Here's the Story - Ariana Speyer

We were down on the train tracks, playing around, and Frankie decides to put some fucked-up piece of a tire he found in the woods across the tracks, to see how it melts. Barbara and some of the other chicks were whining and telling him not to, but Frankie didn’t give a shit. That’s the story as you probably heard it. But here’s the story, the real story.

Frankie has a death wish, I swear. I’ve seen him drive his car into a tree, on purpose, and somehow survive, not a hair scratched on his head. And he was pissed. He was like, “Dude, I wanted to see what the other side is like.” I don’t know why he wants to see the other side. Seems like this side has enough going for it. And who even knows if there is another side, anyway?

So that day, Frankie wheeled a whole tire he found onto the train tracks and came up with this plan to sit on the tire like it’s an inner tube and he’s floating down a river or something. He figured that either the train guy would see him and stop or he wouldn’t and he’d die and that’s what he wanted anyway. So it was a win-win situation as far as Frankie was concerned. So all the girls are freaking out and telling him he’s crazy, he can’t lie on the train tracks, whining and crying. Finally they got so freaked out they left, they said they couldn’t watch him do that to himself.

Meanwhile, me and Jesse are looking at each other, like, “we know Frankie is fucked up, but is he that fucked up to do this?” Neither of us knew. And Frankie is just lying in his tire like he’s tire tubing or something. And of course he’s drinking a beer. He has a six-pack next to him and he might as well be watching the Super Bowl on TV, that’s how laid-back he was. He’s just watching me and Jesse, telling us to have a beer and enjoy the show. That we might never see anything else like this again. I thought that was probably true. I got kind of sick thinking about it, though. And I just thought, what am I going to tell my mother? I didn’t want to think that but I did. I knew she would just look at me like a piece of dirt if I was around and something that fucked up happened. It’s not that I care so much about Frankie. I just couldn’t bear to deal with my Mom.

So when the train started coming, even though Jesse and I hadn’t talked about any plan, we both knew what to do. As soon as it came close, we wrestled Frankie off the tracks and pinned him down with our bodies. It wasn’t easy, Frankie’s strong. The train just kicked the tire off the tracks and it skidded right next to us. Frankie finally became quiet and stopped struggling as the train went by. He just closed his eyes and I could tell he was thinking about something really far away.