William Wharton: Franky Furbo

‘Of course, William dear; I know that. But it never mattered to me. I love you. I loved you then and I love you now.’

‘But when I told you about my Section Eight, I also told you about Franky Furbo. I told you all about it then, when we were at the university, just after we’d met at one of those Friday night dances and knew right away we were in love. I told you about it that night. I felt you were the first person I’d ever met I could tell about Franky who wouldn’t laugh or get scared or run away from me. It was the year I was released from the hospital back in Kentucky. This is true, isn’t it? You did believe me, didn’t you?’

Caroline stares at me. She has the butter in her hand, ready to slide it into the refrigerator.

‘It was such a long time ago, William. Everything was mixed up after the war and you were so sad. And yet you had a fascinating way about your life, driving that impossible black, yellow and red cut-down jeep with the birdcages built into the back, living in a tent up there on a hill in Topanga Canyon. And then building your private nest in the attic of Moore Hall and living there.

‘I would have believed anything you told me; even if I didn’t believe, I’d have pretended I did. I wasn’t about to let you get away. I was so young. You can’t imagine what it is for a young girl when she meets someone like you and knows she’s in love – it’s a special kind of desperation.’

‘Then you didn’t believe me and you don’t now. You’ve only humored me along. Is that it?’

‘It’s not so simple, William. I knew you’d had a terrible time with the war and had been hurt deeply. I guess I felt sorry for you. But more than that, I wanted to be involved in your life, the life you told me you were going to lead. It’s possible I could have believed you with a part of my mind, an important part, the part related to my heart. Don’t you understand – I wanted to believe so much I maybe actually did believe. I never felt I was lying to you.’

She pulls the plug to let the water out of the sink. I dry the frying pan and hang it on the wall. I’m feeling empty inside, cold, lost, the way I used to feel in the hospital when no one would believe me and they’d ask the same questions over and over. Now, my own wife and youngest child don’t believe in me.

‘I’m not trying to blame you, Caroline. I understand. It’s just during all these years, I thought you believed. It helped me hold on to what I thought was the only sanity I had left. Except for the army psychiatrists, I never talked to anyone about it. Then I started telling the children stories, some of them actual stories Franky told me, some I made up over the years to amuse them. But even those made-up stories were somehow true, true in that I believed them myself.

‘You know how the doctors in the hospital put the whole Franky business down to a fantasy I’d constructed as compensation for a complete amnesia due to extreme trauma. They insisted I was only supporting a sustained delusion. That’s why they gave me the Section Eight. That’s why I still receive the fifty-percent disability pension – not for anything physical. I’m considered fifty percent mentally incompetent. I’m a certified half-wit. You know that.

‘But, damn it, I was convinced you believed me. I was sure you understood about Franky and believed with me; it gave our lives some sense. Probably I should never have invented some of those stories for the kids. Maybe it was there when you stopped believing in me. But I wanted to share the magic. I wanted them to know something about why their father is the way he is, lives the way he lives, has tried to design a personal kind of life for all of us.

‘Of course, some of those stories I told weren’t true, didn’t necessarily happen; there weren’t that many stories Franky told me . But I wanted to tell those stories, and I didn’t think it would hurt. Also, in an unbelievable, almost mystical way, I didn’t make them up. It was almost as if Franky were speaking through me. Even some of the children’s stories I’ve published came into my mind that way, like magic writing. I don’t quite understand it myself.

‘But, the important thing is, this doesn’t mean Franky Furbo isn’t real, and many of the stories I told them were true – true stories Franky told me , especially stories about how he discovered he was different from other foxes, that somehow he was a magic fox.’

I dry my hands on the dish towel and go over to the rocker in front of the fire. There are only two chairs in our home, other than those in the schoolroom and my workroom. There’s the rocker I’m sitting in and another rocker on the other side of the fireplace. Mostly we all just stretch out on our gigantic bed. Each of us has a reading light, and it’s there, in the bed, where we spend a good part of our evenings: reading, talking, discussing what we’re reading, playing word games – having wonderful times.

My sitting in the rocker is another bad sign, like the whistling. I hardly ever sit in it.

I see the fire needs more wood. I push myself up and throw two more logs into the hearth. We have all the wood cut for winter. It doesn’t get very cold here, but some evenings can be bitter. We have enough for at least two winters. A good part of our wood is olive, which we get when we trim the trees. It’s hard to start but then burns long and hot.

Caroline comes over behind me. She puts her hands on my neck and shoulders and starts massaging. I don’t respond. In fact, it annoys me. I don’t feel she even knows me, and I’d always thought of her as my closest friend as well as my wife. I’m feeling very alone, and I don’t know what to do. I’m wishing I’d just let it all go and left everything the way it was.

Caroline is very sensitive and I know she feels what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. This somehow makes it worse. There are double-barreled guilts floating around in all directions. I sense how easy it would be for me to drift off into a deep depression, the way I would in the hospital when I felt so isolated. When I’m like that, it’s almost as if I’m in a nonexistent state; I have a hard time even remembering to eat or sleep.

Caroline stops massaging and comes around in front of me. I look up at her and she doesn’t smile. She just stares at me.

‘Look William, what does it matter if I believe in Franky Furbo or not? It just doesn’t matter. I believe in you; that’s what counts. Why should something that happened more than forty years ago be so important? Don’t make a big thing out of this. Please don’t ask me to lie to you.’

‘Honest, Caroline. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. If you don’t believe, after all these years living with me, living the way we’ve lived, the way Franky taught me to live, then how can mere talking help?

‘Don’t you realize that if it weren’t for Franky Furbo, I wouldn’t be alive? And even if I were alive, I wouldn’t be anything like the person I am. In a strange way, belief in Franky Furbo has been my religion. The experience I had with him made me an artist, a writer, gave me a feeling of uniqueness, of value, such as I’d never known. He gave meaning to my life. Can’t you understand that?

‘Without Franky I’d definitely be dead, not just physically dead but mentally dead, psychically dead, psychologically dead – a zombie. I’d lost confidence in the importance of living, the value of being alive, and Franky gave it back to me, helped explain some of what life is about. As a child, an orphan in an asylum, there had never been much joy or meaning in my life, and then there was the insanity of war. It all seemed so meaningless, so awful. Franky gave me a reason for living.’