Frog (32 page)

Eva, Olivia and Eric are on a beach trying to drag a rowboat into the water. “This thing will never budge,” Eric says. “My father could make it budge,” Eva says. “Here she goes again,” Olivia says. “No, let her, what?” Eric says. “My father was so strong he could lift it on his back and carry it into the water. He'd need both arms and it'd be heavy but he could do it.” “I'm sure he could. Or push, even, or at least drag it into the water by himself, but I can't, honey. I'm simply not as strong as your father was.” “As my father is. My father's very strong.” “As he is, then. As you say. I've heard of his physical exploits—how strong he was, I'm saying.” “She knows what exploits are,” Olivia says. “You don't have to teach it to either of us. I know the word and I've told her the word.” “I didn't realize that. For you see, I didn't know that word till I was twice your age, maybe three times. How old are you? I'm only kidding. I know how old. I even know how old both of you are put together. A hundred-six, right? No. But good for you—both of you for knowing so many big impressive words. Like ‘impressive.' You know that word too, right?” “Right.” “Sure, just as my father knows all those words and more,” Eva says. “He knows words that haven't even been born yet. Like kakaba. Like oolemagoog.” “He does? He knows those? Wow. Very impressive. Anyway, I'd hoped we got past that subject. I said that to myself. But if we didn't, some men are just stronger than others. That's a fact. I'd be the last to deny it. You both know what ‘deny' means, I know. And some men are smarter than others. And kinder and nicer than others and have more hair and so on. But I bet no man has more than two arms. Anyone want to bet?” “My father's stronger, nicer, kinder than others,” Eva says, “and much much more than that. He's taller than most others. And handsome. Much more than any others. His photos say so. Others say so.” “Well that's a good thing for a man to be,” Eric says. “For an older woman to be too,” Olivia says. “That's what Mother says.” “Good. She knows. She's smart. Me, I was never considered handsome. That should come as no surprise to you two, as it doesn't to your mother. Not handsome even when I was a young man, an older woman, a small piggy, or even now as a fairly not-so-young-maybe-even-old-hog. Most of that was supposed to be funny. Why aren't you laughing?” “Because it wasn't funny and we're talking about someone else now, right, Olivia?” “I don't know.” “Daddy. All that he is.” “OK,” Eric says, “111 bite. Meaning, well, just that I'm all pointy ears and curly tail uncoiled and extended snout—I want to know. What else was he?
Is
he. Sorry. But tell me.” “Funny,” Eva says. “He's more funny than anyone alive. Sometimes people died laughing at things he said. But really, with big holes in their chests and all their bones broken and blood.” “Yes, that's true,” Olivia says, “the streets covered with broken laughed-out dead bodies, for funniest is what he is and always was. And liveliest too. A real live wire, our father. You're excellent, Eric—honestly, this is not to go stroke-stroke to you. And lively and smart, but not at all handsome, and kind and wonderful in some ways and we love you, we truly do, even if what Eva said and how she acted just now, but you're not livelier than our dad. No sir. Our real dad was
live
-ly! Oh boy was he. A real live wire. He was also so sad. We shouldn't leave that out if we want to be fair. A real sad wire. ‘Mr. Sadwire' we should've called him, right, Eva? If you could have talked then. For you couldn't even say three words in a row that made sense. No sentence-sense I used to say about her then, Eric.” “I could so say sad wire.” “Hey, stop a moment, for where are we?” Eric says. “Was? Is? Which one is he?” “Is,” Eva says. “Daddy's definitely an is. And sometimes when I hear from him, like I did just yesterday, I say ‘Daddy Livewire, Daddy Sadwire, how dost your farting grow?' Because that's what he also does best—just ask Olivia.” “That's right, she's a true bird, we have to be fair,” Olivia says. “He was probably the world's greatest most productive farter for more years in a row than anybody and still is.” “Is for sure. The whole world knows of him. He's been in newspapers, on TV. People have died from it everywhere, and not happy laughing deaths. In planes and parks. Hundreds of dead bodies in your way sometimes. Flat on the ground, piled ten-deep sometimes, black tongues hanging out, their own hands around their necks. Vultures in trees all around but refusing to pick at them the smell's so bad. And much worse. I won't even go into it more. Like whole cities dying, dogs and cats too—not a single breathing thing left alive. Maybe that's an exaggeration. Rats always survive. But ‘Killer Dad's been at it again,' I always say to Olivia when we see this, and that time we walked through that ghost city. It doesn't hurt us because we got natural, natural… what is it again we got, Olivia?” “Impunity. Immunity. Ingenuity. That's us. We never even smell it when we're in the midst of it but we can see when we see all this that it can only be he who did it.” “You girls are really funny today,” Eric says. “Inherited from him, no doubt.” “Oh no we didn't. He inherited it from us, didn't you know? Something strange happened in life when we were born. But everything he's best at he got from us, or almost. We're sad live wires or lively dadwires or just mad lovewires. That's because we brought up our father and are still doing it yet. Now that's a real switch, isn't it, Eva, bringing up your own dad? How'd we do it?” “I'm not sure, but that's for sure what we're doing. We didn't want to, we had our own lives to bring up, but we had no choice, right, Olivia?” “No, why?” “No, you.” “He was left on our doorstep, right? Came in a shoebox with a note glued to it saying … what?” “It said ‘Feeling blue? Nothing in life's true? Cat's got your goo? So do something different in your loo today. Bring up your own dad. But don't leave him in a shoebox for squirrels to build their nests in on top of him. Take him out, brush him off, give him a good cleaning. Treat him as good as you would your best pair of party shoes.' Wasn't that what it said, Olivia?” “Or was it a hatbox he came in? Put him on your bean against the sun, sleet and rain and your brain will seem much keener.' No, that wasn't it. ‘Treat him as gently as you would your own mentally…' I forget everything it said. But we did. And I know it was some kind of box.” “A suggestion box. A lunch box. ‘What's inside is nutritious and suspicious. Open hungrily and with care.' And when we've brought him up all the way, Eric, I'm afraid the sad news is you'll have to move out. Because he'll be moving back in, all grown up then. Because no bigamists allowed in our family, right, Olivia?” “Right, Eva.” “So?” Eva says. “So maybe in yours, Eric, it's allowed, but not in ours. Family honor. Horses' code. New York telephone directory. We're very sorry. Unbreakable rule. But let's stop, Eva. I've spun out and so have you. And we're not being nice to Eric who's been so nice to us. Renting this boat. Helping us push it into the water. Doing most of the work. Probably getting a heart attack from it. Dying for us just so we can have some summer fun.” “Hey, don't worry about me, kids. Let it out. Have it out. Thrash it to me. Money and abuse are no object. Listen, I know how you're both feeling, but you have to know I also of course wish he had never died.” “He never did, how can you say that?” Eva says. “Whatever. And easy as it is for me to say this after the fact and much as I would have missed if he had lived—I'll be straightforward with you—I didn't know him but have heard so many wonderful things about him that I only wish I had.” “Had what?” Olivia says. “That he can't be replaced. By me. I know that. Never deluded myself otherwise. And that I wish I'd known him.” “So, it can be arranged,” Eva says, “can't it, Olivia?” “Let's stop—really. We're spoiling our day and being extra extra lousy to Eric.” “OK, he's dead, heave-ho, hi-heave, what d'ya say, Joe, bury the problem? for what I want most now is to get out there to fish, splash and row.” “Well,” Eric says, “it seems we'll have to wait for a couple of strapping guys to come along and help us or come back when the tide comes in. Anyone think to bring that card with the tide times?” “Daddy will come help,” Eva says. “Sometimes it only takes one and he's the one. So hey, hi, Daddy of mine, come and pull our boat into the water. You'll see. I've wished. Daddy come now,” and she sits down hard in the sand, puts her thumb in her mouth and sucks it while she twiddles her hair in back and looks off distantly. “Eva, get up, get up quickly, you hear me?” Olivia says. “You're scaring the shit out of us.”

Olivia's on a hilltop, alone, blue sky, warm pleasant morning, no clouds, slight breeze, strong smell of clover in the air, faint buzz of bees in the wild flowers around, perfect day, nothing but trees, hills, bay and sky in view, picks a flower, smells it, smells sweet, holds it up and says “For you, father dear. I used to love picking and giving you flowers, making you bouquets, especially out of the wild ones with a few pretty leaves on the outsides of it making it look like a bridal or more like a bridesmaid's bouquet. So here's one more, ‘on the house' as you used to say,” and throws it up. He shouts out “Got it. Thank you, my darling sweetheart; thousand billion thanks. I love you, my sweet münch. I take this flower and hold it to my chest. I take it and kiss it. If I wanted to be funny I'd say I take it and eat it. OK, I eat part of it, the tastiest petal and most digestible. I push it into my face. I put my nose so deep into it that some of the flower gets up my nose and tickles it and makes it tough for a moment for one nostril to breathe. I sneeze because of the tickling and maybe something in the flower. And finally I put the flower between my shoulder and chin—hold it to my shoulder with my chin—and keep it there. It's a flower from you so that's why I love it so much. It was picked with feeling. Hell, it was picked by you, meant for me, so that's enough. When this flower dies a little a little of me will die too. Nah, not as bad as that. What should I say then? When it dies completely it'll be dead completely, that's all, so what else is new? but my love for you—well, we don't want to get even hokier here, do we? No we don't. So I'll just say—I'm saying, in fact—thank you, thank you, you're so kind, good, gentle, delicate, sensitive, clever, I'm so lucky, kiss kiss kiss. And it's not my own hand I want to kiss either. Beautiful and daring too. What a kid.” She closes her eyes, squeezes them tight, clenches her knuckles. “Fucking shit piss ass pus,” she says.

Olivia's asleep, he's watching her from a few feet away, comes to her, gets on his knees and whispers into her ear “Can you hear me, darling? Is my voice getting in? Say no if you can't, yes if you can. Nod then. Grit your teeth, growl. Do the old blink thing, three for whatever, four for whatever. Scowl, hum, quickly lift your brow. A sign's all I want. Now I'll shut my mouth—it can be done, I promise you, just listen or watch—and hold my breath and you say or give it. The sign, I mean; something.” “Yes,” she says without opening her eyes. “You know I loved you, don't you? I don't have to go into a long song and dance—” “No, don't, I know,” face up, eyes still closed, head in the middle of the pillow which is right in the middle of the top part of the single bed, hands clasped on her stomach under the quilt, legs tight together and straight down to the end of the bed. “You holding some flowers in your clasp?” he says. “No, why, because I look as if I'm dead?” “Just lightening things up a bit; trying to; making talk. But God forbid. Never dead. Never you. What a thing. You're just resting. I used to lie in bed like that, same way, but as a means to getting to sleep when I was having trouble sleeping, or trouble dropping off. Once asleep I slept. And you can, that way, when it's successful, almost feel different parts of your body dropping off. Not almost—feel them peeling off. ‘Good night, feet,' I used to say, when they went. Toes never went first; both whole feet always went together. Then ‘Good night, legs. Good night, waist. Sweet dreams, fingers. Nighty-night, neck,' chin and so on right up the body and face till it worked its way to my brain. Then, if it got that far before I fell asleep, there'd be a click and I'd be out.” “I'm not lying here like this for that reason, and even unintentionally it's never been successful. I'm doing it because it makes me feel peaceful and helps me to think.” “I can't sleep either,” he says, “thinking how I might have hurt you sometimes.” “I can sleep, but hurt me how?” “Physically a few times—shaking you so hard when you were very small that I heard your bones crack as they do with an osteopath. Slapping you once or twice or even more than that—hands, once your cheek, other places, your butt—right up till you were past five. But verbally hurting you is what I really mean by hurt. Saying stupid rotten things. Also using sneers and snubs or just standoffish silence as weapons. Saying ‘Then I won't talk to you.' Or ‘ Then I don't like you.' Or ‘You little brat: fuck you then.' Or staring at you as if you were a piece of human shit someone wanted me to pick up or just an idiot. Not often but enough. And then, not that I could have helped it, leaving you so early in your life. Relatively early in mine too, but that's not the important thing here. That hurts me the worst. What it must have done to you. I know what it did, so why go into it?” “Sleep, Dada. It's better for both of us.” “Sleep how? For a very long time? Past your own life? No, I've got to stop thinking that. But sleep for how long, my darling? You want me to go away forever then?” “No, appear, disappear, come back when you want—all that's your prerogative—but maybe not as often. I love you, don't worry, but having you here so often is just a little too much for me at times. You see that, don't you?” “I see it and I understand the problem. But you understand my problem too, don't you?” “Yes. Or I think I do, but let me make sure. What is the problem? And if there is one, how can it compare to mine?” “The problems are incomparable but mine still exists. The problem's that I can't stand being away from you for very long, nothing you don't know. From your sister too, but you a little more so since I knew you so much more. I have to see you both, in other words, is the problem. If I don't I go almost crazy. Sad with craziness, crazy with sadness. Both. Deeper, believe me, sometimes where my mind can't even reach. Sometimes I'm at the breakdown stage in my head, so much do I want to see you when I know it's too soon after the last, and that's when I try to hold myself back most from coming, knowing what it does to you. So I think of seeing your sister, but I know what it does to her too. So I see you because I know you can take it, bad as it might be, better than she.” “I understand it then. It's what I thought. But what can I tell you? Only that you have to think of my feelings too.” “I do, I do, what do you think I've been saying here? Too many times you had that problem of not listening to what people were saying, especially me, and especially when I was making the most sense or wanted something especially done, so for you to hear. ‘Olivia,' I'd say, my voice with each time getting sharper, ‘that's the third time I asked you to come to the table' or ‘to clean up that mess.' And a minute later: ‘Olivia, Olivia, this is the fourth and bloody well better be the last time I'm going to ask you to come to the table' or ‘to clean up that mess.' And you'd still sit at your little child's table, doing your cutouts, or making a book, or talking to your stuffed animals, or building or drawing or just daydreaming but pretending not to hear me because if you did acknowledge hearing me you'd then have to take yourself away from whatever you were doing, and it would just tick me off. ‘Olivia, goddamnit,' I'd say, ‘do you want me to shout? Because I'm getting there and you know how I can shout. Then what? You'll say “You're always exploding at me” or “getting hotheaded” or “cross,” and probably start crying, and I'll say, disturbed by your crying, but still “And you didn't deserve it every one of those times and this time too?” ‘No, what am I saying? You've been listening. And if you haven't from time to time it'd be natural, since you're in bed with the lights out and it's late and you're probably getting sleepy or have been sleepy for a while and maybe even been nodding out.” “I'm not, I haven't been.” “Anyway, it's got to be me again saying things meanly and crossly and so on, but doing what I was always good at, right? But mostly trying to get you to agree with me to let me see you more than you want or can take. I'm sure I could have said that shorter. But I'm telling you, my darling, lots of times I only come to you when it starts killing me from being away from you and I can't stand it anymore or something forces me to you no matter how hard I force myself back.” ‘Then I have to say that from now on you've got to think of my feelings even more than you have, and to try even harder to force yourself back.” “I will. Much harder. Hard as I can and more, a lot more, though what's to guarantee I'll be able to, and if able to, have some to total success? No, I will be able to—I'll force myself till I am, stay at it, think of nothing else but, etcetera, resist, and resist more, and so forth, unabridged diligence and every trick in the book. And if I can only come back to you once every other month, let's say—” “Much too much.” “Once every three months then—” “Still too often, I'm afraid.” “Six months then, if that's what you'd prefer—but seeing you like this, speaking to you when I come back or once every two or three times speaking to you if that's what you'd prefer—” “It would be, I'm sorry. Maybe once in every four.” “Then done, good, don't worry about it, because it'd be more than worth it to me. Worth it how? Worth all the effort? Worth all the killing-can't-stand-it-pains-resistance-more-resistance-going-crazy and so on, I mean. It should be, at least. And if you change your mind and want me around even less than that, or talking to you like this less than that, or talking to you any old way—mumbling, lisping, sputtering, susurrating, anything you'd want less of—than I'd have to do what you say and try even harder there to pull it off, isn't that so?” “If it's what I'd want, yes. Sorry again but that's the way it has to be.” “So I'll do it; glad to. You watch, I will. But just know that when I'm not around you I'm almost always thinking of you.” “Try not to do so much of that too. It's no good for you. I'm sure it usually leads to you wanting to come here and everything we've both said that goes with that. So try to sort of forget me too.” “You've done that with me?” “A little. I've had to.” “OK. If that's what you wish, OK. In that I'll forget you more than I have, I'm saying, which you probably know isn't saying very much.”