Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Maceless now but brazen, you let yourself in, expecting who knows what, Q-Jo maybe, gone insane from her trifling with supernatural forces, crouched in a corner, drooling, smoking, staring into space through rubbery eyes. What you found instead was AndrE. The monkey, a pouty expression on his face, was bouncing up and down in an overstuffed chair, looking like a pygmy Elvis impersonator from the Congolese club circuit, and he was puffing on a cigarette he had rolled himself. The cigarette was a splayed, shaggy, droopy mess, but, then, Q-Jo didnt roll them much better, and she had fully opposable thumbs.
Faking nonchalance, you spoke in your most gentle storybook voice. Hi, AndrE. Hi, honey. Nice to see you. Hi. You sit right there, and Auntie Gwenll bring you something delicious. Okay, dear? Okay? Slowly, softly, you pulled the door shut. Then you sprinted down the hall like Jackie Joyner-Kersee with a wasp in her shorts. You snatched the box of Popsicles from the freezer and tore back to Q-Jos at top speed, praying all the while that he hadnt fled.
Here, honey. Look here. Look at what I have for you. As he ripped the offering out of your hand, he blew a river of acrid smoke in your face, causing you to choke and very nearly retch. You almost gave yourself a hiatal hernia trying to suppress a cough, but you held your ground and presented the rest of the Popsicles. While AndrE busied himself removing the paper wrappers and trying to figure out how to eat and smoke at the same time, a trick he could have learned in any redneck restaurant, you got a hammer and nails from the pantry and, as unobtrusively as possible, nailed each and every window shut, including the transom. You filled a bowl with water and canned fruit punch and emptied what was left of your last Valium prescription into the liquid to dissolve. You set the bowl on the floor by his chair-Here, honey, in case you get thirsty-stamped out the fire that was beginning to smolder on the carpet, for he finally had jettisoned the cigarette, and backed geishalike-you are getting good at this-to the door. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, now. You enjoy yourself, and Gwendolyn will be back in a little while. Okay? Bye-bye. Happy Easter. You engaged both locks and drove in a few nails for good measure. There. That ought to hold you, you little bastard. Ive got you.
ELEVEN TWENTY-FOUR A.M.
Got him!
There are a half-dozen residents gathered in the downstairs lobby, and one of them says to you, Got him!
Beg your pardon? How the hell did they know? These people are as nosy as they are unsophisticated. You have simply got to move into a higher-class building.
They got him.
Who?
Why, the rapist. They missed him earlier, but they got him now.
Oh, my God!
Mrs. Kudahl spotted him in the parking lot and called the cops.
Good grief!
Shoving neighbors aside, you rush outdoors, where you spend the next ten minutes persuading the police that the man they have up against the wall is a friend of yours-you, an owner here!-and, despite his appearance, a law-abiding citizen. There is generous scoffing and eye-rolling on the part of Smokey and Cecil, who are of a mind to put you up against the wall, as well-on top of everything else, you are absentmindedly brandishing a hammer; but eventually, due as much to lack of evidence as to your brokerage-honed skills at salesmanship, they are forced to release him. There is one last thing. In patting down the suspect-looking for weapons or condoms or what?-Smokey had found a large roll of currency, and they want to know why Diamond is packing this cash.
Surely, officer, says Diamond, it has not escaped one as observant as you that I am also in possession of airline tickets. Im going away tomorrow to visit my dear parents, missionaries spreading the Gospel in a distant and heathen land. And surely someone as informed as you is aware of the sad and disgraceful fact that American credit cards are not as enthusiastically welcomed abroad as they once were. This may seem a sizable amount of moola, but with the dollar in its present weakened condition, godless foreign hustlers will consider it chicken feed.
So, they let him go. Cecils parting words to you are, Lady, I dont know what your story is, but I dont ever want to run into you again, and I mean never.
Dont worry, officer. As they climb into their squad car, you turn to Diamond. Where are you going, Larry?
The Reptile and Amphibian Fair is my announced destination.
I mean tomorrow. Is that a catch in your throat?
Ill explain later, pussy dumpling. The lecture started five minutes ago, and Im afraid my scooters given up the ghost.
All right. Lets take the Porsche.
ELEVEN -FIFTY A.M.
Where have all the froggies gone? That is the subject of the talk at the Pacific Science Centers lecture hall. You must confess that you had not missed them in the slightest, but obviously some folks noticed, because the speaker, a mild, bearded, thirty-fiveish herpetologist in jeans, blue work shirt (why do people who can afford better choose to marginalize themselves in the garb of the field hand?) and tweed jacket is reeling off statistics when you and Diamond join the surprisingly large audience-you would guess eighty to a hundred people-and apparently he has been doing so for some time. These figures are the results of various independent surveys conducted by scientists worldwide, and they strongly indicate that there has been a sudden, baffling, and alarming decline in the planets frog population. As he reads the findings of each survey, the herpetologist chalks the name of yet another disappearing species on his blackboard. There were more than a dozen listed when you arrived, and to these he adds golden toad, Bufo boreas, harlequin frog, yellow-legged mountain frog, and Canadian chorus frog. My goodness. You hope the chef at the Bull&Bear had not placed the lower extremities of one of these particular creatures on your dinner plate last evening.
On the other hand, what does it matter? The last whole frog you recall seeing was the one you were forced to dismember (yuck!) in high-school biology class, and in all honesty, you have not felt in the least deprived. If these nerds were as concerned about the decline in the crisp green dollar as in the slimy green frog, maybe you would be closing on your new condominium next week.
For two-hundred million years, frogs have survived floods, droughts, glaciers, meteorites, volcanic eruptions, and whatever else killed off the dinosaurs; for two-hundred million springs, through ice ages and fiery cataclysms, they serenaded Mother Earth. Now, their song is almost done. Without some miraculous recovery, we estimate that half of the worlds thirty-eight hundred known species of frogs and toads will be extinct within twenty years.
Gee, you think, that still leaves nineteen hundred species. How many varieties of creepy little peepers does one planet need? You glance at Diamond. He winks.
As if in answer to your question, the speaker explains that for every creepy little peeper who succumbs, an untold number of bugs will thrive. The decline in frogs creates a field day for insects, he says, and he cites the rise in crop destruction, mosquitoes, and malaria in parts of Asia where native frogs have all but bought the ranch. (Is this good news for your shares in Union Carbide?) And as frogs dwindle, birds, fish, lizards, snakes, and small mammals dwindle, too, for many, many creatures lunch regularly if not exclusively on amphibians. They are a vital link in the food chain. (Q-Jo told you that when she stayed home sick from school, her mother would feed her alphabet soup. Every time she threw up, Q-Jo would check the puddle to see if the little pasta letters spelled out anything. For the psychic, omens are everywhere, you suppose, but for some reason you can never hear the term food chain without thinking of Q-Jos story-and feeling a twinge of nausea.)
It isnt simply a matter of saving frogs.
Oh?
Theres a kind of domino effect operating here, and the frog is just the first domino in line. The more biological diversity we lose, the less flexibility we have to create new food sources that can tolerate the new environmental conditions that progress is spawning. Today, the frog; tomorrow the bird; the day after that, who knows? As Dr. Richard L. Wyman of the State University of New York has said, We dont know how many species can be lost before the syste
m as a whole ceases to function. In the past, life responded to change through evolution, and that process depends on genetic diversity. If everythings the same, evolution stops. Now, isnt that a scary thought?
Throughout the small auditorium, there is a low hum of concern. Looking around at the audience, you are struck by its lack of diversity. Virtually everyone, regardless of age or gender, is wearing a down-filled nylon vest over a plaid flannel shirt. For decades, this expression of backpacker chic has been the unofficial uniform of Seattles white middle class, and now you have to wonder if uniformity might not be partially at fault for the demise of the bourgeoisie? But is there less standardization among the poor, whose numbers are escalating, or the rich, who are holding their own (and successfully resisting efforts by you and others like you to infiltrate them)? This line of thought leads directly to an introspective examination of your present situation, financial and personal, and you are only half listening as the speaker explores possible causes of the dramatic and mysterious amphibian decimation.
If it were human encroachment and habitat destruction alone, it wouldnt be quite so problematic. Pesticides and herbicides have been devastating, clearly, and a lot of people point fingers at acid rain, but fifty miles from here frogs are vanishing from pristine Cascade Mountain lakes where repeated measurements reveal no acidification, nor, for that matter, pollutants of any kind. This suggests that what may be responsible is an increase in ultraviolet radiation, but since, thanks to governmental and corporate opposition, we lack the data that might show whether UV radiation is actually increasing or not, we can only speculate. Most likely, whats killing off our frogs is a complex mixture of global environmental changes.
Because in the course of their lives they live both underwater and on land, eat both vegetation and insects, and are covered by a permeable skin that offers little protection from the external world, frogs are the ideal barometers of planetary health. Frogs are telling us something about the general condition of earths environment, and the news is not reassuring. For tens of millions of years, theyve been such hardy survivors that it makes the fact that theyre now all of a sudden hurtling toward extinction all the more of a dire warning. Frogs may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine-except that when the canary keeled over, workers could evacuate the mine. We cant leave the planet. We shouldnt have to. He takes a breather, and the silence snaps you out of your introspection. Are there any questions?
You lean into Diamond. I have questions, you whisper. Are you really going away tomorrow, and if so, where are you going? What do you intend to do about connecting with Dr. Yamaguchi so that you can arrange to get treatments? Was Q-Jo locked in at Thunder House the way I was? Why are you attracted to someone like me when were such opposites: is it sheer animal appetite, and did you know all along that Id be an easy conquest? And is there actually a Sirius C?
It is plain to Diamond that you have not been paying attention to the lecture, and he glares at you accusingly. Sorry, pussy sugar, he says, but all queries must address the topic at hand. He grins at you in that disturbing, maniacal manner of his, and then he stands and grins at the herpetologist and the audience in the very same fashion.
Since the sole function of the majority of the human race, he begins in his elongated nasal drawl, is to eat, shit, procreate, and watch television …
Oh, good grief!
… and since those few who arent outright larcenous and violent are fearful, ignorant, and, most of all, insensitive …
There is a shuffling of Birkenstocks and Rockports-the audience is not thrilled with the comments of this wild-looking individual, and neither, frankly, are you.
… and since their collective greed and imbecility has shoved the entire biosphere to the brink of oblivion …
Now, there are random nods of agreement.
… and since our so-called leaders-political, commercial, and religious-deserve to be mashed to jelly and sandwiched between hunks of ripe Limburger …
Careful, mister! you hear someone exclaim.
… and since the newspapers and magazines that support these shysters are fit for nothing but outhouse bung fodder …
Wont he please sit down and shut up?
… and since everybody has a hard-luck story, including the frogs …
Excuse me, sir, says the herpetologist. Excuse me. Do you have a question?
… Im reluctant to propose that the depletion of our amphibian population might be due to something other than the foul and feckless follies of our fellows or that what seems like a biospheric catastrophe might actually be a positive and hopeful sign. Im hesitant to propose these possibilities, but I must.
Abruptly, everyone is on the edge of his or her seat; and the herpetologist, who had been politely trying to silence him, guardedly bids Diamond continue. Diamond is, as he would put it, merry and bright. It would appear that you alone are cringing.
As you erudite people well know, the word amphibian comes from the Greek amphi and bios, meaning to live a double life. This refers, needless to say, to an ability to live both in water and on land. In that regard, amphibians are the most adaptable creatures in the world, the ones, ironically, best suited for residence here. But as those of you whove read spy stories or had extramarital affairs are aware, a double life implies a clandestine life, a life of secret behaviors. Now, a frog is a little dumb animal with a poot-sized brain. It probably isnt the custodian of a hell of a lot of covert information. No, indeed. But rather than possessing secrets, suppose a frog is a secret. A secret link.
This would be a prudent time to head for the ladies room, if not the Porsche, except that Diamond, the man who everyone in the auditorium knows is your escort, is blocking the aisle.
The amphibian is the bridge between the terrestrial and the aquatic. I invite you to consider that it may also be a bridge between our water planet and the largely arid galaxy. A bridge between earth and the stars. A bridge, most importantly, between the mind of man and the cosmic overmind. And, of course, its the biological bridge between the fishes, which many identify with Jesus Christ, and the reptiles, which many identify with Satan.
Members of the audience, some amused, others uneasy or anxious, are regarding him as if he could be a nutcase, after all. You, your face as stinging red as a freshly skinned knee, refuse even to glance in his direction. To think, a few short minutes ago, you were entertaining the girlish notion that you could be developing a romantic attachment to him!
In fairness to Diamond, granted an opportunity to elucidate, he might oxidize a patina of credibility on his screwball postulates. Alas, when he says, Im going to ask you to consider that hyperintelligent entities-agents of the overmind; aliens, if you will-could be abducting our frogs as part of a benign scheme to free us from the tyranny of the historical continuum and reunite our souls with the other-dimensional, you spoil his chances by shooting to your feet, pushing past him, and hustling from the auditorium.
You pray that he wont follow, but as you hurry between the reflecting pools and salt-white arches, virtually sobbing from embarrassment and remorse-how could you have permitted unruly bodily cravings to temporarily blind you to his dementia?-you hear him shout, Wait, pussy pudding! Hold up! Wait for me! You havent heard the punch line!
TWELVE-SEVENTEEN P.M.
The creature is the size of a standard poodle. It has a body of crunchy armor, several more legs than good taste dictates; long, wiggly antennae that seem to be sorting through atmospheric molecules like old women buying tomatoes; and eyes that are all pupil and no expression, yet follow your every move as if heat-seeking scanners had been implanted in a pair of black golf balls. Its a repulsive, willy-giving thing-but its the monster beside it that scares you.
After your mother threw herself in front of a cement truck, Grandma Mati, with sewing shears, snipped her image out of every photograph in the family album, whether from Filipino superstition or ordinary malice you could not say. In any case, you wish you had a pair of scissors capable of c
utting Larry Diamond out of the reflection the two of you are casting in this plate-glass window. On second thought, maybe you ought to snip out your own image and leave his there. The window, in a storefront alongside which your Porsche is parked, belongs to a pest-control business and is occupied by a holographic cockroach as large as an ocelot. It is the roach that is out of place, for roaches are fairly rare intruders in the northerly clime of Seattle, whereas Diamond, from your point of view, would be a plague at any latitude.
My, my, says Diamond, ignoring the fact that you have been trying to ignore him, it would take a frog of considerable girth to lunch on this entomological entrEe. Makes me curious about what the Nommo might eat.
Listen, Larry, you say, doing your best to coat your singsong with a husky phlegm, it just isnt going to work out with you and me.
Work out? He seems genuinely puzzled.
Yes, you know, isnt going to lead anywhere.
Oh, youd be surprised where it might lead.
I bet I would. But it isnt. I mean, as a relationship, it has zero future.
Future? Oh, I get it. You mean you dont foresee a pot of gold at the end of our juicy rainbow. You mean that our intimacy isnt likely to yield a dividend. You disappoint me, Gwendolyn. I hoped you might have a watt or two more light in your bulb than those poor toads who look on romance as an investment, like waterfront property or municipal bonds. Would you complain because a beautiful sunset doesnt have a future or a shooting star a payoff? And why should romance lead anywhere? Passion isnt a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. Its the deepest, wildest part of the forest; the grove where the fairies still dance and obscene old vipers snooze in the boughs. Everybody but the most dried up and dysfunctional is drawn to the grove and enchanted by its mysteries, but then they just cant wait to call in the chain saws and bulldozers and replace it with a family-style restaurant or a new S and L. Thats the payoff, I guess. Safety. Security. Certainty. Yes, indeed. Well, remember this, pussy latte: were not involved in a relationship, you and I, were involved in a collision. Collisions dont much lend themselves to secure futures, but the act of colliding is hard to beat for interest. Correct me if Im wrong.