I’m an old man now. My eyes are still clear, my skin isn’t so wrinkled and sagging from age and I have memories. I live alone, which is okay with me because I write a lot. And if there were someone else in the house with me, I� d feel the obligation to attend to that person, rather than sit contentedly at the keyboard and watch the contents of my imagination flow across the virtual white page on the monitor. Other people are okay for a while but I’ve learned to have an appreciation for my aloneness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hermit. I have several friends with whom I go out frequently to eat, travel, enjoy various forms of entertainment, and attend church. But for the most part, my house is my refuge from the outside world; a place of comfort for my relaxation and inspiration. A world wherein I listen to the music that will soothe my nerves, inspire my thoughts, move my spirit, calm my soul and frequently recall memories from my life in the past, most of which I regret. However, despite the unhappiness and regrets, there is an experience I must share with you from the most humorous moment that occurred when I was but a young boy.
It happened several times but I couldn’t relate the details of the incident because I didn’t know how to interpret the experience myself. It was like this. One afternoon after my older brother had finished eating, as was his usual pattern of life, he took one of his science fiction books from the collection in his bedroom and went into the bathroom for his hour-long stay. It was a way of life for us in the house with four people; my mother and father, my brother and me. He, my brother, was in the bathroom, I assumed reading, as I happened to walk by the bathroom door, and heard some strange, muffled sounds. The sounds were foreign to my ears and I couldn’t place them, though these sounds were somewhat familiar. I paused by the bathroom door for a moment, moving my head closer to the door with my right ear almost pressed up against the wooden panel, listening for more of the strange sounds. Nothing came and I went on my way, curious as a cat. Now, remember, I said that this had happened several times in the past but I never dared bring it up with my brother or anyone else in the house.
When, at last, my brother emerged from the room and returned to his bedroom with his book, I had been in my bedroom doing something and saw that he had not been swallowed by the toilet as my mother often said of him during his hour-long stays there. I ventured to his bedroom door and inquired in my nine or ten year old innocence about the muffled sounds I had heard. Still involved in his book, lying on his bed, he casually mentioned that there was a frog in the bathroom. Of course, my curiosity piqued and I immediately responded in my excitement with the question, “did you see it?” His retort was as casual and distant as his first response. “Yeah.”
My brother didn’t like me. At least he never showed me any kind of attention that I could look back on and say he cared about me. He was always annoyed with me when I spoke to him. If I chanced to ask him anything because he was older than me and, as I felt then and did for many years after, wiser than most, I was usually rebuffed verbally or pounded on physically or simply shoved into the nearest wall as he went off in a huff. He was cold and indifferent to me as a human. But at nine or ten years of age, I had no idea how to put these feelings into words, so I didn’t have a clear picture of the absence of a relationship with him or, if we did have one, I could only sense it was not good. I admired him from the first time I knew he was my brother but never had the pleasure of his company or fond memories of his friendship or his caring for me as his younger brother. Still, he had the answers to a mystery I was compelled to solve. Not many days later, my brother was in the bathroom, again, and from my bedroom with the door open, I heard the muffled sounds of what sounded like my frog.
After he left the bathroom, I went there and closed the door. There was a strong odor within the small confines of the restricted area but I, undaunted, began a search for the tailless, leaping amphibian which I could picture someplace in the relatively small room. If my brother said there was a frog in here, then I would find it. I first looked in the dirty clothes hamper, taking all the clothes out slowly and systematically, dumping them on the floor, trying to be careful not to hurt the little creature should I discover his (her?) hiding place. My mother was in the house at that time and apparently needed to use the bathroom. I had neglected to lock the door and she barged right in and found me surrounded by dirty clothes from the hamper. My mother never spoke to me in a soft, normal, loving or caring voice. Ordinarily, if she ever did, the calm voice was a pronouncement of a curse on my life, or a damnation of some kind for the horrible second son that I must have been. The normal sound of her voice when directed to me and me alone was yelling, shouting, or screaming. This time it was the scream. What the hell was I doing, taking all the dirty clothes out of the hamper and “throwing” them on the floor? Was I crazy or just plain rotten to do such a thing after she had been working in the house all day? There was no way I would tell her that I was on a hunt for a frog.
After she grabbed me and almost threw me out of the bathroom, still screaming all sorts of epithets at me, she began gathering up the clothes and linens from the floor, cramming them back into the hamper. I watched in subdued horror as she mangled the clothes in her hands, shoving them back into the hamper, wondering if the innocent frog had truly hidden from even my detailed search of the contents of the hamper. Having completed the task that was rightfully mine, she slammed the bathroom door and I turned to go back to my bedroom, saddened that I hadn’t found the little creature. My brother’s bedroom door was closed. He obviously wanted no part of this daily fray. But he still held the answers to my curiosity and most pressing question at the moment: “was the little frog okay?” But I knew I could never ask him those questions. I returned to my bedroom, closed the door and flopped on the bed, crying.
About three weeks after this incident, I was with some cronies at school and we were talking about the things that only grade school boys could talk about. Stuff adults don’t even think of anymore. One of the guys brought up the subject of being flatulent: plagued with internal gas: the sudden and unplanned expulsion of body gas: farts. First off, everybody laughed. Then one of the other guys let go a big one right then and there. In the mingle of noise from the flatus and the awful odor resulting, and all the “phews,” holding the noses and “what didjoo eat last nights,” they laughed again. I was the only one not laughing. I had no idea why they were laughing about farts… breaking wind… cutting the cheese…bombing. I’m sure there are more colorful expressions that mean to expel body gas, but I don’t know what they are. I was an outsider having a peek into some very new and virgin territory. No one had ever told me about farts. When I passed gas at home, I was always asked if I had “let one.” Then the jokes began going around about who farted where and when, who was present and some of the most embarrassing moments of passing body gas. Somewhere in my head I knew this was a really dumb conversation. But that’s what senior elementary school boys discuss at recess.
One of the members of that group was a closer associate to me than any of the others. At least, I could talk to him and not be ashamed. His name was Bruce. When school was out that afternoon, I asked Bruce if he would walk with me so we could talk. Was okay with him, so we walked away from the school almost shoulder to shoulder, face to face, while I tried to explain about the frog in the bathroom. Then he said said the oddest thing to me. “Didntchoo ever let one while you were tryin’ t’take a dump?” I felt my face redden; the shame was not only about releasing body gas, but also that I had been made a fool by my older and wiser brother. Suddenly, the whole picture became clear before my eyes. I had been duped. I had been led on a wild frog chase. I was only ten years old and here I was looking for something that didn’t exist. My brother had duped me. Maybe he was embarrassed to tell me he was “farting” in the bathroom. Looking back, I see that he was a very proud young person who “never made mistakes.” Breaking wind in the bathroom was a no-no for his sub-culture. Therefore, the culpable party had to be a frog. Bruce and I laughed and laughed; we laughed so hard, I don’t which one of us it was, but the odor of flatulence rose blatantly into our noses, causing us to laugh all the harder.
Time has passed; recently, from somewhere on the Internet, I discovered that “all” persons, mighty and small, experience ten to fifteen incidents per day of releasing body gas. This, like so many other boyhood events has come to rest; not fallen by the wayside, but has found a place in my memories where it can be content. It’s no longer a big thing. Neither is the hunt for the frog. At least not in my bathroom.