Frog Read Online Free PDF Page B

know what—my father’s birthday? her father visiting? which he did every other week till he died when I was six, through I don’t ever remember seeing him, there or any other place—when she really went at it in the kitchen. The other times it was fairly quick and simple preparations and, occasionally, deli or chow mein brought in. Maybe we were going to my father’s sister’s—Ida and Jack’s—in Brooklyn for dinner that night. We did that sometimes. She cooked kosher, if that’s the right expression, and my father, raised on it, still fancied it, especially on Jewish holidays. Anyway, he approached. I was around three or four at the time. So if it was a nursery school day and not a serious Jewish holiday and I wasn’t home from school because I was sick—but she never would have put shit in my face if I were sick—then it was the afternoon. My nursery school for the two years was always in the morning. But what about my father’s business suit? Let’s just say he closed the office for the day and had a suit on because he’d just come back from a dental convention downtown. He’s there though. I see him coming through the living room into the kitchen. I run through the breakfast room—where we never had breakfast, except Sunday morning, just dinner—to the kitchen. The kitchen was where we had breakfast and lunch. Frieda’s behind me. I don’t remember seeing her, just always sensed she was. I hold out my arms to him. I’m also crying. I don’t remember that there, but how could I not be? I think a little of the shit was getting into my mouth. I don’t remember smelling it but do tasting it a little. All this might sound like extrapolation, exaggeration—what I didn’t smell but did taste. But I swear it’s not. Anyway, to it. Arms are out. Mine. I’ve a pleading look. I know it. I had never felt so humiliated, soiled, so sad, distressed—you name it. Dramatic, right? I’m telling you,” opening his eyes, “I felt absolutely miserable and this had to be evident to him. So maybe when he saw me he took that kind of defense—laughter—rather than deal with it, try to comprehend it. But maybe not. Maybe he did think I tripped into it. So even though I was so distressed his first reaction might have been ‘Oh my God, Howard’s tripped into shit.’ Maybe he thought it was our dog Joe’s. Or dirt. That I’d been playing in one of the backyard planters, or that it was paint on my face. Clay. But no play clay’s that color. Maybe it does get that way when you mix all the colors up. Anyway, my arms are out. Let me try to get beyond what I’ve so far can’t remember about it. Past the blank.” Shuts his eyes. “Arms. He’s there. Kitchen. I run to him. Frieda’s behind me. Sense that. I’m crying. Have to. Pleading look. He laughs. Blank. Blank.” Opens his eyes. “No, didn’t work. Most of my real old memories end like that. Like a sword coming down. Whop! Maybe hypnosis would get me past, but I tend to doubt those aids. Or can’t see myself sitting there, just submitting.”
    â€œBut your mother. Didn’t she say it never happened?”
    â€œTo me, yes. She says it happened to Alex. He says it did happen to him but nothing about a kitchen or pair of pants, which she seems to remember hearing he did it in, or my dad. That he was in a bathtub by himself—one of the first times. Till then he had always bathed toe-to-toe with Jerry, but Frieda throught they were too grown-up for that so had it stopped—when he suddenly shit. Two big—”
    â€œCome on, spare me.”
    â€œSo he called out that he’d just made kaka in it. Frieda came, grabbed some of it out of the water and put it in his face. He said he never kakaed again in the tub or anywhere but in the potty, or at least that he doesn’t remember