Frankenmom; or, My Mother Frank

Frankenmom; or, My Mother Frank

INTRODUCTION: Mom spends weekend in her son’s dormitory and things happen otherwise…


Of course, being a freshman, the only art class available was the equivalent of Drawing 101. There was no testing out of it. The day I was told to render a drawing horse in two-point perspective I called Mom in tears, begging her to extricate me from this bad decision. Mom, being pragmatically Mom, refused, comforting me with the advice to give it more time.

Soon after, my collegiate fortunes shifted. I caught a flier, an invitation for a non-juried exhibit on the walls of the student coffeehouse. I hung two paintings, and next thing I knew, Jack McAffee, the head of the art department, had me transferred into the senior painting seminar. He became, I suppose, my mentor. I had to work hard at my appreciation; Jack’s work, really, reminded me of not but a notch above my great-great-grandfather’s stuff. Maybe a little more informed by modernism.

My chest was wide as a highway and deep as a well when I called Mom with the news that the official college gallery was being given over to a display of my paintings. A one-man-show, with an opening! Such honors were unheard of in my lineage. There would be a table bearing nourishment for the guests. Plates of crackers that weren’t saltines. Cheeses that weren’t packaged by Velveeta. Wine that wasn’t, perhaps, Gallo.

The greatest surprise of the conversation was when Mom announced that she’d arrive the evening before to ensure she got a hotel room. Mom was going to be there Well of course she was. Why should that come as a surprise

Because I hadn’t thought of it, so busy was I with peripheral plans. I was of course banking on the fact of my fame garnering girls galore falling at my feet. Wasn’t that how things worked when you went away to college I’d had a sort of girlfriend in high school, briefly. Already I was cashing in on the possibilities of finding out what it must be like to do more than exchange chaste kisses with a girl. The odd fumbling feel of another’s flesh. The stolen glances down the front of a half-unfastened blouse. Surely the college held adoring artsy girls who would want to do whatever. Just because I’d never glimpsed a single one didn’t necessarily mean that a bevy of them didn’t exist.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want Mom to be there. It was just that. Mom might wind up saying something to someone which would ruin my plans. I could see her accidentally shredding some poor girl standing beside me who might’ve otherwise followed me to my room.

That was Mom. Honest to a fault. Perfectly frank. Prefacing every other remark with a form of frank. So much so that in the past several years I’d taken to calling her by the nickname Frank.

When the weekend arrived, I knew well enough that the bad would be skipped, that things would go from good to worst. It was no surprise when Mom knocked on my dorm door and I answered to find her standing there still holding her suitcase.

There was not a room to be had in all the town. I’d only discovered earlier in the afternoon that the very hour of my opening coincided exactly with the kick-off of the Homecoming game. supposed.There wasn’t really anything else to do but offer up my hospitality. I could hardly send her packing-drive back home and ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ The sun was hovering at the horizon; Mom was notoriously nightblind.




To my immense relief, come dinnertime, Mom didn’t even mention the Commons. I was afraid she’d want to share the experience of my thrice- daily experience. It was an apt name, though I didn’t understand the plural. Very, very common. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be seen associated with her; I didn’t want her to associate me with it.
“So, what’s the best restaurant in town?”
That was an easy pick. There was only one place in town that even remotely qualified as a restaurant.
“Randy’s,” I answered.

“Randy’s” she ventured.

“Hey, I didn’t name it.”

“Then Randy’s it is.”

“Though I should warn you,” I added, “that the title best-restaurant-in- town is a very relative term.”

“How relative” Mom got a squeamish look.
“Well. if this was back home, you wouldn’t know anyone who’d ever set foot in the place. At least to admit of it.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Oh no. It’s the best restaurant in town. Just bear in mind town,” I grinned. “Not much in the way of quiet-tables-for-two. It’s the land of huge round-tops. Think of a big trough. And a whole lot of pigs.”

“So I take it we can expect to be greeted at the door by the titular personage, dressed in a tux”

“Huh” I was confused. “Oh. Naw. You’re joking, right Listen, Frank, I think the place was named after the physiological condition of its patrons.”

Mom’s turn to battle confusion.
“You’ll see,” I nodded.

Then she understood. I don’t think she was terribly shocked, but it did take a few minutes for her eyebrows to sink back down.

“Put it this way: my work-study, I go to the library a few evenings a week, sit at a desk and shelve books and daydream about pretty girls. The poor jocks, they have to spend all day every day at Randy’s; they sit at their tables and shovel food-all their dreams come true.”

When we walked in, the little bell above the door seemed to have turned into a gigantic gong. In unison, every face in the place turned in our direction. Mouths opened mid-chew and tongues played with their food. The guys anyway.

“Friends of yours” Mom whispered slyly.

“No, but it looks like they want to be friends of yours!”

I got a quick elbow in the ribs. I jutted mine out to fend off any further attacks. But instead, Mom’s arm quickly threaded its way through mine. Jaws dropped, tongues lolled, and clumps of food plopped back on plates.

While there weren’t any small tables, there were booths for the taking. We took one, sitting on opposite sides of the table. I fetched us menus from the clip on the condiment carrier. Mom gifted me with a smile as I stretched and handed hers over. The booths were built for big bellies. I looked at her in a fresh way from across this great gulf.

I could understand the reactions. Mom looked different from everyone in the restaurant. Even I looked bland in comparison. The odd drops of blood had coagulated in her appearance. Some Mexican mestizo, some Cherokee, some lateral ancestor from Sicily: it’d all come together in her dark exotic features. Against the nearly universal blonde wide- browed piggy-eyed standard of local beauty, she was an orchid set out in a field of dandelions. But I hadn’t ever really given her that consideration.

Mom was Mom. Mom had always been Mom. That Mom was beautiful was a given; all Moms are beautiful. From infancy-there’s the beautiful Mom- face smiling down at you, the beautiful Mom-hands stroking and holding you, not to mention the bounty of the Mom-breasts.

As well, I’d never thought of Mom in terms of being a woman. Women were . well, they weren’t your Mom. It was a major shock for me. Sitting there across from me was not only my beautiful Mom, but a beautiful woman. Smiling at me. Smiling at me alone. A woman who had the attention of every guy in this big room. And she was focusing all her attention on me. A woman who had every guy in the place yearning for a glance, whereas her eyes were mine alone.

Every guy in the place had the hots for her! They’d hop aboard for a ride first chance they got. Even though she was old enough to be any of their Moms. They were all my age. She was my Mom. And she was smiling at me! She was talking to me.

“Davey Hello!”

“Huh Oh yea. What”

“I was asking if you had any particular recommendation.”

To press Rewind for a few years and decide to become an electrical engineer instead. I tried to be suave, “Your choice. Whatever catches your eye. It’s bound to be good. If not great, at least satisfying.”
Eventually I was saved from my own mouth by the arrival of the waitress. Out of uniform, she would have been lost to sight in the sea of sameness surrounding us. The regulation straw-thatch roof for hair. The forehead broad enough to be a roof joist. And nearly centered in that expanse the pair of eyes set about a penny apart. She gave us a greedy look while she took our orders, flashing back and forth between me and Mom.

Mom chirped like a bird as the waitress walked away. As the waitress sashayed away.
“What’s so funny” I asked.

There was a twinkle in her eye. “You didn’t see It was so obvious. She wanted to order you- la carte, of course.”

I sat bolt upright. “No way!”

She rolled her shoulders. “Whatever you say; it’s definitely your call. Not to deny you your desires, but it would make me proud to think you had inherited a sense of taste.”

Mom looked around, and then giggled. “I guess that completes it. We’ve filled the place.”
I didn’t understand.

“We’re even kitchen gossip, now,” she explained.

Before she could explain that, the waitress was back bearing a full tray. The attraction of Randy’s was, I suppose, that nothing on the menu couldn’t be pre-prepped to within a minute of the plate. The fast- food franchises would never make it in this town.

The waitress basically dropped Mom’s plate in front of her. The piece of fish and new potatoes jumped and landed in a jumble. She was a bit gentler with the bowl of soup, but made up for that by positively slamming down her glass of iced tea. Mom just smiled.

Then it was my turn. This stranger bent unnecessarily low to serve me, locking her eyes on mine. Her eyes kept glancing down, indicating, I finally realized, that I was supposed to be doing the same with mine, the better to enjoy the view down the front of her blouse. The way she slid my plate into place made me think she was sliding down her pants. My club sandwich was perfectly quartered and landed before my face without a quiver. She gave a tug to the paper wrapping on the straw, and there was no mistaking the gesture that unsheathed the straw. Then she stuck it in my soda, angling it towards me. I was afraid she was going to hold the straw and wait for me to take a sip. Mom, I could see, though still silent, had given up trying to keep a straight face.

The stupid woman finally went away. Mom was darting glances all around. Apparently, I was labeled a stud.
“Don’t you see Honestly Come on, Davey, I didn’t raise you to be this dense. I’ll be frank with you. It’s never occurred to any of them that I’m your mother.” Mom leaned in close across the table, enveloped one of my hands in hers, and then with that lavish smile of hers informed me with a heightened whisper, “David, they all assume I’m your lover.”

Girlfriend, I could have reacted sensibly to that. But lover It was like the secret of life, a magic word loaded with mystery. You held hands with a girlfriend. Maybe, if you were exceptionally lucky, you even got to have sex with your girlfriend. But a lover I couldn’t even imagine! Just the thought of the word had the heat rising in my head. And a turgid stirring in my pants.

“How cute! You’re blushing. Frankly, you’re blushing so bright everyone can see it. They watch me whispering to you, and you blush. I bet they wonder what I’m saying.”
The flow of blood redoubled. In both places.

“I tell you what,” Mom gleamed. “Let’s really give them something to talk about.” Her fingers began lightly stroking the back of my hand. “Let me have a taste of your club.”

I nearly whimpered, then understanding, nudged my plate towards Mom.
“No no no-the quarter in your hand, hold it out to me.”

She bent forward and took a dainty nibble. And then, I never would have guessed that chewing a morsel of food could be turned into such an erotic display.

“Now,” she sat back, announcing brightly, “would you like to try my soup It’s deliciously bland.”

I was beginning to catch on.