William Krueger - Ordinary Grace

Doyle danced away and I thought maybe he’d been hurt by something flung at him in the explosion. He split off from us and ran across the sand flat toward the river dodging left and right and finally threw himself down with his arms stretched out ahead. He came up on his knees clutching his hands to his chest and rose to his feet and walked back to us with a big stupid grin on his lips. He held out his arms toward us with his hands cupped together and from the small hole ringed by his thumbs a big bullfrog peered out.

“Give me one of those M-80s,” he said to Gus.

Gus reached into one of the paper bags and brought out another of the big firecrackers. Doyle gripped the frog in one hand and with his other pried its lips apart.

“Stick it in there,” he said.

Gus said, “You’re going to blow up that frog?”

“Damn right I am.”

“I don’t think so,” Gus said.

I stood paralyzed and disbelieving as Doyle snatched the M-80 from Gus. He stuffed it into the frog’s mouth with the fuse extended and reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. He flipped the lid and thumbed the striker and touched the flame to the fuse and pushed the explosive deep into the frog’s throat. Then he threw the frog into the air. The poor creature exploded not five feet from our faces spattering us with its blood and entrails. Doyle bent backward laughing toward the sky and Gus said, “Damn it,” and I wiped at the viscera on my face and felt sick to my stomach.

“Whoo-eee,” Doyle cried out. With his index finger he wiped a piece of frog gut from his cheek. “That critter blowed up good.”

“You okay, Frank?” Gus reached out and put his hand on my shoulder and tried to look into my face but I turned away.

“I better be going,” I said.

“Come on,” Doyle said. “It was only a frog, for God’s sake.”

“I gotta get home anyway,” I said not looking back.

“We’ll give you a lift, Frank,” Gus said.

“No, I’ll walk,” I said. I headed away on the path that threaded through the cottonwoods and that led across the railroad tracks to the park.

“Frank,” Gus called.

“Hell, let the kid go,” I heard Doyle say. “And give me another beer.”

I stomped across the dry grass of Sibley Park. My shirt was spotted with frog gut and blood. It was in my hair and dripping along my jawline. I wiped at my face and looked down at my ruined clothing and I was angry with myself and with Doyle and, although he’d done nothing to deserve it, angry with Gus as well. I’d had a vision of what that afternoon could be and the vision had become ruined by mindless cruelty. Why hadn’t Gus stopped Doyle? Why hadn’t I? I was crying and for that weakness too I hated myself. I started up the road but realized that I’d have to pass the home of Emil Brandt and then walk the streets of town and I didn’t want anyone to see me looking like I did so I returned to the railroad tracks and followed them to the Flats.

I was cautious approaching the house. If my parents saw me covered in the drying darkened remains of a dead bullfrog, how could I explain this most recent trespass? I slipped through the back door and into the kitchen and listened. The house was cool and, I thought at first, silent. Then I heard the sound of crying soft and broken and I poked my head into the living room. Ariel sat on the bench of our old upright piano. Her arms were laid across the keyboard and her head was laid upon her hands. Her body shook and her breath between her sobs came in airy little gasps.

I said, “Ariel?”

She sat up quickly and straightened her back. Her head turned and she looked at me and for a moment it was not Ariel but a creature much afraid and I thought of that frog in the moment when the explosive was shoved down its throat. Then she saw my soiled shirt and the splatters of viscera dried on my cheeks and in my hair and her eyes went wide with horror.

“Frankie,” she cried leaping from the bench. “Oh, Frankie, are you all right?”

She forgot in an instant whatever was the source of her own suffering and she turned all her attention on me. And I, in my selfish innocence, allowed it.

I told her what had happened. She listened and shook her head sympathetically and in the end she said, “We’ve got to get you out of those clothes and wash them before Mom gets back. And you need to take a bath.”

And Ariel who was an unjudging angel set about saving me.

That evening after dinner I got together a pickup game of softball with some of the other kids in the neighborhood. We played until the evening light turned soft blue and we couldn’t see to hit or to field anymore and suggestions were made of other games we could play that would prolong our easy camaraderie. But some had to go and so our gathering dissolved and we drifted away each of us to our own home. Jake and I walked together. With every step he slapped his ball glove against his thigh as if beating time with a drum.

“You still got all your fingers,” he said.

“What?”

“I figured you’d blow yourself to kingdom come.”

I knew what he was talking about. I thought of telling him the story of the exploded frog but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d been right in believing I had no business going with Gus and Doyle.

I said, “We had a good time. I set off some M-80s.”

“M-80s?” Even in the dark I could see that the huge pools of his eyes reflected both envy and censure.

When we reached the house my father was standing on the porch smoking his pipe. The ember in the bowl glowed brightly as he drew on the stem and I smelled the sweet drift of Cherry Blend. Gus was with him. They were talking quietly as friends do.

My father called to us as we came up the walk. “How’d the game go, boys?”

“Fine,” I said.

Gus said, “You win?”

“We played workup,” I replied in a cold tone. “Nobody won.”

“Hey, Frankie,” Gus said. “Could we talk? I told your dad about this afternoon.”

I looked at my father for any sign of reproof but in the shadow of approaching night with the warm light through the windows at his back he looked unconcerned. He said, “It would be a good idea.”

“All right,” I said.

Jake had paused on the steps and his eyes skipped back and forth between Gus and our father and me, and his own face was clouded with confusion.

Gus said, “Let’s take a walk.”

My father said, “How about a game of checkers, Jake?”

Gus left the porch and I turned from the house and side by side we walked into the twilight beneath the limbs of the elms and maples that arched the unlit and empty street.

We walked for a while before Gus said anything. “I’m sorry, Frankie. I shouldn’t have let that happen today.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“No, it isn’t. Doyle, he’s a certain kind of man. Not a bad man really but an unthinking man. Hell, so am I for that matter. The difference between us is that I have some responsibility for you and I let you down today. That won’t happen again, I promise.”

The crickets and the tree frogs had started to clip at the silence that came with the evening and above us through the breaks in the canopy of leaves the sky had begun to salt with stars. The houses set back from the street were charcoal gray shapes with windows like uninterested yellow eyes observing our passing.

I said, “What did Doyle mean, Gus, that Dad cracked during the war?”

Gus stopped and eyed the sky then tilted his head as if listening to the growing chorus that accompanied the approach of night. He said, “You ever talk to your dad about the war?”

“I try sometimes. I keep asking him if he killed any Germans. All he ever says is that he shot at a lot of them.”