Sympathy For the Devil

I always had too much sympathy, and unfortunately, I think I always will. people have told me that it's a weakness, that I'm too kind. That may be true, but it also may be what saved my life. I met Frank on accident, and why he didn't take my life is beyond me.

Frank was homeless, and I was kind of looking for a flat mate. Yes, I let him stay with me for a few days, and I bought him some clean clothes and let him get cleaned up, in addition to supplying him with food. As it turns out, he was a little older than me, a Scorpio, and had been homeless for a few months. I told him a little about my life as an online part time student, and under the conditions that he help me pay for the apartment, he could stay.

He gave me a strange look when I made that offer, but after telling him that's just what I do, plus, told him it was just until he could get his own place. Well, needless to say, he accepted, signed the lease which was a hassle and a half, and before I knew it I had a flat mate. I never really thought that Frank was odd. He loved horror movies, like I did, and he loved dogs. Frank got a job at the butcher in town, and I worked at a plant, so our schedules kind of conflicted, unless I was at home working on school. He was always polite and friendly to me, and I never questioned him when he came home late smelling of blood and frozen meat.

Some nights, when I was home and didn't have school work to do, Frank would teach me how to cook. We would gut fish together, and on the rare occasion, he would show me how to gut other things. We went to visit my grandparents in the country side at one point, and I almost laughed when my grandparents called him my boyfriend. He impressed my grandfather by gutting a rabbit and a couple of squirrels. My grandmother was impressed when he offered to make dessert, and offered to help the two of us with dishes. Both of them thought he was quiet, but polite, and they eagerly invited him to visit them again, and assured me that we would be a good match. I laughed them off, but Frank didn't.

After about a year, Frank did ask me to be his partner. I was shocked, but I accepted and Frank opened up a few days later, and told me every thing that lead to him being where he was. See, his mom had been an aggressive drug addict, and his father had left a long time ago. He and his mom lived together, and he quit school to start working to pay for rent, groceries, drugs for his mom, utilities, and any other expenses necessary to keep the roof above their heads. Up until a few months ago, he had been staying with his girlfriend, but she cheated on him, they got into a screaming match, and she kicked him out and kept his things. I called her a bitch, and Frank chuckled a bit at that.

If you asked me what Frank's best feature was, I'd have to say it was his eyes. They were dark brown, almost black, and they were intense as the sun. Granted he was pretty good looking besides that. His skin was a light shade of caramel, and his voice was deep and gravelly. Short, but well built, he had a lot of muscle and knew when and when not to use it. I've seen him be gentle and sweet, but I've also seen a dark side to him. I don't mean the killing. I didn't find out about that until later. No. This dark side was quiet rage. Like if looks could kill, you'd be dead a thousand times over just from one glance. Unfortunately, some guy at a bar was stupid enough to make a pass at me not once, but twice, and then got physical on top of it, all while Frank was right next to me. Instead of just pulling the guy off, Frank took it a step further and broke the guy's hand. Needless to say, we were kicked out of he bar, and we went home.

I was afraid of him then, but it didn't last long. I think he knew I was afraid of him a little bit, because he did little things all week to make up for it. Sunday was breakfast in bed and fresh flowers, Monday was an origami crane in my lunch with a note sayin 'I love you more than anything.', Tuesday was a bubble bath and movie night (he was very cuddly that night), Wednesday was a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates, Friday was a bottle of my favorite wine and stargazing, and on Saturday, was the kitten. Frank knew I loved cats, and even though he was a dog person, he said he was willing to try with a cat.

The kitten was black and had a small white spot on the tip of her nose. I named her Lithium, and though Frank gave me a confused look at first, his confusion cleared when I began humming the tune to the Nirvana song with that name. Frank was so gentle with her, and he loved playing with her, more than I did if that was possible.

Four our one year anniversary, Frank brought me out to a little plot of land he purchased a long time ago, and he showed me his garden. If you've seen the television series Hannibal, you might be able to envision this scene better. There were raised garden beds, multiples of them, and they were all growing different plants. Some grew flowers, some were growing tomatoes and peppers, others grew pumpkins or gourds of some kind. I didn't know what to say, and I was even more at a loss for words when he showed me what the IV drips connected to each one lead to.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have dreamt this happening, but a t the end of the IV drip was an arm, and I knew that all of them were like that.

"Now you know where I've been going." He said quietly.

"You did all of this by yourself?" I asked calmly, completely ignoring the fact that I was surrounded by human remains.

"Yeah. Just me." He replied.

"Did you bring me here to join them?" I asked, fearing the answer.

"What? You-No!" He looked alarmed as he said it. "I just wanted you to know what you're getting into."

"You know I'd never hurt you, right?" He asked after a moment of silence.

I nodded my head, and he held my hand in his. I think he felt that this was what being vulnerable was all about. He barely told me anything about himself, and the things I learnt about him were just based on observation. He told me trivial things, sure, like his favorite color, or the name of his favorite band, but there were still small things that I learnt through observing him. Like when he looked at people. Some of them he looked at with indifference, some he saw with curiosity, and others he calculated. Calculated as if he were thinking about fighting them or someone of their stature. He loved people watching.

Anyways, this isn't exactly a love story, but it's not exactly a murder story either. However, there is one thing I left out. Those vegetables and what not that Frank was growing? Every summer our city had a farmer's market, and Frank sells the things he grows. Hell, he even named the plants after his victims. There were the Stella Tomatoes, the Blake Daisies, the Damien Acorn Squash, and many others in that same vein. I thought it was kind of sweet that he named them after the victims, and who knows, maybe this is a way for those people to contribute in a useful way with society. I didn't tell you?

Frank murdered those who were lazy. Those who didn't do anything and thought they were entitled to everything. They leached off of what society had to give them, cheating the system if they had to in order to avoid paying a few extra tax dollars. Frank saw that as a problem, and proceeded to eradicate the population of them. That's all I know.