Frankie is “just a simple boy from the swamps,” as he likes to say. He is moving back to Florida from Gorham, just as fast as his little legs will carry him.

Life can be kind to Frankie. He is engaged to his own Miss America and drives a slinky, black BMW convertible. He also claims to be “the best golfer in New England.” But life can also be cruel.

Last week, Frank toured the Palatka, Fla., area, purchasing in bulk to refurbish his new home (on the golf course). I delivered a load of flotsam and jetsam from the Gorham house. Then, we toured all the major “big box” emporia, including Wal-Mart, where he bought a new phone, along with a shopping cart full of goodies.

I was elsewhere in the store, so we have to take his word for the rest. The phone was wrapped in cable, which held an anti-theft alarm the size of a hockey puck. At the checkout, he advised the cashier that the alarm was on the box. “Not my job,” she said and kept adding up his order.

Frankie took his order to the door and, once again, advised an employee about the alarm still wired to his phone box. Same thing. “Not my job,” she said.

As he walked through the door, an alarm went off, but no one responded and he kept walking. Ignorant as ever, I met him at the truck and drove off to Palma Ciea Terrace and his nice new house.

As he unpacked his purchase, he showed me the phone wrapped in security wire and complained that all of his tools were in Gorham. In my fully equipped Tundra, I kept the usual dozen flashlights, an assortment of knives and … a Leatherman!

This invention has everything but a laser beam inside. Frankie, standing in his new driveway, deftly opened the pliers tool and clipped the alarm off the new phone box.

Prison break!

The alarm screamed and whooped.

We ran inside the house to preserve Frankie’s reputation for as long as we could. The alarm seemed to get louder as we cowered in the unfurnished house. We threw it in a vacant bedroom, while it continued to scream its outrage.

When in doubt, we eat. We forgot our troubles and celebrated our Florida visit (and the 80-degree weather) at a nearby barbecue joint.

It was probably 10 p.m. when we got back and we went off to opposite wings of the new four-bedroom, three-bathroom house. I had been driving much of the day and gratefully fell into bed.

Before I could fall into the arms of Morpheus, I heard the alarm, getting closer and closer. I thought I was dreaming, until I heard Frankie’s sardonic laugh. He had rescued the still screaming alarm from the bedroom and dropped it outside my door.

I used all of my skill and intelligence to open the door, pick up the noisemaker and drop it in the toilet. Blessed quiet. Then, I went back to bed.

Frankie was very upset in the morning when I fished it out of the toilet to show that his plan had failed. As we planned our next meal at a breakfast buffet, the alarm dried itself off and started screaming all over again.

The Mensa-trained Frankie followed my lead and dropped the alarm back into water, in what was passing for a pool at the new house. It was really only a “cee-ment pond” like the Beverly Hillbillies had, since the liner was somewhere in Michigan. But it did the job and drowned the alarm.

We thought.

That night, after still another round of the local restaurants, we returned to the cee-ment pond for a few evening cigars. Frank looked in the puddle at the bottom of the pool. The alarm had quieted, yes, but was glowing with an angry red eye.

“It won’t die. It’s like the ‘Chucky’ movie,” Frankie said, his voice rising in fear. He refused to take the alarm back to Wal-Mart and be accused of theft. When I called several days later, the alarm was still glowing in the cee-ment pond.

“It’s like something out of science fiction. I am afraid to touch it,” our boy said.

The last I heard, he was considering hiring a hazmat firm to remove “Chucky” from the premises.

If you ask me, it serves him right for his blonde, his beemer and his golf course house in Florida.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.