Frog

by Stephen Dixon

  Runs to the sidewalk screaming “Help, police, murderer in our apartment, 35 Ribeka, second floor.” Was that good to do? Denise. Man might break the bathroom lock. Runs around the building and rings all the tenants’ bells. “What?” someone says. “Yes?” “Hello?” “Who’s there?” others say. “Not all at once,” he says. “It’s Howard Tetch. There’s a murderer in my apartment and my family’s there. I just got out through the fire escape but they’re in the bathroom. My wife and kids. Ring me in.” Lots of buzzing. One person says “Oh Lord” over the intercom. He goes in, runs back to the door, holds it open with his foot, stretches over and rings all the bells. “Yes?” “What is it?” “Who’s there?” “Does anyone have a gun? If you do, could you bring it to me at my door or just by the staircase?” No answer. “If you do have one, loaded—please.” Runs upstairs, down the hall, bangs on his door. “I’m coming in with the cops, you bastard, so you better get the hell out. The door to the fire escape’s open. Denise, you all right?” Doesn’t hear anything. Thinks he hears something. “Yell if you’re all right, Denise.” “Yes, OK,” she yells. “Stay there.” Runs back down the hall, into the short alcove that has a door at the end of it opening onto the fire escape. Opens it, gets on the escape, man doesn’t seem to have left, not a person on the sidewalk. Goes into the apartment, gets the big cutting knife out of the drawer, bottle of ammonia under the sink, fills up a water glass with it, walks into the front hall. Man’s not there. Holds his breath. Can’t hear him, maybe because Olivia’s still crying. Maybe he did leave. “I advise you to get out now, fella. You have my permission. Go through the front door,” unchaining and unlocking it and throwing it open, “or the outside kitchen door. That’s open now too.” The two women in the apartment across the hall look at him through their half-opened door. “What’s wrong?” one of them says. “You’re bleeding something awful.” “Call the police. Burglar with a knife might still be inside. If he comes out—you hear this, burglar? If you come out, I’m telling my neighbors across the hall, they should let you go. Don’t even try to stop him or even scream,” he shouts to the women. “I’m stepping back now, burglar. I mean I’m going to the middle of the front hall but against the wall without the door. The front hall’s the one by the opened front door. If you’re in the living room, go out through the dining room into the kitchen or just go past me through the front door or just any way you want to go. Through the dining room into the kitchen and then out the kitchen door to the front door in the front hall. Or you want me to go into any other room but the bathroom when you leave, say so. But you better do it fast. The police have to be here soon. But if you try anything funny before you leave, I’ve a glass of ammonia I’m holding that I’ll throw in your eyes and several knives and something to chop off your head too. Do you hear? You going or not?” “I hear,” from the back hall or one of the kids’ rooms. “It sounds like a trap.” “It isn’t. Just go. I won’t stop you. You can understand why. I just want you out.” “I don’t know.” “Through the kitchen door and down the fire escape’s the best and quickest way. I did it myself just before to get out. It’s easy.” Listens. Nothing. No sound from the bathroom too. “I have that door wide open now. I came back through the building’s hallway onto the fire escape. You can even go out that way if you want and down the stairs and out the building’s front door. But you’ll probably have a better chance of escaping through the kitchen door to the fire escape and down the ladder. It’s still dark out there; nobody will see you. Anyway, you better be going.” “OK, I’m going. Out the kitchen door. Step into the fucking living room.” “Anything you say.” “No tricks. You die before you pull something on me.” “Don’t worry, none. I just want you gone.” Man runs into the kitchen and out the kitchen door. Howard goes into the kitchen, sees him hanging from the ladder about to drop, goes on the fire escape and says “I hope you break your fucking leg, you bastard. Break it. Drop, you bastard, fucker, sonofabitch,” and leans over and spills the ammonia on his head. The man screams. Howard goes into the kitchen to get the rest of the ammonia but when he gets to the fire escape the man’s gone. “Thief on the street, tall guy,” he shouts. “Shaved skull, black T-shirt with no sleeves—an undershirt, sneakers. Thief, broke into our apartment, has a big knife.” Denise comes into the kitchen carrying Eva and her arm around Olivia. “Good God, your arm.” “All over. Something not to be believed, right?” and shuts and locks the door. “You have to take care of that. Is it deep?” “Two places. Not deep. Got it with his knife. One’s already stopped.” “Daddy’s bleeding,” Olivia says. “It’s not so bad, sweetie,” and washes the arm down with a wet dishtowel and holds a bunch of paper towels to his shoulder. Knock on the door. He starts. “Is it OK now?” one of the two women says. Beverly or Rhonda. Can never get their names straight, when he remembers their names. “There really was a burglar here?” she says, both coming into the kitchen. “Excuse me,” turning away, the other going back out. “Let me get a bathrobe on,” he says and kisses Denise, Olivia, top of Eva’s head, says to the other woman in the front hall “Go back in there; I’ll be right out,” goes into the bathroom, washes the blood off the rest of his body, puts antiseptic on the cuts, gets his bathrobe on, the handkerchief out of the bathrobe pocket and holds it to the shoulder cut, goes to the kitchen. “Have you seen the cat?” he says to the three women. “She might have got out.” “In our closet,” Denise says. “She was as scared as the rest of us.” “That sonofabitch,” he says. “I thought we were done for, all of us,” and closes his eyes, feels like crying but doesn’t want to scare the kids more than they’ve been so holds back. “We called the police,” Beverly or Rhonda says. “Thank you.” Bell rings from downstairs. “That must be them,” one of the women and Denise say at the same time. He presses the intercom’s talk button and says “Yes, police?” “It’s me, you fag. I know where you are. I’ll get you for burning me. We had a deal. I’ll get you good. Knife in your heart when you’re not looking. When you’re in bed or walking on the street.” “Try it,” he shouts, “just try it. I’ll be armed from now on. No bullshit, I’m not kidding, so try it. I’ll kill you first.” Presses the listen button. No answer. Presses the talk button. “Did you hear me, killer? I said did you hear me? Just try your shit with me and you’re dead.” “Forget it,” Denise says. “Really, he’s probably gone. Just shut the door and I’ll get the girls back in bed.” He shuts the front door. “Need any help?” Beverly or Rhonda says to Denise. “No thanks, you’ve been very helpful as it is.” “You know, this same thing happened this summer in this building.” Denise shakes her head, indicates with her eyes the kids. She takes them to their rooms and the woman says to Howard “It did, almost the same thing. We didn’t tell you. We forgot. When you were away. To the people who moved into F-5. But after it happened, moved out the next week. He took their money and jewelry and some other things and threatened to hurt them but didn’t. I forget what they said he looked like except he was white. Do you remember, Ron?” “Not exactly. He wasn’t so young, that I remember. Forty, they said, closer to fifty, and very dirty looking. They were surprised he was still hoisting himself up to fire escapes at that age.” “Mine was much younger and actually pretty clean looking, and black. It’s terrible, though, whenever it happens.” “Fortunately, nobody got too hurt.” Beverly grabs Rhonda’s arm, says “That’s enough chatter if we want to let Howard get back to sleep,” and he sees them to the door. He goes to the back hall. Eva’s already asleep. Olivia’s room is dark, Denise is humming a tune to her, when he hears a siren. Siren stops, he sees flashing through the living room window, must be the light on top of the car. Then more sirens, cars, flashing, doors slamming, two-way radio and talk and static, voices in the street. He goes downstairs to meet them. Doesn’t want them ringing the downstairs bell, which is loud, or even coming up, as they might wake up the kids and scare them. But he’s sure they’ll want to see things and make a report.

  He gives a description of the man. “Most vi
ctims don’t catch half as much as that,” a policeman says. “But by now he’s probably thrown away that shirt and has his jacket, hat and a pair of fake eyeglasses on.” They look around the apartment. “He’ll probably never show up again, but you never know. Usually those big revenge threats are baseless and if they don’t get any of your I.D.s, they hardly remember what neighborhood you live in. But your place is very vulnerable, so I’d get a few crossbars installed over the kitchen door and possibly even a much stronger door with thick plastic windows in it instead of glass. Door you have a foot could push in with one kick.” They go. He washes and dresses his cuts, cleans up the apartment, puts the kids’ place mats and the rest of their little silverware and Eva’s table seat on the table to get a head start in the morning, makes himself a vodka and grapefruit juice, drinks it down, makes another but after the first sip sticks it in the freezer for one of tomorrow’s predinner drinks. One made him more than enough relaxed. But maybe he shouldn’t get so relaxed. Maybe the guy will come back tonight, thinking it’s the time he’d least expect him to. Doubts it. He’ll think police will be cruising around. Goes into the bedroom with the stick. Lights are off, shades up, Denise in bed. “Are you asleep?” “How can I be? And watch out for the phone cord on the floor. I’ll probably be up all night.” Phone’s by her side of the bed on the floor, far as the cord can go. “I’ll probably be up all night myself,” he says. “No, sleep, I’ll stay awake and tell you if I hear anything.” “No no, you sleep.” He lies down on his back on top of the covers, yawns, feels sleepy, gets up, takes off his bathrobe, gets under the covers, stick by his hand at the edge of the bed. Should he get a jarful of ammonia? No, just the smell of it, even with the cap tight, might keep her up. “You still up?” “Yes; I told you. How’s your arm?” “Fine. I took care of it. They won’t—he won’t—I don’t know why I said they—come back tonight. Tomorrow 111 get a locksmith and see about getting a new lock for the kitchen door.” “Call the landlord and tell him what happened. Ask him for a new door and a couple of better locks for it. No more hook and latch and skeleton key. We want real burglar-preventive locks—even an alarm on the door to go off, if someone tries. We pay enough rent.” “Tomorrow I’ll do that.” “You don’t, I will.” “I will; I said so. Now you go to sleep. It’s silly for both of us to stay up.” “You went through enough; I’ll stay up.” “You didn’t go through enough?” “I did, but you did more. What you did—I can’t believe it. Not that you haven’t done something like that before. But I don’t think it ever got so bad where you were cut like that and faced the man so close.” “Oh no, my head—remember?” “That’s right. The intruder, at school.” “And that time—hey, I just remembered something. Gil never came upstairs when I knocked everything to the floor to get him to come. Broke some very nice things too. I’m sorry. The bell jar and both figurines, did you notice?” “Too bad. It doesn’t matter though. You didn’t throw them away, did you?” “Yes; in the garbage. They were in pieces.” “I’ll get them out tomorrow. And Gil and Jane are away for a few days, that’s why.” “If he wasn’t I’m sure he would have come when I yelled and banged. But that time when I stood on the sidewalk and acted like a total misfit to some guy who had a gun on two men. In a vestibule. Where the mailboxes are. On my street. A gun. But I thought I knew what kind it was. A .45. You don’t want to hear this again.” “It’s been a long time since you told me it.” “It looked like a .45. At least I’d seen pictures of the gun—movies, newspapers, comics as a kid. Like a big black try square. And someone who knew, he’d been an M.P. in the army, had told me it couldn’t shoot straight more than fifteen feet and the guy in the vestibule was about twenty-five feet away and down a few steps. Somehow I also didn’t believe he’d shoot at me. He was a big chubby fellow, with a nice fat face. Shirt out under his jacket—a real shlub. Looked like my cousin Nat.” “Still, it was something to do. You saved those men from God knows what.” “He wanted them to take him up to their apartment. Rape, robbery, even worse—they didn’t know and he wouldn’t say. I just kept acting like an idiot out there, jumping up and down on one foot, hooting, cackling, blubbering with my finger over my lips, looking at the sky in great wonder and then down at my feet as if I were searching for something every time he turned to look at me. It worked. He came out, his back to the men facing me with their arms still raised, put the gun under his belt, looked at me as if he could squash me with that look and very casually walked down the street. I ducked behind a parked car.” “And later ran up the block—” “Right. Immediately. The police call box didn’t work. Nor the fire one attached to it. I wanted Fire to call the police to grab this guy whom I could still see walking down the street. And then the fellow who broke into my apartment. When we were just going together. Same thing as tonight’s, just about. Two or three a.m. Maybe later. I heard him, just as I did this one—” “How long had you heard him?” “Which one?” “This one.” “Minutes. I didn’t know what it was. Thought it could be Kitty or the wind.” “I’m glad you heard him. I was sound asleep. Who knows what he would have done if he’d surprised us.” “That’s what I thought. And after being up against the guy…” “But what happened then—years ago?” “You don’t remember?” “Just tell me.” “It’ll keep you up. Go to sleep, really.” “No, tell me.” “You know I don’t like telling a story if I know the person heard it or knows it fairly well.” “Tell.” “I didn’t know what to do. I just lay in bed—sat up, rather—thinking Lamp? Watch? What could I throw at him, defend myself with?’ I had nothing, just like tonight. Then—it was pitch black but maybe my eyes were adjusting to it—he moved his head slowly past the bedroom door frame, looking in. He had a stocking over it, just as I thought this one might, and he must have been six-six from where his head was behind the door. I measured it right after and it scared the hell out of me he was so big. But I did something that just came out of me—I actually didn’t think. I made the sound of a ghost. First very low—ohhhh—and then louder and higher till I became a screaming ghost, but the same long oh without break from start to finish. He ran right out through the kitchen window he’d come in and onto the roof. And then, I suppose, along the other roofs till he got himself down someplace, while I yelled outside ‘Thief on the roofs, close your windows; thief along the roofs of the 200 block of West Twenty-eighth,’ and maybe even that it was the odd-numbered side of the 200 block, and then locked my window. I slept with a bat, wish I had that bat now, but a bat I bought the next day—slept with it for three months. Held it while I slept sometimes. You remember—even when you were with me.” “You put it on the floor then.” “I did, I didn’t, I don’t remember—maybe only when we made love. I’ll probably sleep with this stick for three months. Or a bat. I should buy a bat. Or a gun. Should I get a gun?” “What?” “Of course not, but I bet I’d be able to get a license for one now.” “What about that time, though, you grabbed a gun from a man’s hand when he pointed it at a hot dog vendor, and he even shot him, didn’t he?” “It was a fake gun—wood, painted silver, maybe his kid’s—but I didn’t know it. Fact is, and this is probably the shot I told you about, when I was struggling to keep his arm up I could have sworn I heard the gun go off in my ear. Could have been a car backfire or construction work explosion nearby, but neither would have been that loud. Anyway, my ears rang for a day—it’s ridiculous. The guy who did it claimed the hot dog man had put ground glass in the mustard, so he pulled out the gun. That’s the story the vendor told later. I saw the gun, and again, I don’t know where it came from in me, but I went up behind him—it was in broad daylight, a busy street. Or the park—I forget, but lots of people around—Grand Army Plaza, that’s where, if that’s what it’s called—opposite the Plaza Hotel. After the police took the guy away, the hot dog man offered me free franks with everything on them and any other time when I saw him selling franks in the street. It was all so crazy.” “Did you have any?” “I don’t remember. Probably not. I hate those things, all pork ears and snouts, and who
knows where those vendors piss outside, or wash their hands after, or with what.” “What about the robbery you stopped in a supermarket?” “Come on, enough.” “Just that one. I forget it completely, except for the razors.” “Razorstrops. Who knows where they got them from. Five boys, none older than thirteen it seemed, and they ran and slapped those strops against the checkout counters and demanded all the money and food stamps from the checkers. I was waiting on line with my cart and yelled ‘Get out of here, you brats,’ and they swung the strops at me and hissed and things like that, but from ten and more feet away, and then ran out. I don’t know what I would have defended myself with if they had attacked. Bread. Can of frozen concentrated grapefruit juice.” “Those dividers they have on the counters. Were there other times?” “A couple. Maybe more. Let’s forget them. I am tired.” “The doors are all locked as well as they can be?” “Roger.” “Let me check the girls again.” “I’ll do it.”