Frankie Gold - District 9 - FIN

“You know that I could use somebody…” He said as he is looking at the pictures that he did have of his family. They weren’t around much anymore, his father making appearances every now and then when he found time to make them. His mother though was gone. Died of starvation like most of the people did here in nine.

And he never would know if he could have done anything to save her life, because he was young when it happened. At the age of five, he sat outside as his father told him to do while he had a conversation with his mother. Frankie didn’t think of it as anything bad, but there were secrets in the Gold house that no one knew except for blood. Well, Blood and Frankie. Frankie was just a child anyway, so he didn’t need to know what his parents did in order to survive.

After all, survival was everything in a place that hosted something called the “Hunger” games.

He heard shouting from afar triggering him to stand from his place and head towards the door of the place he called home. He peaked his head for a moment, to see his parents embracing each other, tears running down his mothers eyes. Frankie never understood why she was crying, because she always seemed happy when she was around his father. His mother noticed that he came in and quickly went to embrace him before watching the man she loved walk out the front door. Frankie could tell that something happened, but his brain couldn’t wrap around the depravity of the situation. All he did for the rest of the night was cling to his mother, who didn’t seem to mind the affection that he was showing her.

And then when he woke up in the morning, he was alone in her bed. He got up, filled with the joy of a new day starting, realizing that the world was still his, and of course, he wanted to tell his mother the same thing. However, when he got into the kitchen, he found his father, shirtless, sitting at the table with an extra plate of food right next to him. His reaction was soft, his expression was hard. He didn’t know why his father was there and his mother wasn’t. However, before he could ask that question, his mother walked in, dressed in one of his button down shirts that wreaked of bad decisions. She smiled at him and asked him to sit down, and instead of objecting, he did as he was told.

When he thought everything was normal, he found his mother on the floor the next morning. His father grabbed a polaroid camera and snapped a photo of her dead body, holding it away from Frankie, and taking him to his room. He locked him in there, telling him to distract himself for a bit. Frankie hid in his closet, which had two nice shirts in there and a pile of ratty things he called clothes. He laid on those clothes, taking deep breaths of them here and there in order to feel close to his mother again.

“He killed my mother.” he told the kids that worked in the metal factory with him.

No one believed him though. No matter how much he pleaded with someone to listen to his plight, his father found a way to get out of any interrogation. Frankie thought he was paying off the peacekeepers to be quiet about the whole situation. He never believed him when his father said the story he had stuck with for years. It always ended in a shouting match that led to him leaving home for a bit.

He always had somewhere to go.

Frankie was known as the troubled kid of the district because he was always seen in the worst parts of it. To be frank, nothing in nine was good. Nothing was wholesome or perfect, but it was still home at the end of the day. Everything that Frankie did was because he was acting out. His mother was important to him, and growing up with a despondent father did no good for him. Nothing though was ever going to be good.

Everything would surely go up in flames if he tried anything to get him ahead in this district that he hated so much.

But that didn’t stop him from trying.

So with the help of the delinquents of district nine, he got into the world of organized crime. Drug dealing.

Something that Frankie had no business getting into. But that didn’t stop him. He did it because he fell in love with a boy that told him that he would make him the happiest if he helped him out.

Frankie was terrible at telling people no. Especailly cute boys.

At first, it started with small time deals. Frankie would hang out in the middle of the district square, usually conversing with the boy that he admired, and then all of the sudden, the deal was done. Someone usually someone would walk up to them asking his friend about the necklace that he was carrying. He would look at it and take it off, showing it to the person that came up to him. It was the shape of a black star, solid on the outside with a touch of translucency in order to tell that there was a liquid in there. He named a price and the person usually payed and walked away.

There was nothing simple about watching someone do something shady.

But that wasn’t what Frankie could focus on. It was the boys eyes, and how sweet they looked when he gave him that lustrous smile that was full of the life that Frankie could see beating from him.

And so it was hard when the next day, he was given that same necklace, and told that he now had to do what needed to be done to survive.

That boy with his ruby eyes, held out an invitation that would never lead to his heart.

But he followed anyway.

And now he is empty. But full of richness that he will never understand because now he was willing to do whatever it took to stay alive.

Because now there was a boy that he could hold onto as well. And that was more precious than drug that could be bought.

It was a gold that could never be found.