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Frankie Goes To The Valley
A Dot Com Story
by Kent Lewis

Part II: Moving In, Moving On

I didn’t have too much trouble finding the house, although I’d only been there twice before. The long drive had dulled my senses, but not enough to get me completely lost. I pulled into the empty two-car driveway.

"Anyone here?" I shouted as I entered the small Palo Alto ranch house. Frank was supposed to be home waiting for me, but he apparently wasn’t. Luckily, he thought ahead and left the door unlocked. I dropped my bags on the carpeted floor and moved through the house.

The first thing I couldn’t help but notice was the smell. A lingering stench, somewhere between a deceased skunk and leftover Haggis, filled my nostrils and made me shiver. I walked through the entryway into the living room. A large projection TV and expensive-looking stereo sat in an otherwise sparse living room. Instead of a couch, two space-aged Herman Miller chairs (Aeron to be exact) faced the TV. Playstation 2 game controls led from the TV to the chairs like a life support system.

I followed the stench through the dining room, complete with IKEA table and chairs, into the kitchen. It was here that I realized I was in trouble. The kitchen was a superfund site, complete with dirty dishes piled in the sink, open boxes of foodstuffs on the counter, and a prized carcass, probably a turkey at one point, perched on the stove. There wasn’t much left of the turkey, which was explained on closer inspection, by maggots and flies feasting on the remains. What the hell was I getting myself into?

I decided I’d had enough of rotten meat, fruits and vegetables and moved through the hallway towards the bedrooms. The first bedroom was empty, save for a small desk with a brand new PC. The large screen monitor displayed a largely naked woman performing some sort of heroic act with a Shetland pony. Classy. Must be my bedroom, since there were only two.

The bathroom wasn’t as bad as the kitchen, but not by a large margin. I’m not as fastidious as Pee Wee Herman, but this was a health hazard, and was going to take some effort to clean. I didn’t even bother to check Frank’s room out. Maybe it was the Hitler poster on the door, or the smell emanating from within that curbed my curiosity. I’d seen enough anyway.

I dragged my bags into my new room and began the task of unpacking what little I brought with me in the car. The movers would be coming with the rest of my belongings in three days, so they promised. It’s nice to get a job that pays moving expenses, but I had a nagging feeling I was going to be wearing the same clothes I drove down with on my first day of work because "Bert" got lost on I-5 and ended up gambling at an Indian reservation casino.

As I finished up unpacking, a silver BMW Z3 with concave front bumper and scratched hood, squealed into the driveway, stopping dangerously close to my front bumper. Frank emerged before the car seemed to come to a complete stop. He glanced at my car, and then proceeded to the front door.

"You here Mike?" Frank asked as he moved through the house.
"In here Frankie," I replied. He entered the bedroom and gave me a huge grin.
"Great to see you Mike, I gather you made it down safely," said Frank as he shook my hand vigorously.
"Yeah, no problems, just a little tired. Thanks for leaving the door unlocked for me," I responded.
"Huh? Oh, I must have forgotten to lock it this morning. Oh well," Frank said with a helpful shrug of the shoulders. This made me worry just a bit.
"Hey, what happened to the front of your Beemer?" I inquired, guiding his eyes out the window with a head tilt.
"Oh, this crazy bitch cut me off on the way to work," Frank said. "I can’t believe how slow these people drive down here."

I recalled a few rides with Frank in his old Honda Civic. He was a crazy driver, barely competent and overly confident. Deadly combination. He would go on and on about how real drivers race on the highway, not on the track (maybe because I’d kick his ass at PIR). Surely, I reasoned, he was commuting at no less than 120 mph each day. He also fashioned himself as a car expert ever since he came into money. He believed his new Beemer could be driven without letting the car warm up.

"The oil is instantly spread through the engine in these new high tech cars," he’d say as he peeled out of his driveway on frosty Oregon mornings. What a clown. Lucky for him, his computer skills paid for the extra maintenance bills he piled up.

I recalled when he first got the job and was packing to leave. His place was so messy that he piled up papers, clothes and anything he didn’t feel immediately necessary for his new LA lifestyle, and threw them in the dumpster. Among those papers was a $4,000 insurance check for hood damage to his brand new BWM convertible. He told me later that getting a new check cut wasn’t worth his time. Made me wonder how much he was making.

"I assume you want to keep the computer in my room," I said, reminded of the porn on the screensaver.
"Yeah, if that’s cool with you. I don’t surf too much, but Carol may want to stop in occasionally to get her fix of porn. Bless her heart," Frank said with a somewhat dreamy tone. His girlfriend was a porn addict. What can you say about that?

We settled down for the evening with pizza and beer. I mentioned the criminal condition of the kitchen and bathroom, but didn’t seem to generate any interest. I let it drop for the time being. I figured I had at least three days to get this figured out before my stuff arrived and I’d be stuck here. I thought about my new job and wondered if it could be any worse than my living situation.