He swore on his mother’s grave that he would never get married again. He wasn’t good at marriage. His track record said so. Three marriages. Three divorces. But unlike his friends and family, Charlie didn’t focus on his failure to keep a marriage going. He was a hopeless romantic—always saw love as a soft roll of film unwinding across the screen in pinks and reds.
His first marriage lasted three years. Margaret decided she didn’t want to be married when she stopped denying she was a lesbian. The second marriage lasted five years. Things were fine until Lorrie started screwing everybody in town.
“Don’t ever get married again,” his mother said, pouring herself another drink. “You married a dyke and a whore, Chuck. Enough is enough.”
He was married within the year.
Charlie was also a hoarder. Anything he could get his hands on he brought home. The garage was packed with junk. But he had a thing for frogs. Especially, Kermit the Frog. Kermit coffee cups. T-shirts. Framed pictures. Books. The house was littered with stuffed green frogs.
Kermit the Frog ended his third marriage. Sandy
“Kermit,” she said, loading up her car. “I can’t fuck you anymore with him watching.”
When I was small, I taunted my brother mercilessly, because that was what a big sister did. I could work him into a fury till he pursued me through the backyard with a stick of lumber in his hands, or kicked in the screen door while the babysitter watched and injected details about how we were gonna get it, and what, precisely the "it" we got would be. But, the one thing he could always get me back with (speaking of getting and being got) was the Kermit the Frog handpuppet. It was a deranged and lopsided knock-off, not the real Kermit at all and nothing like the frog born in Jim Henson's workshop. He'd put on the puppet and slink up behind me like a rat, propping it on my shoulder and making the puppet pretend to French kiss my neck and beg me for a date. It was. The. Worst!
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