FROGGY

Yesterday in recreational therapy I had a disagreement with the instructor.  She had us painting and cutting figures.  She wanted me to paint my frog green, but I refused.  Hell, I told her I would not even look at the frog.  She asked me what I had against frogs and I flat out told her that I used to go out with a man who had frog eyes.  He was a real bastard.  He used me and beat me.  I had to get a restraining order against the frogman.  He didn’t leave me alone until the cops took him.  But not before one of those officers had detached one of Foggy’s eyes with his baton.  Froggy, that’s what I used to call him. I told the instructor to keep the frog picture away from me.  She said I was being difficult and uncooperative.  That’s her opinion.

He is not the father of the child I’m carrying.  Froggy was what you call without seed.  He had a vasectomy or something, I don’t know.  He probably had a lobotomy too.  Let me tell you he didn’t have too much upstairs.  He was bald as an eagle too.  His vision was poor.  I remember one time when he lost his glasses.  His big frog eyes squinted to the size of a pebble.  I never saw such a thing.  He confused me for someone else on the street outside that day.  He thought I was one of those broads he was cheating on me with.  I told Froggy off like you couldn't believe.  He ended up beating me like he always does.  He even accused me of losing his glasses.

See this scar above my left eye?  Froggy did this.  He punched me with his right hand and he had a ring on.  I woke up in the hospital.  My clothes were full of blood.  I didn’t remember a thing..  I just had this nagging headache that didn’t go away for weeks.  I think this is when I first started having these dizzy spells and hearing these voices.  He must have shaken up something up inside my brain.  I hear these freaky animal sounds, kind of like a frog croaking or a splash of something jumping into a river or something.  No, I don’t feel sorry for that bastard with his detached retina.  He got what he deserved.  If I have to paint something, I’d rather paint my toenails.  I hate frogs.

There is one thing I don’t understand about this place and these workers.  They get upset very easily if I don’t do as they say.  The instructor looked at me as if I was crazy when I refused to paint her frog green.  They say I’m crazy?  They have no compassion.  They do not believe me or do not understand my explanations about why I hate frogs.  Frogs are nice they tell me.  They say that no harm could come to me by painting a frog.  What do they know?  Have they ever lived with a man with frog eyes.  Have they ever felt the hate, the wrath, and physical aggression from a man with frog eyes?  They are not helping me here.  I want to leave.  I don’t trust anyone that would make me do something that brings back such awful memories.

In my dreams I see Froggy beating me to a pulp.  Only he’s not green, but dark as night.  His fists strike hard to the sides of my face.  I could see the bastard and his one eye hanging out like if it was on a string standing above me.  I’m on the floor looking up at him.  His anger, his foul language, and frog eyes penetrating my heart like a knife.  I wake up in a cold sweat screaming from the top of my lungs, stop it!   I don’t want to paint the frog.  Instead, I want to roll up the paper into a ball and toss it in the trash.  I want to take my scissors and cut the paper into a million pieces all over the table; blow the paper onto the floor like dust.  They can’t believe it that I hate frogs or that I’m afraid of frogs.  I detest them.  I fear them.  I’m tired of talking about it.  The instructor seems to enjoy having this thing aired out, where everyone can hear.  I’m not going to listen to her from now on.

This morning she is smiling at me.  She is pretending to be my friend.  The instructor seems to think I have no memory.  She is wrong.  I will not forget what she put me through yesterday.  Froggy used to smile too.  After a good beating, he’d try to make it up to me.  He’d want to take me out somewhere to eat.  How could you eat with your face all black and blue, with your lips puffy and bleeding, with your teeth lose and aching?  How could you go out with your eyes shut like coffins?  Yes, he smiled, like she is doing right now.   She does not fool me.  I could hear the frog’s voice.   Mixed with the instructor’s voice, the frog’s voice is deafening and terrible.  I can see Froggy and the instructor together.  They are made for each other.  The smile is the thing that connects them.  I can’t stand her.  I will never forgive her for bringing me back to a place that I thought was lost forever.