Free Being Frank by Nigey Lennon

there in the suitcase, hadn’t rinsed it off yet, figured he’d need it again before too long. Vaseline? Nope, I was obviously a purist. So what happened when he pressed his face against my solar plexus ? ... Hmm — would it damage the beauty of this experience if he asked me to attenuate the volume just a little, by any chance, say five or ten db? Security had their office on this floor.

    I don’t think Frank had anticipated how intensely I’d respond. I hadn’t, either. I had been uncomfortable enough initially, but I rapidly became unbent: This mutant universe was becoming more exhilaratingthan I’d ever thought possible. Emotions were unrecognizable, thrills were much more intense because of their unfamiliarity, no longer did things resemble the monochromatic ‘reality’ I’d always taken for granted.
    â€œIs there a word for ‘love’ in your universe?” I asked. By the time we left the motel for the show that night, I had an exciting new addition to my vocabulary — can you say “polymorphous” , boys and girls?
    I began learning a few other things too. After a couple of days of engaging in optional recreational activities , as he called them, I realized that Frank’s sexual philosophy was as original and as faintly disturbing as was everything else about him. He went after things that were important to him with a Zenlike absoluteness — and sex was only a little less important to him than his music was. Sexuality — “ those glands down there ” — unconsciously permeated everything he did, from his voice to his gestures to his guitar playing. He was serious-minded, even solemn, and yet at the same time, I distinctly sensed that there was an element of madness in his refusal to accept any boundaries whatsoever, sexually or otherwise, He could find erotic possibilities in the least likely situations — the more absurd, the better; the further he could push the envelope, the better he liked it. And all the while he was pushing it, he was laughing... not too loud, but very deeply.

    As the tour progressed I was pleasantly surprised to find that Frank was a model roommate. But it made perfect sense. He was a practiced ‘road rat’; during the years he’d spent touring he had acquired the hard-won art of graceful, efficient living in a vacuum. Well organized and orderly to a fault, he was forever going around picking up my odds and ends and sorting and arranging them for me. I had never been looked after with such determination, and I found it confusing: On the one hand, I wished he’d ask me first before he took charge of my stuff, but on the other hand, I had to admit I enjoyed the novelty of opening my guitar case and not finding dirty underwear in it, (My slovenly habits must have driven Frank to distraction, but beyond the occasional harrumph, he showed admirable restraint.)

    To revive the freshness of your dainty garments
    I soon found I had a problem with him making me laugh, although there wasn’t much I could do about it. When he wasn’t around a group of people, or onstage, he was far from garrulous, but when hedid make an observation about something, it was likely to be droll, and all too often his comments had me nearly choking to death, trying not to crack up. One night some no-budget sci-fi opus was showing on the local channel’s Red Eye Theater, and Frank sat up in bed improvising cheesy dialogue with the sound off until I finally couldn’t stand another second. I begged him to stop, tears rolling down my cheeks.
    â€œCan’t take it, huh?” he said, raising a stagily contemptuous eyebrow. But it was too late. I laughed so hard that I literally wound up wetting the sheets. Frank immediately ceased tormenting me and made a wild dash for the other bed, which made me laugh even harder.
    Frank’s sense of humor extended into areas where others didn’t even dare to