a wry grin on his face...

even when he fought the pensioner...

i told him about the divorce and i don't recall what he said to me, drink will do that to a man over time.

but i'm sure it was encouraging.

you see, because frank was like that. the bastard had come to know him as a nice guy.

he went in and out of rehab once.

short sheeted his roommates bed while he was in there.

who the hell does that in rehab?

now...

i sit at my desk, still reeling from my son going home at the end of his summer so that the annual hole in my life opens up and i bury myself in work and i read that frank lost his bout with cancer.

and i'm just floored.

and numb.

i knew his prospects didn't look good when i heard last year.

but not today. i wasn't ready for more heaviness in my chest.

so i deal the way i know how.

by telling you jerks about it.

so it's like this.

frank dunworth was a guy who was supposed to kick my ass one night in 1985 and it didn't work out that day.

he became someone from the hood who i was always glad to see when i saw him.

and while i was never a good friend, i'm sad that he's gone because, i'll never accidentally run into him again.

and that's a shame.

i hope he went out grinning.

—the bastard