Frank and A Dragon on the Wall
Frank is the father of Kyle and Maggie. Part of A Dragon on the Wall is told in his voice.
The next morning Frank stops in the kitchen long enough to wash out his coffee cup. He’ll get it filled at Timmy’s. He is in the truck a few minutes later and the big engine ticks over and the day begins. The Ford is a powerful, useful vehicle and Frank treats it with respect, checking the oil weekly, topping up the washer fluid, looking under the hood regularly for problems. His papers are strewn on the seat beside him and the floor is a receptacle for food wrappers from lunches he’s grabbed on the go. By contrast the back, where he keeps tools and materials, is a picture of precision. The hand tools hang in neat rows on anchors against the walls. The power tools and the generator fit neatly into the space on the floor, packed in the same order every time, so there is room for lumber on the right-hand side.
He and his partner Bill have a small home-renovation business, Frank and Scarlett, and they split the necessary tasks of overseeing the work and dealing with customers. Bill is better at the sales and liaison stuff, but some Toronto homeowners are uncomfortable with his dark face and Trinidadian accent. Then Frank has to take over the job of stroking the homeowner and convincing him he’s getting his money’s worth. It’s not Frank’s best skill – he becomes impatient with people who don’t understand anything about what’s being done. He overcompensates by explaining things in great detail to people who look like they don't comprehend him, let alone believe him. This morning he's hoping the Needlemans are gone before he gets there.
He stops to buy his coffee and eases back into traffic, all four lanes already jammed -- how can a city have no sane east-west arteries? And now the caffeine makes him edgy and the traffic is so frustrating and they work together to make him think about Kyle. About his own inability to get through to the boy. It was a mistake to raise his hand, Frank knows, and he is unsure what he would have done with the hand in any case. But all his self-control had gone into dealing with the police, those two smirking monkeys holding his son. Then Kyle's infuriating silence. The tension in Alanna's voice.
Frank is the second son, less favoured in his father’s eyes. His older brother Matt has the senior position at the Atlanta development business his father built from the ground up -- Frank and his two sisters have shares. Matt has the M.B.A. and the country club membership and his mother’s good looks. Frank is the shorter son, with his father’s wiry dark hair and permanent five o-clock shadow and no university degree. He worked for his father’s company for 10 years, learning every trade from the ground up and fighting with the old man constantly. Fred was always an unreasonable and cantankerous son of a bitch. Frank now has a seat on the board of the Atlanta company, so he can fight with the old man a few years longer. He wants none of that stumbling and suffering for Kyle. If only the kid wasn't so set on failing at his own life.
