The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

by George Saunders

  “I’m taking them to Fritch, to sell,” Capable said. “It’s too hard here, and nobody’s helping us.”

  “Do you mean me?” said Bea Romo.

  “I hope you don’t mean us,” said Sid Ronsen, leaning out the window with shaving cream on his face.

  “Did you not get our letter?” said Bea Romo.

  “Did you not get my letter?” said Sid Ronsen.

  “I have to say it’s a strange idea,” said Carol Ronsen. “I have to say it makes me somewhat angry. That you should expect us to do your work. I mean, do you cover my roses? Do you polish my antiques?”

  “Do you force my boys to sing their scales?” said Bea Romo.

  “Do you trim my nose hairs?” said Sid Ronsen.

  “And what will you do then?” said Carol Ronsen. “Having sold your goats?”

  “Fish,” said Capable.

  “Good Lord!” said Sid Ronsen.

  This was a shocker. The people of Frip did not fish. They had stopped fishing long ago, when Sid Ronsen’s great-grandfather had acquired the town’s first goat. Sid’s great-grandfather had been the richest man in town, and once he got a goat, everyone wanted a goat, and fishing went out of style, and now fishing was considered something one did only if one was not bright enough to acquire a goat.

  “Fish for what?” said Bea Romo. “For fish? With a hook? A hook and some bait? Some bait on a hook, which you throw into the sea?”

  “To think it’s come to this,” said Capable’s father. “To think that my daughter is going to start fishing, which is something she’s never done before.”

  “You must be heartbroken,” said Sid Ronsen.

  “I’ve been crying about it all night,” said Capable’s father. “Which is why my mustache is so wet and my nose is so red, which I have to say is completely unprecedented.”

  “I’ve done my best,” said Capable. “But look at these goats.”

  Everyone looked at the goats, which were skinny and jittery and kept glancing nervously out at the ocean.

  “If you want my advice?” said Sid Ronsen. “Work harder. Actually, no, don’t work harder, work smarter. Be more efficient than you’ve ever been before. In fact, be more efficient than is physically possible. I know that’s what I’d do.”

  “That’s also what I would do,” said Bea Romo.

  “Me too,” said Carol Ronsen.

  “I certainly wouldn’t start fishing about it,” said Sid Ronsen.

  But Capable knew she had tried her best, and her best hadn’t worked, and remembered her mother once saying: Just because a lot of people are saying the same thing loudly over and over, doesn’t mean it’s true.

  So she kissed her father on the cheek and walked her goats out of Frip, and a few hours later returned with a fishing pole and some hooks and a big heavy book called How to Fish for Fish.

  REMEMBER THAT LESS-STUPID gapper with the brain poking out the side of his head?

  That night he deduced that the reddish Frip shack, the one they had come to love so well, was now totally without goats. He deduced this by systematically leading his team of fifteen hundred gappers blindly around Capable’s yard for approximately six hours. Once he had confirmed the total absence of goats, he led his team into the Romos’ yard, where he found ten fat complacent goats, who were soon lying on their sides, mortified, covered with bright orange gappers making the usual high-pitched joyful shrieking noise, which woke Bea Romo from a sweet dream in which she was engaged to a handsome man who loved to hear her sing. She was singing and singing, when suddenly her fiancé turned into a vacuum cleaner and, apparently in response to her excellent singing, began making a high-pitched joyful shrieking noise. The shrieking was louder than her singing, however, so Bea Romo stepped on the little switch on her fiancé’s foot, to make him stop shrieking, so he could better hear her singing. When this didn’t work, she woke with an angry look on her face, having decided never to date a vacuum cleaner again, especially one who didn’t properly appreciate her singing. She then realized with some alarm that, even though she had stepped very firmly on her fiancé’s foot, the high-pitched joyful shrieking noise still hadn’t stopped.

  Imagine her surprise when she went to the window and saw her goats lying on their sides, mortified, covered with gappers.

  Bea Romo let out a high-pitched shrieking noise of her own that was not a bit joyful.

  “Good Lord!” said Sid Ronsen from his bed. “Is that Bea? Is that Bea shrieking? Is she shrieking or singing?”

  “It’s always so hard to tell,” said Carol Ronsen.

  They rushed to the window and saw the Romo boys, Robert and Gilbert, frantically brushing gappers, just like in the old days.

  “Robert! Gilbert!” said Sid Ronsen. “See here! Boys, how did this happen?”

  But Robert and Gilbert were too breathless and sweaty to answer.

  “Oh, Sid,” said Carol Ronsen. “Check our goats. Are our goats fine?”

  “I am happy to say that our goats appear to be fine,” Sid said. “They are actually standing at the fence, watching Robert and Gilbert. Sort of smiling. Can goats smile? Our goats appear to be smiling.”

  “But no gappers?” said Carol Ronsen.

  “No gappers,” said Sid Ronsen.

  “Thank God,” said Carol Ronsen. “We are so blessed.”

  “I feel like praying,” said Sid Ronsen. “I feel like thanking God for giving us whatever trait we have that keeps us so free of gappers.”

  “We should,” said Carol Ronsen. “We should pray.”

  And the Ronsens prayed, thanking God for making them the sort of people they were, the sort of people who had no gappers, and they prayed that God would forgive Bea for not being that sort of person, and would have mercy on her, and, in His infinite mercy, would make Bea into a better sort of person, and take all her gappers away.

  MEANWHILE CAPABLE WAS teaching herself to fish. All day she stood on the beach in a pair of dumpy green overalls. Sometimes she practiced getting her line caught in a tree, sometimes she practiced peeling her worm off her forehead while feeling grateful that she hadn’t just succeeded in hooking her own eyebrow, other times she practiced sitting frustrated and near tears in the sand.

  At one point, having just knocked herself down by trying to reel in her own shoe, which unfortunately at that time was still on her foot, she looked up to see Beverly and Gloria Ronsen staring down at her with their eyebrows held very high.

  “You should be glad we’re not boys,” said Beverly.

  “Boys would not like that, what you just did,” said Gloria. “Boys do not like girls who wear overalls and knock themselves over with their own fishing thingamabobs.”

  “Boys like girls who wear nice dresses and who, if they absolutely have to fall over, do so only after being pushed over by a boy who’s just kidding, who only knocked them over to show how much he liked them,” said Beverly. “At least that’s been my experience.”

  “Yes,” said Gloria. “Although some boys might not mind a girl who falls over, if that girl giggled a bit and needed his help to get up.”

  “True,” said Beverly. “Although the type of boy I like? He is the type of boy who likes the type of girl who not only never falls over, but rarely even moves. Because she is so graceful. She just stands there absolutely still while looking very pretty. Such as this.”

  “Such as this here,” said Gloria. “What we’re going to do right now.”

  And both Ronsen girls stood very still, and looked sort of pretty, if you like the kind of girl who, to look sort of pretty, has to stand very still.

  “Why do you care so much what boys like?” said Capable, and at this point Beverly and Gloria stopped standing perfectly still in order to gasp, turn red in the face, then fold and unfold their largish ears several times with their fingers as if there were some blockage that had kept them from hearing her correctly.

  “I totally care what boys like!” said Beverly. “Especially cute boys.”

  �
��I even care what ugly boys like,” said Gloria.

  “Because who knows,” said Beverly. “An ugly boy might turn out to be cute later.”

  “Or he might have a cute friend,” said Gloria.

  “Take Bob Bern,” said Gloria. “He’s ugly. His nose is about a foot long. But guess who he’s friends with?”

  “Bernie Bin!” said Beverly. “Oh my God! Is Bernie’s nose ever not a foot long! His nose is so cute! It’s just the right length.”

  At that moment Capable caught her first fish, which came skittering across the beach like a silver coin that had suddenly come to life and was trying to get a hook out of its mouth.

  “Gosh, yuck!” said Gloria. “Watch it! That thing on that hook nearly brushed right against my new tights!”

  “One thing we do not need is fish-goo on our new tights,” said Beverly, and led Gloria off the beach.

  The fishing was good.

  By ten Capable had caught enough fish for a nice dinner. The rest of the morning she swam and slept. In the early afternoon, she swam some more, made a sandcastle, and daydreamed a bit. She daydreamed about the old days when her father used to make her mother laugh by holding radishes in his eye sockets. She daydreamed about dressing up the Romo boys in goat suits and locking them in a closet full of gappers. In the late afternoon she daydreamed further, slept again, woke up, went for a swim, made a second sandcastle, then walked home happy, dragging behind her a huge gapper-sack full of fish.

  BY NOON THE NEXT DAY, BEA Romo’s goats had stopped giving milk.

  “Uh, Carol?” she said that afternoon at the fence. “Why not send over your girls? We’ll make a party of it. A cookie-and-milk party. And Carol? Do you have any cookies? And do you have any milk? For the party? Oh Carol, I’m so worried. My boys are so tired, they never sing anymore, they only fall asleep in the yard, with those horrible gappers crawling all over their arms, the arms with which they used to gesture so beautifully while they sang. I worry about their singing careers. Even I myself am singing less, I’m so worried about them.”

  “Not everyone can be a singer, Bea,” said Carol. “We all must accept our lot in life. Some of us are singers and some of us are gapper-brushers, and it seems to me that, if you would simply happily accept the fact that your kids are gapper-brushers, and always will be, gosh, just think how happy you’d be.”

  “Oh Carol,” said Bea, starting to weep. “Things are going badly for us.”

  “Life is mysterious,” said Carol.

  “Isn’t it though,” said Bea, and tried to get a hug from Carol. But Carol, afraid that a gapper or two might be hiding under Bea’s tremendous operatic gown, pretended to suddenly sneeze, taking two very large steps back from the fence.

  “But you’ll come to the party?” said Bea. “The milk-and-cookie party? And you’ll bring milk and cookies, and your kids, who’ll bring their gapper-brushes? Oh gosh, won’t it be fun?”

  “Well Bea,” said Carol. “To tell the truth, that doesn’t sound like all that much fun, really. Us brushing your gappers? When we ourselves have none? And with gappers being so disgusting and all? What fun is that? Do you see what I mean?”

  “Well, aren’t you suddenly a snoot,” said Bea Romo.

  “A snoot?” cried Carol. “Are you calling me a snoot? Good Lord!”

  “Who’s calling who a snoot?” said Sid Ronsen, emerging from a bush he’d been trimming.

  “Bea called me a snoot!” said Carol Ronsen.

  “I think I’m going to cry,” said Bea Romo.

  “Oh brother,” said Sid Ronsen. “First you call my wife a snoot, and then you start crying? Good Lord. You’d think Carol would be the crying one. Carol, come inside at once. I won’t have my wife being called a snoot by someone with so many gappers. The nerve!”

  And the Ronsens went inside.

  Bea Romo stayed outside, thinking about possibly starting to cry. But since no one was around except the fifteen hundred gappers who just that minute were squeezing through her fence, she decided not to cry, but instead went inside and called the team of very strong men from Fritch, and asked could they come to her house first thing next morning.

  FIRST THING NEXT MORNING Carol and Sid Ronsen looked out their bedroom window to find the team of very strong men from Fritch walking past their house very slowly, with shaky knees and red faces, and sweat flying off their trembling arms, and Bea Romo’s house on their shoulders.

  Just past the Ronsens’ house, the strong men set the Romo house down, brushed off their hands, wiped their foreheads, and accepted a big wad of money from Bea Romo.

  “See here!” said Sid Ronsen. “What are you doing, Bea? Good Lord! Why are you putting your house on the other side of our house, in that vacant lot, the vacant lot by the swamp?”

  “None of your beeswax, you snoot,” said Bea Romo.

  “Again with the snoot talk,” said Carol Ronsen.

  “Fine, Bea!” said Sid Ronsen. “If you want to live in a vacant lot, live in a vacant lot. It’s no skin off our noses. Only stop calling us snoots!”

  “And don’t start in again with that awful singing,” said Carol Ronsen.

  A few hours later, that less-stupid gapper with the sticking-out brain led his gappers into the former Romo yard, found it goatless, and proceeded directly into the Ronsen yard.

  Sid Ronsen was making lunch when he heard the high-pitched joyful shrieking and literally dropped his omelet on the dog, who quickly ate it.

  “Good Lord!” Sid Ronsen shouted. “Girls! Get out there and start brushing. Brush like the wind, girls! This is terrible! Just awful. I blame Bea!”

  “Don’t blame me!” shouted Bea, standing at her window in her big operatic gown. “Accept your lot in life! Ha ha! You snoots. Let’s see how you like it. Just look at my goats now.”

  “Good Lord!” said Carol Ronsen. “Bea’s goats appear to be smiling.”

  “How about our goats?” said Sid Ronsen. “Do they appear to be smiling?”

  “I can’t tell,” said Carol Ronsen. “There are too many gappers on their faces for me to see their mouths.”

  “Good Lord!” said Sid Ronsen. “We’ll see about this, Bea! Two can play this game!”

  And he rushed out of his house in his bathrobe and gave a big wad of money to the team of very strong men from Fritch, who, though still out of breath, carried his house past the Romo house, to the lip of the swamp.

  After which Bea Romo paid the team of very strong men from Fritch to carry her house past the Ronsen house, literally into the swamp.

  After which Sid Ronsen paid the team of very strong men from Fritch to carry his house past the Romo house, even further into the swamp.

  This went on well into the afternoon, at which time the Romo and Ronsen houses were so far into the swamp that the Romos and the Ronsens could only stay dry by sitting on the peaks of their respective roofs, surrounded by their children and their goats and a few treasured household items.

  Plus they were all completely out of money.

  “Good-bye, folks!” said the leader of the team of very strong men from Fritch. “Have a nice day! And thanks for all the money!”

  BY NOW IT WAS GETTING DARK and cold, so Sid Ronsen led his wife and children and goats off the roof, and they swam, shivering, with looks of disgust on their faces, through the swamp, followed by the scowling shivering disgusted Romos and the scowling shivering disgusted Romo goats.

  At that moment Capable came up from the sea with her big gapper-sack full of fish.

  “What are those you have there?” said Carol Ronsen. “Are those fish? Fish you caught in the actual sea?”

  “They don’t look half-bad,” said Bea Romo. “Actually they look sort of yummy. You know what might be fun? Maybe you could teach me and Robert and Gilbert to fish. Maybe, for fun, you could, you know, lend us a pole, and some worms, and sort of teach us to fish.”

  “And maybe you could also teach us to fish,” said Sid Ronsen.

  “And maybe also we
could all live with you awhile?” said Carol Ronsen. “Just until we can sell our goats in Fritch and use the money to get our houses out of the swamp?”

  “Ha ha!” said Sid Ronsen. “Somehow our houses ended up in that darn swamp!”

  Capable looked at her neighbors, who were shivering and covered with swamp muck, and remembered the way they had all refused to help her.

  Then she went into her house and shut the door.

  She made a fire and cooked the fish. She sat down with the plate of fish in front of her window. She watched the Romos and Ronsens swim back across the swamp and remount their houses. She watched Robert Romo’s shoe slip off and fall in the muck. She watched Sid Ronsen sitting with his head in his hands, possibly weeping, and Carol Ronsen sort of consoling him, by patting him on the back.

  And she soon found that it was not all that much fun being the sort of person who eats a big dinner in a warm house while others shiver on their roofs in the dark.

  That is, it was fun at first, but then got gradually less fun, until it was really no fun at all.

  “Father,” she said. “I guess we’ll be having some company.”

  “What in the world?” he said. “Our house is so small, and there are so many of them. We have so little, and they’ll use so much. This is a really big change. It makes a lot of extra work.”

  “Yes it is,” said Capable. “Yes it does.”

  “But we’re still doing it?” he said.

  “Yes we are,” she said, and called the neighbors in, and put water on for tea, because she knew that tea would taste good to people who’d recently been swimming in a freezing mucky swamp.