Frog (23 page)

“I hate saying it, but plumbing. You're your own boss or could become one eventually, as you said your father always told you to be.”

“I now wish I had become the dentist he wanted me to be most of all. ‘We'll have a joint practice,' he said. ‘Or we'll open a second office—in the Chrysler Building.' He said he had a friend there who could get us a good office. ‘It's classy, not like the Garment Center. You work out of there, I'll keep the old office. When I die you inherit them or sell whichever one you want or both and retire at fifty, fifty-five.'”

“You're afraid of blood, or recoil from it every time one of the girls cuts her finger or lips.”

“I'd have adapted. A psychiatrist then. Or just a plain therapist. No, I don't think like that. But they get paid fairly well, sit most of the time, hear lots of interesting stories, and you can do it in your own hours. Too much back-to-school involved. And do I really want to help people? I'm too self-interested. I'm only trying to find time for myself. But it wouldn't take that much of an effort to become a plumber, I don't think. First two years might be tough—schooling, apprenticing, adjusting to it, making mistakes. But that's why you're an apprentice. Senior plumbers work over you. But suppose he was some very dumb crude guy and twenty years younger than I? I could get through it. And customers would trust me, and I'd be patient—it might work. Because I can't teach anymore. I'm a fake. I'm not giving the kids their money's worth. I don't care if they learn or not. I'm tired of it, that's all. It's the first job I've held for more than two years and it's going on eight. I get along with just about no one there. It's too connected to what I really do, as you said.”

“You're exaggerating. But look in the paper tomorrow. See what's doing. Call around. The Yellow Pages. Various plumbing schools. Maybe it's even easier than we think.”

“But if the toilets are really stopped up? The floors covered with it? Not just shit but slop and gook of every kind. Tampons. A hand. Dead cats. Who knows what people throw down there.”

“Everything, I'm sure. Speak to plumbers first. Maybe you don't need such a strong stomach. Maybe they draw the line about what they have to clean up. And for the bigger things that get stuck, they have equipment to push them all the way through to the sewer.”

“But if the customer's an invalid? Dainty homes, where nobody touches anything dirty? Carpentry's out of the question. I was always bad at it, even in Shop. Electricians do well but every now and then they get a terrific shock. Sometimes knocked off their feet and where their teeth chatter. They take it with the job. The anxiety of when I'd get it would stop me. I've had a couple. One when I was a boy where I couldn't speak for minutes. Literally, my tongue wouldn't function. What else is there? Typewriter repairman. One I go to charges twenty-two fifty an hour. But so intricate, and no doubt boring, and it would ruin what's left of my eyes.”

“Postman. But your feet, and you're probably too old. Stay at what you have for the time being. Something might turn up. Or become a plumber and just accept cleaning up crud once or twice a week and every so often putting your hand in something horrid.”

“Garage mechanics always have oily hands and grease under their nails. Even those who wear gloves. I couldn't come home to you and the kids like that every day. Even when they wash their hands raw with heavy-duty soap. After they quit the job or go on vacation it takes a few weeks for their hands to get normal again. That's what Norton said. He did it for a year. If my hands were like that I doubt I could sleep. I'd sense them or would always be scratching the oily hand cracks. But maybe they like just about everyone else at his job gets used to those things too. Of course they do—they have to. Anyway, we should drop it for now—I should. It's getting late.”

“Just one thing. What did you mean before by ‘better intellectual sex'?”

“‘Intellectuals have better sex'? Slower, more sensitive and imaginative, less taken in by family and institutional proscriptions. There was something else. But I'm probably all wrong.”

_______

He suddenly seems to have lost all his marbles. Doesn't know where he is. Dark, feels movement, sounds of movement, so feels he's going someplace. A car, but no seat, just a rough wood floor he's on, so it isn't. Bed of a truck, totally enclosed, shaking back and forth, moving slowly, but not the sounds of one, outside or underneath. A train, bouncing like one. Sounding like it. How could it be? Not a real train. Sure, one with something pulling it and on tracks, but what's he, some bum tramping it in a boxcar? Smells like it, old hay, animal dung. He's sitting on a floor, still a rough wood floor, thick liquid on it where one of his hands touches, back up against someone's back, feet squashed against something like a crate or wall. Where's his family? He's no bum. Has a home, car, job, all small but as much as most, wife and kids he lives with, mother in a nearby city whom he helps support. They were with him just before, had to give away the dog, hours, a day, before he woke up. That's it: was asleep. “Denise? Denise?”

“Shh, go back to your snoring,” man whose back he's against says. “It wasn't as loud.”

“What's going on? What is it with this train?”

“And I'm going to tell you? Don't worry, it'll all turn out bad. Ha-ha, that's a good one. Sorry, go to sleep. Don't be afraid to, the ride's for a couple more days at least. Believe me, we're all here who were here, even the ones who aren't dead yet. Sorry again. I can't help myself. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't even know if I said anything. Did I?”

“Shh, you too,” someone says. “You're making more noise than him now.”

“Denise?” Howard yells.

“What's with this guy?” someone else says. “Hey, pipe down.”

“We're over here,” she says. “Directly across the car from you. The girls are all right, sleeping now. People were kind enough to let us move near the pail so the girls could relieve themselves right into it. You were sleeping. You wouldn't budge. Rest, dear. Take care of yourself. In the morning come over.”

He gets up. “Excuse me,” he says, feeling bodies with his hands and feet. Stepping on someone. “Get off me,” a woman says.

“I'm sorry, really. But I want to get to my wife and children.”

“You'll see them in the morning like she says.”

“Stay where you are…. Go back to where you were…. You're upsetting everything,” other people say.

“No, now, please, I have to. This might be my last chance before the train pulls in.”

“Last chance nothing. Your foot's on my hand.” He lifts his foot and puts it down on someone else's or this same man's hand. “Just go back to your spot, will you? Ah, it's likely already filled by three others. Come on, someone light a candle. Let this man get to his family.”

Car stays dark. “Come on,” the man says, “someone break down and light a candle. This is Grisha Bischoff talking. If it's because you don't want to spare a match, I'll loan you.”

A candle's lit about twenty feet away. Little he can see, car's packed full with bundles and people sleeping. Some look at him, one eye, then blink shut. “Over here,” Denise says, waving at him. “Excuse me, excuse me,” he says. “My wife.”

“Better to crawl over rather than step,” a woman below him says.

“Right, I just wanted to be quick.” Gets down, crawls over people. It takes a long time. “I'm sorry, he says. “I'm very sorry.” Someone punches his back as he passes. “Imbecile,” a man says. “Let him be,” someone else says. “He got permission. Maybe his kids need him like he says.” “They need him, I need him—when you're split up you're sunk and that's final, but you have to make it hell for everybody else? OK, OK, I'll get out of his way.”

He gets to Denise. “I'm here, thank you, you can put out the candle, whoever it was.” Candle goes out.

“There's only room for one adult here,” Denise says, on her knees. “Olivia's in a space for someone half her size. Eva's been on my chest. I'll make room somehow.”

“Excuse me,” he says, feeling for the person next to them and nudging his shoulder. “Could you just give us one or two inches?”

“There's no room to,” the man says. “I don't have enough for my family or myself. Go back to your place. It was bad enough when she and your kids came here.”

“I can't. I'll never get back. Thanks all the same.” He feels for Olivia, picks her up, takes her spot, makes himself small, lays her facedown on him, feels for Denise's head, “It's me,” he says, kisses her lips, for a while his lips stay on hers without moving, says “I didn't believe this just before. That we were here. I didn't know where I was, is more like it. Suddenly I was a kid, it seemed—a lost one. Parents gone; no brothers. In the dark, literally and the rest of it. I felt crazy. All I wanted was for you to be—”

“Go to sleep, my darling. Try to.”

“I wish I could. We sleep most of the day; how could anyone sleep now? And the infection in my finger's killing me. When I crawled over I bumped it a dozen times and it now feels twice the size it was. It's a small inconvenience, and so what about the pain compared to all the other things, but if I can't soak and treat it it'll—”

“We'll try to do something in the morning. Maybe we can get some hot water, for your finger and to wash the girls. Sleep, though. We have a few hours to.”

He kisses her, closes his eyes, head on her shoulder, one arm holding Olivia close, other on Eva's back. Very cold. Smell of shit and piss is worse here than where they were. The fucking slop pail. She had to move here? But the girls won't soil their clothes or less so than if they were over there. “If there was only something I could do for us.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything.”

“Right now there's nothing. Just stay close. No heroics unless it's a sure thing for us. Stay with us till the end. Wake up when I ask you. Help me keep the girls in a good mood. But now, sleep; not another word.”

He doesn't sleep. Snoring of a woman close by keeps him up. Smells and cold. Weight of Olivia. Wailing every so often from people. Weeping, coughing, babies crying. Someone shouting, someone talking in his sleep. But Denise and the girls seem to sleep.

They go on like this for days. People die. No food except a little for the children. Some people share it. Olivia and Eva are always hungry and thirsty and complain and cry a lot about it. A bucket of water for the whole car is given them once a day. Bischoff distributes it in spoonfuls. Howard's finger gets so swollen that he jabs it into a nail in the wall and keeps sucking it and it starts healing. There's a slit in the door and someone during the day is usually telling the car what the weather and scenery are like. Now it's hilly, now it's flat. Lots of big clouds in the sky, but nothing threatening. More people die. Corpses are piled on top of one another in a corner and what little hay can be found is strewn over them. The bottom ones begin to smell. Now it's clear out, now it's sleeting and looks as if it'll turn into snow. Some people seem to pray all day and night now. Train stops, goes, pulls into stations, drags along mostly, stays still for hours sometimes, one time for an entire night. They pass a pretty village, an oil refinery that goes on for miles, farmers working in fields. “Potatoes they're trying to dig out that they might've missed,” the slit-watcher says. “Turnips, cabbages, even a carrot or two. Sounds good, right? Look, a farmer's waving his pick at us. Hello, you lucky stiff. Look, a dog's running to the train. Do you kids hear him bark?” Nobody answers. Sunny, rainy. Denise and the girls sleep most of the time now. Olivia always seems to run a low fever and he's afraid it'll suddenly go out of control at night and she'll die. The slop pail's filled and starts running over. Some people talk of killing themselves. Bischoff gives an order. “Nobody kills himself. If you got pills or stuff that can do it, give them to me to use on someone who's really suffering or about to die. But we should be at the place soon we're going to and then let's hope it'll all be much better for us and most of us are even able to stay together as a group. Does anyone have some good stories to tell? Dreams, but interesting ones we can all appreciate? Then anything you want to make up for us or poems you remember from books or school? Does anyone have any food for the children?” Nobody answers. They haven't had a bucket of water for two days. During one stop someone asks a guard through the slit if they can get some water and also empty the slop pail. “Get rid of it through your hole there,” the guard says. “You got little spoons. It can be done.” “It'll probably make more of a mess than help us,” Bischoff tells the car, “but what do we got to lose?” The pail's moved to the door. Denise wants to follow it, but Howard says “We got a good place together and now not such a filthy one, so let's stay.” Someone's always spooning out slop through the slit, except at night. Some cardboard's turned into a funnel and they get rid of the slop faster. The pail keeps running over though, but not as much as before.

The train stops at a station. “I think this is it,” the slit-watcher says. “Lots of lights, barbed wire and fences. Dogs, soldiers, marching prisoners in stripes who look like they're on their last leg. I hear lively band music from someplace, but it doesn't look good.” “Don't worry, don't worry,” Bischoff says. “They might be political prisoners you're seeing; we're not.” They stay in the station till morning. Most of the groaning and crying's stopped. More people have died but nobody's piling them up. “It's snowing,” the slit-watcher says. “Big flakes, but melting soon as they hit the ground. Plenty of activity outside, everyone being lined up, called to attention, even the dogs. Something's about to happen. A tall man in a great coat and officer's cap is pointing to the train.”