Stephen Dixon - Frog

Olivia’s in college, dating a young man, and tells him, as she’s told lots of young men, “I have or had — I never know how to word it — two fathers. So I’ll say I have and had two fathers, how’s that?” “Sounds good to me,” he says. “One’s my stepdad. He’s fine. His name’s Eric, short for nothing.” “What do you mean?” “There’ll be a few of those. Don’t worry. Just stay tuned. He’s a psychiatrist. Very bright, trenchant. Biggest drawback with him is that he reads your mind right. He teaches psychiatry too, and he’s very sweet to my mother. They love each other tremendously, obsoletely, and he’s been as good a stepfather as anybody could want for one. Only I didn’t want one. I didn’t want two, get it? Some kids do, you know, something I learned by being the unofficial, meaning the self-declared president of the Association of Associated American Associative Stepkids dub.” “Is there such a one?” “Two live ones, you realize I meant. And it was good for my mother, marrying Eric, but I never wanted anyone — hold your hat, sir. Your head then, since this is where the big news break comes in. The blockbusting bombshell. ‘Bombadier to archivist, let it blow.’ Anyone but my real father. Did you guess that?” “From what you were leading up to, even with the animadversions … that’s not the right word. I’m not sure of the pronunciation either. But it’s a good one, yitch? Always wanted to use it in company, but intelligent company, like the opposing one, and pronounced right. But: yes, I guessed.” “Smart. This kid: he’s smart. Not my real dad; you, but he too. But I’m talking like this, this jerky nervous diversionary chatter, because the subject always distresses me. The subject’s he. The object I can’t right now turn into a pun. He died when I was six. Or five. Which is it? Definitely five. Why my kidding myself with that pretended muddlemindedment? Or trying to kid-smart you? ‘Cause I know, babe, this gal knows. Some people can tell you exactly where they were and what second of the minute of the hour of the day, etcetera, it was, when they learned that World War IV began. At least those who have reached three. You didn’t get that. Same with me when I learned he died. So I just subtract all those years and seconds from my present age and get the exact age I was when the big boom hit. The big broom, really, since it made such a clean paternal sweep. My own World War IV, over in a second. ‘Darling, take cover; Dad died.’ ‘Oh no,’ roar, and part of me’s forever dead.” “I’m not quite following you, Ol.” “Follow. I can never forgive him. Forget him. Hoo-hoo, that was some frisbeeing flip. And unintentional. You believe me?” “Not quite.” “Believe me. I can never forget him. I can get him out of my head, but the little fella always slips back in. Sometimes I think it’s the same for me as it was for him with my brother. His brother. What’s going on here? Oh, I see. He’s in him who’s in me.” “That I don’t catch.” “Because the after’s before the before. I’ll explain. He had a brother two or so years older who died when my father was twenty-three, I think. Drowned in a ship, went down, ship-he never found. They were irreversibly close and both irreversibly lost. It’s all documented.” “Where? When? By whom?” “Well, most. Because my father was a junior newsman and their oldest brother, Jerry, was a budding hotshot in what he did at the time, little news stories saying brother of news cub and hotshot bud among the dead at sea. My father kept them and I or my sister still have some, just as we have all of my father’s later writings about it. Obviously, my father wrote, and sometimes, he told my mother, part of what he wrote came with the help of his dead brother. How so? It goes like this.” ‘Tour family’s haunted.” “Hauntingly. Frightfully. But don’t fear. It’s only a couple of gentle consanguineal ghosts in me, but that’s the after before the before again. You see, his brother was a writer of the same time, long and short imaginative things, but preceded my father at it seriously by a few years. Before his brother died, my father — or Dad,’ to shorten this a bit — only did news. In fact, he told my mother, he felt he took over where his brother had left off, though his brother had hardly begun. Dad had been piddling a bit at it, but soon after Uncle Alex died he really got with it, as if possessed, he said. I like to think I carry on the family tradition in that category, but orally, which should explain all the who’s-in-me’s.” “It does, sort of.” “Dad told my mother — or ‘Mother,’ to shorten this even more. It’d be even shorter using just ‘Mom,’ but she was never just ‘Mom’ to me. But he swore Alex gave him ideas for writing when he was stumped, like first lines and startling last ones and sudden plot moves, and was even responsible for some of the more usable typos he made. ‘You again,’ he used to say, saluting him, Mother said, and then ‘Now get lost — I don’t believe in collaborative prose.’ In one piece, which Dad said Alex had contributed or sparked a significant part, he thought he should bill them both as its authors, but realized the tough time he’d have explaining it. Alex, the better read and educated of the two, provided him with right words, dates and historical situations and characters, besides doing some overnight editing on his punctuation and grammar and the prose’s rhythm. Occasionally made the paper tear when Dad was pulling it out of the typewriter, so Dad would have to rewrite the page. Deleted words and sometimes sentences and paragraphs in the rewriting, which Dad only found out about, and approved of, much later. And also nudged him away from the typewriter to do some useful chore that didn’t have to be done right away or to take his brain for a walk, when it was clear to Alex but not Dad that his work wasn’t going well. Dad’s wasn’t. Alex, when you think of his own writing he must have missed and what he had to do to do all this, was doing great with his unasked-for stintless work. Or maybe he only wanted to keep his hand in — I just thought of that. For the day when he returns — so he won’t get stale at it. Lots of experiences and people and their stories to write about where he’s been, if he went or got that far or the place actually exists. A first from the real netherworld or stopping-off place, which should get plenty of critical attention and publicity and, as a consequence, sales. And if Alex could, and maybe one only can make that kind of comeback through serious or at least well-intentioned writing, why not Dad, which was always my big wish. So what am I getting at in all this?” “You tell me.” “I am. I’m just stalling, waiting for his nudge or spark. It didn’t come. It never does when I wait for it or try to induce it. It seems to only come, as it must have from Alex to him, in flashes, pops, minipinpricks or minor accidents when I’m least expecting it. But this: that he helps me out in similar ways. Not much but enough times to make me think it’s real. Little tip on a test whispered in the air near my ear. Tiny smudge on a love letter, so I should think about writing it again or whether to mail it at all. Grabbing me — I swear I felt I felt it — when, with my head in a thought, I stepped off the curb while a car was shooting past. Maybe Alex too, but very small stuff, though I feel he’s just dormant if still there. If Alex did get back, he’s probably just hiding out and writing — to make up for lost time, let’s say — but not seeing any of his family, unless Uncle Jerry’s holding something back. But he’s still my working father, Dad is, which is probably why Eric could never take that spot. For sure in my dreams too, though that’s where I expect him to be, my sleeping conscious churning out images and actions of him advising me or providing me with the material to make wakeful decisions and take right-path directions. Does all this sound odd and too loose?” “Toulouse? Like the city? Or Lautrecian like zee artiste? Or just too scattered, making it hard to catch or take?” “The city? It’s near the prehistoric cave area, so maybe. No, that’s Bordeau or some coastal wine city or region with a B. Maybe like Lautrec. Stunted body for stunted mind? Just no focus or center, so, misconceived, half-believed, all over the place. Anyway, now you know something that’s sunken in me. If you want to know something of what he conceived and probably believed, which might help you understand me and what I said better, these are some of his books.” “OK, let’s see. Very attractive covers, solid bindings, sort of maudlin catchy titles: dark this, catastrophic that. He was a handsome man for that period, I guess, but why the tie in most of the jacket photos? Some nice things said about each book and his body of work, but they always are, aren’t they, else why put them in? But lots of suspension points in the quotes, so who knows what’s missing? A storyteller beyond compare…’ if this was the nineteenth century and the world was an island with only one writer on it … but you know I’m only kidding. Several different publishers, so I suppose they didn’t do too well by him and he had to keep moving, or else he got a bigger and bigger deal with each new one. Maybe I should be ashamed to admit this, but I never heard of your dad or his writing. But then I haven’t really kept up, or should I say ‘gone back into the library stacks,’ or read much since high school other than school work. Neither do most of my friends or either of my moms or dads read anything but what sells or will help them sell something, so nobody would have clued me in if he was really someone to read where my life depended on it. Each of these is a fairly long-to-enormous work, with lots of dense pages, fat paragraphs, microscopic printing for the most part, and what seems at quick glance like a lot of big words I’d be tempted to look up. You want me to read a whole book or is there a fairly short part of one or a particular not-so-long story or two that will do the trick?” “Just start one of the books from the beginning and see if it gets ya.” “I’ll take the slimmest here, if nobody objects, which also seems to have the shortest paragraphs and most dialogue and fewest printing shenanigans, since I have a bunch of exams coming up and papers to do in the next weeks. And I’ve always, skimpy reader that I’ve become — or maybe because of that, for who’s got the time to waste these days on frivolous or just no-account works — that if you don’t like one of a writer’s books, you won’t like any of them, no matter how many years he bangs away at it.” “You know, after all I’ve gone into about myself and my relationship with him — what the hell he continues to mean to me, for christsakes — you’re taking an offensively insensitive approach to me and him and his work.” “Did he just whisper that to you to say, to sort of start the great nudge away from me?” “I think that remark’s uncalled-for also.” “Oh, you don’t say? You do tell? Well, pip pip, have a hot toddy and tip-tip-erary and all that, old chap, and here’s his herd of doorstoppers for the next unfortunate who comes to you with fresh ears to be chewed off. Mine, let me apprise you—” “Fuck you too, dildo, and that comes straight from my mouth only.” “So you say. So you say.”