Chapter 1

In which we meet Franklin and learn what it was like to be him in high school. Ouch.

A low-grade lethargy permeated every part of him. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was purely physical — Franklin was used to living in the type of bloated body that stained good t-shirts yellow after just a couple of wears. He was used to crackly knees and a spine that pitched forward, like the drinking bird at his now dead grandmother’s house, oscillating back and forth but never righting itself quite to vertical.

Franklin wasn’t greedy. He didn’t expect, at 46, to feel in control of each gnarly limb, or for his muscles to feel fresh with velocity, itching with momentum the way they used to.

That was back when he glowed, his skin radiating potential that held onto young women’s gazes, or caused old ladies at cash registers to give him discounts on things that weren’t usually discounted, like school books or Fuji apples. He took it for granted then, the way getting himself all revved up to spend money on a couple of beers was the hardest part about getting laid. If he wanted it, it’d happen, and so complacent was he with that subtle, beautiful fact, that sometimes he’d just forego the process altogether, even if he was horny, to goof off with friends knowing full well he could get laid tomorrow or the next night, if he wanted to. And, usually, he did.

He didn’t understand when it had happened. Of course, on some level, he did: people get older, muscle fibers break down, age spots show themselves, coming out of the woodwork like termites.

He wasn’t sure why they called them spots, when they were more like divots, or craters, which got clogged with oil and dirt and spoiled his mood when he stood close to the mirror while brushing his teeth at night. He’d lied to his dentist when she’d asked how often he was brushing: “twice a day, for at least 2 minutes,” he’d said, when really it was far less often, and only when he remembered to brush downstairs at the kitchen sink (no mirror) before padding up the carpeted stairs to his messy, muted bedroom. There, he’d sink into his rumpled sheets and pretend to read something while his watch buzzed blue with notifications from news alerts or email newsletters he’d inadvertently signed up for and from which he was too lazy to unsubscribe.

Ping.

The tinny, universal blip of his phone telling him someone needed something from him had a different timbre when the message was from his boss. Of course, he knew that objectively, it was the exact same high-C his phone sounded when he received a text from his mom or a girl from the internet (not that he ever received texts like these), but when it was accompanied by Scott’s name on the screen followed by a curt request at best; a chastising ultimatum at worst — in these moments, something inside of him reacted, and he’d feel his cheeks grow hot and his heart skip a beat, readying himself for battle. No, readying himself for defense.

Who’s handling the questions from the webinar?

The message read. Franklin extracted a loose thread from the hem of a t-shirt he used to wear to the gym. He now wore it to sleep in, so he didn’t have to see the bare skin of his own hairy, distended stomach when he woke up and before he’d even had a chance to pour himself coffee.

He didn’t want to spoil that brief moment between sleep and wakefulness when he forgot, just for a second, that he hated his boss and the paint color of his one-bedroom-plus-den apartment and that he had to go to work again today and the next day and the next day and the next.

He turned back to his phone. He was. Franklin was handling the questions from the webinar. And he knew that Scott knew this. Or at least, he should know this, because Franklin was the type of guy who did the things he said he was going to do, because he didn’t have the creativity to conjure a world in which he defied the expectations he thought people had of him. Why didn’t Scott know this? Maybe not all the underpinnings, the Freudian shit or whatever you wanted to call the reasons he was scared to branch out from whatever innocuous goals he’d created for himself that had landed him in a place where, at 45, his t-shirts were older than his longest relationship and he hardly had any friends. Scott didn’t need to concern him with those aspects of Franklin’s psyche, and in fact, Franklin would probably rather Scott didn’t — but a part of him wished that when Scott lay awake at night thinking about whatever he thought about, that he’d assume — no, trust — that after almost 7 years of being on top of his shit, Franklin was, this time also, on top of his shit.

Franklin was on top of his shit.

He always had been. He was the type of employee who did exactly what he was told. Not enough to get credit for anything important. But he was reliable, and trustworthy, and if someone explained a task in detail he’d follow through with it every single time. Surely the man who was responsible for Franklin’s livelihood knew, after this long — after 7 years of Franklin’s life — that Franklin wasn’t the type to just forget about a task he’d written on his list.

Franklin had always been a rule follower. Growing up, he had followed rules so closely that his mother had bribed him to go outside. “You should go join the neighborhood kids for a game of basketball,” she’d say offhandedly, as if she’d just thought of the idea, and not, as Franklin knew, that she’d been talking on the phone to her sister about ways to get that godforsaken kid finally outside for once.

Then, later, in high school: “are there any parties you wanted me to drive you to?” There weren’t — well, more accurately, there were, but he hadn’t been invited to them — and even if he had been wanted there by the kids who broke rules but still managed decent grades and normal relationships with other kids at school, he wouldn’t have wanted his mother of all people to drive him. “No, mom. No one’s really been having any parties this year,” he’d tell her, weekend after weekend, feeling like a failure, not because the other kids didn’t think to include him, but because he’d let down his mother. His mother, who wanted more than anything for Franklin to feel happy and included. So he feigned happiness.

He’d never cared much about attending parties with the types of kids who wore paper crowns to school on Monday morning in celebration of a night spent puking in a bush or having sex with someone’s sister, or whatever else high schoolers did. He didn’t even think he’d go if he had been invited, because he wouldn’t have had anyone to talk to, and didn’t know if it was ok to bring snacks to a party, or if it was better to arrive empty handed. But it hurt him to watch his mom look left out, her cheeks sagging even more than they usually did in secondhand disappointment. She’d shrug, the sensible cotton of her patterned cardigans bunching at the shoulders, her eyebrows knitted in worried disappointment. He must have been the only kid in the world who wished he’d get in trouble for drinking, just once, so his mom could finally be proud of him.

Franklin was a lot of things, but “not on top of his shit” was not one of them. Nerdy? Yes. A sexless loser with a self-proclaimed board game habit but not a single board game in the condo he still rented? Yes. Overweight, balding, oily, and a decent, rule-abiding citizen who’d never stolen anything, never broken a law, never so much as peed outside when there was a long line at a public bathroom? Also yes. But not on top of his shit? He was so on top of his shit that his therapist tried to convince him to make mistakes on purpose more often, so that he’d learn that mistakes didn’t the end of the world make. “But if it’s premeditated, wouldn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?” Franklin had asked during a session. “That’s a good point,” the shrink had said, her gaze falling to the tip of her own nose, her eyes both blank and pensive for a moment before she changed the subject to ask Franklin if he thought his reluctance towards therapy had anything to do with the high pressure childhood she was so sure he’d led.

Another text from Scott: I need you to do it, Franklin. That is how we will all be successful.

Ready for Chapter 2? Check it out here!