Frog (58 page)

a mistake thinking she'd get along well there. Let's cut our losses for her sake.” They say they'll discuss it further together and then with the camp directors and her counselor, and that weekend they drive up to take her home. He helps them carry her luggage to the car. It's rest period and her bunkmates lie and sit on their beds reading comic books and playing card games and checkers and then look up and say goodbye to her, when Howard says she's going, as if she were only leaving for a couple of hours. He thinks, walking with her to the car, What's she thinking? He tries to make it out. She's glad to see her mother but seems sad to be going. Some kind of defeat's on her face and in the way her body slumps. All her smiles today have been fake, her voice so low to those girls they could hardly hear her. “What? What? None of us can understand you,” one of them said. He was hoping one or two of them would come over to her, help him with her things, say “We'll miss you,” and kiss her, even say “Write and I'll write back.” He thinks he can sense what's inside her: stomach hurting, chest crying or just feeling full, tears held back. Standing by the car she tells her mother “I tried to do whatever they asked me. Made my bed good; ate when I was asked to, even things I hated; went out for things I could do. I think I was having a good time and was liked. Maybe it's best going home though. We'll go to the beach sometimes when it gets too hot, won't we? That's what I liked best about camp, the nice nights. You're lucky,” she says to him. “Listen, none of it was your fault, so don't think so,” he says. “Some places aren't right for people. I've had delivery-boy jobs for stores when I shouldn't have, the owners were so mean. And this camp concentrates too much on competition and sports. I'll be glad to get home also.” “Why? Everybody's been nice. I had no problems that way.” He wants to make sure not to say the wrong things, so he says nothing else. She's lying, she knows he knows it, and maybe she knows he is too, but so what? He kisses her good-bye, careful not to press her back where there might be some new lumps there, kisses his folks, and the car drives off. Waves till he can't see it anymore. Just as it disappears his father honks twice. Walking back to his bunk he thinks maybe if he had defended her more. Made her laugh more, spent more time with her somehow, spoken to her counselor about her, tried to get her bunkmates to include her more, and so on; punched a couple of noses. Later he's in a way relieved she's gone but thinks sadly of her a lot and writes her almost every other day. Short letters, but so many in three weeks that he has to borrow a stamp to write his parents for more stamps and envelopes. “Dear Vera,” one letter goes. “It's muggy and awful here. A real heat spell where even the nights are hot and the lake water is like a steambath and the cesspool, which opened up again, stinks everything to heaven. I envy you away where there are fans to blow on you and also to be the only one alone with Mom and Dad this summer. As for me, I'm not having too good a time. Last year my bunkmates were friendly and smart, but this year they are always fighting and acting stupid Like throwing things in the messhall and saying silly things to girls and making fun of the head counselor behind his back and Rabbi Berman and Aunt Lois, who aren't so bad. I'll be glad when camp's over. Not only to get out of here and see my friends on the block, but to see you and Mom and Dad again. Love to all, Howard.” She never writes back but when he calls she thanks him for his letters. “Nice as the weather's been since I've been back, I'd still exchange places with you today if I could.” It's June and she tells him her room's much too hot and she doesn't know how she's going to stand it this summer. He's working as a permanent sub in a junior high school and offers to buy her an air conditioner if their parents won't. His mother says they would have bought her one long ago but they've been told the building's wiring won't take it. He goes to a discount store to price them, finds one that uses the least amount of power of any of them and which the salesman says will only be priced this low for one more day, and buys it. If it only blows the building's fuses but not the air conditioner, the store says it'll take it back. It's a simple one and to save money he carries it home and installs it himself. He tells his parents if the building's wiring gets destroyed when he turns the air conditioner on, he'll pay for an electrician to fix it. “Look at you,” his father says. “Just four months on the job, now no money saved, and soon in debt if the electricity conks out. Nobody knows how to blow money like you.” The air conditioner works fine and in the morning she says it made her room so cold she couldn't even get out of bed to get blankets. “You have to adjust the dials before you go to bed,” and he shows her how again. He complains to his mother that Vera never even thanked him for it. “That was two weeks' salary, and if I have to pay taxes this year because I made over the minimum, nearly three.” “She's thanking you, don't worry, but in her own way. She told me, but not to tell you, she's praying for you, though for what particularly she wouldn't say.” He's alone in the apartment with her. It's night, around ten, and he was told by his folks to check to see she has her covers over her before he goes to bed. He goes into her room. It's lit by a little night table light plugged into the wall. The covers are on the floor and her nightdress is above her waist. She has a little pubic hair around that area. He's never seen any before. She's sleeping. He picks up the covers, covers her and leaves the room. He gets halfway down the hall and is excited. He wishes he hadn't covered her up. He'd go back and from the doorway take another look. Her hair wasn't the big black bush in the magazine but like a little light brown Hitler mustache, if that's what color it was. Red, even, and right above the crack and none of it around. He should have got closer and looked some more. Done it on tiptoes, held in his breath. He goes into his room and takes off his clothes to put on his pajamas, turns sideways in front of the dresser mirror to see his hard-on in it and begins playing with himself. It gets bigger and straighter and he puts his pants back on but not the undershorts, tries to press the hard-on down but it won't go so has to hold it to his stomach while he zips up so it doesn't get caught. He goes into her room. Knows he shouldn't. Whispers “Vera, you up?” If she says yes—moans, even; blinks; anything—he'll say “Sorry, just wanted to make sure; good night.” She doesn't move, eyes stay shut. “Vera, you up?” he says louder. Again, if she is, good night, and out he goes. But nothing of her moves. That enough? Should he say it once more? Pulls the covers down to her knees slowly. She's in the same position as before. Flat on her back, arms down her sides, legs a little parted, nightdress way it was. He gets closer to that area and looks at it. “Vera, you asleep?” Watches her eyes and mouth for just the slightest movement. If she wakes, well, he doesn't know what hell do. He feels around her crack for a hole, finds it and sticks his finger in. After a few seconds he moves it around. It's what he thought and heard. Wet, soft, deep as his finger goes, which is just a little ways in, not even a joint. He takes it out, pulls the covers up. He goes to his room, unzips his fly, can't get his hard-on through it it's so stiff so unbuttons the pants and pulls them down and plays with himself facing the mirror. The door, and he shuts it, turns the key and resumes playing with himself. He's done it before but nothing's ever come out. He heard when it does he could almost fall. He does it harder and faster, from one end to the other, and it begins to hurt. He zips up, and holding his penis inside his pants, starts for her room. “That's enough,” he says to himself, “you've seen and done plenty, if anyone finds out you'll be killed,” takes his hand out of his pants at her door and goes in. She's in the same position asleep. He hopes asleep. “Vera, are you up?… I'm just checking on you, seeing you're all right, the covers are on you. Mom and Dad told me to.” She doesn't move. If she did, said anything, he'd say “Well, everything seems all right, so good night.” He pulls the covers down slowly. Same position, hands cupped up rather than palms down, maybe her legs a bit closer together. He stares at the crack, finds the hole again with his finger, sticks it in, little deeper than before and moves it around. Still wet and soft and some little bumps now. Then he thinks “Enough, shell wake up,” takes his finger out and covers her up. Starts to go, then says “Vera, you awake?” She says nothing, nothing on her face moves, hands and legs stay the same. “If you are up and say anything about this to anyone, I'll kill you. I'll kill you when nobody's around. I mean it, I'm serious as I ever was about anything, don't say a word about what I did, to me or anyone, or I'll kill you dead.” He watches her face; nothing. Should he say it again? Goes to his room, puts on his pajamas, shuts the light and gets into bed. What have I done? I shouldn't have gone back after I did it to her the first time. Just should have taken a look, covered her up, and if I had to, gone into the bathroom or my room and tried to jerk off. I'm dead; she'll tell; nothing will ever be the same again. He squeezes his eyes tight as he can, grinds his teeth, digs his nails into his knuckles, smells his finger. Smells as if he stuck it up his behind when it's clean. Smells the others on that hand; they don't smell at all. He goes into the bathroom, washes his hands and with a washrag and soap scrubs that finger where it went in, brushes his teeth and gets back in bed. He lies there a long time, thinking he'll never get to sleep and in the morning his brother and parents will drag him out of bed and yell and scream at him and do he doesn't know what. His brother's asleep in his bed next to his when he wakes up in the morning. He washes, dresses, goes into the kitchen. Vera's having breakfast, doesn't smile or say good morning as she usually doesn't, his mother's making coffee, smiles at him and says “Good morning, darling, sleep well?” He watches their reactions to him the next few days. No change it seems. Wonders if Vera was awake either of those last two times and if she was, if she told his mother, and if his mother thinks not talking about it to anyone is the best thing to do. He knows if his mother told his father but said don't let Howard know we know, his father would still let him have it, and maybe even with his hand. But insult him terribly; call him a disgusting pig who from now on has to be watched and maybe should be caged. But no change in anyone. Brother goes about his business; Vera looks and talks to him normally. After a while he feels she was up just the second time he touched her, because nobody could stay asleep so long through it, and he did stick it in deeper and move it around more than the first time. If someone played with his penis when he was asleep, he thinks he'd get awake after a while. And if a finger was stuck inside him, he'd definitely get awake. He knows he'll never do anything like that again. If he ever sees her sleeping naked, he'll just turn around and walk away. Not even cover her up. Or maybe just cover her, if it's cold and it seems the covers had fallen accidentally to the floor and not just been kicked off or down the bed, but not look at her crack. He thinks about the incident on and off the next few years. Shudders every time. Sometimes it comes when he's just looking at her face, and not even when she's looking back at him. He doesn't know why, but it comes back to him, putting his finger in, and he has to shut his eyes and shake his head to get rid of it. A few times it's when she's got a hospital gown on, at home or in a hospital, and which always seems to fall a little over her left shoulder. Maybe that's the side she was operated on most and lost more bone than the other and so has less shoulder to support the gown. After a few years he thinks she never told anyone in the family about it but had been awake both times he fingered her. He'd be duping himself or just a fool to think something like a finger in her wouldn't have wakened her the first time. And if that's not it—let's say she went sound asleep immediately—then also because he didn't know what he was doing then with his finger and so had to be a little rough. He's also beginning to recall a slight smile on her when he threatened her. Why's he see it now when he didn't think he saw it then? Maybe he didn't recognize it as such then or just didn't want to. If he'd seen it then it would have meant to him she was awake and he'd then feel for sure he was in the worst trouble he'd ever been in. But that's the face he's starting to see whenever he remembers threatening her. More than that: it's the face he sees, though the face through the rest of it—when he was probing and fingering her and so on—was of one asleep. Years later he tells a woman he's been going with for months about it and says she's the first person he's told. He's around thirty. She says “What took you so long to tell anyone? It's common stuff. I hear it all the time from women friends. My own brother did it to me lots of times and much worse. Occasionally he'd wait for my mom to leave and then go straight to my room, tear off my blankets if I was in bed and even asleep and say ‘Pull down your bottoms so I can take a peek.' He also had me whack him off a few times and one time I had to wipe him clean and then wash his tip over the sink. I drew the line when he once wanted to stick his prick in. Only an inch, he said, and I told him I'd tell the police if he
so much as tried, and maybe even say he's been trying to rape me for years. So what did he say? ‘What about your rear end then? That way you can stay a virgin and not get babies and I heard if it hurts anyone, it's the guy.' He was really wild.” “Why'd you let him do anything to you?” “Why'd your sister?” “It was only once, or twice in about ten minutes, and for all I know she actually might have been asleep.” “She was up; don't go kidding yourself again. Only reason she pretended being asleep was she was curious, or possibly scared. As for me, I thought it'd get him to treat me better. You see, he fancied himself as, and my mother encouraged him to be, the man of the house, what with our dad dead, but he took advantage of it and became a real mean louse. I also never thought she'd believe me if I told her what he was doing. To her, that schmuck was God. But everything turned out OK. We got it all out at a shrink—a family counselor we went to as a family for a year. And now we don't even think about it or as anything more than sadistic growing-up experimental kid stuff on his part, and on mine, that I should have said ‘Lay off or I'll call the cops or kick in your nuts' from the start. And on my mother's: birdbrain neglect that she was lucky didn't turn into catastrophic life-changing big brother inseminating little sis.” “I know you said he made you masturbate him and maybe worse, but did he ever stick his finger in you too?” “Finger. Toe. Once a pencil. That's why I say, he was a sadist then. But he turned out fine and I've no fears he won't be anything but a terrific father to his girls.” “I'm not even sure I can look at the sonofabitch now after what you told me.” “Oh, lay off the guy. He was just a jerk who since then's done a complete reverse. At least he talked about it openly by the time he was twenty-five. While you, you've kept it in and have most likely whipped yourself to death over it several times, even if what you did wasn't one-fiftieth as bad.” His mother says “What can we get her to amuse herself? She stares at the walls half the day, doesn't have a clue what to do with herself once her teacher leaves.” They get her paints, pastels, an easel and smock, modeling clay. She tries a few times and then says: “I'm not the artist type. My stuff is so amateurish and hopeless it makes me feel ugly and dumb just to look at it. I think I'm more the type that likes making things people can use.” His mother has him get Vera craft materials at a hobby shop and she makes leather scissor holders and book covers, beaded necklaces and cloth trivets and wraps them and at the dinner table gives them as gifts. “It's not my birthday or graduation, or not that I know of it,” he says, “but thanks. It's very pretty and handy.” “I'll make something else for you then with leather,” and he says “Nah, one's enough. Not that I don't really like it, but spread the good work around,” but the next night she gives him another wrapped gift. “Look Mom, Dad,” he says “it's to hold my keys.” Feels and smells the leather. “Smooth, and very nicely cured. Smells almost like the actual cow's hide, but nice, though, and now my keys won't scratch my thighs or cut through my pants pockets and make all my change spill out.” Later he says to his mother “She should be doing something, if it has to be crafts, that I can say ‘That's fantastic, that truly shows talent.' Something I can honestly admire if not use—we, all of us—and give her real credit for and which she can get better and better at over the years till she even becomes an artisan at it, why not? and even sells some of it. But work stupid but well-meaning institutions give brain-damaged people to do? It's humiliating. Or demoralizing. Whatever it is, I hate it for her.” His mother says “She hasn't a storehouse of talent and imagination and any pushing her to be more artistic will make her feel ugly and dumb again and maybe even make her head hurt. Let her do what she enjoys doing and feel it's adequate and you continue faking your admiration whenever she gives one to you.” She next gives him a lanyard with a whistle on it and he says thanks, blows it, says “Nice tone, not too tweet-tweet. Maybe I'll wear it at the next square dance I'll do-si-do to,” and she says “Where's that?” and he says “You know, when you call the calls or whatever the caller does,” and she says “When did you ever do one of those?” and he says “At camp, when I used to dance, not call. But I'm really only kidding. But it's nice, this, though what I can use it for…? Maybe my keys if I'm wearing pants without pockets or something—like athletic shorts for the outside but when I also have no shirt on with pockets in it,” and she says “Really, if you don't like it, or can't use it, I know someone who might,” and he says “Well, then you should probably give it to him or her, for it is, to tell you the truth, kind of wasted on me. It's not quite for the city and I'm always in the city, not that I want to be, and I suppose also I'm just not a lanyard man,” and he gives it to her and she looks hurt and he says “Excuse me, but what did I say? Honestly, Vera, it's good work. The colors are lovely and so's the design and it's just about perfectly constructed—'fabricated,' is the new word. And if I had to make something like that—if I so much as tried—it'd be all over the joint, a perfect mess. But what if—but maybe I shouldn't say this, though if I don't I'm sure I'll regret it even more, so here goes. What if you started doing something that would thoroughly take you over and make you want to do it every chance you got and which, let's say in a year or so or just whenever it happens, could eventually become something like art or just great or truly excellent crafts? Because you show talent here with this lanyard—with the bracelets and leather works and that cloth hot pot thing—I always forget the name of it—you truly do. The colors and way you make them and such and the quick way you picked it all up, besides the variety of different crafts you've done.” “I'm not interested in making things like that, but thanks for what you said about my work,” and she doesn't show him any of it after that. A few weeks later he asks his mother what Vera's been up to with her crafts, “since she hasn't given me anything in a while, and come to think of it, even shown me it or spoken about it,” and his mother says “She seems to have lost interest in it and I'm afraid is back twiddling her thumbs most of the day, when she isn't staring out the window at the sun and burning her eyes,” but gives no hint she knows what took place between Vera and him. His parents buy her a special television set she can control from her bed. She gets to like a couple of the afternoon soap operas and follows them every day. Just to get her talking about something, he asks her “So what is it about these shows that you watch them so much?” He tells himself that whatever she says he's going to answer “That's nice, that's fine, makes sense, very interesting, now I can understand.” She gives the story line of one of the shows for the last two weeks and says “Maybe not to you, but to me it's kind of fascinating. Also the acting is very good and the whole thing feels like real life but not any that many of us live. All that plus looking forward to it and probably guessing what's going to happen next has hooked me and a few million other people, like a good novel would to you that takes place over a few centuries. You know, very long and involved and with family after family and lots of living and dying.” “Actually, some of the things you described do make me think it could be good, like a long-term infection that doesn't make you sick or anything and even makes you feel chipper.” She invites him to watch it with her one day after he gets back from teaching junior high school. He says “Usually I'm too bushed to do anything but nap for an hour before I have to start correcting papers and things, but one day I might.” “You'll see you could get hooked too. I've even read where big-time college professors changed their class schedules when one of the soaps moved to a different time, just so they wouldn't miss a single minute of it.” “Well, if they can watch and appreciate it, why not I? I could even use a daily rather simple distraction like that, which could be why they do it, to clear the head a bit, or maybe it is that engrossing and good. Tomorrow then, if I don't fall asleep on my feet second I get home.” He tells himself “Remember, if you don't like it, which you know you won't, don't say so. Just nod and say it's pretty good and you could see why someone of any kind of intelligence could get hooked on it, but you only wish you had the free time most college professors have, but you have a ton of paperwork and lesson plans to do each weekday if you want to keep your weekends relatively clear.” During the first commercial break she says “What do you think so far?” and he says “Not bad, not bad,” and during the next break she says “Did it get any better for you?” and he says “Why, don't you think I'm enjoying it?” and she says “You're obviously not. Fidgeting around; chewing your cuticles; that sourpuss look you always have when you're bored with something and feel you can't get out of it—that one goes back to when you were a boy,” and he says “Oh, that's my stomach acting up which it's been doing all day—teaching often works on my muscles there in addition to giving me cramps,” and she says “Listen, if the show's junk, say so. Because what are you holding back for, my feelings?” and he says “Well, they mean something,” and she says “Believe me, whatever you say's not going to hurt me or change my watching it,” and he says “OK then; all right. To me—mind if I talk while it's on?” and she presses the remote control and the show goes off. “To me the whole thing feels made by admen for idiots.” “That sounds rehearsed.” “No. If it's good, then it's a mistake. And you're no idiot by a long shot, so I don't know what you see in it; though maybe those professors are, experts in one line but dumb and young in most everything else. Or maybe today's segment is an isolated bad case and all the other days are five times as good,” and she says “This one's fairly typical, in story and the rest.” “Then I don't know what to say. But when the commercials are more gripping than the story and better acted and directed, then we better watch out.” “What's wrong with the acting? You saying it's bad?” ‘Tm saying it's quacking, not acting. I'm saying any schnook off the street could do better. You hear about casting couches? This one must have had a dormitory hall of them, one side for men and the other for the young beauties.” “What are casting couches?” “You know. Couches where actors are cast on, like in bronze and stone. Forget that; didn't turn out. And the bad acting's probably not the actors' fault either, for what do they have to work with? ‘Good-bye.' ‘Good-bye?' ‘That's right, good-bye.' ‘You're really saying good-bye?' ‘You got it. I'm truly and absolutely saying goodbye.' ‘You can't mean it.' ‘I mean it, my darling, I mean it.' ‘Then why'd you call me now your darling?'” “OK, I get the point,” she says. “Wait, I'm getting to the heart of it and having fun. ‘Force of habit.' ‘Force of habit?' ‘Yes, force of habit. Now good-bye.' ‘Shall I see you to the door at least?' ‘See me if you wish but it won't change my leaving.' ‘I'll see you to it then.' ‘Then see me, for no more protests I hope on either of our sides.'” “What do you mean by that last thing?” “It's nothing; another flub. Then, after six commercials and several station breaks with minicommercials, back to where we left him seeing her to the door. The camera zooms in on his hand on the doorknob. Maestro, doorknob music. Then closer to the pinky ring she once gave him. “This is painful,” she says. “Painful, but not close?” “Nowhere near. They don't repeat talking like that. They almost never follow the same couple scene after scene. And how would we know she gave him the ring? Was it yesterday's show? Was it today's? You're being silly.” “He says so at the door. ‘Want the pinky ring back you gave me when I was your darling?' ‘No.' ‘No?' ‘No.' Actually, what they have there might not be so bad. Modern drama. I've always thought someone should write a play or book where the whole two acts or two hundred pages of it takes place between the time the guy gets out of his chair to go to the window a few feet away till he reaches the window and looks out. Or gal. And maybe at the end all he or she does is look out of it a second and raise a hand to wave or say hi or tries to raise the window and gives up after one try. So I'm saying this soap maybe has something going for it that I didn't know. Maybe all soaps if they're all as slow. But I'm tired, as I told you I'd be, so my judgment of them could also be very bad. School teaching knocks the living stuffing out of you. The kids today—” “You really didn't give it a chance. You came in with lousy opinions of it and then did everything you could to back them up.” “I gave it enough, didn't I? Ten minutes, around—what more's it need?” “If it was a book how many pages would you give it? Twenty pages, you'd have to. That'd be about thirty minutes for a fast reader, maybe forty for a slow. “If it was a lousy