Frog

by Stephen Dixon

  “His mother: ‘Something very eventful early in my life? Let me think. Anything—right?—but which stuck and not just remembered now. This one I’ve thought of a hundred times since. I was no more than thirteen. My mother sent me to Fourteenth Street to buy dresses for my sisters, both the older and younger ones. I took the trolley and went to Rothenburg’s and Hearn’s, the two big stores there. Off Broadway. They had a walkway a number of floors up connecting across the street two of the buildings of one of those stores. A very new thing for its time and I liked looking at it and imagining things.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘People walking across, looking down at me, wondering what I was looking up at. I think the walkway is still there. I went to both stores to comparison shop. Then after seeing what they had in dresses, I bought them, maybe stopped at some outside stand-up place for a tea and cake, for she also gave me money for that, and went home.’ ‘Yes. So?’ ‘That’s all. It was a pleasant day that I took the trolley and did all this. I don’t remember that but she wouldn’t have sent me in the snow or rain. I would have got wet, then a cold because I was so prone, and the trolley stop was three blocks from our building, so the boxes would have also got soaked.’ ‘You had to carry all this. Wasn’t it too much?’ ‘I was always very strong, and at thirteen, maybe near my strongest.’ ‘Did you resent doing all this while your sisters weren’t?’ ‘Why? It was probably only two or three boxes with the five dresses in them—four for my sisters and one for me. So with twine holding them both or two and one for each hand or all three together, it couldn’t have been too hard. Besides, the trip was interesting—the building bridge, the trolley rides—so something I’d say they missed out on.’ ‘Did anything happen on the trolley? It break down? Something you saw from it like a horse from a horsecar bolting or breaking loose and you got scared?’ ‘Not that I remember.’Did you get lost or anything like that?’ ‘Depends which time you meant. I did this every spring for about five years till I was eighteen.’ ‘Then the first time. For instance, maybe you forgot this but did a man make a pass at you on the trolley or streets or in a store because you were already so beautiful and filled out, according to your photos? Or someone molest you, even, let’s say, or just winked at you and you didn’t know what it meant and got scared?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then someone try to cheat you out of your money in or out of the stores?’ ‘I’m sure people didn’t do that as much then, at least to young and old people. I told you what happened on the street and then with the bank last month with my checkbook and a Ginnie Mae?’ ‘Unbelievable. I don’t know how it could have happened.’ ‘What don’t you know or believe?’ ‘I mean I know it happened and how. But that someone would try to take out, or whatever one does with a Ginnie Mae, though I’m not quite sure what a Ginnie Mae is, and not get caught when he was standing next to the banker at the time she called you to see if you had authorized that check? That’s what happened, right?’ ‘First he ripped the handbag off my arm. So fast I didn’t even see his face. I’ve no idea even how old he is, and nobody else did who saw him, or they wouldn’t say so. My shoulder ached from that wrenching for a week. Then the same day, maybe four hours later when I’m still shaking over it, he or one of his pals tries to open a Ginnie Mae with a check that was in my bag. The banker only called me because there’s a state or federal law—something—maybe that particular bank’s policy after seeing so many people like me swindled like this—saying any check five thousand and over has to be cleared with the account’s owner. Suppose he’d just made the check out for four thousand nine-hundred and nine-nine?’ ‘Maybe there’s a five thousand minimum on a Ginnie Mae.’ ‘Anyway, I said no, that I’d never written a cheek that high in my life and for her not to accept it,’ and hung up and only then realized it had to be from the checkbook in my stolen bag. And also that I hadn’t only not asked what her name was but what bank she was with, though she did give me all that when she first got on and say it was way out on Long Island. You know, me and memory, which with new things only get further apart. Maybe, because she said she’d get back to me in a day or so, I didn’t ask her name and bank again, but she never did. I’ve a strong feeling she was in on the whole thing.’ ‘Why?’ ‘That she never called back. That I never heard from the police. Five thousand. That’s major fraud. You read where the FBI comes in on things that high. Besides, as a banker she has ways of checking if I have five thousand and over in my account, which I do but shouldn’t. People say I should put most of it in Money Market or CDs.’ ‘Well, if you do have more in it than you need for your checks, sure. But if she was involved, why would she have first called you? And why would the check have been made out for five thousand instead of four thousand five-hundred, for instance?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘If banks only make these authorization calls for five-thousand-and-over checks, then she wouldn’t have had to call you if this one was for forty-five hundred.’ ‘That I haven’t figured out yet. Maybe she doesn’t have a bank way of finding out how much I have in my account and was only finding out this way.’ ‘How?’ ‘By saying “Did you make out a check for five thousand?” And if I had said “Five thousand? I’m lucky to have five hundred in my account,” she wouldn’t have bothered. No? Wrong? Anyway, that’s not what I said. And I never got back the check she mentioned or heard anything more about it from anyone. If they caught him, this check swindler, or even if he ran away when she was making that call to me, she still would have had the check he left, if he left it, and I should have got it back by now, right?’ ‘I’d think so but I don’t know.’ ‘So where is it then? She’s in on it, I’m telling you, and I’m worried for my money. For myself too, because just by talking to me she knows I’m an old muddleheaded cow and therefore vulnerable, and she also knows a lot about how much money I have. Not just the checking account but probably the savings, stocks, how much Social Security I have coming in. She could use her expertise and all those computer machines banks have and pull the wool over my eyes.’ ‘Really, I’m sure it’s nothing like that. But maybe I should phone all the banks on Long Island till I get one that knows what happened to your check.’ ‘Sure, call, run up a two hundred dollar phone bill for yourself. Suffolk and Nassau counties are long distance and unreasonably high compared to phone rates for places of much greater distances. And what’ll it get you? Even if you get the right bank, think you’ll get the right person? And if you do and it’s our Miss Possibility Bank Fraud, think she’ll give you the right information? You won’t even know you got her, is what I’m saying, and she’ll steer you around till you’re dizzy and lost and give up hope. The truth is, so you won’t be worried about me, I’m not that worried, as I closed the account right after her call and opened another one. So she couldn’t touch my money with the old check if she tried, and with the new checks I’m never going to carry the checkbook around. Just one or two checks from it in my wallet, which will be one less load to carry in my bag.’ ‘But if they get your bag they’ll get your wallet. Did you have your wallet in the bag that guy stole?’ ‘Sure, with everything—money, laundry tickets, library card, card to get me on the subways and buses for half price—but no credit cards. Those I keep in their own pouch that I’d forgotten at home.’ I was wondering, since you never spoke of it. But I just thought of something. Did you have your checkbook balanced on its transactions’ page?’ ‘Yes, always. I do it after I write each check. You know me: meticulous.’ ‘Then that’s how the thief knew how much you had in it. Believe me, take out three-month CDs with most of your money in it. Keep two thousand at the most in your check account. Then if you need cash suddenly, other than what your Social Security brings, use one of the CDs after it matures. And if it’s two months away from maturing and you don’t want to be penalized for cashing it in early, borrow from me till it matures. Or I’ll give you whatever you need when you need it—no borrowing. You were plenty generous with me when I was short or broke, so why not, when Denise and I can afford it? But you won’t go for that idea, so the best thing is to have several three-month CDs running in a wa
y where one matures every month or semimonthly. That way you’ll always have cash available. And it won’t get complicated, as the bank lets you know a week or so before the CD matures and then rolls it over automatically if you don’t cash it in.’ ‘I’ll think about it.’ ‘Please. Or do something, if not that, with most of your checking money so it earns a good interest. But listen—about the other thing. I’m still not clear why the shopping-on-Fourteenth-Street story stands out in your mind so much.’ ‘When?’ ‘The one you gave me when I asked you to tell me something memorable—eventful—from your childhood. Your mother—the dresses and trolleys.’ ‘Maybe because she trusted me and liked my tastes. She always did.’ ‘That’s fine, and it must have made you feel very good that she did and not the others, your sisters, but is that really the only reason you remember so well the first time she asked you to do it?’ ‘That’s all. I think it’s enough.” OK, but I’m not going to use it. No disrespect to what you remember and how you value it and such, but nothing there or just not enough.’”

  “She’s coming home from shopping. Two shopping bags—too much to carry—but it was a nice day so instead of ordering by phone and getting perhaps not their best produce and paying a five dollar service charge, she went to the supermarket and of course bought too much. A man comes up behind her as she starts down the steps to her brownstone. She turns around quickly, says ‘Yes?’ He says ‘Nothing, lady, what’s with you? I’m only going inside.’ ‘May I ask what your business is in this building? You don’t live here.’ ‘No, I’m visiting a friend.’ ‘Who?’ ‘A man—a guy I know.’ ‘What’s his name? I know all the tenants here.’ ‘This one just moved in,’ and he goes past her, into the vestibule and rings several bells. She puts down her bags, opens the vestibule door and keeps it open with one foot and says from the outside ‘You rang more than one bell. That doesn’t seem as if you’re ringing your friend.’ ‘He told me his bell’s not working so to ring a few others to get in.’ Someone on the intercom says ‘Hello?’ ‘I’m looking for Bob,’ the man says. ‘No Bob here,’ and the person cuts off. ‘I know he’s there,’ the man says to her. ‘Maybe he’s in the bathroom. I’ll go in with you and knock on his door.’ ‘What floor is he on?’ ‘I know what floor. The one above this one or the next. It has a little peephole in it, I think.’ He thinks a moment. That’s right, it has.’ ‘There’s a law in this city that every apartment’s front door has to have a peephole in it, not that every landlord complies with it. This one has though. And there isn’t any Bob in the building. No Robert, Rob, Bobby—no name like that. I even know the men who live with the single women in the building, and the names of the two sons of the married couple. No Bobs. I’m sorry but I’m afraid if you don’t leave I’ll have to summon the police.’ He punches her in the face, pulls her into the vestibule by her blouse and grabs her pocketbook as she’s going down. She goes down and holds on to her pocketbook and tries to pull it back while she’s screaming. He gets over her and punches her in the head and face and then kicks her in the stomach. She lets go of the pocketbook and he runs outside with it. She said she tried to scream again but started blacking out. She said she was afraid of blacking out for she thought the man, thinking she could identify him, might come running back and kick and punch her till she was dead. She said she knew, even while she was saying it, that she shouldn’t have said she’d summon the police. She also regretted mentioning there were single women in the building and that she had spoken sarcastically to him about the city law on peepholes. A delivery boy passing the building sees her in the vestibule, comes downstairs and opens the vestibule door and asks if anything’s wrong or maybe she’s just a homeless lady resting. She can’t answer, tries to lift a finger, just stares at him. ‘Are these your bags out here? That’s what made me see you. I knew no one would just leave them there like that. Something you want me to do for you like bring them in? Are you hurt? Now that I see you close, you look it. But I don’t have much time.’ She said he kept looking up to the sidewalk as if to make sure nobody was taking his shopping cart filled with orders. Her mouth’s full of blood and a tooth or two is broken and a temporary bottom bridge also broke loose and is in her mouth somewhere and she’s afraid of choking on it. She starts swallowing blood, spits it out and the boy runs upstairs and quickly pushes the cart past the building. She said he probably was revolted by the sight of such an ugly old woman spitting like that and what she was spitting and must now look like. She lies there. People pass on the sidewalk but none look her way. No sound comes out when she tries screaming. A tenant leaving the building opens the door into the vestibule. ‘Mrs. T?’ he says. He sits her up. She points to her mouth and starts choking. He says ‘Something inside your mouth?’ She nods. ‘Is it the blood,’ he says, wiping her mouth, ‘or you want me to take whatever it is out?’ She nods. ‘You can’t spit it out?’ She tries to, shakes her head. She said she felt the bridge was getting more lodged in her throat and she was starting to panic over it. She starts gagging. The man didn’t want to stick his hand in her mouth, he later told her. Not because he was squeamish but that he was afraid she might lose control of her reflexes and chomp down hard and bite off his fingers. He’d heard where that had happened. Or read it in a newspaper. “‘Good Samaritan Gets Fingers Chewed off by Person He Saved” or something,’ he joked about the headline saying, ‘if it was a paper where I’d learned of it.’ She later told her son the man probably gave that excuse to spare her feelings and that he really didn’t want his hand in her ugly broken mouth. He lies her flat on her front, slaps her back, raises her to her knees and forearms and slaps her back, when that doesn’t work he grabs her ankles and holds her upside down and keeps bouncing her on her head or in the air till the bridge and two teeth come out. ‘Is that it?’ he says, still holding her upside down. ‘Yes.’ ‘All there is? The isolated little teeth and the connected ones?’ moving them with his foot below her face so she could see them. ‘Please. I feel vomit coming.’ When she’s being wheeled on a stretcher to the ambulance she overhears him say to one of the medical crew ‘I still can’t believe I actually did it. I just took a chance, thought I might even be making things worse, but it worked. I’ve been in a position to but never helped anyone that way before or ever had such physical strength. I felt I could have held her up and bounced her up and down for hours, and it was such fucking ecstasy after her teeth came out.’ Later in the hospital one of her sons says she should think about moving. ‘The neighborhood’s getting too rough.’ The neighborhood’s never been better,’ she says. ‘The best boutiques, good restaurants, fancy bars and bookshops. Landlords are getting two thousand a month for one-bedroom apartments, fifteen hundred for studios. People are doubling and tripling up in studios just to afford living in them. It’s all fair-market value now, once a rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartment becomes vacant and the landlord puts in an air conditioner and splashes on a little paint, and those are the going fair market rents. It’s crazy to pay it, but the whole area’s been vastly upgraded with all these young hardworking people moving in and brownstones being converted almost everywhere you look.’ ‘But with all this so-called nicer clientele more and more druggies and ripoff artists are coming in to rob them. You’re elderly. They think you have money because you live around there. Or else they jump you for the few dollars they think you might have on you, if you happen to be wearing your knockaround clothes on the street, because you’re an easy target. There’s got to be some solution. No old age home or moving in with Jerry or me, since you’re much too independent for that and for your age still pretty healthy. Maybe a building with a doorman or guard always downstairs and elevators and that’s monitored in the laundry room and places and everything’s safe and well run and clean. If you want, in the same neighborhood but not in a small unprotected walkup where a thief can just lean on the front door to open it.’ ‘I’ve lived in that building—what are you, fifty-three?’ ‘Two.’ ‘Then for fifty-one years and I’ll never get the same space I need and
like anywhere else for the rent I can pay. It happened once, this beating, and mostly because I had a big mouth, but it won’t happen again. I’ll get my locks changed at my own expense, walk the other way, as your dad used to say, from possible muggers, and only go out when I’m next to sure the streets are more crowded than yesterday.’ ‘And if, despite all these precautions of yours—an alarm system on your windows, for instance. That’s a must anywhere in New York on the ground and second floor. But if some nice-looking, well-dressed mugger or two, for that’s what I read how they often appear these days, to fool you, besides being well-spoken and with a couple of books under their arms too But if one does come up behind you as you’re going into your building, what’ll you do?’ ‘If I don’t recognize him, male or female, and there’s even an inkling he’s suspicious, I’ll say “Oop’s, wrong building—not you, me,” and walk back to the sidewalk and call the police from the callbox at the corner, not that it’ll work and if it does, that they’ll come in time to catch him. But please don’t think you’re going to keep me locked inside all day and turn me into a hermit only reading books and baking cookies and breads. My life’s empty enough.’”