Stephen Dixon - Frog

“Did they come to see you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see why they would. No, of course they didn’t. I think something terrible’s happened to someone in the building and I didn’t want to know. Maybe not even that’s it, but here I am and I still don’t want to go downstairs till I’m sure they’re gone.”

“You should have left the building without saying anything to them and it all would have been past you by now.”

“I knew I couldn’t. Something told me. And I felt if I had tried to push myself to get past them, I would have acted even stranger than I did.”

“You make me curious though. Maybe something did happen. I’m going to see. Olivia’s fine, playing in her room by herself. If Eva gets up and she’s not wet, just hold her for a while and she’s sure to go back to sleep,” and she leaves the apartment.

He thinks about his brother. Puts the book down, drink down, lowers the pillows with the back of his head and then lowers his head to them, remembers the night he first heard the news. Shuts the light. His older brother called him over. Called him up to come over. Both brothers were older. Alex was three years older than he and four years younger than Jerry, the oldest child. Three years almost to the day. They sometimes — neither liked it much — celebrated their birthdays on the same day. Closest brother or sister in age, day of birth and closeness. Jerry called him at their parents’ apartment where Howard was staying then. “I got word today”—it went something like that—“word that Alex’s ship is missing.” “What do you mean missing?” Howard said. “I spoke to the ship’s shipping company. Asking what’s the status of his ship, when will it be in, and so forth. It’s been overdue four days. You knew that.” “I knew but thought it could be natural. A small freighter. It doesn’t travel as fast or run on the tight time schedule of one of the big liners.” “It could be it sunk.” “What do you mean?” “I’m saying sunk, went down. Everything. In the ocean. Word is another freighter got a distress signal a week ago in the area Alex’s ship was in.” “But lots of ships were probably in that area.” “That’s what I told this man, but he says no. None on any company’s log, anyway. They’ve checked. His ship was the only one known to be there, or at least from what’s been graphed as its position, comes closest to being there at that time, and we’re talking about something like a hundred square miles. Nothing came of the distress signal. It went on for a short time and stopped. It could even have been a portable transmitter from a lifeboat, it was so weak. Then a short time again — maybe three minutes, maybe less — and stopped. The radioman tried making contact with it to pinpoint it, but couldn’t.” “Oh come on, how thoroughly could one company check? Did it contact every ship company in the world that has ships crossing that part of the Atlantic, and did every one of these companies radio their ships that traveled this route? Are they also in touch with the ship companies of the Communist countries, especially the ones that won’t have anything to do with us?” “Apparently the shipping world’s very much in touch when something like this happens. And every ship that could have been in that sea lane was contacted in the last two days or had got in contact with its company or some weather ship out there.” “How do they know another ship didn’t go off its normal route and send that signal? Or sent it, then corrected its troubles on its own, and now isn’t saying anything about the signal because it wasn’t supposed to be in that sea lane.” “Look, I can understand why you’re taking this attitude, but Alex’s ship hasn’t made contact with anything for seven days. Two might be normal. Seven is practically unheard of unless their radio’s down, but even there, they should have been spotted long before now.” “So that’s it. No radio, can’t make contact, no other ship’s seen them because of so few ships in their lane around this time or some kind of heavy mist or cloud cover all the way west, storm’s held them up several days, maybe two storms, maybe three, and they sail into Boston Harbor tomorrow or the day after.” “OK, maybe you’re right — we can certainly hope so.” “I have to be right, right? Have to. No two ways about it.”

Jerry didn’t tell him it over the phone. Called and said to come over. He lived a few blocks away with his wife and infant son. “What’s wrong?” Howard said. “By your tone, it seems very bad. Is it Dad? Something Mom didn’t want to tell me herself?” “No, Dad’s in awful shape, but no worse than a month ago. Just come over.” He did. They sat in the living room. Howard said “So?” “Have a drink first. Take a few sips, then we can talk. Simply to hold one will be good.” Doesn’t remember if he had one. Probably did. Any excuse at night to have a drink — today, same with twenty-five years ago. Probably scotch. That was Jerry’s drink. Good stuff too. Ballantine’s. Chivas. And listened to Jerry about the tremendous storm in the North Atlantic eight days ago, ship could have split in two and gone down fast. It’s happened with other freighters of the same make and class. “And from what I found out through just a few simple phone calls, the ship’s owners weren’t known for keeping their ships in great shape, having enough lifeboats, going over the maximum weight, things like that. It doesn’t look good, that’s all I can say. It looks hopeless, quite honestly. Hate to be so blunt, but believe me, if I’m proven wrong I’ll shout from a rooftop admitting it and fast for a week. Coast Guard planes — British ones too — have been combing the area for two days. But that’s standard operating procedure, I was told, and that if the ship did sink, just about every trace of it, except the slick, would have disappeared in a day. Twenty-two men on board, most of them Cubans. Water so cold that anyone not in a lifeboat couldn’t last in it for ten minutes, and the sea so rough that the lifeboats wouldn’t survive for a few hours. The captain was a son of an old patient of Dad’s, which is how Alex happened to get a free ride on the ship. That’s one bargain we all could have missed…” Howard just sat there, drink in both hands probably, said nothing, stared without seeing anything, body numb.

He’s got the place all wrong. He got a call. Jerry was living in Washington, D.C. then. He said “Dad called with some very bad news. He didn’t have the heart to tell you himself, so he asked me to.” “But I just saw him and he looked fine. An hour ago, for dinner, he and Mom.” “And he didn’t say anything? You didn’t pick up on how they both looked?” “Nothing. We talked about what I was doing, her work, some big tooth he suddenly had the strength to extract today, baseball, etcetera.” “Maybe because they knew I’d call you later. It’s Alex, his ship. It’s way overdue. We think it went down. They do — the authorities, the shipping company, the Coast Guard, everyone. Hit by an iceberg, knocked over by a bad storm, ship simply splitting in half, they don’t know. But it hasn’t transmitted or answered any radio signals or been sighted or anything like that for eight days. It’s a little too unusual. There was something like the worst storm in ten years in the area his ship would have been in seven days ago. Sometimes these small old freighters can go a couple of days without being able to make known their positions. Their signals or receivers aren’t strong enough sometimes or its frequency interferences or whatever they’re called, and caused by God knows what, besides their shitty equipment. But never this long. There were also what one guy I spoke to called A-grade distress signals the night of that tremendous storm…”