Stephen Dixon - Frog

How to start? Have a drink. How to start. Paper in and think. How-to start. Sit and type. Coffee and write. Kid and man. Fart and art. When I was a teen. Breakfast, dinner and dread. What’s he mean? What’s it seem? Done before. Start again.

Takes his daughter to school, goes home. Wife’s on the phone. “Yes, no, OK, maybe,” hangs up. “Oh, it’s you. I’m afraid I have bad news for you. I’m afraid I have sad news for you. I’m afraid I have mad dad news for you. Are you ready? Get set.” How about one about growing sick and old? Over again.

Takes his daughter home, goes to school. Student’s waiting at his office. “You said you’d be here by three-fifteen — that’s what the sign on your door says too — but I’ve never in my three years here known a teacher to keep his posted office hours.” “Not true. I was late for a good reason. Are you ready? Well get set. My daughter took seriously ill. Do you feel better now? We had to rush her to the doctor — I did. My wife’s also seriously ill. Besides that, my mother broke her hip yesterday and had to have a pin put in it today and my other daughter’s recovering from chicken pox. Add all that up plus my continuing inability to adjust to my brother’s drowning close to thirty years ago and my sister’s slow disease and death more than twenty years ago and taking care of my invalided dad the last six years of his life and probably also the loss of my one and only dog when I was around eight and the only tricycle or bike I ever owned stolen from in front of the candy store when I was inside buying a vanilla cone and what you got is hard knocks.” Over.

At home, daughters in school, in the basement typing, wife in their bedroom writing, hears a sound behind him, jumps, yells “Whoosh,” just his wife halfway downstairs barefoot, smile, untied bathrobe, towel over her shoulder, hair hung loose and in her hand shampoo, “I was about to shower when I thought…” “Why not, though you scared the hell out of me, as I was deep into doing a new scene, but I can always go back to it, and I usually gain more than I lose when I do — material, distance, be right there,” pushes the chair back, hands on the chair arms to stand up, she says “You don’t have to get up if you don’t have to. Just pull your pants down and we can do it in the chair, and it’s the right time of the month so though I might need some fiddling around with I don’t have to prepare.”

At home, daughter’s in school, wife away for the weekend with her folks, baby with her, cats in the attic, dog’s in the manger, horses in the stalls, pigs building brick shithouses, cows coming home. “Mumma, Dooda, plead bleed to me, you neber read to me, or I want you with me to clay.” Continues to read a book (she), dental journal (he). Goes to his room, lies on his bed, stares at the side wall of the brownstone right outside. City noises: garbage truck, street being dug up, when suddenly a plane, gets louder, seems lower than just overhead, runs to the window, sees it crashing through all the backyards before nosediving into their living room.

Home, he is, everybody’s left, school, work, cats are dead, no dog, farm animals, he’s trying to work, phone rings, rushes upstairs. “Yes,” he says. Picks up the receiver. “Yes,” says into it. “‘Ello, George?” man says. “No George here I’m afraid.” “You afraid? What for?” “Done that one. Say something else.” “George, George, that you there?” “Yes, George, everything’s George, I’m alone at home, for the next three hours completely free, so I can do what I want. But remember that expression from about twenty years back? Thirty perhaps? Are you as old as you sound, meaning my age? Everything’s George, meaning all’s OK.” “What’re you, coming apart, man?” “What number did you say you want? George did you want did you say?” New page.

Basement typing. Cats somewhere around the house biting. Children, wife, have none. Little fat dog jumped over the big bovine’s balls. Fiddle moon man leaped over the lilywhite dam. What’s that, dream? You believe in free thinking or free-associating or free living or love? Answer one or column four. Waiter, I’d like a Peking duck made in Beijing. Or the Beijing muck made sing-a-ling-ching. What’re yuh, green? But what a news day. Old evil eyes flies, Polish star dies, tangled tykes in mangled bikes, tanks over tents — rhythm and rhyme over reason — all that fall, break. Can you get all that in less than twelve hours’ notice? Picks up the typewriter and drops it. Read the other day that typewriter repairmen can fix anything but the carnage. The carriage. Once the carnage breaks, throw the machine away. Goes upstairs, stops halfway and stares at the wall.

At school, class comes in. They’re quiet, some smile, few shuffle their papers on the long oblong table. “Well, how are you all today?” ‘Just fine thanks, I guess,” young man says. “Don’t guess, say straight out.” “OK, just fine thanks… I guess.” Several laugh. “That’s the spirit. Well, now down to business, shall we say?” “Sure, what’s the first order?” young woman says. “Yes. Order. Give me three in column A and the rest of you get F’s.” All laugh. Lifts the table at his end. “Hey, my books, Doctor,” someone says. “Call me Howard, or Mr. Tetch, if you can’t call me by my first name. Or even Teach, or Mr. Teach, but I’ve told you — in my family my father was the doctor, though a dentist. ‘Open, open wide, wider, it won’t hurt but for an hour.’ I won’t even tell you how he took care of my teeth. Now that’s a story. No x-rays or novocaine, but he scrub-brushed his hands before — they always smelled of soap — and lots of pain.” Lifts it higher till it stands on its end. Everything on it slides off. “What the fuck he think he’s doing?” someone says. “What’s this, we’re supposed to write an exercise about it?” someone says. “One on professorial craziness,” someone says. “Pedagogical patheticness,” someone says. “Doctorial, if that’s what the word is, dottiness,” someone says. “No, just a man coming apart, or do one on teeth. Bring it in next week, three to five pages, class dismissed,” and he sits, hands over his face till he thinks they’ve all left, says to himself out loud “If this is what’s called having a fit, I’m having it.” “I’ll stay with you,” only student who stayed says, prettiest he’s ever had in a class, Lucy, Lisa, Lois, something, long blond this, strong lean that, tall, small, broad, flat. Another he’s stared at in the hallway from behind till she disappeared, then looked around to see if anyone caught him. “I’m certain you were only trying to tell us something by what you did, like our lack of basic writing skills and interest in serious culture, and our poor critical sense, and I love your work.” “Always?” “Hard to say, since I don’t know if it’ll always be as good.” “Heck with my work. I meant will you stay with me always, at least the way you and your contemporaries might understand that word.” “Line-byline edit me if you like, sir, but isn’t that what I just said?” “I don’t know. I can’t think. I’ve never been good at following conversations. People speak, I’m dreaming or wondering about something else. It even happens at movies — what’s being said on the screen — so imagine me in lecture halls. You can see now what I meant when I said in class I was such a lousy student. And to top it off, my folks argued bitterly when I was a boy, for years I thought they were going to divorce and all the kids would be split up, a brother died when he’d been my best pal for more than twenty years, my sister went through hell dying before she managed to pull it off while I was sitting there right by her bed, and my wife’s recently flown and I always have to be at home by the phone for my kids. Please,” his arms and lips out to kiss, but she shakes her head, “Nothing like an old fool,” she says and leaves the room. ‘That’s what my mother also used to say. Not about me, of course, since when she said it I was a kid, and her exact words were ‘No fool like an old fool,’ but OK. Though old fools can be good. Ones I’m thinking of know what to do, don’t ask for much, are thankful for whatever you give, have a little income, sense of humor, and nobody appreciates a young mind and body better, I’ll tell ya. But I can see it your way too.”