jonathan montpetit : “being frank”

 

Frank puts his copy of Foucault's Madness and Civilization back into his briefcase before entering the television station. The receptionist is old, white and friendly. He tells her he likes the broach she has pinned to her shawl. She gives him mail from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. At his desk, Frank checks his messages. The station manager is bald.

 

"Hey Frankie!" he says pointing at Frank with handgun fingers.

 

Frank waves back and looks at the clock. He reviews the forecast he prepared last night, making sure nothing has changed. Quickly, Frank determines the bulk of the system is the same. The anchorwoman is ageless.

 

"Hi Frank," she says in the barely audible whisper she uses whenever she's not on-air.

Frank looks up from his script and smiles. It is a million-dollar smile, according to a local newspaper whose reputation has been in a freefall lately. But the paper's decline and its conclusions about Frank's smile are coincidental. Frank believes the paper's quality has suffered precipitously in an age of consolidation of media ownership. He believes city newspapers have become mere advertising vehicles for conglomerates. He believes such business models don't allow city papers to respond to the needs of local readers.

 

It just so happened that his smile increased in value at a time of concentration in media ownership.

Yes, the bulk of the system has remained the same and Frank will make a quick stop in make-up before heading into the studio. His weather forecast will cover the Greater Montreal Area, along with parts of Eastern Quebec and Western Ontario. Following the noon broadcast, he will prepare a weather report for Toronto. The conglomerate which owns Frank's station is based in Toronto and has affiliates throughout the country. Frank will prepare two pages of copy for the National Weather Presenter, a younger better looking version of himself. The National Weather Presenter will read but two lines of Frank's report on the National Broadcast tonight. More people live in Toronto than in Montreal, the bald station manager once explained to Frank, they don't care about the weather in Montreal.

 

"You're right," Frank had said in the same resigned voice he uses to warn of flurries in April. "Only Montrealers care about the weather in Montreal."

 

There are times when it takes Frank nigh two hours to get home from work. But this doesn't bother him because he considers time in his Ultimate Driving Machine well spent. Frank lives in Laval, a suburb north of Montreal. His neighbor on one side is Greek, and on the other side, also Greek. There are three well-dressed black men in the car to Frank's right. They too are stuck in traffic. A Muslim woman looks down at him from the crowded bus that has stagnated to his left. She recognizes him from the news and smiles. Exhaust and asphalt burn under the late evening sun. The bus is insufferable. Frank's windows are up and he is sealed tight in his Ultimate Driving Machine. The sightlines are impeccable. He is focused on the car ahead of him, driven by a Caucasian mother and filled with her mostly Caucasian children. He is waiting anxiously to slip the Ultimate Driving Machine into second gear. In the meantime, he enjoys the pitch-perfect hum of its air conditioning.

He removes his copy of Madness and Civilization from his briefcase as he settles on the deck that overlooks his allotment. His wife Trina is playing with their four-year-old son, Andreas Nathan, in the backyard. He reads about security systems against the "violence of the insane and the explosion of their fury" while sipping lemonade. He looks up into the greying sky. He thinks the system will change overnight.

 

It is all too easy for Frank to overlook his allotments. There is no history of heart disease in his family. Laval is the administrative region in Quebec with the highest personal income per capita. Trina has a tattoo of a fish in the soft spot near her left pelvis. But the weather in the Greater Montreal Area is a fickle bride, and Frank knows you cannot always sit calmly, overlooking your allotment.

 

There are times when you must huddle inside, away from windows, close to heaters and loved ones.

The Ultimate Driving Machine is burning oil. Writing and Difference is in the mail. The Andreas is for his father, the Nathan is after his wife's stillborn brother.

 

"Frank," the station manager likes to say, "is a character."

 

Jonathan Montpetit is a Montreal writer. He is a journalist for The Canadian Press & a contributing editor to Maisonneuve magazine. His poetry most recently appeared in Inscribed.

 

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