Family Dinner

Family Dinner

By: Brandon Zarycki

Frankie Daniels, was a 23 year old, Columbia University student in New York City. His mother, father and younger brother, Cameron, lived 12,000 miles away in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There was a girl in his Intermediate Fiction Workshop course who asked to borrow a pencil once, but besides her, he didn’t know a single other person in the city.  So, as he sat in his bedroom, he couldn’t help but wonder who was talking in his kitchen. 

The talking had started about 10 minutes ago, but the weird thing was Frankie didn’t hear anyone enter his apartment. Being a college student, he couldn’t exactly afford to live in any high class buildings. Any time his mom would ask about his living arrangements he would tell her he found a little apartment in a nice quiet part of the city. When in fact, the only room he could afford was in an old run down apartment complex. One of the main problems he was faced to endure each day was entering and exiting his front door. The figured the door was probably too big for the frame but in order to open his door he would have to turn the handle as he was lifting it up and then throw his shoulder into it as if he was throwing a body check. Not only was the door impossibly difficult to open, it made an awful screeching noise when it finally decided to let loose and allow entry. The first time he heard the noise he jumped nearly a foot in the air believing there must be some crazy lady standing on the inside who at the very moment the door opened, screamed a loud crazy lady scream. He tried WD-40 on the hinges and everything else he could find on Google to quiet an opening door, but nothing worked and resolved to just get used to the sound of a crazy lady screeching front door noise. He was fairly certain the sound of his door could be heard all the way out on the street, so when the talking began in his kitchen he just assumed he had been hearing things. Although he had initially felt a pang of icy cold fear run down his entire spine and seemingly settle in his stomach when he first heard the voices. The more he listened, the more it sounded like the trespassers were having a normal, pleasant conversation. His mother had told him on more than one occasion before his move to the “Big Apple,” that if he were to find himself in this exact situation to first hide in his closet, then call the police and third and perhaps most importantly, according to his mother, pray to God above they don’t find you. But, there was something so incredibly soothing about the voices coming from the room down the hall. As Frankie slowly opened his bedroom door, the sounds of the strangers talking not only grew louder, but the unmistakable clinging  and clanging of pots being used and opening and closing of cupboards and drawers could clearly be heard.

“Hey, whos in there?” Frankie said with as much courage as he could muster hoping the trembling sound in his voice wasn't as noticeable to anyone else but himself. The noise in the kitchen suddenly stopped. The speed at which all noise had ceased and the resulting silence was so deafening that for a moment Frankie had wondered if he had imagined everything and should perhaps join the crazy lady screaming behind his front door. 

“Dinners almost ready.” 

Frankie spun around and ran back down the short hall to his bedroom, slammed his door shut, grabbed his cell phone that was sitting on his writing desk and hid behind a row of sweaters hanging in his closet.

“911, what’s the emergency?”

Frankie told the woman on the other line about the intruders and had been very adamant about having police arrive at his place promptly. The calm, almost bored sounding lady had told him to stay calm, police were on their way and to remain on the line until they arrived. As he stayed crouched in his little closet praying his heart out to God above, he could hear the conversation between the kitchen couple pick back up. He couldn’t make out what either of them were saying, but again he found the sounds of their voices almost soothing.

*Knock,knock*

“They’re here,” Frankie shouted into his phone and burst out of his closet, threw open his bedroom door and raced down the hall to the sound of knocking at his apartment door. As Frankie grabbed the door handle with both hands, turned, lifted and pulled with all the adrenaline induced power to release the oversized door from its miniature frame, he happened to notice the two people who had been inhabiting his kitchen. Frankie had at once realized why the sounds of these home invaders had such a calming effect on him. He had sudden flashbacks to waking up in the early mornings to the sounds of his Nona and Pop Pop making breakfast in their kitchen when he would spend the weekends at their house when he was a kid. The two people in his kitchen weren’t his grandparents but they definitely could have passed for them. 

“What's the problem here?” The younger of the two police officers asked, as Frankie, having forgotten all about the arrival of the police after seeing the almost ludicrous scene of the grey haired old woman, wearing a red and white checkered apron and stirring what appeared to be a pot of spaghetti boiling on his stove. The old man with the equally white hair but significantly less of it, was standing next to an opened cupboard holding a jar of tomato sauce.

“Normally I’d make the sauce from scratch, but we just have to make due with what we have here,” the old woman replied as if that was what the police were here to investigate. 

“This is my apartment and these people just broke in.” 

“Frankie, what are you talking about?” The old man said, sounding almost hurt at the accusation. “This is our apartment, our grandson is visiting us for the week.” The old man explained, this time to the two officers making their way into the apartment. 

“My name is Officer Page and this is my partner Officer Friedman. Now sir,” officer Page, this time the older looking cop, said directed at Frankie, “can you show me some proof that this is indeed your residence.”

“Absolutely, I keep my ID in my wallet that I keep,” Frankie trailed off as he noticed his wallet that he leaves with his keys on a little table by the front door was missing. “I swear I put it there everytime i come inside.” Frankie continued. “They must have stolen it,” He said, turning back around towards the kitchen to point at what would have been the adorable looking senior citizens still cooking dinner after all these years together. 

As Officer Page was about to continue his line of questions, Officer Friedman grabbed him by the arm and leaned him to whisper something to his partner. Following the officers eyes to where they were both now looking, Frankie realized what had caught Office Friedmans attention. There hanging on the normally bare walls of his apartment were pictures of the old couple. One was of the two of them posing in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Another one hanging just below that one was again the couple posing but this time while at dinner in what appeared to be some fancy restaurant. The third, and biggest of the framed pictures, was of the couple on their wedding day. Although the picture had to have been 50 years old, and the couple in this one were much younger, there was no mistaking that that couple was now standing here in his tiny rundown apartment.

“Sir, why don’t you just come with us and we’ll figure this whole thing out down at the station.”

Frankie sat in the back of a police car for the first time in his life. He was then taken inside a police station, again for his first time ever. Officer Page informed Frankie that he would have to wait inside the station until he figured out what exactly had been going on. As Frankie waited, trying not to look as out of place as he felt, he couldn’t stop thinking about the pictures hanging on his wall. 

“What is happening?” He kept thinking to himself. He knew it was his apartment. It was crazy for him to even start to think otherwise. But the pictures. The look on the old man's face when he said Frankies name and claimed to live there. “How did he know my name?” A cold sweat began to cover his whole body and suddenly felt like the fear that had made its way down his spine and into his belly when he first heard the voices, was now about to come back up in the form of vomit. “This is insane!” He suddenly yelled, making the woman working behind the desk jump and drawing the attention of the actual criminals sitting in the other chairs in the room.

“Frankie Daniels, 535 Evergreen Avenue, apartment 4B.” Office Page said walking towards Frankie. “Turns out you're telling the truth. So who are the old folks in your apartment?” 

Frankie and Officer Adam Page, Frankie found out during their drive back to Frankie's apartment that his name was Adam and that he was now just as eager to find out just who and why a couple of octogenarians would break into someone's apartment and start cooking dinner. When they arrived back at apartment 4B, they entered to complete silence. The old couple was gone and so were the pictures that they had hung on the wall.

“This is a pretty weird one. Here, take my card and if they come back, call me.” Adam handed Frankie his card with his personal cell phone number and left. Frankie forced the door closed, put the door latch on and went back to his bedroom to try to sleep, which would eventually come. The following day, Frankie tried to reason that the couple had probably just gotten confused and somehow wound up at his place. How they had gotten in and hung pictures on his wall without a sound or had known his name were a bit tougher to explain away but he knew that over time this would just wind up being a crazy big city tale he could tell his friend back home. As night time came, Frankie was just finishing his short story for his creative writing class when the first voice came bouncing down the hall into his bedroom. 

“They’re back!” He yelled, grabbing his phone and instead of hiding inside his closet, ran out of the room to confront these people who were able to silently enter his place. As he reached the door leading into his kitchen he pressed send on his phone which he had kept open for quick response. As Frankie was about to inform the old couple that he had once again called the cops and that they were going to be in big trouble, a phone began to ring in his bathroom. The grey-haired couple, having just finished setting his kitchen table, both looked towards the opening bathroom door with big innocent looking smiles. Office Adam Page came strolling out of the bathroom and joined the couple at the table and sat down in front of one of the four place settings.

“Hey Frankie,” Adam said as he pulled his chair closer to the spaghetti dinner the old lady had put on his plate. “When I got home from my shift last night, these nice folks were waiting for me in my kitchen.” The old man sat down next to Office Page and gestured for Frankie to sit at one of the remaining two spots. The old woman filled the man's plate with delicious smelling pasta, then filled the empty plates and set the pot back down on the stove.

“Frankie, come sit and enjoy a nice home cooked meal.” The old woman said, staring right into Frankies eyes. She said it in a loving tone that only a grandmother could pull off, but the empty look in her eyes made Frankies mouth dry and his legs go numb. The last thing Frankie noticed as the light around him slowly began to darken was a new picture hanging on his wall. It was the old couple posing with Adam at Frankie's kitchen table.

The End