Frog by Stephen Dixon Page B

wants to get married and have a child, probably two. “With the right person, of course. That’ll take, once I meet him, about six months to find out. Then once it’s decided, I’d like to get married no more than a month after that, or at least begin trying to conceive.” The more time he spends at her place, the bossier and pettier she gets with him. She doesn’t like him hanging the underpants he washes on the shower curtain rod. He says “What about if I hang them on a hanger over the tub?” but she doesn’t like that either. “It looks shabby, like something in a squalid boardinghouse. Put them in the dryer with the rest of our clothes.” “The elastic waistband stretches. So does the crotch part to where after a few dryer dryings you can see my balls. That’s why I hand-wash them and hang them up like that.” Problem’s never resolved. He wrings his underpants out and hangs them on a hanger, with a few newspaper sheets underneath, in the foot of closet space she’s set aside for his clothes. A couple of times when he does this she says the drops from the hanging underpants might go through the paper and ruin the closet floor. He puts more newspapers down and that seems to assuage her. She thinks he should shave before he gets into bed, not when he rises. He says “But I’ve always shaved, maybe since I started shaving my entire face, in the morning. That’s what I do.” “Well try changing your habits a little. You’re scratchy. It hurts our lovemaking. My skin’s fair, much smoother than yours, and your face against it at night is an irritant.” “An irritant?” “It irritates my face, all right?” “Then we’ll make love in the morning after I shave.” “We can do that too,” she says, “but like most couples, most of our lovemaking is at night. Also, while I’m on the subject, I wish you wouldn’t get back into bed after you exercise in the morning. Your armpits smell. You sweat up the bed. If you don’t want to shower after, wash your arms down with a wet washrag. Your back and chest too.” “I only exercise those early times in the morning when I can’t sleep anymore, or am having trouble sleeping. So I feel, long as I’m up, I should either read or do something I’m going to do later in the day anyway, like exercising. But from now on I’ll do as you say with the washrag whenever I do exercise very early and then, maybe because the exercising’s relaxed or tired me, get back into bed.” She also thinks he hogs too much of the covers; he should try keeping his legs straight in front of him in bed rather than lying them diagonally cross her side; he could perhaps shampoo more often—“Your hair gets to the sticky level sometimes.” And is that old thin belt really right for when he dresses up? “If anything, maybe you can redye it.” And does he have to wear jeans with a hole in the knee, even if it is only to go to the corner store? “What about you?” he finally says. “You read the Times in bed before we make love at night or just go to sleep, and then don’t wash the newsprint off your hands. That gets on me. Probably also gets on the sheets and pillowcases, but of course only on your side of the bed, and your sheets and pillowcases, so why should I be griping, right? And your blouses. I’m not the only one who sweats. And after you have into one of yours—OK, you had a tough day at work and probably on the crowded subway to and from work and your body’s reacted to it—that’s natural. But you hang these blouses back up in the closet. On your side, that’s fine with me, and I’m not saying the smell gets on my clothes. But it isn’t exactly a great experience to get hit with it when I go into the closet for something. Anyway, I’m just saying.” They complain