Franks is always trying to get more people to join M.C., because his job is always on the line when it comes to district budget cuts. His marketing classes are electives, and while they are usually full—because he teaches classes like Marketing Video Games, Make and Market Your Own Movie, and my personal favorite, The Business End of the Rap Game—he’s not exactly a PTA favorite, nor do many of the Childress parents take him all that seriously.
Franks is maybe only five-six, he weighs close to three hundred pounds, and he hasn’t cut his hair in years—sporting the gray ponytail look. To make matters worse, he wears these little photosensitive glasses that make him look sorta like a cross between Buddha and Lennon. (John—like, of The Beatles—not to be confused with that Russian dude, Vlad.)
“You write it, and I’ll read it,” Franks says, his eyes locked onto the screen ready to do space battle with teenage boys.
“Cool,” I say, sitting down at Franks’ teacher desk near the whiteboard.
“You can have half of my Sausage Egg McMuffin. It’s in drawer number two,” Franks says to me. “I’m watching my figure. And the top drawer is filled with peanut M&Ms, as always.”
“Donna fed me,” I tell Franks.
“Cool,” he says.
Aside from the occasional curse words muttered and the post-killing taunting, it’s easy to write when the boys are playing Halo 3, because the game distracts them and keeps them all pretty quiet.
Ricky never kills anyone in the game, and no one kills him, because he is diagnosed with autism and just likes running around in the virtual world, stimming out. And I have to say I love that my boys are cool with this—I love their letting Ricky play Halo 3 in his own pacifistic way. My boys are good people. Word.
So I write up the ad for Marketing Club, trying to make Franks sound hip, but also trying to write something that he won’t read over the morning announcements, because I’ve never stumped him yet. There is an art to this, because I know he isn’t going to read curse words or anything like that, so writing profanity into the ad would just be cheap and pointless and the opposite of urbane.
I’m halfway through the writing of the ad when I look up at the big-framed picture on Franks’ desk. His little mean-looking redheaded wife is on the beach surrounded by Franks’ six little redheaded children. Franks’ head is sticking out of the sand by their feet—big head, little glasses. They buried him to the neck and then had someone snap the photo. I think about what would happen to Franks’ kids—who are all less than ten years old—if he got canned.
“Yo, Franks!” I say, but he doesn’t answer me, because he is playing the dumb video game, but I know he hears me, so I say, “You going to the school board meeting tonight?”
Silence.
“Franks?”
The sound of buttons being pushed rapidly by boy thumbs.
“FRANKS!”
“It’s of this world,” Franks says, which is what he says about everything. He means that he only worries about what will happen after this world, when God takes him to heaven, because he’s a Catholic like me, and he has a super faith in JC.
Now I have faith in JC too, but I also know what it’s like to live on a school bus.
“Maybe you should go, Franks. Think of your children, bro,” I say, because tonight’s when they are deciding whether to cut the marketing department’s funding and if they do that, Franks will lose his job at the end of the year. But no worries. Me and The Five are not going to let that happen. We have a killer plan. We’re doing a mission.
My boys, all except Ricky, shoot me nervous glances, because they don’t want Franks to know what we are doing for him—they prefer to be anonymous do-gooders. So I flash them a thumbs-up to reassure them I know what the hell I’m doing.
“My family’s never missed a meal,” Franks says, like a man who has never missed a meal, because he doesn’t know what it’s like to be homeless. But it’s all good in the hood, because I’m not going to let any bad hooey happen to Franks or his redheaded kids.
“Can I give you a hug today, Franks?” I say, because I’ve always wanted to hug Franks ever since we met in his The Art of Marketing Junk Food class.
“Against school policy,” he says.
“Someday, I’m going to give you a big old hug. Teddy bear–style.”
“Maybe when you graduate,” he says just as Ty and Jared start moaning again. “Undefeated Halo 3 champs! Our streak is still alive, brother!”
From his wheelchair, Chad says, “Who’s your poppa?”