WindowsWare 2 the Maxx/winmaxx.zip/winmaxx/COMM/MNTEXT37.ZIP/FROG37.TXT

Text File | 1992-02-15 | 26KB | 443 lines

                       Chapter Thirteen
                              of
           THE MATING SOUNDS OF NORTH AMERICAN FROGS

                   a novel about teaching
                    in two first-persons
                     by Meredith Garmon
     (with a lot of help on the T parts from Melody Lewis)
                    under the pseudonyms
                            S.N.
                            and
                            K.T.
      -------------------------------------------------------

Sa-10-Ja-81
     Around 1:00 or 2:00 this afternoon Ips and Firefly pulled up at
my apartment.
     "How do you two come to be together?" I asked.  They looked at
each other then burst out laughing.  Half an hour or so later, Shelly
and Clover came by.  Neither pair had expected to see the other, and
there was some hesitation between Shelly and Firefly.  But such a warm
mood was on everyone that they stayed--ended up staying until after
dark.  Stories were told and orange juice was drunk and Shelly's
wineskin was passed around several times--without seeming to get any
emptier.  The Firefly and Shelly, I'm delighted to report, are friends
again.
     I learned that yesterday had been a very big day for my four
young friends.  I freely reconstruct from the accounts given:

     Shelly drives to school in a dusty, dented '67 Camaro of some
off-black color.  Ips usually takes the bus.  It isn't that Shelly's
unwilling to give her brother a lift; it's just that Ips never knows
when Shelly'll leave school--half-way through lunch, or not until
after dark.  And if he does catch a ride with her, he never knows
where he'll be taken--some counter-culture hang-out, a theatrical
rehearsal, or a public library.
     Owing to a shortage of either busses or drivers, each bus takes
two loads full of O.C.H.S. darlins to and from school every day.  Ips
is among his bus's second load in the afternoon. Moreover, his bus has
the longest first-load route.  So Ips has about half an hour after
school everyday to do whatever he wants with the school facilities.
     Sometimes, of course, he doesn't ride the bus at all, but comes
along with one of us over to my place or T's place for one of our
gatherings.
     Yesterday afternoon Firefly found Ips in one of the science rooms
doing something with a Bunsen burner, a flask of translucent pink
liquid, and some familiar looking stuff resembling oregano.
     "Hi, Firefly" he said, looking up.
     "Hello.  Whatcha doing?"
     "I think I can increase the potency of this stuff," said Ips,
resuming his work.
     "Why don't you just get your sister to wave her hand over it?"
said The Firefly a little sarcastically.
     "She doesn't know how yet," said Ips, unconscious of any sarcasm.
"She'd need to know what chemistry to manipulate. That's what I'm
working on."
     Firefly stood and silently watched him work.  At length, she took
a deep breath.  "Ips. Let's have dinner tonight."
     "T's place?" said Ips without looking up.
     "No," said Firefly carefully.  "A restaurant.  Just you and me."
     "What about the others?" said Ips, looking up, puzzled.
     "It's a date, Ips," explained Firefly, "I'm asking you on a
date."
     Ips turned a little pale, and swallowed.  "Why?" he quavered.
     Firefly smiled at him.  "Because I like you."
     "Oh," said Ips.  He swallowed again.
     There were still three or four hours to go until normal dinner
time, but Firefly didn't want Ips to have a chance to mention anything
to Shelly, and she especially didn't want to make an appearance at the
Betyse residence to pick him up.  So she invited him to her trailer
until dinner time.
     Home for the Firefly is a pink and white trailer parked at the
end of a slithering dirt road in the middle of a pine thicket.  The
thicket grew around a pond where on warm summer evenings millions of
tiny Firefly namesakes spelled out neon messages to all who could
speak their language.
     Ever since the divorce Firefly lived there with her three funny
dogs, an iguana named Mahatma, and her waterbed.  The trailer was
jammed with books, including several childhood fairy tales on all the
subjects that interested Firefly: science fiction, Zen Buddhism, the
Tarot, photography, old movies, new movies, movies in the middle, men,
animal husbandry, butterflies, birds, wine-making for fun and profit,
the Galapagos Islands, hypnotism, and on and on.  Beowulf and Tom
Robbins and Russian novels, French plays, Chinese poetry, Lithuanian
love ballads, Greek everything.
     Other jumbles lying about on the floor and other flat surfaces
were large, medium and small photographs, mostly taken by Firefly
herself on her Minolta FXJ-37.  There was a worn but priceless Kasmir
rug she had liberated from the butler's pantry of Mum and Dad's
country place.  There were several large batik cushions.  There was a
French champagne crate filled with stereo albums from Chopin to David
Bowie.  There was an antique wooden horse from a traveling carnival
merry-go-round.
     Ips stumbled over her three-year collection of Rolling Stone and
two of the dogs as he fell into Firefly's castle.  She lead him
through the jungle of books, notebooks, photography equipment, a large
sack of Purina Iguana Chow, a potted begonia, half an ashtray from
Lucerne, and over to the kitchen.
     "Can I borrow your phone?" he asked.  "I guess I need to tell Mom
not to worry."
     "Just tell her you're at friend's.  Don't say it's me," and
Firefly winked at him.
     "OK," said Ips.  He dialed.  Shelly answered.  "Hi . . . Um,
Shel?  I'm over at a friend's house.  I'll eat dinner here.  Tell Mom,
OK?"
     "OK," said Shelly.  "Which friend?"  But Ips hung up.

     Firefly fixed them something to drink.  Rum-and-something for
herself, cola for Ips.  "Sorry I don't have any root beer," she said.
     Firefly's long brown hair spilled onto an orange batik blouse;
Ips had short-cropped darker hair, a freckled nose that supported
black-framed glasses, a white button-shirt; they both wore jeans. They
sat side by side at the kitchen table.  She told him about Lucerne,
and he told her about Jack Frost, and in between he said several
awkward things, but her gay laughter soothed his embarrassment.  As
they fell silent one time after about twenty minutes, she scanned his
face; he, trying to think of what else to say, scanned her kitchen
appliances.  She took a deep breath for the second time that day,
leaned toward him, cupped his chin in her hand.  She turned his face
toward hers and kissed his small mouth.  Ribit.
     The larger part of Ips's guts flew up through his throat, shot
into his brain, and burst out the top of his skull.  He groped to
return his insides to their assigned posts.  He got them down as far
as his throat, and he swallowed hard.  She kissed him again and
wrapped her arms around him.  Then she picked his limp arms up off the
table and put them around her. She kissed him again.  Gradually Ips
caught on.  Before long he was munching face like a regular.  His
heart still pounded like a crazed, desperate thing, but his other
insides returned to their places.  But then Firefly got up, took Ips's
hand, and lead him back to her bedroom.  There went his guts again.

     As she hung up the phone yesterday afternoon, Shelly, of course,
knew where Ips was.  From afar she wished him well.  She told her Mom
that Ips was over at classmate David Riggs's house working on a
project for world history class and would stay there for dinner.
     Clover was staying over at the Betyses'.  After dinner Shelly and
Clover began conventional dish washing.  After Ms. Betyse left them to
the work, however, Shelly zapped the dishes clean and waved them to
their places.
     "How long did it take you to learn to do that?" asked Clover.
     Shelly shrugged.  "All my life, one way or another."
     Shelly lead Clover by the hand into her bedroom.  The room was
not large, as bedrooms go.  Like the Firefly, Shelly hoarded books.
Nearly half the cubic space was occupied with books: on floor-to-
ceiling shelves, in piles on the floor, the window sill, the desk, the
chair, the bed.  To mention a few of the topics, there were,
naturally, books on witchcraft, ancient religions, herbal medicines.
There were books full of the art of Aubrey Beardsley, Mucha, Goya.
There was a large volume of the complete works of D. H. Lawrence and
another of Emily Dickinson poems. There was a whole shelf devoted to
books by and about the Bronte sisters.  Two shelves were full of
feminist approaches to psychoanalysis, theology, literary criticism,
the Tarot, historiography, etc.  On her pillow, beside a bean bag
lizard by the name of Theodore, lay a large-paged Edward Gorey book.
     The walls of the room were not visible at all.  They were
completely covered with posters, placards, and what-not.  Even looking
between the shelves of books all that could be seen were pieces of
poster.  Much of the art displayed had themes similar to Shelly's own
drawings-- indeed, several of her own creations adorned the walls.
Two foam rubber mattresses lay on the floor under the window.  One was
Shelly's bed, the second had been brought in for Clover.
     A small wild-yellow-haired troll with pot belly and
characteristically short outstretched arms stared madly down from a
shelf near the ceiling.  Once there had been posters on the ceiling
too, but Shelly found that little bugs liked to set up house between
the back of the poster and the ceiling.  This wouldn't have been so
bad except that the little critters would dive-bomb down on Shelly as
she slept or read or whatever.

     Two hours later Ips and Firefly were holding hands and walking
around her little pond as darkness began to fall.  He was wrapped in
Firefly's old leather jacket and trying to steel his senses, feeling
that an overdose of essence of Firefly might, just then, dissolve him.
     "'Our breath comes out white clouds, mingles, and hangs in the
air,'" said Firefly, quoting Joan Baez.
     "Sure does," said Ips.  His devotion to his various scientific
investigations had leaked out the old cerebrum through his nose,
mouth, and ears.  Something else had been leaking too. There was an
amorphous wet spot on the front of his jeans.  Firefly had one too.
They were twin patches; darker blue than the faded denim fields upon
which they played.  They were happy, smiling patches which cheerfully
announced what had been going on beneath them.
     Back inside, Firefly burrowed through a wicker trunk that held
most of her clothes and produced two pairs of wonderfully soft, clean,
nearly identical Levi's.  They were embroidered with planets,
butterflies, and rainbows.  One pair she handed to Ips, and then she
slid out of her wet pair, catching Ips's senses off guard and
unsteeled.  He nearly overdosed as his eyes followed her panties down
her legs and then up through the air as she casually tossed them onto
a high shelf.  They landed on a copy of Plato's Republic.  The panties
were embroidered too: with pink balloons, daisies, and a shimmering
yellow brick road.
     "It's lucky you're a size seven," said Firefly.  "I mean it's
kind of a coincidence, don't you think?"  Ips gulped and said he
thought so.  He was still nearly overwhelmed, but turned shyly away to
remove his own jeans.  "It's good that you're skinny," said Firefly,
noting the snug fit as he stepped into the fresh jeans.  "I hope they
don't (giggle) cramp your style."
     As Ips pulled up her jeans, he did overdose, though it didn't
quite dissolve him after all.  With Firefly's essence, force, and
beauty wrapped all about his heart and his lower half, his head
drifted off to the ceiling where it bobbed around with Plato's
panties.
     "Ips?  Uh, Ips?" said Firefly.  She touched him and brought his
bodily parts all together again.  Remembering his aversion to Downey
fabric softener, she kissed her finger and put it to his lips,
"Rainwater," she said.  "It's what makes them, you know, soft."
     "Yeah," he murmured from far away in Paradise.
     They embraced and fell back on the sofa, entwined, rubbing noses,
making low noises in their throats.  Soon his stomach rumbled.
Firefly's murmured an answer.  Ips's rumbled again, gurgled, then
smacked its lips.  All the little gastric juices were busy as busy
could be.  They were quaffing ale and playing games of nine pins in
the stomachs of the pair.  All the gurgling and rumbling caused her
lips to curve upward; then his lips too; then their faces opened up
and they both began to chuckle, great fat chuckles which were paving
the way for belly whoppers and side splitters.  Their insides had
turned to music punctuated by drum rolls.
     In this condition they wended their way down the road to the
Burger Prince.  Finnegan made each of them one of his extra fat,
gooey, cheesy, super specials, and all was right with the world.

     Later that evening, Ips called home again.  He'd been invited to
spend the night, he explained, and told Mom not to expect him.

     Rosy-fingered dawn stole over Our County and awakened the two
couples this morning.
     Ips opened his eyes and was momentarily disoriented. Realizing
where he was, he sat up suddenly.  Slosh, slosh, went the water bed.
Firefly's eyes blinked open and she smiled.  Her arms reached out and
drew him to her.  She kissed his nose and closed her eyes again.  Ips
studied her face, her neck, her collarbone, the rising and falling of
her breasts.  The sun shone through the window casting a warm yellow
glow on her ceiling, her bed, her sheets, herself.  Ips felt as though
there had been a great blooming inside him of seeds that he'd never
known existed. He kissed her cheek and she smiled again.  She made a
soft low moan and her hand slid down his back and curled over a small
white buttock.
     "Morning, kid," she said.  Her other hand slid behind his head
and pushed his lips to hers.
     The children of the Earth do love repetition.
     Elsewhere the same sun's light awoke pale Shelly and dark Clover.
Shelly nibbled affectionately around Clover's neck and ear.

     At length our party ended, and I walked the two couples out to
their cars.  They drove away, and the winter night swallowed them up.
My apartment now is silent, save for the scratching of my pen as I
write, and the echoes of their youthful laughter.


                       Chapter Fourteen

Wednesday, January 28, 1981
     Deaths and disappearances happen all the time in the Naked City.
But nothing like Mr. Blankenshield's demise has ever happened right
here in Our County at Our County High School.  Our County is a
smallish southern community that houses no animosity, advocates easy
honest living, believes in a "good day's work," and proclaims that
Jesus Saves.
     When motoring through Our County on the four-lane, one's senses
are molested by a clutter of local sights, sounds, smells, feelies,
and tastes.  One taste, however, denied the humans of Our Dry County
is liquor, that devil-brewed concoction which encourages us to indulge
in all those evil, fun Mortal Sins.  Tra la.
     Periodically, in Our County, the Jesus Saves people mingle with
the bootleggers long enough to acquire a common interest:
     Preacher Sunday: Son, you will burn eternally in hell if you
support the referendum providing taxable, legal sale of liquor in Our
County.
     Bootlegger Joe (who often deals in grass and other assorted
"mind-altering" goodies):  Aw, shee-it, an, now why would I wanna do
that?
     Preacher Sunday: Son, the everlasting and all-consuming fire of
the devil will scorch out the entrails [ouch!] of all who propose this
sinful amendment.
     B.J.: Like, wow, man.  I mean, shee-it.  Now would I ever be one
dumb mutha fucka to go and do that.  Man, I'd be cuttin' my own
throat.  Bootleggin' is a fine business, a profitable business.  Man,
you must be a real dumb . . . etc.
     Preacher S.: You're right, son.  Business is business. You keep
yours, and I'll continue to do the Lord's.  And, son, (throaty swell)
Jesus thanks you.
     And God keeps marching on.
     The sights in Our County include a church on every corner, and
numerous cafes and beaneries, most of which invite the local humans to
EAT.  The invitations are appropriately advertised in multi-colored
neon decor.  I like to call it Early Bijou, or God Aren't We All Too
Fat Anyway?
     In Our County you can buy, eat, peel, roast, or mail to Sunny
California, peanuts, pecans, peaches, and miniature madonnas who
announce to the world via genuine gold plate letters: SEE ROCK CITY.
What does Coney Island have on us? the plastic mongers cry.  Or
whatever.
     So, really, the surprising thing is that no one as prominent in
the community as Blankenshield has been murdered before.  I've often
wished some thesis-writing whiz kid would pop along and realize what a
gold mine we have here.  What a hotbed of assorted neuroses, potential
violence, and guilt-ridden sinners we breed, educate, and bury here.
     The Big Problem, as I see it, boils down to two principles that
are commonly practiced here in Our County, and maybe Yours too.  1)
Doublethink (discovered and named by the fantastic George Orwell), and
2) Dillygaff (discovered and named by a student).  I understand
doublethink as a mental technique allowing escape from inescapable
facts.  It allows the conscience to remain clear. Preacher Sunday, for
example, knows that Bootlegger Joe sells liquor (and some etc.),
illegally and at prices that would blow you away.  But then he does a
quick, even sub-conscious adjustment which comforts him.  He thinks,
"It's not taxable. Legally, it doesn't exist.  I see no establishments
who flaunt from the painted windows "LIQUOR," and, furthermore, I
never have to worry about my two virginal young (16) daughters being
'forced' into a local den of iniquity, where naked women offer demon
rum and God Knows What Else, and where no one is present to remind
them that Jesus Saves."
     Actually, as the Firefly could tell you, both daughters had
already lost it--their virginalness--after the Marshall Tucker concert
in Atlanta.  They didn't just fall off the turnip truck.
     Dillygaff is a little different.  Once I overheard the following
conversation in the halls at Our County High School.
     Sweet Young Thing: Henry, I'm just gonna have to break our date
Saturday night.  My goldfish has died, and I simply must clean out my
sock drawer.
     Young Stud-To-Be:  Hey, man, it's OK.  Do I look like I give a
fuck?
     S.Y.T.: Oh, Henry, I just knew you'd understand . . .
     Y.S.T.B.:  Hey, like, don't sweat it, man, I mean, do I look like
I give a fuck?
     Dillygaff must be uttered casually, apathetically. Howsoever much
the utterer may, in truth, give very much of a fuck, he or she must
not let on.  It would spoil his or her image.  Hence, tra la,
dillygaff is born.

Sunday, January 25, 1981

          Sunday: the first day of the week and the Christian Sabbath.
from O.E. "sunnandaeg," for "day of the sun." Sundae: a dish of ice
cream with toppings such as syrup, fruits, nuts, and whipped cream.
origin unknown.
          --from the American Heritage fat red dictionary with the
stern eagle on the front.

     Sundays crumple up on me like old wet newspapers; they are sad
letters damp from too many tears; incoherent term papers with coffee
stains.  Perhaps it made the dreary Anglo-Saxons feel better about
their dreary weather and dreary heroes to name a day for the sun.  I
don't know; I should have much preferred Ra's Day.  It has a snappy
sound and more interesting visual appeal. The Egyptians had such fun
with their gods.  Or maybe it's the big animal heads I like.
Something.  I don't know.  It's usually cloudy in Our County on
Sunday.  Often it rains.  Sometimes it storms.  Cindy Lou Mayberry, a
junior in my third period class once related a gruesome tale with a
moral in there somewhere.  It seems her mother, having dutifully
returned with Daddy and the kids from services at the First Baptist
Church of Our County, was dutifully washing dishes from the Sunday
lunch of fried chicken, boiled okra, hot biscuits, and strawberry
jello.  There was a rather vivacious thunderstorm flirting around with
the backyard and it seems one electric cloud decided to zap itself
right down Mrs. Mayberry's stainless steel water faucet and from
thence into Mrs. Mayberry's very body.  The naughty cloud melted Mrs.
Mayberry's new pantyhose and 100% rayon half slip and damn near melted
Mrs. Mayberry herself.  Jehovah/Zeus does, after all, have his own
problems on Sunday.
     Sundays . . . are too serious.  Once I tried to read a Tom
Robbins novel on Sunday, and the book kept jumping out of my hands.
     I wish N were here to explain Sundays to me.  I miss his sad face
that crinkles into smiles and I miss his juggling acts, and I miss him
himself, too.  He is becoming dear to me and his brain tickles too.
Twice I've heard him say ribit under his breath as if couldn't hear or
wouldn't know what he meant.  Sometimes it's hard to imagine what what
O.C.H.S. was like before he came.
     Sunday should be a bright copper penny and a half of a day. We
should all receive moss and dawn colored invitations to go out in the
forest somewhere and have fun.  We could thereby rid ourselves of
various Sunday guilts (Mama always said to go to church), poorly
written term papers to read (ugh), houses to dust and mop and
otherwise make tidy, clothes to wash and iron for the coming week, and
so on.  Where are the satyrs with their pipes and songs and flower
decked invitations?  Would that they would arrive with a hairy unicorn
to ride me away from this dust laden, term paper inhabited, guilt-
ridden house and into the enchanted forest!  Or something.  I don't
know.
     Lennon's here today, he has tweeted himself hoarse.  He always
tweets a lot when he or I or both of us are depressed.  I wonder how
he knows.  Maybe it was my upside down mouth, or maybe he reads minds.
The Firefly has remarked on more than one occasion that their is
something special about him.  She is so fond of him, in fact, that she
is embroidering a tiny papaya colored poncho for him to wear when the
weather turns chilly.
     It is chilly, cloudy and gloomy.  Ah, Sunday, where is your Sun?
Fortunately, there's definition number two.  Into the kitchen I went,
steering clear, just in case, of my stainless steel water faucet over
the sink, and I built a colossal sundae of pistachio ice cream,
slivered almonds, chopped preserved kiwi fruit, and lemon yogurt,
whipped to the consistency of cream.  I am nothing if not a
traditionalist when it comes to the fine art of creating a sundae.
     Term papers keep calling, yammering, they won't shut up.  "I
come, Greymalkins."  Let me just slip on a little Chopin.  Music to
grade by.  I go.

     Armed with my Sunday sundae, I plunged once again into the term
paper adventure.  Lennon munched daintily on the slivered almonds, I,
less daintily, into the lovely green pistachio, and clumsily into my
schoolteacher mask and so, once again, it was term papers.  Somewhere
around page twenty-two of Elizabeth Sue Wheelrow's final draft of "Our
Friend, the Beaver," the telephone rang.  As usual, I jumped up,
knocking over the ice cream dish with Lennon in it, tripping over the
tiffany lampshade that Clover was making from scratch from a mail
order kit, and I finally achieved the offending phone.  Actually, I
usually don't answer it, being congenitally frightened of mechanical
noise and disembodied voices.  Today was different, though, being
Sunday and me being very bored, I decided to take my chances.
     I clutched the black devil bravely and cautiously inquired: "Ah,
er, uh, hello?"
     "Hey, Ms. T, it's me, Clover."
     "Uh, well, yes, hello to you, Clover.  Happy Sunday, as it were."
     "Same to you, and many happy returns."
     "Well, thanks, my girl, and thanks, too, for rescuing me from the
Mad Beaver."
     "The, uh, what?"
     "Oh, nothing Clover, just a little esoteric term paper humor, you
know."
     "Ms. T, have you been hitting the rum again?"
     "Clover, you know one doesn't hit rum.  One gently and tenderly
folds it into whichever medium one is going to celebrate with."
     "You're beginning to sound like N . . ."
     "Well, then, I'd better get a grip on myself in a hurry. Must be
an overdose of pistachio . . ."
     "No rum?"
     "No, Clover, not yet."
     "Look, I know you're busy, but I need to talk to you, and I know
how you feel about the phone, so could I, uh . . ."
     "Sure, delighted, fantastic . . . I'll fix up a snack and some
snack liquid."
     "Great, see you in a flash.  Ciao."
     "Chow," I said to Clover.  "Hurray!" I screamed to Lennon after
hanging up.  He warbled an excited reply, for he too was very fond of
Clover.  The satyrs had come at last!  And outside the gloom was
shifting, drifting away, and see! Was it?  Could it be?  Hell, yes, it
was!
     Sunburst: a flash of sunlight, especially through a break in
clouds.
     --from the American Heritage big fat dictionary with the smiling
eagle on the front.