Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog

Jeremiah landed on the Earth out of a cul-de-sac in his mother's womb. Her name, Mary Anne. She rode motorcycles in front of the bad boys and one day she had one. Jeremiah.

They drank Coca Colas, those boys. After eating hotdogs and hamburgers on the side of Mary Anne's restaurant. It was called The Bullfrog.

One of the bad boys was Jeremiah's father. His name was Hank. But he didn't stick around to see Jeremiah grow up because he had a separate life he kept from Mary Anne.

His other woman had an exotic pet shop in Brooklyn. And in those days, you could get away with things like that.

Up in Harlem, Jeremiah was born into a world split into feelings that enraptured his small body with confusion. Most young boys had love surrounding their homes. Jeremiah had loneliness.

His mother worked routinely from early in the morning until late at night. Why did his father never work? He wondered.

"Your father's a lazy good-for-nothing," Mary Anne would say in moments of frustration. She walked up slowly to Jeremiah on the couch as he'd been watching the Giants game. She sat down next to him, holding a cigarette in her left-hand outstretched. She wore gaudy multi-colored jewelry and had a Wonder Woman tattoo on her shoulder all splattered in red and black. It said SWEETHEART in big bold letters.

"SON!" Hank yelled from the faded neon green chair nearby.

Jeremiah very quietly looked from his mother's beehive hairdo to his father's slack jaw ornery mug. His father's hair was slicked back with too much gel. He wore a gold necklace with a cross, a white wife beater, and tight blue jeans. He was smoking a fat, stupid cigar.

"Do your old man a favor and get me another cold one."

Hank threw the empty beer can at his son. Jeremiah was thirteen years old.

For a while, Jeremiah wanted to ask his parents why he didn't have any brothers or sisters. He stopped himself, got up, went into the kitchen, opened the garbage, tossed the empty can down in there. Then he went into the fridge. It was filled with cans of Coors and a turkey thawing out. It was Thanksgiving today.

He wondered about all the dead turkeys who didn't know English. He was glad he didn't have to go to school today.

This happened to be the day when Mary Anne and Hank knew they'd be getting a divorce.

When Jeremiah walked back into the living room, his father got up from the chair. "Ah, you're a broken record!"

"I know what's going on, Hank! Don't lie to me! You've been seeing that other woman behind my back! Everybody in town know's it. You've been playing me like a fool! Do you think I'm dumb?"

She stood up and stomped her feet. Jeremiah opened the can of beer. He thought about drinking it.

"Dad," he said.

His parents stopped and turned to face their son. Jeremiah had long black hair, down past his ears. He wore red converse sneakers. A striped t-shirt covered his scrawny torso.

"Let's go get some more beer."

His father froze, stunned, confused. He looked partially at his wife. Then he realized his son was helping him.

"Yeah," said Hank, nodding. "All right, son. Let's go get another case of beer. Don't wanna run out, right? Before everybody gets here..."

Jeremiah went back into the kitchen with the opened beer and he poured it down the sink. He threw the empty into the trash can.

He walked out of the kitchen and down the short steps, grabbing his jacket at the door. Then he stood there. "Dad," he said. "I'm ready."

"I'll be back," Hank said to his wife.

Then they were in the old Chevrolet together. It was 1967.

"Son," Hank began as they were heading for the RFK Bridge. "I appreciate what you did for me back there."

Jeremiah said nothing. All the people out on the sidewalk passing his periphery bored him, somewhat. They interested him at the same time. It was strange, that feeling. To be annoyed and fascinated by other human beings. What did normal people do for their holidays?

They got to Kelly's house. She lived with her mother, but her mother was very old. So, she kept to the third-floor bedroom. Jeremiah heard his father say the word "brownstone" many times. But he didn't understand what it had meant.

They parked. Hank looked at Jeremiah. He paused, drew in a deep breath. "Now, son. I want you to tell your mother that we went to see your grandmother. Understood?"

They locked eyes. Those same innocent dovish brown eyes. You could get away with anything when you had eyes like that.

Jeremiah had been there before. He'd even gone to Yankees games with Kelly and his father. Jeremiah knew how to lie.

His father got out of the car. Jeremiah didn't budge.

"C'mon, whaddya doin'?"

"I'll catch up with you."

"Catch up with me? What the hell are you talkin' about? It's freezin' cold out here!"

"No, it ain't, pop. I wanna be alone for a few minutes."

"Oh, for the love of..." he stopped himself. "You know," he said leaning down into the car, "you're just like your mother."

Hank slammed the door. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, lit one up, and made his way up the driveway. He got to the door. Hank didn't bother knocking. He went right inside.

Jeremiah immediately got out of the car and raced up to the garage. It was always open. Kelly was Irish, so she drank a lot. Whiskey, vodka. In the mornings, and throughout the day and night until she passed out drunk. That was usually when it was time for Hank to leave and go back to his wife. (Mary Anne was a better cook than Kelly. Actually, Kelly couldn't cook at all—she hardly knew how to boil an egg.)

The garage door opened, and there were all the tanks and containers of exotic animals. Cages, too. Birds, snakes, lizards. And—frogs.

Kelly kept her inventory like that because she was a bad person. Hank was a bad person, too. Jeremiah didn't know any better about being good or bad. But he just knew he didn't want to be nice to anybody—and he certainly wasn't going to be good to his dad on a day like today.

He found a cardboard box in a corner of the garage. A rat raced by. Jeremiah flinched.

Then he took the cardboard box, and he went up to the tank of bullfrogs. There were about eight or nine of them in there. One by one, Jeremiah filled the cardboard box with bullfrogs. They were green, slimy, and stupid.

He wiped his hands on his jeans once he was done. Then he found the top of the box which was punched with small holes. (Literally, punched. Kelly did that when she was intoxicated. She called them "air holes.")

Jeremiah ran down the driveway and carefully put the box behind the driver's seat. He knew his father would be too stupid to notice it.

He looked around to make sure nobody saw what he'd just done. It was quiet and empty. Then he looked across the street. He saw a family through a big glass window in front of their brownstone. They were eating around a table and everybody was laughing and smiling and conversing jovially and filled with warmth. Jeremiah stared at that window for a very long time.

"Son!"

He got startled. He turned around and saw his father hustling down the driveway.

"Let's go, son! Jeremiah! GET IN THE CAR!"

Jeremiah looked past his father. He saw Kelly with a bottle of vodka raised into the air. She was in a dirty white bathrobe, fully opened. She was in pink pajamas, screaming. "You bastard! How could you say that to me! I loved you! I loved you! HOW COULD YOU!"

Then she hurled the bottle and it went sailing in the air, over the car and landed right at Jeremiah's feet. He stood with his mouth agape, frozen to the spot. He looked down at the broken glass. Kelly screamed. "AAAAHHHH!!"

"SON, GET IN THE CAR!"

Hank started the Chevy and Jeremiah came to his senses. He ran around the back and got up to the passenger's door. For a moment, he stopped to look at Kelly. She was covering her mouth with both her hands, tears streaming. Her red hair was wild, and he could see the mascara dripping at the corners of her eyes.

"GET IN!"

They got the hell outta there.

It took a long time to get home. They didn't have cell phones in those days. So, it felt even longer when Hank stopped at a local bar for a whiskey and a Coors.

"Don't tell your mother," he kept repeating it.

"You know, Hank. You shouldn't bring your kid in here," the bartender said.

"Shut the hell up, Scott. I know you and Nancy are on the outs. You want me to tell her about you and Linda?"

Scott went wide-eyed in his bar apron. He leaned down. "You won't say nothin', will ya?"

"Not if you pour me another whiskey, Scott."

Time lingered. Jeremiah wondered if the Giants had won or not.

Finally, they left the bar. When they got home, the lights were on in the living room. Hank parked. Jeremiah could feel his thoughts. "Uh oh." He knew that's what his father was thinking.

"Listen, son."

"Dad, I know..." he quickly replied.

They got out of the car, and Hank lit another cigarette. He started singing. "I get by with a little help from my friends. Gonna try with a little help from my friends."

Jeremiah thought of Beethoven. When he was young, his mother played it for him. He thought of sitting at the piano, nobody bothering him. He'd play all morning, and throughout the day, and all night too. He'd miss meals, sleep. Go without showering. I just want to play the piano, he thought. I just want to be left the hell alone.

Jeremiah watched his father slyly entering the house—like he'd done nothing wrong. He peered through the window. Hank threw his hands into the air. The rest of Mary Ann's family was there, her sister, Rachel. His two cousins, Bobby and Susan. His uncle Rick was there too, sitting on the couch. Everybody had been waiting for Hank to get back. And he liked that, he enjoyed knowing that the whole house would be welcoming him. He wanted to be the star of the show. He wanted to be the king.

But everybody knew there was only one king.

Jeremiah got the box. He walked inside. Without saying anything to anybody, he ignored the calls and shouts for him to come to say hello. He went to the left, down the hallway. Once he got into his parents' room, he shut the door behind him. He got up to their bed and looked around at their belongings. They had pictures in there. They seemed happy.

Jeremiah took the box, lifted the lid off it, and dumped it upside down on his parents' bed. The frogs collapsed into each other. Jeremiah helped them onto the floor, into the closet, on the dressers.

Then he found a little notepad by the table. His mother used that for her daily mantras. "Be strong today." That was what the last note had said. Jeremiah ripped it off the pad. Then he took the pencil and wrote his own note.

"I'm thankful for my parents." That's all he wrote.

He took the note and left the bedroom. On the way out, he grabbed one of his dad's extra packs of cigarettes. He snatched the lighter next to it too.

He closed the door behind him, then he jutted the note in the door where it met the frame, right by the doorknob.

He came back down the hallway. Everybody was talking and happy and eating and having a good time. They didn't notice when he strolled down the steps, opening the door, and leaving them all behind.

He went down the driveway in the cold, he could see his breath. He took out the pack of cigarettes, removing a smoke, putting it into his mouth. Then he lit it. He coughed and coughed and coughed some more. Then he smoked it again and coughed. But not as much that time.

He smiled a bit. Then he kept walking up the street. He didn't know where he was going, he didn't know what the hell he was going to do about anything.

But he just kept right on walking.