Frog (29 page)

Olivia calls Eva and says “I had a dream last night that Dad—Howard—returned. That he just came back, like that—knocked on the door, looked very old. Sunken cheeks, completely bald, no way we'd ever seen him in person or photos. Ugly face hairs, teeth rotted and cracked, little pits and bites around his mouth, and he said to me when I opened the door and immediately started screaming, for he was also in these awful torn clothes and smelled like piss so it really seemed as if he'd just stepped out of the grave, ‘I am your father, Chütchkie.' That was his favorite nickname for me. ‘I want to hug and kiss you but know what a mess I am. I want to swing around with you on a gate again but know I'll disintegrate if touched. I want to say I'm always near you, hideous as that thought must be to you, or almost always near—I stay away when it's discreet for me to. If there was only some way for me to really return. If I only could.' That's when he started digging his long fingernails into his forehead. ‘If I could only be in normal clothes and health for someone my age and just talk to you on the phone, even, or whatever they have today where people communicate with one another from different places. To write a letter to you, even, if those things are still sent. I'd deliver it personally. I'd be satisfied just to slip it under your door. Leave it on your front steps. When I was alive I used to think a lot about what I'd do if you died first. I wouldn't be able to go on, I decided, and never decided against that. I loved your mother and sister but could have survived either of their deaths, though would always have been sad after that, or almost always, maybe because I would have had you to hold on to. But
you
, plop, I would have disappeared. The things you did and said that made me so happy. “I remember when I was born.” ‘Here he's quoting me when I was around four-and-a-half, which actually happened. ‘“It was dark, crowded and wet.” ‘For some reason he found that brilliant, Mother said. I apparently also claimed I heard music when I was in the womb, though admittedly close to term. “That piece,' I said about some Haydn piano variation or sonata the record player was playing, ‘I remember it when I was inside Mother,' and sure enough he had played it nearly every day for a month when she was pregnant. I don't trust that reminiscence, but he went for it. Then in the dream he goes on about his favorite memory of me. How he came into my room when I was sitting busily working at my little kid's table with crayons, pencils, a huge sheet of paper. After a few minutes I turned around, he said, and announced ‘“I'm drawing a picture of a zoo for the kids in my class so they'll know where they're going tomorrow. Here's a cage. There's a chattering monkey. Up here's a bird with many colors. Over there's an ice cream man and balloons. The sun's shining because it's such a nice day. Way in the background it's raining, but that's over another city. There's all of us on the grass having fun. Adam, Claire, the two Ryans, Marianne…. Over here's a dog walking by with his master, glad to be so close to so many different kinds of animals. He's telling his master that—see the barking lines? The sky is blue, the trees are green, flowers are floating down from the branches, the girls are all wearing pretty colorful dresses, the boys are in new jeans. The hearts I put around the picture are for decoration and how we all feel. Over here's a giraffe I didn't draw very well, but I think I got the neck and spots on it OK. When it's done I'll cut it out, and after my class uses it I'll give it to you. Are you proud of me for what I'm doing, Daddy?” My Church,' he said to me, I have to come back to you, there are no two ways about it. I have to continue where I left off. I want to buy food for you, go to the zoo with you, read you a story, listen to you make up poetry, kiss you good night, dim your light, sprawl on the floor beside your bed with my head on your legs till you're asleep, maybe hold your hand while I'm doing it if you don't mind for me to, shut your light off, slowly close your door, stand outside your room with my head against the door jamb thinking of the things we did together that day or I saw you do, what we might do the next. My dearest'—this is still Howard talking—'I loved you more than I loved anyone in any way in my life. Your mother knew. We had few secrets and none about that. Eva I loved enormously also but didn't have the time with her I had with you. I'm sure, though maybe not, since she was the second and I loved my first so much, but it very well could have been the same with her or fairly close if I'd had two more years. Maybe there's something you can do to help me come back. Sounds silly, but church after church was built on miracles, or for the most part, and still keep themselves going that way somewhat or their holds over their flocks, so maybe those things do exist. Love would be able to set one off if anything could, I'd think, or one as deep and tight as mine, though so many people like me or in my position I'll say must feel and think that, so the chances if there are any must be very slight. But try to think of something to help me. And Eva. Speak to your sister and see. Maybe my big advantage over the others is that I was lucky to have such smart capable girls. Funny, but those were the exact adjectives my father used to say about his boys.' Then the dream ended. What do you make of it? I'm just following instructions. I didn't repeat any of it to hurt you.” “It's a good dream,” Eva says. “Maybe even a great one. I know I never had one better or near so good. Big, strong, clear, reverberatory, though with little take to the give. So much like a fine short slow artsy European movie, more Nordic than Alpine or Mediterranean, and one that most viewers wouldn't take to unless their life stories approximated yours. To be shown in four or five select theaters around the country, is the way I'd distribute it. Not much profit, in other words, and no bundle to be made through public TV either, since it wouldn't get on till 11:00
P
.
M
. And that it sunk in so much. Improbable, if it had come from anyone else. I wish I saw him in a dream like that. All bones and stink and rot and monolog—I wouldn't care so long as I knew it was he and he spoke to me or at least showed he saw me or heard. Even in a quick daydream, just ‘Hello and good-bye and I love you, my little pancake,' or just some rapid eye contact, but it's never happened and by now I'm convinced it never will. Think of it: all these years and all my efforts. Staring at his photos and reading some of his manuscripts and also published stuff before I went to bed—even the most autobiographical ones and especially the few where even I'm included, albeit as a crawl-in—just to help it happen. But it's really too late at night or early in the morning for me to speak coherently about it. Tomorrow, or much later today—whichever comes first. You still at the same temp job? Say, I just had a brainstorm. Maybe if we went to church some quiet afternoon when hardly anyone but the sexton was there and prayed for him to return in one real wholesome recognizable human piece. Dad as you knew him or, more orderly, as he would have, devoid of all debilitating diseases, aged. Synagogues have never been good for that for me. I never got the impression prayer will get you anywhere there. No incense essence or votary candles for sale or come-in-and-pray-anytime policy or transformed or sorrow-torn or just trouble-free people on their knees, and they certainly don't promise to get you a step or two closer to heaven or away from hell. But tell me where you're working now.” “My last week secretarying. It's no good for my brain.” “Then you phone me at my studio, since you get the freebie and by leaving soon have much less to lose. Maybe I can fly in to see you in a week and we'll devise some plan like that praying-at-a-church, to bring him back if just for an hour or a day.”

Olivia writes an essay about her father. “The most important person in my life,” it's titled. “Actually,” she writes, “he wasn't the most important person in my life. My mother was. But I didn't want to write about her. I wanted to find out what I was feeling about him. I know what I feel about her. I love and respect her tremendously. I loved my father a lot too but I had some major grievances against him. Major, by the way, was one of my father's favorite words, my mother's said, as it is one of mine, though she told me this only after I started using it a lot. Since I seem to take after him in many other ways, like my walk and ear for music and having trouble getting to the point I want to make, besides most of my physical traits, she thinks maybe my use of words was inherited from him too. And I had to look up the word ‘grievance' before. I'm saying all this because I want the readers of this essay, which will probably only be my teacher Mrs. Zimkin (should I have put a comma after ‘teacher'? I think so) and maybe my classmates, if she thinks it's good enough to read parts of in class or really that good to read the whole of (or bad enough to show where the unnamed student, in this case, went wrong, as an example for the entire class. I used ‘entire' then because I didn't want to use ‘whole' twice in one sentence. Maybe I'm wrong in doing that). But Mrs. Zimkin will probably still be the only reader, since my classmates, if they get to hear any of it, will just be listeners. (Did I really need all that space to make such a small point? And why I used ‘just' when I felt like using ‘only' then, I already said. But it's so unnatural that I think I'll change that policy.) Anyway, I want the reader and listeners, if there are any, to know just how honest this essay is. In both its ideas and aims and so on, as well as its conception, or just realization or execution, three more words I just looked up for their spelling. But: grievances against him. (If this essay is among the best she's ever read of a student's, Mrs. Zimkin's said, or better put, which I'm sure she'll appreciate: ‘among the best student essays she's ever read,' then not only do the classmates hear all of it, if it's not too long, but she asks Mr. Zimkin, who's chairman of the English Department of a major university in the city, to read it. That would mean it would have at least two readers, but one very distinguished one. Another word I just looked up, and sorry, Mrs. Z. You're great, but he's got the prestige.) (I'm not sure the comma was necessary after ‘great.' And when I looked up the rule for it, I couldn't understand it.) But: grievances. That my father wouldn't just let me eat, for starters. (I had a better example to start with but lost it in all the other stuff I put in.) That he did most of the cooking and feeding for my sister and me didn't help matters either. (Notice the proper word usage there with ‘my sister and me.' Elementary ((word looked up)) for some, but I had to look up the rule for maybe the tenth time this term.) But because of that or something else—some compulsion (looked-up word, and put that way—'looked-up'—just to change things around a bit; but this time ((also notice the punctuation just then (((I mean with the semicolon))) and also now's and right after ‘elementary' before, since I don't have brackets on this machine; not used by most kids my age, I'd think)) I didn't have to change the spelling I originally had, though ‘originally,' also looked up, I did, since I was origginaly going to write it that way. I think that was too tricky of me. I also didn't have to look up the punctuation I so self-admiringly pointed out, though I did have to look up ‘punctuation' and the adverb of admiring or admiration or ‘to admire' or however one would put that ((I looked up a way to put it but couldn't find anything in the English usage book the school gives out to help me define what I meant—mean?—to say))). And now I forget what I was going to say about my father's compulsion and also where I was with all those parentheses. (‘Parentheses' I definitely had to look up. I never know if it's ‘-is' or ‘-es' for the plural.) Maybe I was going to say ‘just some compulsion of his.' Or ‘need.' Why don't I stick with the simplest words instead of going fancy and also the simplest punctuation? But either will do. Meaning: either ‘compulsion' or ‘need.' Because I want to get on and done with this essay. Mrs. Zimkin said it shouldn't be longer than a thousand words. I know I'm fast approaching that. I tend to be verbose (looked up) in speaking and prolix in writing. I bet the reader and/or readers and/or listeners (I don't think that's right) think I had to look up ‘prolix' but omitted (1.up for the one or two t's) saying so for some reason. I didn't have to look it up. It's a short word and easy to spell once you know what it means. And since I know what it means, I didn't have to look up the meaning either, which is the second reason for looking up a word. The third reason—but I'm really being incorrigible. Telling myself to get on with the essay and then running all over the place. (Bye-bye 1,000 words.) And ‘incorrigible' is my newest big word, I only got it yesterday from a book of the only writer I'm reading these days, other than for those in the school books I have to read: Dostoyevski, though some of his books have his name with a ‘y' rather than an ‘i' and also nothing between the ‘o' and ‘e' where I have a ‘y' I prefer the way I wrote it. Looks more Russian. But where was I? The ‘third reason' for looking up a word. I know there are a lot more than three reasons (just going through the dictionary randomly ((LU)) to build a better vocabulary, for instance). But the third reason I was going to write here was… not punctuation. That's the word that immediately came to me though. It's probably close in spelling or sound or length—something—to the word I wanted. That one—tip-of-the-tongue-type stuff—means to break up a word into syllabules so you'll know, for one thing, where to break it off if the whole word (this usually happens when it's a long one like syllibication) doesn't fit at the end of the line. (I didn't mean to be tricky there. Sometimes things like that happen naturally.) Syllibication could be the word I wanted, but it just doesn't feel right. And I didn't look it up. (I probably should have, as I'm not sure of its spelling—two l's or one; and if syllabule has an ‘a' after its l's or 1, shouldn't ‘syllibication'?) I'm obviously not sure of ‘syllabule' either. Nor which of those letters and words deserve quotes and which sentences deserve parentheses. But I'm tired of looking up words and rules for this essay, just as the reader and listeners, etcetera, must be tired of reading about it. (‘Etcetera' should be two words, and no hyphen, but I like it as one. Dash? Hyphen?) That's my problem probably, thinking I can have my way with words so early, and no doubt one of the reasons this essay will get a bad mark and won't be read by Mr. Zimkin or to my classmates. That's okay. I'm not proud of the essay. Nor am I interested in that sort of thing: praise, great grades, wider distribution. (I won't say, just as I won't with any word or rule from now on, if that one was l.u.) But enough of all that. I'm going to see where I left off before. I realize that this type of honesty—telling what my every move is in writing this essay—well, not ‘every move.' I didn't tell when I got up to make weewee. Probably because that had nothing to do in the writing of this. But when the typewriter jammed—that did, and I didn't mention it. After I unjammed it a new idea came to me about the sentence I was writing before the typewriter jammed. So I wrote it right after I unstuck the jammed keys. Then I had to wash my fingers because of the typewriter ink smudges on them. I didn't want to smudge the paper or the typewriter keys any more than I already did when I quickly typed out the new idea. Not smudge the typewriter keys that got stuck but the ones you press down on to type. The keyboard keys. And no new idea came while I was washing or until I got back to the typewriter and continued writing this thing. Anyway, all of that will be chucked now. It'll just be a straight essay, I mean. Except for finishing that line before. That I realize that this type of honesty has little to do with the honesty of what I want to say in the essay. And now I've looked back. My father and food. Not my first choice for starters but I forgot the first. As part of my grievances against him. That he forced me to eat. He didn't hold me down or shove it into my mouth. But he'd get upset if I didn't eat or not much and of course this upset me, scared me a few times too when he really got upset about it, and probably affected me after. Sure it did. It made me hate food for a long time. Made me intentionally throw up a lot of my food for about two years, I remember. And that he joked so much. That was the grievance I was going to write for starters. Funny it should come now. When after I gave up ever remembering it. And I'm not saying he joked about food. But he probably did that too, when I
was
eating well, or at least what he took for well. But just that he joked about almost everything too much. I know it got to my mother too. With me he was hardly ever serious except when I wasn't eating well. And even that wasn't seriousness; that was just plain strange. So, was he ever serious with me? Maybe when I was crossing a busy street with him and things like that. When I got a bad splinter. When I fell. All this troubled me. Bugged me, I wanted to say. Also infuriated me sometimes when I wanted to speak seriously to him about something and sometimes to someone else. If I spoke seriously to someone when he was around he usually interrupted with jokes, or little asides, such as ‘Boy, is she smart?'—in this real put-on dummy's accent. I didn't know how smart she was. Boy!' Or ‘Who told you that what you just said? Too smart for it to be me, I mean “I,” I mean “him.” I want to know the guy who told you that so I can know someone who's really smart, outside of my own daughter, of course.' And so on. That he praised me too much too. Grievance. I wanted real honest praise, not total overwhelming sticky silly fake praise. I wanted real honest rejection from him too. Criticism, I mean. Something that could help. In just when I cut something out of paper, for instance. Made designs. Drew. But I almost never got it because of how unserious he was. But I loved him for his affectionateness. Which he gave a lot. I must have been kissed and hugged and said beautiful words to—'my darling daughter, my pretty princess, my wonderful bunny'—more times in the five years I knew him than anyone could be in, well, twenty-five years. In a lifetime even. That he spent so much time with me too. He could because of his job. But he also could have avoided it, claiming work, work, important older-person things he had to do, but he didn't. I loved him for it. Appreciated it, rather. Both. But I didn't like it that he yelled. Major grievance. He could turn on me in a second and this scared me too. Up and down, back and forth he was too in his niceness and anger bursts. He probably scarred me on that. When I hear a sudden gruff voice sometimes even today, I shake. Also his crazy temper things and yellings not against me this time but sometimes against everything. What I mean is—Well I have a memory put away somewhere from when I still wore diapers, because he was changing them then and I was on my back on the bed he changed me on and suddenly with his fists he's banging the bed on both sides of me and screaming not words but straight yells as loud as he can. But he never hit me. Maybe once or twice I don't know of. But normal for anyone, maybe even for someone who later becomes a saint: twice, three times in five years 111 say. I'm not trying to apologize for him. I've hit some kids and my sister for no reason and sometimes for good reason and swung at my mother once or twice too, but of course I'm much younger. And if he hit me I'm sure it was only a slap, on the hand, probably the little top part of it, but not hard and nothing more than that. I also admired the work he did. Not admired it, since except for it just lying around on tables and shelves I never saw it, but just that he did it, never stopped, year after year, started long before my mother met him, and that he wasn't bothered or boosted by what people said of it, but that's something else and maybe not for me to talk as if I know what I'm talking about. If it had any influence on me, it'll turn up later. I like it too that he, with my mother, encouraged my reading and own creating and before that, read to me, every day and night, almost from the time I was born. So he was serious in that with me, which I forgot. Also that he dropped everything most times to get something for me. I'm talking about food, books, for my thirst, anything. He'd run into the house, he'd turn the car around and drive back five miles to the house, to get me a sweater if I was cold or my favorite stuffed animal at the time if I forgot it and was sad. So what I'm saying is he was generous most times with his time with me for a person who was really short of time, when you think that besides what he did at home he was doing two other work things. I've counted the words on two pages and multiplied that by the number of pages I've written so far and then divided it all in two and see I've gone way way over the word limit. Maybe I should just sum up now—I'm sure nobody will want to read even half this much from me and probably will just want to skip from page two to this last one—and say that I know I didn't answer the aim of the essay Mrs. Zimkin asked for, but that losing my father so early in my life was a major tragedy for me, if that isn't repeating myself after all I've said, and if this sentence isn't too complicated, with not enough commas or something or with just not breaking it up into two or three sentences, to understand. And ‘the major' then, I'll say.
The.”