Fat Frankie

The office loud-talker picked up his phone and yelled a cheery greeting at whoever was on the other end. 

Grrrrrr!

Fat Frankie sits in the next pod to Mazz and I. He is a loudmouth, his voice is as big as he is, especially when it comes to talking on his phone. He wears rings on both his little fingers and he loves the attention on him, as much as he clearly loves his food.

Fat Frankie isn't just a little chubby, he has a stomach that hangs over his belt like it is an entity all of its own.

I am the closest to him and he has no "low volume" on his voice, all of his conversations are loud, loud, loud, loud, but his phone conversations are the loudest.

He has the Batman theme music as his ring tone, which always makes me shudder when I hear it, as I know that my ears are about to be assaulted. He's probably spoiled the Batman theme music for me forever.

He's always eating fatty treats for breakfast, usually, there is a lot of ham and cheese and bread involved, of course, he is allowed to eat whatever he wants. He's always the one to go and get his colleges coffee, as he also smokes like a chimney, and he always comes back with a cake for himself, which, of course, he is perfectly entitled to do, it has nothing to do with me, but I have a bit of a cake weakness myself, so I always notice that one.

"I'll meet you out the front for a gasper," I often hear him bellow into his phone. He then waddles off down the office, the only thing I can compare him to is the south end of a north bound hippo. I kid you not, google a hippos' arse and Fat Frankie's rear end is exactly the same.

Thank the lordy do dah day for the fact that he smokes, it means he spends a lot more time down the coffee shop having meetings than he might otherwise if he didn't smoke.

I don't always notice him come back, the first inkling I have of his return is normally the Batman theme music sounding again.

I shudder.

"Maaaattttteeeeeee," Frankie crow calls. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He laughs out loud, too loud for it to have any natural inflection. "I feel you maaaattttteeeeeee, I feel ya!"

I leant over to Mazz and said in her ear. "One day, I hope that fat fuck has a heart attack mid phone call and drops down dead on the floor. Splat!"

"Christian!" Mazz said. "You don't really mean that."

"Every word of it, if it means we get some peace and quiet."

"What would you do if that happened right now?"

"Clap," I said.

"Christian!" Mazz said reproachfully.

Fat Frankie finished his phone call, but it seemed like no time later that the Batman theme was sounding again.

Grrrrrr!

"Maaaattttt..." something caught in Frankie's. Cough, cough, cough! He was gacking on something, probably a croissant end that had caught in one of the folds of his neck. "Ma cough aa cough ate." He coughed some more.

Suddenly, he bore a striking resemblance to anger from Inside Out. His face had turned beetroot red, he looked as though he was struggling for breath. He punch his own chest with his balled fist.

“Maaaat just… cough cough cough cough, maaaat just… cough cough cough cough maaat just cough, just a sec.” cough cough cough.

Even in the throws of death he continued to be annoying.
I chuckled. "Apparently, there is some sort of god," I said.

Mazz tutt tutted behind.

"Can't come quick enough," I said. I didn't turn around. I could hear Mazz chuckling behind me.

If Frankie had gacked up a chicken leg, I’d not have been surprised. Oh hell, he could gacked up a whole fried chicken and I would not have blinked.


I care very much about the people that I love, but those who mean nothing to me, or those who annoy me, it is quite true that I don't care if they live or die. If Fat Frankie dropped dead in front of me it would be emotionally neutral to me, it is true. I don't suffer from the world psycho drama in which so many human beings feel they must participate now a days. I don't need to have an opinion on everything and I don't need to share in everyone's pain. Some pain can be the other guy's, nothing to do with me.

I leant over and whispered in Mazz's ear a little later. "There is a certain type of empathy that most people have, that I do not have, I know that, that is why I can say the things I do."

Mazz laughed. "And that's why I like you," she said.

"I'm not sure if that makes me, at least in part, a psychopath " I shrugged. "Nyre. I don't care."

Mazz laughed again.

"Maaaattttteeeeeee, sorry," laugh, laugh, laugh, “sorry,” laugh, laugh, laugh. "Oh Maaaattttteeeeeee!" Frankie had regained his composure. “Everything okay this end,” Frankie bellowed!

I half closed my eyes and grimaced.

Mazz laughed some more.