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Curse of the Frog People
Synopsis: Ella wakes to curse of being the bastard child of her father’s mistress and comes to terms with his legacy of misfortune.
Henry Chan wants to marry me but I laugh and tell him he is too old.
“I have a good job at your father's bank.”
“You are a teller.”
“But if I marry you he'll be sure to promote me.”
And I remind him that I'm just eighteen, child of my father’s white Hippie whore and bearer of the curse of the Frog. Frog people, as my father calls us, are misunderstood on the outside and frequently the bearer of bad tidings, until we are given our moment to shine.
At 23 Henry is cute in a Seattle grunge cum Jackie Chan kind of way but I don't want to marry; if I did, I might marry him, but I don't. I want to go to college and train to be a legal professional. I don't want to make frog children and pass on the curse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today the curse is active. Today I learned three bad things that might change my life forever.
One: My father is dead. He didn't wake up today in his fancy penthouse with his real family. The whole neighborhood knew before I did. Sirens blare; block early morning San Francisco traffic. Neighbors gawk as paramedics try to resuscitate a ghost.
Two: My father's family does know about us. How do I know? Because the same morning he died, our credit card, condo lease, health insurance and bank account were canceled. Kaput. Nothing. Nadda.
Three: My mother is my responsibility now. There is no one else. She collapsed when she heard of my father's death. The doctor thinks it could be a psychotic break. He said it would be best if she could be hospitalized but that isn't an option for people without health insurance. He warned me that she might never be the same.
I've got until the end of the week to find a place for us to live, care for my mother and money for us to live on, much less any funds for a college education.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I shake off my umbrella and put it in the rack outside the front door of Gerry Street Mortuary. It looks like Senior prom blew up in here. I follow the crowds of people through the lobby looking for my father. They call him the Big Frog.
Through a room full of elderly Asian people I see him. The woman sitting next to him happens to get up and walk away just as I arrive. I take her chair.
“Papa? Papa?” He says nothing. He won’t even look at me.
“Papa, I need your help. Mama is ill again and the hospital says her health insurance is no good.”
A shriek of laughter interrupts our talk. A couple of old goats are playing mah jong in the corner. I rarely get the chance to see my father; it has been that way since I was born 18 years ago. He has another family, another life.
An old woman drags a folding chair next to us and clears her throat.
“I don't know you. Are you a friend of the family? ”
I shrug my shoulders. What do I say?
Another woman comes up and hands me a cup of tea. She inspects my father like he was a slab of beef. So rude.
“So handsome. They did a nice job on him.” She serves her friend, they clink cups and giggle.
God I hate this. I hate the gold dragons, gaudy lanterns, tassels and paper money – joss, these old biddies keep tossing on the fire.
Across the room someone has set up a handsome portrait of my father. He won't admit it but he likes a bit of a fuss sometimes. I sneak a peek at his face. Nothing. I wish we could get out of here and just take a walk.
I feel for his hand, clutch it in mine and the ladies stop giggling and gasp.
“Shes a frog! Look at her face, then his. Little girl you had better leave now before the family sees you.”
Hands push me out of my chair, propel me to my feet and shove me out the door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I usually like the walk from North Beach to Chinatown but today the rain is merciless, it beats down chilling my skin and soaking my hair. I forgot my umbrella.
Something warm takes my hand. It’s him!
“Papa! You shouldn't be out here.” Here is that twinkle eyed, mischief maker who is my father.
I pull him under a nearby awning of a gelato shop; we sit at one of the empty tables and watch the sky leak.
A trolley squeals to a stop, it is the end of the line and tourists drain out of the car like maggots seeking new flesh. It is funny to watch how they run to escape the weather.
A souped up 1950s Chevy careens down the street, launching a tsunami of water soaking the stragglers.
My father howls with laughter slapping his knee and pointing. It is good to see him happy.
I try again.
“Papa. Your number one son, my half-brother found out about us. I didn't tell him I swear. He just showed up at our door the other night.”
“Mama, mama of course couldn't help herself. She invited him in. I told her not to but you know her, peace, love and why can't we all get along. When will that woman realize it isn't the 70s anymore?”
A couple of Chinese school kids march by with their cartoon satchels. One girl points at my father and whispers something to her friend. They both shriek and run off.
I look back at my Father but he has disappeared. In the place where his hand had rested on the table, a safety deposit key.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I come home to an empty apartment, strip off my wet clothes and step in the shower. Steam rises, fills the room and I believe in magic again. We are not the frog people, I am not the daughter of Big Frog, and we are not cursed. Bad luck does not follow us like the plague.
The doorbell rings and Henry stands there pizza in hand. I could almost kiss him. But I won't. Frogs are the ones who need to be kissed not the other way around.
“You should see that bastard half-brother of yours and his mother. They are strutting around your father's bank like hens that’ve run a coup on a rooster.”
I wouldn't mind as long as they left us what was ours. All my mother and I need is enough to survive, for me to go to school and begin that great adventure of adulthood.
Henry holds the key up to the light. “Where did you get this?”
I couldn't tell him, he wouldn't believe me.
“There is no way my half-brother and his mother are ever going to let me walk in and claim the contents of this box.”
Henry puts his thinking cap on; I see his face light up.
“I've got the perfect plan.”
Henry sweeps dusty piles of ecco catalogs and unpaid bills off the coffee table. He grabs some popcorn from the bowl and begins to dribble it on the table.
“This will be your father's funeral procession from Gerry Street Mortuary to the cemetery.”
“Wouldn't it make more sense for them to take the Presidio instead?”
“Girl, I know you're white but you've lived here your whole life. The procession always always stops once at a special place for the deceased. For your father, that'll be the bank.”
“Ohhh. And...?”
“And so, when the employees come out to pay their last respects to your father, that's when you go in. You know your half-brother and his mother will be the center of the procession, collecting those envelopes of piety filled with $$$. There will be one to take the money and the other to write down the names of those who forgot to give. The place will be yours.”
It was a brilliant plan. I couldn't let Henry ruin his life to save mine.
“You should go. If this doesn’t work out, you’ll need your job.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The day has come; I stand on the corner of 6th and Gerry waiting for the procession. Across the street and down the block is my father’s bank.
In the distance I hear the the muscians warming up their horns.
Like a dragon on New Year's Eve, the procession begins to wind its way towards the bank. A brass marching band leads them all. Behind the band are a few professional mourners and after that, the van that carries the body.
Two rocket launchers, on either side of the van, shoot hell money into the crowd to distract any evil spirit from luring the deceased from his body, to becoming a hungry spirit,a wandering ghost.
I wonder if it is too late for my father.
I wonder if I am an evil spirit because I lured my father away from the funeral home yesterday. I hope not.
I'm standing in the bank vault, shivers rack my body. My father did leave us something. He did not leave us destitute and I am going to find out in a minute what it was.
Henry is freaking out.
“We don't have all day! Your brother may not be here but his spies are sure to return any moment now.”
Henry inserts the bank's key into the box numbered 888 (very lucky) and I bring my key up to the lock, slipping it in and we both turned our keys. The door opens.
Silence.
I reach up and pull on the handle, exposing the drawer. Henry helps me bring it into a private chamber.
“Should I leave you alone?” He asks
I hesitate. “Yeah, It's something between my father and me. Private.”
“Someone should keep an eye out anyway.”
He leaves and shuts the door behind him.
I want to remember this time forever; the lacquered walls, the cheesy chair, the smell of incense and body odor.
I hear the sound of laugher and jovial conversation come from the bank lobby. Time is up. I peel back the lid to see
- a gun
- a porcelain green frog
- and a handful of gold coins
Oh my God! These coins won't keep us long; even if we are careful.
What will we do now? How could he have made so little provision for my mother and I. Eighteen years he had to make sure we were provided for. What does he leave us? Nothing but a handful of coins!
I lift the gun from the drawer. It is heavier than it looks. The closest thing to this killing machine in my hand ever has been a plastic squirt gun filled with water. This gun is what I’m going into the legal profession to combat, to support a non-violent means of conflict resolution. It feels good in my hands.
I sit there wondering what next? I don't care if my half-brother or any of his spies catch me. I have nothing for them to take. They have taken it all.
And my father appears. He is a sad ghost. He motions to the door. It swings open a crack and I can hear that the bank is back to bustling business. From a distance I can hear the brass marching band; a new tune is being played. With each passing moment the music fades a little more and yet my father remains with me while his body continues the journey.
Something in the box flickers. Did the frog move? I stretch out a finger to touch him. He jumps! I fall back off my chair. Whoa! And my father laughs.
With each laugh the frog moves forward, hop, hop, hop. No! He has swallowed the precious few coins left to me and he is leaving.
I can't let this happen. Turning to my father I shout “Stop him!”
Father continues to laugh and the frog goes further away from our room and into the main bank lobby.
I rush out after the frog, with only the frog in mind. That damn frog.
“Stop him.” I shriek waving my hands which just happen to be still holding onto the gun.
Oh no! Mother and Paul and everyone else of importance are still in the lobby. A thousand witnesses.
‘She’s got a gun.” Someone yells and as if in slow motion everyone in the bank begins to lift their hands in the air.
While this is not my intent, it feels good to hold all this power. I pivot around the room, the gun held steady. In a minute I will let them in on the joke.
Quick thinking Henry grabs a carton and begins tossing money from the teller cages into it. Before long the carton is full and he slides it across the floor to me.
I kick it back.
“I don’t want this. This is not who I am.” I announce to the room and the world.
Paul steps forward claiming the carton.
The frog jumps.
“Get that ugly thing away from me.” Squeals Paul’s mother. “I cannot abide frogs!”
“Some of the most beautiful acts in the world have come from those we would call ugly, and vice versa.” I retort.
“How dare you talk to me that way? You are just the bastard child of my husband’s mistress. You come from nothing and to nothing you and your whore mother will return.”
Gasps and murmurs from the crowd.
“Mother what did you do?” Paul asks.
“What I should have done a long time ago. I cut these parasites off the day your father died.”
“No!”
“Yes”
Father materializes behind his wife and reaches out and touches her shoulder.
She begins to scream and scream and scream.
“This is all your fault, your fault.” She tears at her neatly coiffered hair and sinks to the floor.
“You treated me like a fool keeping that whore behind my back. You think I didn’t know?” She continues to wail.
Father looks on with sad eyes. He kneels and puts his arms around her, enveloping her in a compassion he was afraid to show earlier in life.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She bursts into real tears.
Paul walks towards me and holds out his hand for the gun.
“I promise you I will make things right for all of us. You and your mother will be provided for.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Two months later on Tomb Sweeping Day
Mother and I wait at a respectful distance as Father's first family tends to his grave. At last we are waved over, acknowledged. We spread our picnic adjacent to theirs. It is nice to be here to honor father maybe even to glimpse a bit of his spirit as he crosses over to the other world. Do they let frogs in heaven? I think so.
Mother is beautiful in a dress the same color as the daffodils she carries. Paul, my brother, asks me how school is going, Some days I think he is actually half human. It isn't a perfect world but it is the one we have and for now I believe the curse has gone dormant.
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