Frank and Ian VIETNAM
Without Prejudice
Frank was my funny friend who I worked with me at a LPG Gas Company, he was a rep and I was a part time office manageress there. Then the woman who had got me the job there in the first place was sacked summarily and I was full time office Manageress.
Frank who looked like Andrew Denton was the biggest gossip, loved drama and was the first man I ever met who told it like it really was as a male.He was impish and funny, cracking jokes and humming songs. he told me the fleet owner was in love with me and that I should feel sorry for him and give him some attention. I never did,
"he's married". I said Frank
"So?" replied Frank. "Whats being married got to do with anything?"
He pulled no punches either and when he drank, which he did, prodigiously, he could become an open sewer of salicious gossip.
A fact that we would lap up, Mara and I, sharing a house with him at Glen Waverley. he had just left his second wife and I was not long returned from QLD after living up there with Yvette and Kyle 4 for two years.
Alena, my youngest daughter was 19 and expecting her first baby. I was quite happy up there in QLD with 2 jobs and a fabulous unit to live in in Bundall. but you have to be around when you are a Mum and Frank and I decided to share a house and Mara my foster daughter came along as "our love child", she was 17.
It turns out, (Gospel according to Frank) that all men want to do to a woman is fuck them. And, that they will do anything to get it. (Nothing new, known since all time ) but...........
He said, that most men were like him.
He cried when he talked about his marriage break up, cried like a baby, not for him, as he knew he was at fault, but for his babies who were so very young at that time.
I felt for Frank then and realised that men weren't such a bad bunch after all. I held his hand as his body shook with sobs, mucus dripping out of his nose on to the table cloth.
We were sat on the outside deck at the Wheelers Hill Hotel, the sun blazing, white hot heat searing the air we breathed. All around us were smart businessman doing deals and schmoozing and there I sat with a man who thought his life was ending.Broken.
He was totally outrageous, telling us he rang for a hooker once at some drunken moment, he told her he was married, and when she asked where he was, he admitted he was at home
"And where's the little wife?', honey?, the hooker asked in a throaty purr,
"In the bedroom, next door", he answered her.
And wondered why she hung up on him.
He was legend to Mara and I, he was always neat, clean, generous, funny, witty and would greet every day with a delighted,
"Good Morning, coffee?????"
Mara and I were bad at early rising and would sit gloomily at the bench waiting for Frank to make us coffee and mainly plot how to kill him, he was far too happy for our tastes.
We both felt like death warmed over and there he would be, sharp as a new pin, beautifully immaculately dressed and grinning from ear to ear. Practically vibrating with energy.
And every night he would turn up the same with his daily cask of red, clutched under his arm.So we plotted revenge on him and when he was comatose on the floor in the Family room, playing his Kris Kristofferson tapes, I had bought him, over and over, LOUD. Having finished his "two glasses " (Read, an entire small cask of good red )...
we would put headphones on him and turn the stereo up REALLY LOUD and he would wake dazed and confused. After that he always wore headphones and only didn't when treating us to "Sad Sundays, of Kris and Waylon and The Chieftains ( he was going through an Irish phase) while he did all the ironing immaculately. I did his washing, so it was a fair swap.
He was having an affair with an Israeli Jew, called Betty and we called them Frank and Betty from "Some Mothers do have em " they were so in love it hurt your eyes to watch, they were blinded with it.
He adored her and she him and it was doomed. He would iron on Sundays waiting for her to run out of the house, to call him from the phonebox, she was an epileptic sufferer and didn't drive.
He would wait for her to ring him and more than often she didn't.
But he would soldier on, ironing everything, perfectly. He had learned how to iron in the Army, and the only time we had a row ever, it was because he was upset he hadn't served time in Vietnam. He had so wanted to go but didn't get the "call up"
"Silly duff, what did you want to go there for??, I asked him innocently.. If I had realised the bomb that was about to go off, I would have shut my mouth.He turned on me and ear bashed me for hours about he was meant to go, should have gone,
His life was fucked forever, because he had not gone to war, he railed at the fates, long gone, and too late to change, now. I could tell he really meant it.
He was livid and ranted and yelled. I hadn't realised what rage I had unleashed and then we went the round of the houses. him and I,
I wasn't going to let him yell at me for no reason. Hadn't I had enough of that with B, my ex husband??
So I calmed down and he didn't, but I told him anyway, I told him my brother, Ian, had served there
In Vietnam, as a regular soldier, in signals, not even in the infantry, How Ian had hated it, not speaking of the whole experience only ever in little flashes and then clamming up.
Ian was not a talker. Not then. not now. He ONCE spoke of it a little when he was a bit drunk (and he doesn't drink), that losing our Mother and Vietnam were the two of the most terrible experiences of his life.
And he couldn't. wouldn't, didn't expect to be questioned about the WAR . We respected that.
he told us a little, the tiniest bit of information he volunteered.
How the American soldiers were so young and so drugged up it wasn't funny, drugs were rife, Speed, Heroin, Marijuana. LSD, everything was available and as much as you wanted. How the men would say to the women,
"Hey baby, how about you suck the snot out of my fuck stick"
He was angry when he first came home, a son born Christopher, while he was away. And Andrew his older son, only two or so. He was angry and cynical and we couldn't reach him.
Once years later he told me of his visit to an orphanage, and the children were so beautiful and shy and had flies covering their eyes and he broke down there and cried.
Cried aloud for these innocent victims of war and thought of his own sons back in the Lucky Country. he left the army after Vietnam, his marriage broke down, breaking his heart.
When he told me of the children I wept, I thought war was disgusting and all I could think of was the man in Catch 22 who couldn't see the flies in his eyes for the flies in his eyes.
My Mother had given me a copy to me at 12 and I thought it was brilliant even though I didn't like it. She didn't want Ian to go in the army and cried and cried the day he walked away from us to the army.
He was so very young.But we loved his Music, the music he returned from Vietnam with and played it all the time, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, and the Fish Cheer, Joan Baez, Woodstock Music, Jesus Christ Superstar played LOUD, OK!!
So I knew first hand what war does to people, my own shaking mad Mother for one. Ian too, war is awful, makes savages of men and leaves more casualties than the dead.
Frank disagreed, little sweet bespectacled Frank. He raged for hours so in the end Mara and I left him to his cask and his songs and went to bed. he was sober the next day and was so apologetic and how could we not forgive him.????
He was great to Mara and I. he took us for so many lunches on his expense account and we would get legless on wine and good food.
Frank was a high functioning alcoholic and would conduct his business from the car, fencing phone calls while winking at us. he was an unbelievable rep, smart, loyal, hard working and thought the big boss was a mad prick.
He was good at it, he ate the gas industry up, friends as he was with the big knobs at Mobil and BP. the men that set the industry prices. Big powerful men that spoke in Hushed tones and lived in Brighton with their fabulous homes and perfect children and wives.
And they really did live like that.
Frank genuinely liked them and they liked Frank, he was a fabulous wheeler dealer, he knew all the childrens names, their birthdays, every detail he committed to memory.
And he would sit with hard working Jewish, Middle Eastern, Greek and Aussie petrol station owners and he knew all of them as well. they would invite him to their childrens weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and outrageous parties and into their homes to share coffee and alcohol.
And at Christmas Frank would be richly rewarded by all his customers and contacts and basket after basket would arrive at home and he would share them with us generously.
Bottle after bottle of whisky and wine would be given. he had tickets to all the really good sporting events and was given an unlimited expense account that he used up to the max, entertaining down to Earth Aussie Country men, who had no time for bullshit, but loved the big smoke.
And he took us for drives Yvette came with us to Phillip Island and Gippsland, she was pregnant with her second baby then and regularly perked up the dinner she had just consumed.
Frank was my funny friend who I worked with me at a LPG Gas Company, he was a rep and I was a part time office manageress there. Then the woman who had got me the job there in the first place was sacked summarily and I was full time office Manageress.
Frank who looked like Andrew Denton was the biggest gossip, loved drama and was the first man I ever met who told it like it really was as a male.He was impish and funny, cracking jokes and humming songs. he told me the fleet owner was in love with me and that I should feel sorry for him and give him some attention. I never did,
"he's married". I said Frank
"So?" replied Frank. "Whats being married got to do with anything?"
He pulled no punches either and when he drank, which he did, prodigiously, he could become an open sewer of salicious gossip.
A fact that we would lap up, Mara and I, sharing a house with him at Glen Waverley. he had just left his second wife and I was not long returned from QLD after living up there with Yvette and Kyle 4 for two years.
Alena, my youngest daughter was 19 and expecting her first baby. I was quite happy up there in QLD with 2 jobs and a fabulous unit to live in in Bundall. but you have to be around when you are a Mum and Frank and I decided to share a house and Mara my foster daughter came along as "our love child", she was 17.
It turns out, (Gospel according to Frank) that all men want to do to a woman is fuck them. And, that they will do anything to get it. (Nothing new, known since all time ) but...........
He said, that most men were like him.
He cried when he talked about his marriage break up, cried like a baby, not for him, as he knew he was at fault, but for his babies who were so very young at that time.
I felt for Frank then and realised that men weren't such a bad bunch after all. I held his hand as his body shook with sobs, mucus dripping out of his nose on to the table cloth.
We were sat on the outside deck at the Wheelers Hill Hotel, the sun blazing, white hot heat searing the air we breathed. All around us were smart businessman doing deals and schmoozing and there I sat with a man who thought his life was ending.Broken.
He was totally outrageous, telling us he rang for a hooker once at some drunken moment, he told her he was married, and when she asked where he was, he admitted he was at home
"And where's the little wife?', honey?, the hooker asked in a throaty purr,
"In the bedroom, next door", he answered her.
And wondered why she hung up on him.
He was legend to Mara and I, he was always neat, clean, generous, funny, witty and would greet every day with a delighted,
"Good Morning, coffee?????"
Mara and I were bad at early rising and would sit gloomily at the bench waiting for Frank to make us coffee and mainly plot how to kill him, he was far too happy for our tastes.
We both felt like death warmed over and there he would be, sharp as a new pin, beautifully immaculately dressed and grinning from ear to ear. Practically vibrating with energy.
And every night he would turn up the same with his daily cask of red, clutched under his arm.So we plotted revenge on him and when he was comatose on the floor in the Family room, playing his Kris Kristofferson tapes, I had bought him, over and over, LOUD. Having finished his "two glasses " (Read, an entire small cask of good red )...
we would put headphones on him and turn the stereo up REALLY LOUD and he would wake dazed and confused. After that he always wore headphones and only didn't when treating us to "Sad Sundays, of Kris and Waylon and The Chieftains ( he was going through an Irish phase) while he did all the ironing immaculately. I did his washing, so it was a fair swap.
He was having an affair with an Israeli Jew, called Betty and we called them Frank and Betty from "Some Mothers do have em " they were so in love it hurt your eyes to watch, they were blinded with it.
He adored her and she him and it was doomed. He would iron on Sundays waiting for her to run out of the house, to call him from the phonebox, she was an epileptic sufferer and didn't drive.
He would wait for her to ring him and more than often she didn't.
But he would soldier on, ironing everything, perfectly. He had learned how to iron in the Army, and the only time we had a row ever, it was because he was upset he hadn't served time in Vietnam. He had so wanted to go but didn't get the "call up"
"Silly duff, what did you want to go there for??, I asked him innocently.. If I had realised the bomb that was about to go off, I would have shut my mouth.He turned on me and ear bashed me for hours about he was meant to go, should have gone,
His life was fucked forever, because he had not gone to war, he railed at the fates, long gone, and too late to change, now. I could tell he really meant it.
He was livid and ranted and yelled. I hadn't realised what rage I had unleashed and then we went the round of the houses. him and I,
I wasn't going to let him yell at me for no reason. Hadn't I had enough of that with B, my ex husband??
So I calmed down and he didn't, but I told him anyway, I told him my brother, Ian, had served there
In Vietnam, as a regular soldier, in signals, not even in the infantry, How Ian had hated it, not speaking of the whole experience only ever in little flashes and then clamming up.
Ian was not a talker. Not then. not now. He ONCE spoke of it a little when he was a bit drunk (and he doesn't drink), that losing our Mother and Vietnam were the two of the most terrible experiences of his life.
And he couldn't. wouldn't, didn't expect to be questioned about the WAR . We respected that.
he told us a little, the tiniest bit of information he volunteered.
How the American soldiers were so young and so drugged up it wasn't funny, drugs were rife, Speed, Heroin, Marijuana. LSD, everything was available and as much as you wanted. How the men would say to the women,
"Hey baby, how about you suck the snot out of my fuck stick"
He was angry when he first came home, a son born Christopher, while he was away. And Andrew his older son, only two or so. He was angry and cynical and we couldn't reach him.
Once years later he told me of his visit to an orphanage, and the children were so beautiful and shy and had flies covering their eyes and he broke down there and cried.
Cried aloud for these innocent victims of war and thought of his own sons back in the Lucky Country. he left the army after Vietnam, his marriage broke down, breaking his heart.
When he told me of the children I wept, I thought war was disgusting and all I could think of was the man in Catch 22 who couldn't see the flies in his eyes for the flies in his eyes.
My Mother had given me a copy to me at 12 and I thought it was brilliant even though I didn't like it. She didn't want Ian to go in the army and cried and cried the day he walked away from us to the army.
He was so very young.But we loved his Music, the music he returned from Vietnam with and played it all the time, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, and the Fish Cheer, Joan Baez, Woodstock Music, Jesus Christ Superstar played LOUD, OK!!
So I knew first hand what war does to people, my own shaking mad Mother for one. Ian too, war is awful, makes savages of men and leaves more casualties than the dead.
Frank disagreed, little sweet bespectacled Frank. He raged for hours so in the end Mara and I left him to his cask and his songs and went to bed. he was sober the next day and was so apologetic and how could we not forgive him.????
He was great to Mara and I. he took us for so many lunches on his expense account and we would get legless on wine and good food.
Frank was a high functioning alcoholic and would conduct his business from the car, fencing phone calls while winking at us. he was an unbelievable rep, smart, loyal, hard working and thought the big boss was a mad prick.
He was good at it, he ate the gas industry up, friends as he was with the big knobs at Mobil and BP. the men that set the industry prices. Big powerful men that spoke in Hushed tones and lived in Brighton with their fabulous homes and perfect children and wives.
And they really did live like that.
Frank genuinely liked them and they liked Frank, he was a fabulous wheeler dealer, he knew all the childrens names, their birthdays, every detail he committed to memory.
And he would sit with hard working Jewish, Middle Eastern, Greek and Aussie petrol station owners and he knew all of them as well. they would invite him to their childrens weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and outrageous parties and into their homes to share coffee and alcohol.
And at Christmas Frank would be richly rewarded by all his customers and contacts and basket after basket would arrive at home and he would share them with us generously.
Bottle after bottle of whisky and wine would be given. he had tickets to all the really good sporting events and was given an unlimited expense account that he used up to the max, entertaining down to Earth Aussie Country men, who had no time for bullshit, but loved the big smoke.
And he took us for drives Yvette came with us to Phillip Island and Gippsland, she was pregnant with her second baby then and regularly perked up the dinner she had just consumed.
He took Mara and I to the tennis, The Aussie Open and we were honoured guests and went to all the tents and the buffets. Frank was loved wherever he went and was delighted to take us, his roomies, with him.
After Betty he went out with so many other women we were dizzy. There was a greek woman and her daughter, who he slept with, one after the other, a delightful sweet married woman who had a brutal husband, a friend of the greek woman.
It was a revolving door on his bedroom for a while, lucky he had the room with the en suite for "freshening up" between bouts of amorous activity which he would explain in detail to us. he bought all his loves sexy lingerie, really good stuff.
After Betty he went out with so many other women we were dizzy. There was a greek woman and her daughter, who he slept with, one after the other, a delightful sweet married woman who had a brutal husband, a friend of the greek woman.
It was a revolving door on his bedroom for a while, lucky he had the room with the en suite for "freshening up" between bouts of amorous activity which he would explain in detail to us. he bought all his loves sexy lingerie, really good stuff.
And when he was drunk he told us of all his conquests past, some we were shocked at, some of them I knew from Super Dooper Wooper Gas as he called it.
He was incorrigible. Mara and I often wondered what women saw in him, he had good biceps but was skinny as a rake, never ate hardly, just drank.
But he had the gift of the gab, and Mara and I wouldn't let him get away with it. His bullshit sales Rep language, we called it.
He was incorrigible. Mara and I often wondered what women saw in him, he had good biceps but was skinny as a rake, never ate hardly, just drank.
But he had the gift of the gab, and Mara and I wouldn't let him get away with it. His bullshit sales Rep language, we called it.
He warned me away from Neville, recognising a fellow alcoholic. he had been with me when I met Neville and all the while he pretended to like him, he didn't.
Not at all. I thought he was just being jealous as I knew he fancied me. he made a lunge for me once before we moved in together and I slapped his face with a resounding crack.
He sucked it up and after that we were friends.And he never stepped out of line after the smack.
Not at all. I thought he was just being jealous as I knew he fancied me. he made a lunge for me once before we moved in together and I slapped his face with a resounding crack.
He sucked it up and after that we were friends.And he never stepped out of line after the smack.
He told us too of being one of a child of ten, he had lit fires by the time he was 8 and was a wayward child. Out of control. I think he did some time in a "naughty boys" home.
He had a baby boy to a girl when he first joined the army at 16. The girls parents wouldn't let him see her but he found her, somehow and the baby was gone.
Gone to adoption. he had planned somehow to keep the baby boy and went berserk when he found out the baby was gone. He went insane this teenage Frank, kicking in windows in the small town he had tracked her to. And was arrested and Frank was locked up by the army.
Mara and I went on a hunt for a birth certificate, putting in a request, without his knowledge or permission and it worked, we couldn't believe it and we presented it to him, as a surprise.
He was overwhelmed and rang his sister, crying. So shocked to see his sons name in black and white. And the girl must have been just as devoted to Frank as he was to her because she used Frank's real name as the babies second name. Francis. He cried at that too.
He took us to all the Greek restaurants and we smashed plates and danced. We were so drunk sometimes we would all lie in the car till Frank was sober enough to drive or I would or Mara, who had no licence.
We would creep home in his fabulous work car through the hushed cold mornings from Brunswick, Carlton St Kilda, Glen Iris. Calls coming in to Frank on his mobile, answering brightly, fully awake while we red eyed and gritty, grimly drove home.
He just really didn't care. he had a pillow and a towel when he came to live with us. All his wife would let him have.
He fell in love once with a friend of mine, she thought he was a crack up and we went to a Tavern in Glen Iris, DIPS Tavern, and ate fantastic Greek food and smoked and drank and it became a restaurant I took up as my own favourite.
Until it closed it was my favourite place to take family and friends. The food was to die for and cheap. Lunch was $20 for a banquet of pita breads and fresh home made dips, then a starter like Saganaki, or dolmades, then came the platters of lamb, fish, hot sausage, piled high and Cheese potatoes and greek salad and greek pickles, then dessert, a platter of baklava and strawberries and little choc iced sponge cakes, called "Little Dicks". the place was gold.
I dragged everyone there ad nauseam and was dragged there myself for my 50th Birthday, and the girls added their own twist. A male stripper, dressed as a Policeman.
I saw Frank after we all went our own ways. He was going out with a real nut job, a Bi Polar, who was younger and heftier than his other girl friends.
He tended towards tiny girls but this behemoth was from Frankston. Neville and I spent the strangest New Year with them one year, parked at Olivers Hill for many drinks and then back to the house where she lived.
I think her name was Tracey, anyway, when she decided to desultorily pick at Franks Fishermans weave jumper with a long skinny kitchen knife, stabbing it through his jumpers holes,we decided to leave, right then and there even though we were supposed to be there for the weekend.
Nev and I jumped into my little laser and took off like the hound of the baskervilles were after us.
"That woman is nuts," Neville said.
I demurred, not believing him. this woman had told me she had an abusive ex so I bonded with her, and Nev saw straight through her, and I didn't believe him at first.
It turned out she was "Looney Tunes', big time and Frank enjoyed it for a while. he'd had another girl in his prodigious past who used to stalk him with a knife.
Another that just wanted to fuck, fuck, fuck. He got real tired of that one, real quick.
One he had met on a Kibbutz in Israel where he had spent a few years. he rang her in California, drunk, one day. She'd turned gay. He was shattered.
But he was always up-beat Frankie. he still didn't like Nev and it became hard to remain friends when I was living with Neville. Neville was only young and quite jealous as young guys are.
One of the last times I saw Frank he was with a girl called Lyn, who took to striding around in crop bra tops in all different colours and saying she wasn't in love with him,
"Just in it for the sex, honey."
She was a bit of a rough diamond compared to what Frank had been going out with and I heard he was unemployed for a while, lived in a caravan with Lyn and was not doing that well.
He had been forced to resign from Supagas, after they found out he didn't have a licence, after driving the company car for 8 years. Mara mentioned she had seen him at the Hallam Hotel where she was working and saw him with another lady, not Lyn.
I tried to catch up with him after that but he dropped off the radar and one day I was working as a Purchasing Officer at Hilton Engineering.
I was all dressed up in the uniform we wore and had to sign a chit at the front desk for some chemicals we had ordered. And there was Frank. He was the delivery driver.
I kissed and hugged him, so delighted I was to see him. He was not the Frank of old, he looked shabby in a track suit, (Frank would never wear a track suit), unless he was washing the car, and even then.... He had gone grey and was missing teeth, but he was still the same old Frank. My friend.
I asked him who he was going out with.
"Lyn:, he said."we've been together, a few years now"
"Oh, I replied a bit puzzled."Mara said she saw you with a new lady at the Hallam Hotel."
"I didn't say I was faithful, to her..... I just said i was still with her!" Frank shot back And I laughed, same old...
And he was gone, just like that with a laugh and a wave and I felt sad as I knew my life was taking another turn and Frank was no longer a part of that. But Mara and I will never forget him. For a while we shared a really grim time in his life and I hoped we helped, I really do.
And I hope he's happy and loved, and that he found the son he had had to relinquish all those years ago, second name Francis.
God bless Frank because he deserves it
Love Janette
