The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (10 page)

THE SUICIDE CLUB

The monday after Frankie got the T-shirt, Ms. Jensson—the Cities, Art, and Protest teacher—handed out a stack of photocopied newspaper and journal articles. They were intended to spur the students toward topics they might select for their term papers. One of the articles was a history of a group of San Franciscans who called themselves “The Suicide Club.”

The club got its name from a collection of Robert Louis Stevenson short stories that describe a small, select society in which the members have all agreed to kill themselves. They are desperate men—but they also live their remaining days free from social restrictions. The members of SF Suicide Club, which formed more than one hundred years after the stories were published, did not have any plans to commit suicide, though. They just wanted to live with the same kind of lawless glee.

The club later changed its name to the Cacophony Society, and later still to Cacophony 2.0—but it’s basically the same thing any way you cut it. Club members free themselves from the sense of surveillance generated by the panopticon. The panopticon makes them feel like they are always being watched, and they are determined to

1. go where they cannot be watched, such as into the sewers.
   
2. do what that imaginary unseen watcher would never want them to do, such as climb to the top of a bridge; or
   
3. behave in such unorthodox ways as to infuriate the unseen watcher, and yet technically not break any rules at all, such as by having parties in graveyards, or dressing as clowns for the morning commute.
   

Club members refuse to abide by certain unwritten rules, and they make people aware of the existence of those rules by breaking them in public situations.

Frankie would later do her term paper on the Suicide Club and the various urban exploration teams it engendered. It was a very good essay and she received an A.

Here, in the interests of full documentation, is a short excerpt from the paper she turned in to Ms. Jensson on December 5th of her sophomore year.

The activities of the club and its descendents— the Cacophony Society and Cacophony 2.0—can be classified into two categories: urban exploration and public ridiculousness. As urban explorers, they climbed suspension bridges, most notably the Golden Gate. They infiltrated abandoned buildings and dragged themselves down into the sewer system for an unofficial tour. They threw costume parties in cemeteries.

As publicly ridiculous persons, they would dress in animal costumes and go bowling. One of their more notorious events was “Clowns on a Bus,” in which dozens of seemingly unrelated clowns, each waiting at different bus stops on the same route, would board a city bus as part of the morning commute (Santarchy Web site, LA Cacophony Web site).

Another such event is “The Brides of March,” which has happened annually for the past eight years. Participants wear wedding dresses and parade the streets buying pregnancy kits, flirting with the clerks in formal-wear stores, shopping at Tiffany’s, and trying on lingerie at Victoria’s Secret. They finish by drinking champagne at a bar, where they plan to “proposition tourists until we get married or thrown out” (Brides of March Web site).

Club members have been known to spend entire weekends dressed as Santa Claus. The first “SantaCon”—also sometimes called “Santarchy”— was intended as a surreal celebration, a kind of holiday prank. It happened in 1994; people sang naughty versions of Christmas carols and paraded through the streets. It was such a success that its organizers thought it was too perfect to repeat, but they subsequently adopted the motto, “Anything worth doing is worth driving into the ground” (Santarchy Web site).

Now SantaCon is staged in approximately thirty cities; some of the events raise money for charity, others are more about barhopping. The main point is not a critique of the commercialization of Christmas, though some critics have viewed it as such. The main point is the same as that of the Suicide Club and the Cacophony Society: to create psychedelic moments in life, where the usual strictures of society melt away.

When the Portland Santas were evicted from a shopping mall, they chanted “Ho, ho, ho! We won’t go!” and “Being Santa is not a crime.” When the police threatened them, they cried, “One, two, three . . . Merry Christmas!” Then they ran away and hopped a train downtown, where they all went out for Chinese food (Palahnuik 142).

Many of the club’s adventures do go beyond the merely surreal or prankish, into social critique. One fairly recent event, Klowns Against Commerce, tested how much a clown could abuse business people in downtown Los Angeles before he was arrested or beaten up. Another event, a Pigeon Roast sponsored by the fictitious Bay Area Rotisserie Friends was promoted with a gag handout that nevertheless criticizes factory farming and genetic modification (Rotisserie Friends pamphlet).

Both Brides of March and SantaCon take sacred symbols of time-honored institutions— wedding gowns represent the institution of marriage, and Santa represents Christmas—and turn them upside down.

The urban explorations are challenges to those unwritten rules about the use of public buildings and services. You must not play in the cemetery. You must not climb the bridge. You must not enter the tunnels underneath the streets.

Members of the Suicide Club do all these things. And what is more of a social critique than that?

Frankie later burned her paper, for reasons that will become obvious. This time she was careful to do it in the dormitory shower, and she did not injure herself.

MONSTER

Frankie was deliberately a few minutes late to meet Porter for lunch on Wednesday. E-mailing him had brought back a wave of insecurity that she hadn’t felt since last year. In the first few days after the breakup, Frankie had been tormented by the idea that Bess must have been better than she was. Ordinary, pleasant Bess must be prettier, more charming, more experienced, smarter than Frankie—or Porter wouldn’t have cheated. It didn’t matter that Bess hadn’t become Porter’s girlfriend after the incident. It didn’t matter that in her heart Frankie knew she was smart and charming. What mattered was that feeling of being expendable. That to Porter, she was a nobody that could easily be replaced by a better model—and the better model wasn’t even so great.

Which meant that Frankie herself was nearly worthless.

It was a bad, inconsequential feeling, and every word of every e-mail Frankie had sent to Porter had been fighting against it. She had made him apologize in more ways than one, had flung neglected positives at him, criticized his grammar—and made him wait for her to accept his invitation. All because of how bad she felt when she remembered how little she’d mattered to him.

The Front Porch snack bar was a canteen for students who wanted to spend money rather than eat in the caf. It had an old-fashioned front porch, but inside, it was nothing but a burger shack; you could buy hamburgers, chicken patty sandwiches, fries, sodas, milk shakes, and ice-cream sundaes. There was a rack of candy bars and a cooling unit full of juice drinks. Every couple years, students would petition for a wider range of options both at the Front Porch and at the caf, requesting veggie burgers, fruit Popsicles, and baked potatoes at the Porch, and some actual vegetables in the salad bar at the caf—sometimes for health reasons, sometimes to promote sustainable agriculture. But the only concession made so far was a bowl of sad-looking apples near the cash register.

In any case, students could pick up a paper plate full of greasy food and either eat it inside with the heat and sizzle of the grill, or take it outside to the screened-in porch.

When Frankie got there, Porter was sitting out front with two orders of cheese fries. Of course it wasn’t the first time she’d seen him this year. She saw him all the time; she even had geometry with him. But it was the first time she’d done anything but try to avoid him, and when he stood, she felt small and childish next to his bulk.

“Hey, thanks for coming out,” he said.

“Sure, are these mine?” Frankie reached out and snagged a cheese fry, then took the seat opposite Porter.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure what you’d want to drink.”

“Have they got that pink lemonade?”

“I’ll check.”

He popped indoors and came out a few minutes later carrying a bottle of pink lemonade and a can of Viva root beer.

Frankie wished she hadn’t ordered pink lemonade.

Pink lemonade was the most infantile drink she could have asked for.

“So what’s new?” Frankie asked.

Porter leaned back in his chair. He had a decidedly less geeky look than he’d had when they had started going out. New haircut. Shirt untucked. “Lacrosse is going good,” he said. “The Spy Club is deteriorating now that Buckingham graduated.”

Frankie nodded.

“You’re blowing off the Conglomerate party on Friday for your senior boyfriend, I hear,” Porter teased.

“How did you know I had a senior boyfriend?”

“Come on, Frankie, everyone knows.”

“Do they?”

“Sure. One of the geeks’ own lifted from obscurity by the big man on campus.”

“It’s not like that.” Porter’s description made Frankie feel defensive. Was that how people saw her? Lifted out of obscurity by a popular senior boy? Her entire social standing conferred upon her by Matthew?

It probably was.

Because of course, it was pretty much true.

But was that how Matthew saw her?

“So you and Livingston are serious?” Porter was asking.

“Yeah,” said Frankie. “I think so.”

“He’s a lot older.”

“So?”

“So.” Porter ate a fry and leaned back in his chair. “You look great this year, Frankie. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know.”

“No, what?”

“Don’t let him take advantage.”

“Is this what you wanted to discuss?”

Porter scratched his neck. “Kind of. Yeah.”

“Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“What?” His face looked innocent. “It’s not anything against you. Or against him. I’m a concerned citizen.”

“Why does the way I look make you think I’m suddenly going to let someone take advantage of me?” snapped Frankie. “You never used to think stuff like that about me. I never let
you
take advantage of me.”

“No, but—”

“Really, when have I ever been someone it was easy to take advantage of?”

“Um—”

“I mean, easy to cheat on, yes, I see that. You’ve given me ample evidence of that, thanks very much. But have I ever been easy to take advantage of?”

“Um—”

“Huh, Porter? Answer me.”

“Never.”

“So?”

“Livingston,” sputtered Porter. “He’s—”

“What?”

“Like I said, older. And you’re . . .”

“What? You sent me all those e-mails and made a plan and everything to tell me something you want to say, so out with it.”

“You’re so pretty now, Frankie. It’s a compliment.”

“And what do you mean when you say ‘take advantage,’ anyway? Like you’re assuming guys want something girls don’t want? Maybe we want it, too. Maybe Matthew should worry about
me
taking advantage of
him
.”

“Don’t jump all over me. I was trying to look out for you.”

“You think that you saying ‘be careful’ is going to make the difference between Matthew getting down my pants or not?” Frankie knew she was being harsh, but she was angry. “Like I’m going to be in the middle of making out with him and think, ‘Oh, wait, Porter reminded me that I might be getting taken advantage of right now, wow, what a big help, I think I’ll go home’?”

“Can you keep your voice down? People are looking at us.”

It was true. They were.

Frankie lowered her voice and spat out: “Porter. Let me break it to you. When I am fooling around with Matthew, I am not thinking about you. At all.”

“Whoa, Frankie. That is not what I meant.”

“So what did you mean?” barked Frankie. “Did you mean that because my bra size is bigger than it used to be, you think I’m not capable of taking care of myself? Or did you mean you think Matthew is a potential date rapist? Or did you mean to remind me that you’re a big man, too, you’ll protect me, because you’re just as big as Matthew—oooh!”

“What is up, Frankie?” Porter was upset now.

She barreled on. “Or were you telling me, in a roundabout way, that you think I’m slutty for going out with a senior? That I should watch my reputation? What is it you were really trying to say, Porter? Because I’d honestly like to hear it.”

“Frankie, I don’t know what I said to piss you off, but you are being way oversensitive. I started this off with an apology, if you don’t remember.”

“I’m not oversensitive. I’m just analyzing your supposedly innocent commentary.”

“You’re being crazy,” said Porter, standing. “I was trying to do you a good turn. For old time’s sake.”

“Well, don’t bother.”

Porter walked away. Down the steps, leaving his cheese fries half eaten and his root beer unopened.

When he was out of sight around the corner of a building, Frankie opened Porter’s soda and drank half of it without stopping. She fingered the Superman T-shirt underneath her cardigan.

Her mind felt alive, like she had used it in some electric way, uncovering all the
nocuous
layers in Porter’s seemingly innocuous statement. “You look great this year, Frankie. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”

She felt strangely proud of what she’d done. She had been right about what Porter had really meant, she was certain she had been.

But she also knew she’d acted like a monster.

Frankie hadn’t
liked
herself while she’d been yelling at Porter—but she had admired herself. For not being the littlest one at the table, like she had been all her childhood, depending on the big people (Senior, her mom, Zada) to make sense of the world for her.

For not pouting or grumbling, moping or whining, for not doing any of those behaviors a person engages in when she takes offense but doesn’t feel like she has any way to assert herself.

She admired herself for taking charge of the situation, for deciding which way it went. She admired her own verbal abilities, her courage, her dominance.

So I was a monster, she thought. At least I wasn’t someone’s little sister, someone’s girlfriend, some sophomore, some girl—someone whose opinions don’t matter.

Frankie walked to her next class, not looking out for Matthew or Trish or anyone. Just feeling the power surging through her, with all its accompanying guilt, righteousness, joy, and fear.