Frank's bulletproof vest

Reunion at the Bank

The rain fell steadily all day long. At the entrance of the Nassau Avenue G-train station in Brooklyn, an old man was looking around, completely drenched without an umbrella. He seemed to be searching for someone, staring intently through his thick reading glasses. As commuters crowded up the subway stairs during the evening rush hour, Frank scrutinized every single one of them. Underneath his bald head, the two deep wrinkles between his brows furrowed even more. His wide, staring eyes blinked anxiously, and his small mouth was tightly shut.

"Hi, Frank," Charlie greeted him.

Frank didn't even pretend to hear. Rain streamed down his forehead, blurring his reading glasses and forming heavy droplets on the lenses. His suit, which looked like it had been bought with a grand intention a long time ago, had probably never been washed; it was greasy and stained with grime. The rain didn't dare soak into his worn, wax-like jacket but simply rolled off. In stark contrast to his short stature and thin legs, Frank’s upper body was puffed up, as if he were wearing a bulletproof vest. His arms were wrapped tightly across his chest, as if he were constantly terrified that someone might steal whatever was hidden inside his breast pocket.

Through the buttons of the black suit, which seemed stuck to his body like a second skin, a dark vest was visible. Looking at him wearing a wine-colored tie with cream-colored diamond patterns over a dingy, yellowish shirt, Charlie thought to himself, 'He may be shabby, but he’s got everything in place!'

Five years ago, Charlie had borrowed money from Frank, the local loan shark, to buy a house, and he had paid it all back right on time. Lately, however, things had taken a turn for the worse, and he was out to ask Frank for an emergency loan.

The meeting place was inside the Greenpoint Savings Bank, a neoclassical structure built in 1906. Standing under the high, magnificent domed ceiling, Frank puffed out his chest and swaggered around as if he owned the place. He carefully unbuttoned his jacket and, with the precision of someone retrieving a priceless treasure, slowly pulled out a notebook from his inside pocket. The notebook was just as worn out as his suit—its corners were rounded and frayed, and the pages had turned yellow with age. It was tightly bound, both horizontally and vertically, with rubber bands.

He carefully unwrapped the rubber bands, brought the notebook right up to his nose, and looked for the records. Finding no pending balance, he wrapped the rubber bands back around it several times and put it back into his inside pocket. To make sure it was secure, he tapped his chest two or three times. Next, he pulled out another notebook from his vest pocket. He repeated the exact same routine. This time, he must have found the record. After confirming the name, his mouth twisted into a slight grimace, and he locked eyes with Charlie.

Charlie, who had been waiting with his hand over his nose to block out the foul odor emanating from the old man, caught the faint, peculiar smile spreading across Frank's face. He slipped his hand down and responded with a smile of his own.

"Well, you paid it off well over five years without missing a beat. Good. How much more do you need?"

At those words, Charlie inwardly shouted, 'I made it.' He let out a long sigh of relief. The anxiety that had been crushing his chest felt like a balloon drifting far away into the sky.

A Flashback to Six Years Ago

Six years prior, in January 1986, Charlie was flipping through the Greenpoint Gazette, a local weekly newspaper, agonizing over how to make a living. A commercial building listed for sale caught his eye. Realizing he had nothing to lose, he gathered unexpected courage and walked straight into a local real estate office. An elderly woman sat there, looking exhausted, lifting her weary face as he entered.

"Could I see the property listed in the paper?" Charlie asked politely.

"I can't go with you right now," she replied. "I'll give you the address, so go take a look. If you like it, come back and we’ll talk." She handed him a business card and drew a quick map.

It was a four-story red brick building. When Charlie turned the first doorknob, the door swung open smoothly, as if it had been waiting for its rightful owner. On the left wall, a row of brass mailboxes hung side by side. Scanning the names written underneath them, he noticed most of the last names ended in "~ski"—Polish tenants. However, the second inner door was firmly locked. Peering through the glass door into the first-floor entrance, he saw that the ceiling was incredibly high. 'Not bad,' Charlie muttered, biting his lip and tilting his head as he pondered the decision.

He started walking back toward the real estate office. 'This is crazy,' he thought, turning around. But then he turned right back, whispering, 'No, maybe it could actually work.' He paced back and forth like this three or four times.

'Knock, and the door will be opened. Even if it doesn't always open, you still have to knock.' Peeking into the real estate office, he hesitated at the door, pacing up and down. 'To hell with it! Let’s see how far this goes. If it doesn't work out, so be it.' Finally, he pushed the door open.

"I like the house. But I don't have the money right now. If you give me some time, I can put it together."

The broker narrowed her tired blue eyes, scanning Charlie from head to toe, and thought for a long moment.

"Alright. The owner has already passed away, and the heirs haven't shown up yet. It will take quite a while to track down all six heirs. Secure your funds in the meantime. If you run short, there’s a local private lender we’ve worked with for a long time, and I can introduce you to him. But we need to do a binding agreement."

"How much?"

"Just give me 100 dollars, and I’ll hold the building for you."

Thinking of it as money lost at a gambling table, Charlie handed over the 100 dollars and walked out with a receipt. Charlie’s footsteps, which had been dragging along the heavy weight of a weary life, suddenly became frantic—as if a motor had been attached to his feet after signing that contract.

The Closing, One Year Later

A year later, on January 17, 1987, sleet was falling miserably. Charlie walked slowly through the slushy streets to make it exactly on time, arriving outside the lawyer's office. He peered inside through the window, adjusted his clothes, and carefully opened the door. Inside, the real estate broker, the sellers entangled in the deal, a representative from the title company, and the lawyer had all gathered.

Frank made his dignified entrance just as it was time to hand over the check to the sellers. The moment he opened the door, a pungent stench—the kind that clings to the homeless—swept into the room with the draft. As time passed, the smell grew increasingly foul. Yet, the people in the room showed no reaction whatsoever, as if they were well-accustomed to dealing with this wealthy lender. Not knowing where to look and desperately wishing someone would open a window, Charlie turned his head. The young woman sitting at the reception desk gave him a quick wink, as if telling him to hang in there.

Back then, getting a commercial mortgage from a bank without an established credit history meant paying an interest rate of around 13.5%. Frank, however, only charged 10%. It was actually a better deal than the bank.

"Once you borrow money from him and pay it back well, he'll lend to you again anytime using this house as collateral," the real estate broker chimed in.

Frank had started from the bottom, saving penny by penny since childhood while working as a ticket taker at a local theater. That was how he began his private lending business. The small amounts bred interest, the interest multiplied into fortunes, and by buying up buildings one after another, he built immense wealth. The taste of money demanded more money, and his old black suit chest puffed up larger and larger by the day, like a bulletproof vest.

Accumulating wealth was his only joy and his sole hope for living. Like gears that never stopped turning, the lending game had become his second nature. All five of his senses were tuned exclusively to the money coming in when he woke up and the money going out for profit. His gaze was always vacant, as if his mind were lost in a world where only cash revolved.

People who needed capital sought him out, and he consumed himself entirely with identifying who would pay back the principal and interest on time. To Charlie, the name 'Frank' evoked nothing but money, interest, and loan sharking; any other image of the man was a complete blank.

The only way Charlie discovered that Frank carried human worries was by spotting him wandering the streets. On days when collections didn't come in on time, Frank would roam the Greenpoint intersection with a haggard face. His eyes would flash, as if he were scanning the crowd to hunt down someone who owed him.

Frank's Death and Final Accounts

He, too, must have accumulated wealth initially to live a happy life. They said he had even planned to get married once. But he lived in constant terror of losing the fortune he had worked so hard to amass. With an expression of immense relief that he had stayed single, he would often casually mutter to Charlie, "Women are money-swallowing machines," as if advising him to manage his own assets wisely.

Naturally, he had no close friends, nor any relatives nearby. He was a man who never knew the joy of spending, only the habit of hoarding. Stripped of love, loneliness, or sorrow, he became a relentless money-making machine, living as though he would last forever.

Then, one day, the checks Charlie sent to pay off his loan stopped clearing the bank. Six months later, a letter arrived from Frank’s lawyer. It instructed him to make the checks payable to "Frank Estate" and mail them to the law firm. Frank was dead.

The entire fortune, it turned out, was inherited by a distant cousin living in Philadelphia—a younger sister he had barely ever spoken to. They say one person makes the money and another spends it! The moment the money-making gears ground to a halt, that massive wealth unexpectedly rolled right into the lap of a distant relative.

For once, he must have been laid in his coffin wearing a brand-new suit instead of a traditional shroud. Did those old notebooks rest inside the breast pocket of that new suit, or were they gone? How could a man who had clung so tightly to life depart for heaven with such a flat chest, leaving behind the bulletproof vest he cherished so dearly? Charlie couldn't help but imagine that Frank, consumed by bitter resentment, couldn't even cross over to the afterlife. Instead, he fancied Frank hovering in the Bardo—the intermediate realm—looking down to check if the money borrowed from him was still being paid on time.

For years afterward, whenever Charlie saw an old man in a worn black suit standing at the Greenpoint Avenue intersection, turning his head side to side with wild, searching eyes, his heart would drop. His legs would shake, and his mind would go completely blank. He worried, 'Could the checks I'm sending to the Frank Estate under the lawyer's orders actually be going to a Frank who is still alive?' He deeply regretted not confirming the death with his own eyes.

After years of being startled by these ghosts, it was only when he finally held the "Satisfaction of Mortgage"—the legal release document—in his hands that he truly accepted Frank's death.

"Hello, Frank," Charlie occasionally murmurs, looking up at the sky. "I was the one who knocked on the door to survive, but you were the one who opened it."

On rainy days at the Greenpoint intersection, it still feels as though Frank, in his faded black suit, might be standing there, looking around for his debtors.