You Can Call Me Frank

I am tired of being called his monster. I am literally exhausted. Seriously, when someone says “Frankenstein,” and then some arrogant little twerp adds, “I think you mean Frankenstein’s monster, the doctor was Frankenstein,” I believe we should all be able to cannibalize that person for parts.

You should just call me Frank. It’s much easier, neater, we can all be on the same page of the same classic.

And yeah, I know. I know. I am a monster. I scare people with my oddly colored skin and my mismatched limbs. But the thing is, aren’t we all just parts of our past? Isn’t your DNA a bit of this person and a bit of that person? Your scars are probably on the inside. Mine are on the outside. That doesn’t mean we aren’t a lot alike.

I am tired of not being able to simply get a drink at the bar without someone commenting on my stitching or running off screaming to find a torch and a group of disgruntled townsfolk. Screw your torches. Don’t you have something better to do, something else to chase? Why focus on me when all I want is to try to find my way. To be human. And if I can’t be human, then to be left alone.

What if I’d been sewn neater? If I’d been made in the modern age, instead of at my origin, I’d have oodles of plastic surgery. Be buffed and polished. Tanned and sandblasted. You wouldn’t be able to tell me apart from the rest of the zombies. All silicone and injectables.

But I don’t mind my look. It keeps me humble.

I meet twice a week at the MMMA (Misunderstood Monster Meeting Anonymous). I’m not really at liberty to discuss what goes on there, but you will see the basic beasts you know, a phantom who only wants love, a hunchback, a giant monkey, a blood sucker, a sea creature. All of us searching for acceptance. None of us the monsters we are routinely made out to be. Trust me. We aren’t, not any of us, worse than you lot.

It’s difficult to be an anonymous monster. We have to meet in a giant auditorium in case Kong decides to show up. And then when you pass another monster at the drugstore buying condoms, say, you have to sort of nod surreptitiously but not give it away that you heard him moaning about the curse he was put under or the fact that no chiropractor in the world can save his hunchback or even that he doesn’t have a head. (This one makes it ridiculously difficult to listen to. That pumpkin talking for him. I think I have problems? I’m nothing compared to the poor headless horseman.)

Nobody really gets how difficult it is to land a normal job—especially in this economy. If you don’t want to be in the movies or work at a theme park, your choices are incredibly limited. Can’t be a nanny. That’s for sure. Can’t work most customer service jobs. I was a bouncer for a bit, but I had a dustup when I wouldn’t let in Igor (he didn’t really fit our vibe), and he threatened to expose where my junk was from. That’s a secret that stays secret.

I heard the mummy was now an influencer. The invisible man doing some light robbery. The wolfman actually landed a spokes gig doing commercials for shaving cream. (They can only film him during the full moon.) Nessy is a lifeguard. The shrinking man is in pest services.

I finally got work at a beauty store where people constantly compliment me on my makeup. And there is a certain trope of chick who digs me. You gotta be aware of the monster groupies. But I don’t know. Some of em? I like ’em. They love my bolts, but they’re even more into my nuts. Unfortunately, groupies don’t usually stick around. They do the monster mash, as it were, and then they’re gone. Off in search of who knows what? To score with a different amour. Perhaps Lenore? (Poe doesn’t show at our meetings. There’s a different group for haunted writers. But a lot of his characters step in now and again. I stay clear from that guy who does drywall.)

I’d resigned myself to being single forever. To living my life of quiet solitude. To perhaps the occasionally hook up on Mindr (Tinder meets Grndr for Monsters). And then, well, then she came in to one of the meetings. With her hair piled all up high and those eyes. Oh, those eyes. I wondered where (or rather who) those eyes had come from. Were they Bette Davis’s eyes? Maybe one of them?

She sat across from me and I took in the deep stitching. The scars that crisscrossed. The way she seemed to be put together and torn apart and put together again. That’s how I am. I’ve heard that’s how humans feel when they experience a breakup.

She said her name was Elsa, and that she was tired of the way people expected her to be screaming all the time, but unfortunately that’s what she was known for, and Kong grunted, and the jack o’lantern glittered, but she only had eyes (one blue and one green) for me.

The meeting went on. A ghost complained of being invisible. Nobody could see him so he took to throwing things. Tantrums. A cyclops was unhappy with having to wear reading glasses (or glass). But I kept making eyes at Elsa. She kept making eyes at me.

When we broke she asked if I’d go for a coffee with her. We walked to the diner where the nighthawks gather, and she said she’d thought she’d seen me once before, mentioned a haunt I like. I told her I had a thing for chicks in wedding dresses.

We talked about our hopes and dreams over coffee as the werewolf in the booth behind us discussed razor burn with a witch who had a salve for that. Elsa’s foot brushed mine under the table. I let my fingers touch hers when we reached for the sugar at the same time. I’ve got a sweet tooth. Heck, I’ve got all of them.

She said, “Do you want to take this to my lab, Mr. Monster?”

And I said, “Yeah, baby. And for the record, you can call me Frank.”