Frank

FRANK

I spent a few days in the hospital recently. I arrived by way of the emergency ward late at night. When I was finally established in a bed on a regular ward the next afternoon, I quickly fell asleep. Emergency departments are not known for their restful atmosphere.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was a man standing in the centre of the room looking at me. He was dressed in grey track pants and a white short-sleeved T-shirt. He was about my age or a bit older, he was very short, just shy of five feet I would guess, and he had a number tattooed on his left forearm. I had seen a similar tattoo on the arm of a dentist I used to attend.

He had a wide smile on his face and he seemed eager to talk. “Hello,” he said, “I’m your room-mate.”

I guess hospitals have changed since the last time I had needed one. That was on November 21st 1963 for the birth of my daughter and historically the assassination of President John F Kennedy. I don’t think men and women shared hospital rooms at that time. After my initial surprise, I accepted the idea. I needed a bed and this was the only one available.

He told me his name but he had a very broad accent and I was still a bit groggy from lack of sleep so I did not understand what he said. I shall call him Frank. We spent four days together with a curtain separating us. He told me his life story. He told me the same stories many times and I must assume that his memory was wasting. He was waiting for a bed in a long term facility but in the mean time he was staying in a regular hospital ward.

He told me that he was a man without a country. His father was probably in the American military and Frank was born on a ship travelling between countries while his mother fled from the war. I asked him where the ship was going but he started to cry. He cried a lot and he smiled a lot. I didn’t want to upset him so I didn’t ask many more questions. Mostly I listened because his story was fascinating.

He said he was twelve years old when he got his tattoo. He had lined up with hundreds of others waiting for his turn. I could only imagine the anguish and the pain in that room.

From there they were herded into a crowded train car. He knew where the train was going and he was determined not to go to the end of line. He never mentioned his mother again so I don’t know if she was with him but I don’t think she was. Each night in the hospital he cried and called for her, whether he was awake or asleep I could not tell but the cries went on for hours.

He told me that when he got into the boxcar, he immediately started looking for a way to escape. He found a loose floorboard and frantically clawed at the board with his bare hands until he had loosened it enough to lift it. His fingers were bloodied, full of slivers and his fingernails torn but his determination sustained him. He tried to coax some other boys to follow him but his plan was so dangerous no one would join him. When the train slowed rounding a curve, he slipped through the hole in the floor and lay flat in the center of the tracks while the train passed over his body. There was only a few inches clearance above him and the steel wheels clattered only inches from his ears.

When the train had passed he sprinted to the trees and collapsed from fear and exhaustion. The forest became his home until the end of the war which continued for nearly a year.

In order to survive he stole from farms when he could but mostly he ate birds, rats, dogs, cats and once he actually stole a pie from a farmhouse window. He stole clothes from clotheslines, fruit from trees and tools he needed from barns. He said he once stole a green apple from a tree and regretted it because he was rewarded with severe diarrhoea. He messed his pants and had to steal a pair of drawers but the only ones he could find was a pair of old women’s bloomers. He had no choice and he was glad for the clean underwear.

After the war he found his way into a city. He was directed to a Red Cross station. When they asked him if he had any relatives he said he had some distant cousins in San Francisco. He was placed on a ship and arrived at his relative’s home. Of course they knew nothing of this rag-a-muffin that showed up at their door. They took him in and quickly placed him in a military academy.

He had hardly any education up to this time so he did not do well. One day he saw a piano at the school and he sat down to play. He had never seen a piano before, let alone played one. Within a few minutes he was playing with accuracy some big band tunes that he had heard. Someone recognized his unusual talent and put him in the military band. Within a few years, when he was only seventeen years old he had formed his own band and fulfilled his military duty by playing at formal occasions for military gala affairs.

He then struck out on his own with his own band and played at conventions and balls across the United States and ventured into Canada. He hired a Canadian musician while he was in Montreal and his new friend invited Frank to his home for a Sunday dinner. There he met the girl he would marry. She was almost six feet tall and as Frank often said during our four days sharing a hospital room, “she could spit on my head.”

She came to visit him every afternoon. His only remaining wish was that he could dance at his granddaughter’s wedding; that would make his life complete. I hope he does.

An incredible man with an incredible story.