Frog (83 page)

give me your number if you can and I'll call right back—trick I should have thought of before to make you feel easier with how much this is costing me and which I picked up from you whenever you were going overtime on a pay phone—that and banging the side of the box same time you dropped the nickel into the slot which somehow recorded it as a quarter,” “I didn't do those only to save—I got a kick putting one over on the system, something you should try more of to make yourself not so rigid, but OK, I can see you'll never let up, and somebody declared it truth day today and your pockets are burning and got to be put out, so Alex and that last call of his from England, right? and what you said in it, especially after I pleaded with you beforehand, knowing your fast mouth and mind of your own, to keep your trap shut,” “I thought he'd want to be here if Vera died and not days after she was buried,” “But she didn't die, which I knew she wouldn't—she'd taken a turn for the worse, something she'd done before after one or two of her operations and lived, so I told you if he called, which we expected since he knew she was going in and he was that kind of brother, and asked how she was to say ‘Not bad, in fact pretty good,' for I knew he'd fly straight home if he knew the real shape she was in, but what does the big brain say?—he says ‘Dad's not giving you the complete lowdown, the operation was a flop and it's possible she might die,' and I yell on the extension ‘Don't listen to that jerk—he's just jealous you're away playing and he's working—she's fine, a little set back but she'll be OK, stay where you are, you paid through the nose for your trip so have fun while you can, get your traveling bug out of your system and then come back and be serious again with your life, just keep us posted with your address if we think, which I don't expect us to, you should come back suddenly and we need to telegram,' but he says you wouldn't lie to him on this, he thanks us both, me for trying to spare him so he could continue traveling and you for telling him the score and he's taking the next flight home, and then something must have lit up in you—misgivings or some serious thinking over that you were changing matters when they shouldn't for otherwise you never would have given in, but you compromised with me for once by telling him he doesn't have to run home so fast, that he could enjoy himself some more by taking a ship back, which were cheaper than planes then—maybe even a freighter which you said could be an interesting finishing experience for him, and I remember him saying ‘You mean it about Vera?' and you saying ‘Indubitably for sure,' which was a code saying between you two when you both totally went along with something, and that you had perhaps overdone her sickness to him somewhat and that he has that much more time—oh, I could have slugged you because if I was him you certainly weren't convincing me—but he fell for it—for a very bright guy he had a sudden dumb moment—and did what you suggested, found a cheap freighter in a couple of days and sent us a telegram that he was on his way and when in Boston it would get there, and then two weeks went by, we got worried, three—,” “I don't know if you know or if this is the appropriate time to bring it up but I saw him just before—I forgot to mention it—Vera too, not together, one after the—,” “Good, I'd like to see them too, but think of all those years your mother and I went through when you didn't see him—nobody did and all because you wouldn't listen to me—you thought you knew better—you wanted him back because you were gloomy over some floozy who dumped you that week he called so you wanted your best pal to talk about it with plus to take over some of the hospital-sitting chores you did in Vera's room then too,” “Maybe that was part of it—a small part, the girl, who if I recall was nice, and my wanting his company—but I really did think Vera was that sick and would die,” “Why, where was the evidence?,” “Something about the way the doctor spoke and looked at me earlier that day told me she was even worse off than he said,” “Come on, he was just another arrogant Mt. Sinai doctor—they all look as if they're about to spit on you,” “No, it was something else,” “What, his eyes? you didn't like his tie? the way his Adam's apple jumped up and down when he said ‘no, yes, goddamnit'? because I was there too—right outside her room, right? and outside through the little window down the hall it was just getting dark—you asked if you should contact your brother overseas to get him home and he said he didn't think her condition was as grave as that right now,” “If he used the word grave, maybe that was it,” “He used the word serious, bad, urgent,” “I still felt he was holding back—this business that a positive attitude on our part—and of course it's better if we actually believe what we convey and can get the patient to laugh about his condition—will make her feel good and possibly give her that little extra she needs to pull through,” “So it's what did it, so why knock the guy?,” “My attitude to her and often Mom's and her sisters' was usually dejection and pity, and you and Jerry only came to the hospital for a half-hour after work,” “I had to make money for the medical bills and Jerry had his own family to support,” “I wasn't complaining, just saying, though I will admit—not boast—that I took two weeks from work—future vacation time—to be there and help, and she was mostly in and out of sleep all the time so she hardly noticed us till she suddenly popped out of it one morning—we weren't even there, an aide was—and quickly got better,” “So, good hospital care and the doctor urging us to a happy attitude with her helped her survive,” “She survived because she was still young and relatively strong and probably had it in her not to give up so quick and the week's sleep and IV gave her the rest and extra strength she needed,” “No, she survived mainly because she wanted to see Alex-she loved him like she did nobody but your mother—and the longer we kept him away from the hospital the better, for if he had flown back as fast as you first wanted she would have taken one look, smiled, given up now that she saw him, and died,” “Ah, I could never win an argument with you or even make much sense to you in a discussion and I shouldn't have even started trying,” “That's because I'm talking what you hate to hear most: reasonableness and speaking the truth,” “The truth according to Dada—no, I'm Dada to my kids, and Daddy and Papa, while you were just Dad, which was all right, while Mom, now that I think of it, is still Mommy, Momma, Ma, but anyway it's just winning the argument, your truth, or drubbing your fellow discussant, while mine, which isn't a truth but conduct, is not,” “You're way over my head there, sonny, and maybe even over yours, but where you like to be, alone, looking down, sarcastic,” “But before you said I was a boy from the boys,” “You once were but something happened and now you're not, but listen, this call's gone way past the point where I can tolerate it costing so much so I'm hanging up,” “But I have the dough I told you and am willing to spend it for this so stop worrying,” “I'm sorry but I just can't stand AT&T taking you for a sucker,” and hangs up, “I also forgot to mention that if Alex hadn't taken that freighter he might have got the plane he was supposed to return on a couple of months later and it might have gone down, but you would have said ‘Did one go down that we know of?' and I would have said ‘We didn't check then but one could have and we wouldn't have known,' and you would have said ‘The planes when they go down you hear about and I would have made the connection then no matter how much and how long after I was mourning him,' and I would have said ‘You see, I can't win an argument with you or even hold even in a discussion,' and you would have said something that made me lose the argument or disgusted with the discussion even more such as ‘Because your arguments aren't logical, you've drunk too much and maybe in the past took too much dope which has made your brains unsensible, you don't connect things intelligently the way intelligent people are supposed to so maybe you're not as intelligent as I thought and some people have said,' and I would have said ‘Since when have you thought that, and what people, because nobody's told me?' and you would have said ‘ There you go again, trying to squirm out of it by putting yourself down—when insults and intelligence aren't working, try a little humility and self-hatred, right?' and I would have said ‘Oh boy, you sure got me there, Charlie,' and you would have said ‘Oh boy is right—you got yourself long ago, strung yourself up's more like it, and don't you by now know your father's name?' and I would have said ‘I was just parroting one of your expressions, but your name, your name, your name—no, I don't want to say it, it's not nice,' and you would have said ‘Go on, say what the hell you like, we're family,' and I would have said ‘I suppose once in my life isn't too bad—your name, dear Dad, is gelt,' and you would have said ‘What's with the “dear Dad”—to make me feel better? but if that is my name, then you have none, which makes you and my relation to you what?' and I would have said ‘Geltless?' and you would have said ‘No, it makes you more but what, I hate to say,' and I would have said ‘But you'll say it,' and you would have said and I would have and you and I and on and on like that till maybe I hung up before you did,” and hangs up, knows it's useless but knocks on the bathroom door, no answer, says “Anyone in, for if anyone is, say so, or I'm coming in,” nothing, goes in, empty, seat's up the way he left it last time he peed even though he told himself then to put it down after, puts it down, goes outside the house and runs to the back, side and front yards looking for Vera, Denise, Alex, his girls, sits on the rocker on the front porch, tells himself to wait, if he sits long enough one of them will come, never likes not to know where his girls are, hopes they're safe, prays without praying they are, should he make himself a drink and bring it out here with a book or newspaper? it's past five so time, no, just stay seated and wait, how many moments of quiet does he get like this? no mowers going in neighbors' yards or cars zipping past, shuts his eyes, cups his hands over them to keep out as much light as he can and to make it easier for him to think if he wants to think, thinks one thing missing: Alex got away but how?—Vera and Dad were explained OK or as well as possible for now but Alex?—he got away as the ship was sinking but how?—the ship was sinking or had sunk and he swam to a lifeboat or climbed down to one from the ship, if he swam he had to swim fast and hard because the water was so cold that one minute in it he'd die of shock before he drowned, nobody else in the lifeboat or someone or several other people in it but they all died, and it ended up on a remote Irish beach in a week and he decided—he had lots of time to think in the boat what he'd do if he survived—to fake his identity for a year to be away from all his past obligations and ties—he knew how much it would hurt his family but he wanted to have more time to think about life and just do what he wanted to like write—something might have happened in the lifeboat, too much sun, rain, being alone for so long, the cold, always being wet, no food or anything to drink, almost no chance he'd survive, patterns of the stars, he might have hallucinated a lot, had a religious experience of some kind, some deep change when he saw all those men on the ship and in the lifeboat die—he'll work it out thoroughly when he has more time—or Alex lost his memory when the ship crashed or the shock of the cold water or in the lifeboat and the sun and cold and he wound up on an Irish beach and wandered around for a while till he was found, or it could have been drugs on the ship days before the accident, some fall when the ship was hit or going down, a fight one of those nights or he was breaking up one and someone slammed his head with a bottle or club and his memory going that way and thirty years later suddenly returning after he struck his head against something or another fight or breaking up one or he simply came out of it or through drugs or was in a coma for almost thirty years and only recently came to, or his lifeboat ghosted to shore, he walked to a village, faked an English or Scottish accent and convinced the Irish authorities he was a drifter or hiker, found a job, room, cottage, bought a typewriter or just used pencil and pen and lived alone under a fake name and wrote for what he thought would be a year but it stretched to two, three, ten, thirty, or he was picked up in the lifeboat by a passing ship, sort of a slave one which he only escaped from this year, or one from a Communist country he defected to if it'd keep it a secret for a year, when he planned to leave, but it stretched to thirty and somehow the authorities forgot, there could have been an Irishman or Norwegian in the lifeboat and Alex told him he wanted to escape his old life for a year and the man helped him get false papers, place to live and a job in his country, or the two had talked it over on the ship days before and happened to wind up in the same lifeboat alone or with others but the others died, or just with the man, no talk about escaping his old life, the man died and they looked alike and he took his papers, dumped him overboard and when the lifeboat landed or was picked up he passed himself off as that man, planned to do it a year but did it for thirty, married, children, grandchildren, wrote a
number of books under the fake name or a pen name if he took someone else's name and always refused to be interviewed or photographed, especially for book jackets and publicity shots, till he had an experience—drug, religious, someone close dying, through another head injury or something he read in a newspaper or magazine or saw in a movie—and decided to see his family in the States and explain everything and ask their forgiveness, or he only did it a few months—maybe all he'd planned to—when he tripped and hit his head or got into a fight or was breaking up one when someone clubbed or punched him and he banged his head against the bar or floor and lost his memory and only came out of it this year, few weeks ago, days, their car pulls up, girls waving to him from the back seat and shouting “Daddy, Dada, hiya, hi,” wife smiling from the driver's seat and saying “Hello, sweetheart, can you help me with some packages?,” “Oh, you bought some more goodies again, huh?” and she says “Groceries, things we needed, and paint and brushes and stuff at the hardware store,” and he says “Oh, you got some heavy work cut out for me again, huh?” and she says “In a way, but nothing you didn't say you wouldn't do,” and he says “Wait a minute, wait—I didn't say? I wouldn't do?—does that mean I said I'd do it?,” “Eva's room—we agreed on it, it needed a paint job years before we moved in here, and I'm not suggesting you have to start today—even this week if you don't want,” and he says “Just kidding, and it'll look nice—that room needs some cheering up,” and goes to the car while she's positioning herself to get out of it, kisses her through the window, “How are you?,” “Fine thanks,” she says, “and you?,” “Fine also—some work done, a little thinking, a little rest, a gorgeous day,” “Girls,” she shouts and he turns around alarmed and sees they're at the curb, goes over, says “You weren't going to cross without one of us, right?” and Olivia says “No, we were waiting here like we're supposed to,” and takes Eva's hand and he says “Good, my beautiful smart girls, but while we're here let's practice it—look both ways before you cross,” “We already did,” Olivia says, “You have to do it just before you're going to cross—also the side street in case a car's coming out of it or stopped—if one's there let it go where it's going to or park before you cross,” “We know,” Olivia says, “you've told us,” “And of course, Eva, never cross the street alone or just with Olivia,” “I know,” she says, “can we cross?,” “OK, coast's clear,” he says, waving them across, takes his wife's walker out of the passenger front seat, brings it around, opens it, asks where she's been, “Out, shopping, you can see,” pointing to the back of the car where the packages and paints must be, “But why didn't you tell me?—I assumed everything was OK, but next time,” holding her arm so she can step out of the car and grab the walker, “no matter how steeped in my work you think I might be, whenever you're going out for more than a half-hour or so without my first knowing it, knock on my door or leave a note or later call me,” and then stands in the street looking both ways while she crosses it.