Frog (18 page)

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Sits down, puts on his glasses, picks up the paper, unfolds it. Forgot the coffee. God, what a mind. Forget it. No, wants it. Paper's better with it and it with the paper. Puts the paper down, goes into the kitchen, gets the mug off the stove, goes back to the living room, sits, where's the paper? Sitting on it, sits up, paper, looks for his glasses. Can't believe it. And sometimes he has to look for them ten minutes, fifteen. Goes into the kitchen, probably left them there. Not there. Makes a sweeping look around. They should keep the kitchen neater. Put away things that can be put away. Straighten out the cabinets and shelves, clean the table and countertops, sweep and mop the floor while they're at it, wash the cabinet windows. Room's too confusing now, things open and out of place, it irritates some sense of order in him. Denise thinks he goes too far when he calls something like this disorder. She left most of these things out and drawers and cabinet doors open. Closes and puts away a cereal box, shuts all the cabinet doors, starts for the living room, feels the glasses on his face. How come now and not before? It's happened several times. Funny when it does. If Denise were here he'd tell her. Tell her before he'd tell her they should clean and keep the kitchen neater, clean the whole apartment, really. Dust, scour, sweep, vacuum, mop, tidy up. Get on their knees to clean the bathroom and kitchen baseboards—that's how he does it. If she were in another room he'd go to it to tell her about losing his glasses. “Searched I don't know how long for them.” He'd exaggerate. Actually searched three to four minutes and maybe a minute of that were his thoughts about cleaning the kitchen, but to make the story better he'd say ten minutes, fifteen. “High and low, this place and that. Even looked in the breadbox and refrigerator, thinking, who knows, maybe I left them there. Maybe twenty minutes. Went through all the rooms. Got mad, even, and called myself an incredibly absentminded jerk. I finally gave up and settled back in my reading chair with my spare pair of glasses. I searched that long for them, even though I have this extra pair, because the lost pair is the far better pair by far. Both bifocal parts are larger, less scratched, and the side supports clench my temples better. Well, and this is almost too ridiculous to tell. Unbelievable too. But when I put the spare pair on they hit up against the lost pair already on my face. For about ten seconds I had two pairs of glasses on my face, and for a few seconds I didn't know why I couldn't get the spare pair closer to my face.” Maybe he wouldn't go that far. Wonders what two pairs would be like to read with or just look at things through. Try it. Too much effort. No, do. Also in case she asks what they were like to have on. Goes to his study, gets the spare pair off the worktable, goes back to his reading chair, sits, sips, puts the second pair over the first and looks at the paper. When he fits the two together he can read as well as he can with one pair on, at least for the short time he tries it. Surprises him. Distance? Looks around the room—everything seems the same; no headache or eyestrain—out the window. Man he recognizes from the neighborhood jogs by in a jogging suit, pushing a stroller. Could be dangerous if he slips or the stroller hits an uneven pavement block. Lots of them around from the tree roots underneath. Eva's flipped over in it once and he's taken a couple of spills the last few months just walking casually but not abstractedly alone. Seen him a few times when they both pushed strollers opposite ways at a normal walking pace, and they smiled or waved. Even thought of stopping him to talk about what it's like having children so late, man being around his age, and possibly sharing some child-rearing ideas, and maybe next time he will. Would like to see himself in the glasses, for he must look silly. But no mirror in the room and not the time of day to see his reflection in the window. Second pair back in its case, looks at the front page.

Hot and humid it says when it's mild and dry. Photo of the president with his hands cupped to his mouth, probably shouting to reporters. “We're off for both a working and resting weekend,” he could be saying. “That's not what we asked, sir.” “Kiss my ass, you snooping sonofabitch,” he says very low. It's picked up by a TV news crew's long-distance microphone. “Hear what he said?” the sound man says to the crew's reporter. “No, what?” and when he finds out he yells to the president, who's holding his hair down because of the wind from the helicopter's rotors, “Kiss my what, Mr. President?” “I thought we banned those blasted spy mikes from the grounds,” he says to an aide. “No, sir, do you want us to?” “What I'd really like,” he whispers as they walk up the steps to the helicopter, “is to ban those leeches from coming twenty miles from me and my family.” “One last shot, sir?” the aide says. The president grabs his wife's hand, fingers her palm in a way so she'll count three and turn around with him and they'll smile and wave good-bye.

“Will you play Bambi with me?” Olivia says. “I wonder if someone should expect someone else, no matter how young—I mean, within reason—to say ‘excuse me' first if he or she expects to intrude on the first person's thoughts.” “What?” “Nothing. I didn't say it well. Just babblebraining again.” “What?” “What what? What what? Jesus, can't you let me have five freaking minutes of reading peace?” “I'm sorry. Sorry.” That beaten look. No, another kind. Eyes like what? But a bit put on. “Actually, I'm sorry. First for cursing.” Dog being berated, rabbit threatened with beheading; somewhere between those. “Come on, don't look at me like that any more.” “But I'm still sad.” “Well, all right. Maybe you should be. For dumb. I was. For blowing up. Why can't I get it right with you the first time? Straight. You're so bloody disarming.” “I'm not bloody.” “Just disarming. That's to have no arms. I don't. You take my arms away. Arms for the poor?” and holds out his. “No, I'm not supposed to have any. Because you make me armless, harmless, got it? Don't worry, it's not a word you have to worry about yet.” “What isn't?” “Disarming. But I was serious, even if I didn't express it clearly before, that I need a little peace here sometimes. When I need it, in other words. Which means if you have to be in this room—and why shouldn't you when you want, since it's the common room, for us all—please be quieter when you see me reading, or thinking—you know,” and shuts his eyes, stoops his head a little and holds his hands open above his head and makes as if he's slowly lowering something over it. “I need peace too,” she says. “So go get it. Look at a book. Read the newspaper. But not noisily, snapping the newspaper sheets and stuff. Here, take it, I'm done,” and holds it out. “I don't want it. I can't read.” “You can read some words. ‘Stop. Go. Cold. Hot. Humdrum. Singsong, jingle-jangle. Regurgitation.' Well, they all could be the same word, just about,” and puts his finger under a word in the paper's maxim at the top left-hand comer of the front page: “News.” “News.” “Good, you got something from it. Lot more than I have lately.” Puts his finger under the word again. “Snooze.” “No, news.” “Right. Forgot. You know, my father—that was abad lesson, wasn't it, my news example.” “Why?” ‘Too pushy on my part. Too obvious, which doesn't mean pushy. It means, well, too easy to see. Pushy means—well, not even pushy. Opinionated, that's what I was. Making you, or trying to, believe what I believe with my illustration about news, my example. But what I started to say was that my father loved telling me—no, none of that too.” “Your father's dead.” “Yes.” “Were you very sad?” “It was a long series, meaning one after the other, of serious illnesses he had before he died. I was already a grown man. He wasn't like me in most ways—certainly didn't act to me much like the way I do to you. I was very sad when he died. And he had many good qualities. Lots about him that was good. He was usually more cheerful than I am. He worked much harder too. He was a better provider, but stingier. He made more money than I, so we lived better in lots of ways—nannies, a big apartment, new cars, camps for the kids all summer. That's being a better provider. Stingy means he wasn't as free with his loot—remember
Babar's Mystery
, loot?—as I seem to be. Am. Usually. Though sometimes I can be tight—stingy, cheap. I think it's because I made very little money working till only a few years ago. I mean, at least for about ten years before those few years ago,
very
little, where I couldn't even buy myself pants. Anyway … actually, loot means things taken by a thief, or a soldier during war, so it isn't the right word for money. Let's just say my father wasn't as free and easy with his money as I can be, though at times I've been as tight or stingy as he ever could be and maybe much worse. No, there were some things he did—newspapers on the subway…” “What things he did?” “Did he do. I think that's right. ‘What things did he do?' And I'll tell you, if I can still remember them then, when you're older. He was also very affectionate lots of times. You know what that means.” Nods. “Always—often, rather—he touched my face—every now and then's more like it—with his hand when he'd just walk by on his way to someplace. Or at the dinner table, since for years my seat was on his right. This hand. Or my head. Touched it affectionately. And smiled when he did. A smile that showed he liked me a lot—loved me, even, I could say. What am I saying? The smile said very definitely that he loved me—I'm sure it did, when it went along with his touching my face or head. I could see that then. It still seems that way now. Meaning my opinion of it hasn't changed.” “Of what?” “Of his hand on my face or head and the smile that went along with it and what it all meant. That he loved me when he did all that. He kissed me a lot too. All his children. Out of the blue. Meaning when there didn't seem to be any reason for it and so I wasn't expecting it. Just bang, he'd grab me and kiss me. I remember how. Held my face with his hands and kissed me on the cheek or top of the head. Sometimes very wet kisses. He seemed to have very moist lips—wet, juicy. I didn't mind the wetness of them or what they left on my cheek. Sometimes I rubbed my cheek very hard to get the wet of him off. But I'm sure I did that because people thought it was cute—sweet, funny; you know.” “I know what cute is. It's to be nice.” “Not nice so much. Pretty. Not pretty either. It's a quality-characteristic, feature, something in somebody—that people respond to—are attracted to, react to, get affected by, like—though some don't. Some people think it's too, well—cute, I mean—cutesy, too sweet, like some candy is. Maybe nice is the best word for it, because cute's almost an impossible word to get another word for, but do you now know what I mean?” “I think so.” “Sure you do. Or maybe I shouldn't insist you do if you don't or aren't sure. So: do you know?” “Know what?” “I forget too. What were we talking about?” “I forget too. But I have a story for you.” “I know—my father's affectionateness. Let me just go on, sweetheart. Affection. I don't remember this but I bet he closed his eyes when he kissed me. Maybe I don't remember it because mine were closed every time he kissed me. I know for sure it made me feel as good when he did it as I do when I kiss you, despite his wetness—even with it, that's what despite means,” and takes her face between his hands and kisses her forehead. “You shut your eyes, see? Just the way I did when he kissed me, but I didn't to you, so maybe he didn't too. He also had a good sense of humor.” “Who?” “My father. At least he laughed a lot and told jokes and said funny lines, though used the same ones many times. For instance ‘If I had a dime'—I'd ask him for a comic book, let's say, which cost—” “What kind of book?” “Comic, though that doesn't mean they were funny. That's what comic means. Acutally, ‘comical.' No, ‘comic' too. One of those cheaply made books on newspaperlike paper, meaning the quality of it, the feel. Feel it.” She does. “Though this newspaper, which was the one my parents read when I was a boy, never had comics, which are these little colorful drawn picture stories—colorful in the Sunday papers. That was disappointing to me because all the newspapers my friends' parents read had them. You see what comics and comic books are now?” “Cartoons.” “Right. For newspapers and books. So if I asked him for a dime for anything like a comic book or ice-cream cone—” “Or candy bar.” “No, a candy bar cost five cents then. He'd say If I had a dime I'd build a fence around it.' He never seemed to say it with a nickel or quarter, just a dime. For a long time I didn't know what that fence-around-the-dime line meant. Do you?” “He'd build a fence around a dime.” “But why?” “It's a special dime. Valuable one. Is a dime money?” “Sure, that littlest coin. Ten cents. So worth now about fifty cents in what it could buy. That's what a comic book must cost today. Or maybe they cost thirty to forty cents but are nowhere near as thick as the comic books I used to buy for a dime. Wait a minute. When I was teaching junior high school years ago—” “What school's that?” “It's a long story. It's difficult. A school for kids much older than you. But I saw that some of these comic books of my students cost a dollar then, so maybe they're up to two dollars now. No, can't be. But I remember when I was a kid when they went from ten to twelve cents and I thought it was too much money. I ended up buying them though and even when they went to fifteen cents. Come to think of it, there were sort of super-comic books at fifteen cents at the time when all the rest were ten, but twice the size of the dime ones.” “Will you buy me a comic book?” “Not right now. They're really very silly and dumb. You like regular books, so why degenerate to comic books? I didn't like regular books—and not ‘degenerate.' I won't even go into what it means. Just why go to comic books after you already started with regular books?” “I could have both.” “I don't know. I know I wouldn't like reading them to you. They're all so thin and transparent. You can see through them. They're shallow, trivial, not deep, just dumb, plain dumb. Or sensational. To give you a quick charge. A bang, thrill. Garbage, that's what they are. Want me to use a bad word? Crap. And you know, to get off the point—away a little from what I was saying, which was too vituperative. I just cursed and put down and found fault with and, you know, like that, without really thinking. Anyway, I don't remember anyone reading to me, except maybe teachers to the whole class. I'm not saying this to say ‘Hey, what a great dad I am.' Just saying it to say that maybe all this happened—my great liking of comic books—when I was twice your age and already reading. You're almost four. I was probably eight or ten or even twelve, so triple your age. What I'm saying in all this is that I probably started reading comic books before regular ones because the first—” “I can look at them. You don't have to read to me.” “We'll talk about it. Truth is, I think I looked at comic books before I could read them, and maybe when I was your age. And one probably can't hurt you. Of course it can't. And you'll see how slight they are—thin, junky, good for nothing, what I said before. But maybe there's something good in them and again, I don't want to tell you—well, you know—before you read them. Anyway, my father said his dime-inside-the-fence line to all of us and just about every time we asked for one. My brothers and sister I mean. Or maybe not Vera, my sister, since that pour soul never really had a chance.” “What do you mean?” “What do I mean? I shouldn't have brought it up. I meant that she was so sick so very early in her life that if she had asked for a dime from him—and by that time comic books probably cost fifteen to twenty-five cents—he probably gave it to her with no dime line or fuss. Maybe he gave her two dimes, two quarters, told her to buy two comic books or whatever she wanted the dime or quarter for. What the dime line meant though—but sure he said it to her, for it would have, if he thought this way, made her feel like a normal, regular, one of the children with no sickness, made her laugh. But what the dime line meant was that this dime was so much money, which it wasn't for him—he was just kidding us—that if he had one he'd build a fence around it to protect it. As you might with a thousand dollars.” “Or a million.” “Right. Which you wouldn't really. Not only—well you don't want to hear anything about bank interest.” “Why?” “Because it's dollars, decimals, numbers with diagonals dividing them, separating them, making them into pieces and parts, in this case slashing two numbers, one on top of the other, in half,” and makes a slashing motion with his hand, “all pretty boring and complicated. Or maybe not. Maybe you'll become fanatic about fractions and mathematics. Think so?” “Sure.” “Two and two. Quick. That's addition. Six?” “Four.” “dose. Anyway, we still smiled or laughed every time my father said the dime line because we knew he wanted us to. It made him feel good and if he felt good he'd feel happy and then be good and happy with us. Something like that. And of course we'd be more relaxed after our—after we were first nervous about asking him for the dime, if we all were. I know I usually was, but maybe my brothers weren't. And maybe in this general all-around good mood and feeling he'd have toward us he'd even happily give us the dime without much more fuss. We were connivers, so to speak. Little phonies, fakers, saying, without saying out loud to him, meaning so he could hear, “We'll make you happy, Dad, by laughing or smiling at your old lines and jokes we wouldn't normally laugh or smile at, because we want your dime. Or maybe we laughed or smiled at the lines over and over again because he was so happy, or relatively so, meaning so-so, when he said things like that, or at least easier in feeling and mood than he usually was with us, and that made us feel good and maybe even a little happy too, do you see?” “Not quite well.” “That's okay. And mood is what? Dark and what else?” She just stares. “Are you interested?” “Mood?” “Dark and light, like night and day,” and frowns and says “Dark” and smiles and goes “Ha-ha” and says “Light. Two different moods, see? Not the laugh and smile but the frown expression, this one,” and he frowns, “as against the other two. Forget it. And he did, listen, give us the dime when we smiled or laughed like that. Only time he didn't to me was when I asked in front of older people. Then he'd usually say, after he usually said the dime line and I'd smile or laugh, ‘Don't ask for money in front of people.' But say it harshly in front of them.
‘Never ask for money in front of people,'
which must have embarrassed me—made me feel bad.” “That's too bad.” “But I deserved it, I think, since he knew I was only asking in front of these people to better my chances of getting the dime. Since he knew I knew he didn't want to seem cheap in front of them—stingy, that word from before about money.” “I know.” “But I was saying something else before about what my father loved to say. Liked, loved, way before, about his family. Not the dime. I think I cut myself off,” and makes the slashing motion. “That's for cutting yourself off too. Before that bit about the wet kisses.” “What was that?” “You remember. My face in his hands. Before the comic books and comics and cartoons. Something to do with the news.” “I don't remember.” “Soon after you asked me to play Bambi with you.” “Will you? Bambi and Faline?” “Let me try to get it first. Oh yeah. That he loved to say—” “Newspapers in the subway?” “No, that was when he fished them out of trashcans there on his way home from work when he had his dental office downtown.” “What's dental?” “For dentist. His dental office. He was a dentist.” “I know. Did he pull your teeth? I hear some dentists pull teeth.” “Pull them out. Extract them. Never mine, but he was great at it. Wonderful strong wrists,” and grips his and flexes that arm's upperarm muscles, “which he was very proud of. He wanted very much for me to be a dentist. Uncle Jerry too, and my brother Alex, who you never met.” She met he, she met him.