Frog

by Stephen Dixon

  6

  _______

  Frog’s Break

  A break. Olivia’s watching the one hour a day of TV they allow her to. Denise is in the bedroom nursing their three-week-old baby. He pours coffee out of the thermos—this morning’s, but doesn’t want to spend time making fresh coffee—and goes into his room and shuts the door. What to do? An hour, but only if Eva falls asleep right after she’s fed. She doesn’t, then if Denise doesn’t ask him to walk her to get her to sleep or gently bounce her to bring up the bubble. First a postcard to get started.

  “dear jack: sorry for not writing sooner, please excuse my now writing a pc but it forces me to be brief, also excuse that i leave just a 10th of an inch margin on both sides and start at the very top and will end at the very bottom, with maybe the bottom half of my last line left on the platen, but this way i can get in as much as i do. of course all i usually manage to get in is this explanation and the preceding excuses, look, your rt about what you said, remember what that was? i doubt ive room to go over it here, it was in your last letter, you say you keep copies of all yours, so you mt want to check it to find out. as for summer rental you want to take, we plan to be in that area also, so if thats whats stopping you—are not being there-excuse me: ‘our’—dont let it. of course—so many of courses; why, when im so concerned about this pc’s limited space?—of course if it ends up where we cant afford the house we want and hv to go to cheaper pastures—browner ones—just hv to go elsewhere—what can i say? also, youre rt about my work (at the end of your letter; other ‘rt’ was in the middle), so what if—oops, out of space, best to m, your pal, h. ps: no time to correct thi”

  He should also write his mother. No, quicker to call. Goes into the kitchen and dials. “I knew it was you,” she says. “How? When I heard the ring I thought ‘That has to be Howard; it can’t be anyone else.’ Crazy, right?” “Well, it isn’t Howard. It’s Jerry.” “Don’t tell me. I know my sons’ voices. Jerry talks faster, higher, and he only calls Monday, from work, between one and two, which must be his lunch hour. So I’m always here then, because one time he called later in the day and gave me an argument why I wasn’t here between one and two when I ought to know by now that’s when he calls. He’s never called from his home once. Has he ever called you from there?” “I don’t know.” “Four times he’s called from a hospital, all the other times from work. Once each when his three children were born and once when he was in one after his heart attack, which he still denies he got. Gas, he says, but a paralyzing attack of it. He called that day to say don’t visit because he was getting his clothes on now to go home, but they convinced him to stay two more weeks.” “Good. Listen, I’ve the train schedule for this weekend.” “I don’t know—you don’t think you’ll be too busy and tired from it all?” “We can manage it, believe me. And I want you to see Eva before she’s grown up.” “I know I mentioned this before, but where’d you ever get that name? I mean, some names, even with just the initial, one could say it stands for somebody in the family. But Eva? Nobody in our family had a first name with E in it in anyone’s memory, and your father-in-law says nobody in his or Vela’s either.” “It’s a nice name. Dark, eve, feminine. Or near dark. We also wanted it to be as strong as the name Olivia—but also to contrast with it—which we thought of as airy, light. And she is dark—her skin coloring and hair.” “That’s now. Her skin might not get lighter but her hair could all fall out and come in as blond as Olivia’s. And you chose the name before you had her, didn’t you?” “Even if she turns out to be light in everything—hair, skin and weight—still, we like the sound of the name. But what are you saying, you don’t want to see her because you don’t like her name?” “Don’t be silly.” “Only kidding. But look, I’m really in a hurry, so what about this weekend?” “Why you rushing so? Keep on like that and you’ll get as sick as Jerry. Take it easy; you now have two babies to take care of.” “OK. But how about the nine o’clock on Saturday and I’ll pick you up at the station at 11:47?” “I can take a cab when I get there.” “Please, don’t argue, Ma. I really don’t have the time. And it’s easy—not like New York. Always a parking spot at the station. Or the ten o’clock and I’ll pick you up at 12:35.” “Why is one ten minutes longer than the other?” “Probably an extra stop. Metropark or someplace. So, either of those okay?” “Ten o’clock. That way I won’t have to rush. What do you want me to bring?” “Nothing. No, if I say nothing, you’ll go over an endless list of things, so bring bread and cheese. A good slab of parmesan would be nice, and smoked mozzarella. Anything you want. A corn bread and seeded rye unsliced. But don’t overload yourself. Take a cab to Penn Station. Call for one—Love Taxi, for instance—and they’ll pick you up at the door. And keep your pocketbook closed when you’re there and your hand on the clasp. We’re all looking forward to seeing you.” “Thank you.” “Before I forget. Get a special senior citizen round-trip ticket. The regular round-trip discount fare isn’t good for Sunday, but the senior citizen one is.” “I hate going up to the ticket counter—” “Do it, don’t be ridiculous. You’re fifteen years into your senior citizenship, so take advantage of it when you can really save. If I could get away with it, I’d do it too. No I wouldn’t—I mean, illegally—but do what I say.” “All right.” “Much love from Denise and me.”

  He goes into his room, sits back and thinks. I should do one of my projects now. I should start retyping it. I should get it going and finish the first page in the forty minutes or so I’ve left or maybe if I come back to it tonight when the kids are asleep or Olivia’s asleep and Eva’s feeding and work on it every day like that and finish the whole thing in about two weeks. I never feel good unless I’ve a project going. End one, begin one, work on one, end one, and so on.

  He takes off the typewriter cover, picks up the first draft of a manuscript, bounces it on the table till it’s stacked and squared, puts it down, reads the title page—OK, nothing much, but he’ll make it better, turn it into something—puts paper into the typewriter and sits back and thinks. Why did I shake the baby like that yesterday? I could hurt its brain. Bleeding in the brain. I could kill it. Some kind of hematoma. Subdural. Read about it in the paper last week. Mother’s lover did it to her four-month-old baby. “She was crying,” she said. “We couldn’t sleep. He didn’t mean to harm it.” Something like what I did. I was trying to work and she wouldn’t sleep even during the time she usually does, even after I walked her a lot and two diaper changes. Why am I such a cruel prick sometimes? She was crying. Babies cry. I also squeezed her too tight. In anger. I could hurt her kidneys. One of her inner organs—she’s so small: several of them at one time—by squeezing her like that. Why did I also drop her on the bed from so high up? Why from any height? I was actually mad at her. For keeping me from my work. She was taking up too much of my time. But I could have hurt her back. Broken it. Maybe done something to her head. I still might have. I said to her but very low so Denise wouldn’t hear: “I’m mad, you little bastard, can’t you see? Why are you crying so much? Stop it.” People will find out. Denise will. That’s not the problem. Problem is why I do it. She cried for about a half-hour straight. Denise was napping in our bedroom at the other end of the hall. I didn’t want her to get up and say something like “She’s not hungry, I just fed her, so maybe she needs her diapers changed or you’re not walking her right. Or she could have developed a diaper rash. You check? But I can’t get up every time. I need some rest.” The baby’s cries are penetrating, but so what? When I held her to my chest and walked her, she screamed in my ear. I said “Damn, must you do that?” and reamed my ear with my finger, though it wasn’t in any way bad as that. I was doing that for her. It’s stupid. She also slobbered on my neck and on my shoulder right through the shirt, but what of it? If it gets to me—any of it—admit it and wake Denise and say “Much as I know you need the rest and I hate doing this, I have to have a ten-minute break. If you can’t get her to sleep, I’ll take over and you go back to bed.” I did the s
ame with Olivia. Denise never found out. One time she said from the next room “What’s happening—why’s she screaming?” and I said “I don’t know, suddenly started, must be gas.” Treated her cruelly sometimes. Sometimes bordering on violence. A few times, violently. The first three months were the worst with her and when I lost control most often. She wouldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time and usually cried when she wasn’t sleeping. When she was around two months old I held her upside down by her legs and said “Stop crying,” and swung her back and forth: “Stop crying I said.” A few times when I was alone with her and not even when she was crying—I was just frustrated at not having time to do what I wanted—I slammed the bed with my fists and screamed as loud as I could and just hoped the neighbors, if any were in, wouldn’t say anything to Denise about it. I scared the hell out of Olivia then with my rage and screams. This happened over about two years. She’d burst out crying, and when she learned to say the word, called for her mommy, and I’d have to hold and comfort her till she stopped. I’m sure I’ve traumatized her. She gets scared when I raise my voice about anything, even when I’m just joking about something or on the phone with someone. Runs out of the room whenever one of the puppets or cartoon characters on that hour-a-day TV program acts threateningly or angrily. Won’t let me read “The Three Bears” to her because Father Bear speaks in a loud gruff voice. Eva sleeps better than Olivia did and doesn’t cry as much. If I hurt her—I didn’t Olivia, at least physically, but could have the way I treated her sometimes—I know I’ll pay for it always or pretty close. They get hungry. Gas. They cry when they’re wet or tired. For a number of reasons when they’re in pain or uncomfortable, and sometimes two or three of them combined. The bubbles hurt. The rash. They may also cry for reasons people can’t be aware of. What’s in their dreams perhaps. But none of that should get to me, or surely not as much.

  The night he got down on his knees, when Olivia was around one and sleeping in a crib, and he practically prayed his apologies to her. Closed his eyes, clasped his hands, said “I’m sorry, my sweetheart, for acting so horribly to you. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes, I swear. Please forgive me.” Cried. Then for another year continued to treat her badly, though maybe less so and not as cruelly. He doesn’t want it to be like that with Eva. Wants to stop now. This moment, the end. Has to tell himself that yesterday was the last time he’ll treat her like that, squeeze and shake her hard and drop her on the bed and so on. Also has to tell Denise what he’s done with both children. That he knows he won’t do. But if he stops, he won’t have to tell her anything, unless he later finds out Olivia or Eva has been physically damaged in a way he could have been responsible for. Then, since it’s possible if the doctors know how it happened they might have a better chance of correcting it, he thinks he’d admit what he’s done, but isn’t sure. Probably not.

  He looks at the manuscript. Doesn’t like the title now. Needs one before he can start completing a piece. It’s part of its completeness. That’s always been the case and he doesn’t want to start changing his work habits now. Maybe by the time he gets to the bottom of the page he’ll have come up with a title. But he’s never done it that way. Just call it “Jobs,” that’s all. “Just Jobs” is even better, for that’s what it’s about. A man’s jobs. Just about an endless series of them for forty years with no end in sight. Just tired old age in sight, with maybe some savings and pension for him and his wife to get by but little energy left to start or complete any creative work anymore. He writes “Just Jobs” at the top and starts typing. It starts: “I start, deliver, come back, sort, pack, box, wrap, deliver, get a little tip, back, sort, pack, box, wrap, again and again for a couple-years. My first job. I’m ten.” Awful, and he tears it out of the typewriter and throws it into the wastebasket, rips the manuscript up and dumps it into the basket. A ripped piece stays on the basket lip and just as he reaches over to tip it in, drops on the floor on the other side. Always something sometimes; where it never goes just right. He leans over. Paper’s just out of reach and he doesn’t want to get up to get it. Too tired. But he likes a neat room, always has, everything in its place, something about visual aesthetics and also if things look too chaotic, which doesn’t take much for him, he gets disoriented and begins thinking he can’t find anything and even starts typing the wrong keys. Won’t even put up with a small paperclip or piece of paper the size of a small paperclip on the floor. Maybe a staple or two, pulled out of paper with his thumbnail or that had been jammed in the stapler, is about all the disorder he can put up with on his floor or desk. Stands, picks up the paper and puts it in the basket. “Now don’t try to climb out. You do—” Why’s he talking like that? Fun, that’s all, having some, but suddenly it sounded too strange to him. Not that if Denise overheard him through the door he couldn’t explain it to her. “I was having a heart-to-heart with my heart.” No, that would make it worse. But to himself, he just doesn’t like it. Wasting time too. Sits.

  Never ripped up a first draft of anything and felt regret after. If a piece doesn’t feel good—if he’s not excited by it after he’s done the first draft—it’s just no good or not worth working on to finish it. Something will replace it. Always has. Either something new, which he’d try now if he had the time, or the other first-draft manuscript.

  He puts that one on the table where the first one was, paper into the typewriter, likes the title, types it at the top and starts typing from the manuscript. It starts: “So he goes down. Went down. That’s the right expression. Babies are ‘put down,’ which has nothing to do with it, just what he’s been doing lately. The expression we always used about him and is most common. Quite common. Just very common. His brother Lon. Twenty years ago and more. Much more. Twenty-five. Twenty-six to be exact. But here he is, back. Just rang the bell downstairs. I said into the intercom ‘Yes?’ He said ‘Lon.’ I pressed the button to let him in and he came up. ‘Lonathan, Lonald, Lonnie, why hello. I want you to meet my family. That’s what I’ve regretted most about your not being here all these years and having gone down in that ship. Is that the right expression, I mean, term?’ ‘It’ll do,’ he says. ‘That you never met my wife, my first child and now my second. I’m not saying my first child is my second but that I have one. Two to be exact. Daughters. You always said you wanted sons. Lonsons, you called them. Oh Lon, I’ve missed you so, which goes way beyond any regrets I’ve had that you never met my wife and kids.’ I take his hand and kiss it. It’s made of sand, falls apart while I’m spitting.”

  Rips it out of the typewriter. No good and never will be, and throws it into the basket. Where was his mind when he did it? Worries him. Never did anything this bad, so maybe something’s now missing. He rips up the manuscript and drops it into the basket. Never ripped up two first drafts at one sitting before. They were written back to back shortly after he finished the last piece, so maybe something’s been missing awhile without him knowing it. Maybe the last finished piece is nothing what he thinks it is. No, don’t overdo it. These two as first drafts and possible finished manuscripts, stank and should have been dumped right after he did them. All he needs is some time to do a good one, but maybe the next sitting.

  He writes on the back of a thank-you card. “Dear Aunt Louise. Thank you for the lovely”—What did she give Eva? The acetate stretchie they gave a few days later to their super for his daughter’s baby? He’d ask Denise now but doesn’t want to waste even more time. Because he really could still begin a new piece. A quick first draft of a very short one or the beginning of a longer one. Puts the thank-you aside, paper into the typewriter, thinks who else hasn’t he thanked yet whom he’s supposed to? Denise writes all the thank-yous for presents from her friends and family, he does the ones from his, and friends they both have but didn’t come into the relationship with, she’ll write or ask him to. Lily and Ruben. “Dear Lily & Ruben,” he types. “You know how I hate these printed thank-you cards. Know from the note I inserted in the thank-you card for the gift you g
ave Olivia. But Denise felt, and I kind of go along with, that as long as we had them for O, we should for E, or else she might take it as some sort of rejection slip. Blip that slip. Just: Eva will feel quilty—what am I talking ‘guilty’? Rejected if she happens to find out later on. When she’s 4, 14, even 24. Anyway, thanks for the silver baby cup. I hope it lasts longer than the one someone got Olivia when she was born. Hope it wasn’t you, by the way. Be an awful way to find out what happened to it. Like all good silver, it wasn’t indigestible. Indestructible. Unintentional. Trying to write this too fast. It was soft silver. That one I stepped on in the dark and squashed. The dark unlit room at night. I wasn’t in the dark figuratively. Meaning, my figure was but my mind wasn’t. Some thank-you. But really, thank you. This cup 111 keep off the floor, or at least when it’s on the floor, the room in light. And I know the last cup didn’t come from you. You gave that nice tartan wool crib blanket that Olivia sucked a few fringes off of but which Eva can still now use. See what a memory I gots?” Xes out the last sentence. “Both gifts were very generous of you. But you know, when we had the birth announcements made, something Denise also wanted and I only eventually went for, I wanted to have printed on them ‘Please, no gifts. Our apartment’s one filled closet just from the gifts we got for Olivia’s birth. At the most, have a cedar planted in Lebanon in Eva’s name or give what you would’ve spent on a gift to your local right-to-abort clinic, no slur, smear, swipe, sneer or stigmata intended to our kids or any national or natal strife.’ Should I also X those three sentences out? And the last plus this? Denise vetoed it. Not the Xing or to get gifts but because—lots of reasons. Smothering natural good-natured-ness, for one thing. Maybe making those, who hadn’t planned to give gifts, self-conscious that they hadn’t planned to, for another. More. That it might seem like a hidden signal, for those who were wavering or hadn’t planned to, to give gifts. How? Some way. People know me by now? But Denise is well, Olivia’s taking baby and banishment (confined to her own room for the 1st time in 15 months) pretty well, and I’m barren and wasted but fare-thee-well. What the hell’s he mean by that? Time will tell. This’s becoming a no-note. Beg-pardons, thanx, loves & bests from us all around, H.” Pulls it out, folds it up and sticks it in the card and looks for his address book. Not on the table where it usually is, so he’ll look for it later, and puts the card on Aunt Louise’s.