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Bullfrogs Paradise

10 Years Ago


  Bullfrogs Paradise It was my daddy’s idea to name me Ferris; he got my mama pregnant on top of a Ferris wheel at the county fair when they was just kids. My name was the only thing my father ever gave me. When I was eight or so he left me and my mama and my brother to work on a cow ranch in Texas. I’m sixteen now and haven’t seen or heard from him in eight years. I live in Tillman, Alabama. Tillman is a real shithole, it smells like fish and hot swamp mud. Tillman it has a bunch of lowlife nothins, I’m a lowlife nothin. But I won’t always be, I do real fine in school, I am always making A’s. Tomorrow is the first day of school. I’m gonna be a sophomore. Mama got me a new shirt for the first day, its not really pretty but I know she was excited to give it to me so I’ll wear it. My younger brother Hatch is real excited. Hatch will be in eighth grade this year. Mrs. Brooke is his teacher and was my teacher in eighth grade, she’s real nice, real old too. Mrs. Brooke and my mama got into a fight once over me. Mrs. Brooke said that mama wasn’t taking care of me cause I was so skinny. Mama tried telling her that I have always been skinny and they got into a yelling fight. Mrs. Brooke made my mama keep a food book of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Mama lied a little but I never told. I have always been skinny, skin and bones. Everyone said mama looked young for her age. She’d always have her blonde hair in a messy bun and she would wear long button up dresses that she had had since high school. Mama was quiet, kept to herself, didn’t have any friends to go out with. It never made her sad, she liked just sittin on the porch and rockin in that rockin chair. “Mama what’s for dinner tonight?” Hatch moans, holding his belly. “Your favorite, chicken and dumplins.” Mama smiled as she walked into the kitchen. “Woopy!” Hatch yelled as he ran out the back door. “I’ll be back later.” Hatch hasn’t grown an inch since the fifth grade; he has dirty blonde hair and lots of freckles. He is a sweet boy, wouldn’t hurt a fly. He doesn’t like girls yet, or at least I don’t think he does. “Go follow that boy; he’s been acting awful strange lately.” Mama yells from the kitchen. “Please Ferris, ease my mind.” Mama worries a lot; it makes her real sick sometimes. I put on my boots and walk out the door.   Me and mama and Hatch live in a trailer park. Bullfrogs Paradise is its name. Cheesy I know. It’s true though. At night you can barely hear yourself talk because of all the frogs. I’ve lived in Bullfrogs Paradise my whole life, I know everythin about everyone. The trailer to the left of us belongs to Mrs. Arnold, she doesn’t live there anymore but her cats do, and she comes buy once a day to feed em. The trailer to our right is the Abernathy family, they are alright I guess. Pamala Abernathy is my age, she likes to read and she likes to wear knee socks. The younger Abernathy’s never have clothes on, mama says it aint right leaving those little kids like that. Bob is directly across from us, hes got a big belly that always hangs out of his shirt and when I walk past his house I can see he is always watching the TV. Bobs son Johnathan offered me meth once, told me that it was free of charge. I told him that I liked my teeth. Everyone else mostly keeps to themselves, I talk to em a little. I start to run down the trail that leads into the swamp. Hatch likes to go down by the swamp and catch the frogs, he caught a baby alligator once. Mama saw it and almost had a heart attack; my neighbor came over and killed it, the baby alligator was screamin and Hatch cried for three days. Night time was settin in as I made my way down the overgrown trail. Nats kept flyin in my face and the air was thick. I heard voices off in the distance. As I walked closer I could make out two figures. It was Sammy Malone and Maya Landerson. Sammy and Maya lived in Bullfrogs Paradise a few tailors down from mine. The trailer was Sammys parents but both of them lived there, along with their cousins and four dogs. Maya was about four months pregnant mama said, and that smoking was bad for the baby. Every morning Id walk to the bus stop and see her sittin on the front steps smoking, it made me real sad for that baby. “You think I wouldn’t find out?” Sammys said. “What are you talking about, find out what?” Maya answered as she walked down to the edge of the swamp. “I know that baby aint mine.” “Of course it is! Sammy you’re high right now aren’t you? Come on lets go home and you can lie down.” “Doesn’t matter if im high or not, I seen you two. The other day, at Randals. I get down on my hands and my knees so that they cant see me in the tall grass. The ground is real wet and mushy and I can see holes in the ground where the crabs live. Then Sammy starts actin all crazy like, he starts pacing and hitting his fist on his head. “No, no, no.”   Maya stays silent. Sammy is shaking real bad and cryin now. And screaming things that I cant make out. And then he stops and stands still and silent and stares into the swamp. And stares like that for at least ten minutes. All I remember after that is watching him hold her head under water. Mayas arms were flalin and her feet were kickin mud everywhere. Sammy had a hold of er buy the back of her head and he was holdin her under that dirty swamp water. I remember seeing Mayas strawberry blonde hair wrapped up in Sammys hand. I was scared and I couldn’t move. The best I could do was closin my eyes. But I still heard the water splashin and I still heard Mayas legs scrapping mud off the ground. And then I heard nothing. Not even the frogs made a noise. I heard footsteps walking toward me and I got down onto my stomach, I laid in the wet mud for a what seemed like a short time, but when I came to I could tell that it would be way past supper time. Once I got up I didn’t dare look over towards the water. If I would have seen her pregnant body floatin in that swamp I would have dies right then and there.  I stumbled my way up the trail. I was shaking real bad and I felt sick. I could tell that I was passing trees and every now and then and the light of a firefly would startle me. I finally reached my trailer. I walked in and saw mama and hatch sittin at the kitchen table. Both of them stared at me. “Ferris, why are you covered in mud?” mama ask getting up from the table and rushing over to me. “Me and your brother were so worried about you.” “Its alright mama, when I was looking for Hatch I slipped and tumbled down a hill. I hit my head pretty hard so I think I should go and lie down.” I say quietly, not making eye contact with either of them. “Aw baby, okay. Ill but your supper in the stove in case you want it later.” “Thanks.” I sink into bed and pull the covers over my face. Im still covered in the now dried up swamp mud. I know I need to sleep for the night, tomorrow being the first day of school and all. But how could I? I keep replaying the…murder…. over and over in my head. At some point I end up falling asleep because I wake up to my mother asking me how my head felt. The bus dropped Hatch off at the middle school then took me to the high school. I walk into the cafeteria and set my book bag on the table and got in line for breakfast. I tried acting normal, but I felt like everything that I did was weird, or out of the ordinary. Today is oatmeal. A dangerous food in high school. I spend all first period picking it out of my hair or whipping it off my clothes. Being a sophomore doesn’t feel a whole lot different than being a freshman. I might have got a little taller, maybe my b***s got bigger, and maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Flashes of a body floating in the swamp kept poppin up in my mind. I would just close my eyes and think of happy things, Hatch and me racing bikes, when mama took us to the beach in Florida, and the first time I kissed a boy. I walk from class to class, the hallways smell of freshly printed paper and whatever it was we were having for lunch that day, maybe lasagna? My book bag is heavy on my little body. The day came and went and I could remember nothing from it. After I got off the bus I had to walked past Sammys trailer. I saw him, sittin on the front porch smoking, he had no shirt on and cut off jean shorts, he always had work boots on but id never seen him work a day in his life. “Ferris, that’s your name aint it?” “Yeah.” I said as I walked by. Sammy had never tried to talk to me before. I was afraid. “Come on over here for a second.” My body went numb and I didn’t know what to do. If I kept on going he might know what I saw, I’d look suspicious. If I went over to him he could easily pull me in that trailer and id never be seen again. Mama would worry herself to death and Hatch would never stop lookin for me. “I cant, my mama needs me at home.” I said and glanced his way. He stayed silent. I lay in bed and listened to the bullfrogs chirpin. The hot summer air blowin in through my open window. I could hear Mrs. Arnolds cats meowing from inside the trailer and I could hear Mama asking Hatch about his first day of school. I wanted to tell someone what I saw. Mama, Hatch, the police. I should have told the second that I got back home that night. It was the right thing to do after all. Mayas family must be worried sick, and to think of her and that baby alone, in the pitch black. Tomorrow after school I was going to tell mama what I had seen, have her drive me down to the police station and fill out a report. The thought made me feel better and I eventually dosed off. I didn’t know he was inside my room until I felt his hand coverin of my mouth. I remember looking up and seeing the sweat on his forehead. His hand smelled like dirt and mold. A knife was being pushed into my side, I didn’t dare move. I was so scared, my heart was beatin so loud I remember thinking maybe Mama would hear it and wake up. But she didn’t, and neither did Hatch. His breath smelled awful, like cigarettes and rot. He was staring down at me. I didn’t know what he wanted, to kill me, to rape me, to scare me. And then I felt the burning on my skin, and the warm watery substance running down the side of my body and onto my sheets. His hand was still coverin my mouth, but I screamed. And then the knife moved to my throat. “You tell anyone what you saw yesterday and ill skin you from the inside out, ill make sure your mom and brother find your mangled body before I kill em. The only reason you aint dead is cause it was hard enough getting rid of one body.” And out the window he went. I lay there until mama came in to wake me up for school. The bleeding had stopped at some point but as soon as I sat up I was dizzy and fell right back down. I talked mama into lettin me stay home for the day, well the next four days. It had now been six days since I say Maya and her unborn baby be murdered. There were no missing person posters, no news crews, no worried family members. Im sure people ask Sammy where his pregnant girlfriend was and he said she went to live with a family member in Texas, or she ran off with some other boy she met in town or maybe he said she was in jail. For the times I did manage to sleep I would have dreams of the floating body, of an unmarked grave, of fly’s landing on cold skin. So many things had happened to be within just a weeks’ time. I lay in my bed with my eyes wide open, jumpin at every little noise. My mind was so confused that I couldn’t think about the simplest things. How much homework id have to make up, how I was going to explain the bloody sheets to mama, what we were havin for dinner, not that I was going to eat it anyway. No, the only thing that went through my mind was how I was going to live. If I didn’t tell the police, or mama what id seen id be messed up my whole life, and if I did tell, I wouldn’t have a life to be messed up. Nobody in Bullfrogs Paradise ever does the right thing. Bob’s son Johnathan sells meth to kids and no one stops him, Abby Golstetter sells stolen car parts, but everyone buys em, Lucy Venett at the end of my street doesn’t take care of her kids, they don’t even have runnin water in there trailer, and shes always stumbling around drunk and Sammy Malone’s pregnant girlfriend goes missing and no one is trying to find her. So why cant I just put it all behind me and live like everyone else does. Fall asleep at night because I know its not my problem. I hadn’t brushed my hair in a week, I hardly ate anything, my eyes were all red and puffy from cryin and my side still hurt from the cut that Sammy had gave me. I was getting sick a lot, sometimes I would just get sick on my floor and not even careto get up or clean it up. Mama took me to the doctors but they told her I was fine. Said it was stress. Mama made me go back to school. By third period I was in the nurses office pukin. Our guidance counselor Mrs. Gray came in and sat down on the end of those plastic nurse beds and looks at me. Mrs. Gray was so nice and so sweet, she reminded me of Hatch the way she was freckly and had those big doe eyes.   “Ferris I don’t believe that you are physically ill. I think that you have an underlying problem. The only you are going to get well again is if you talk about your problem. Wouldn’t you feel better getting it off your chest?” I stared at her and said nothing. Months went by and those months turned into years.  I had learned to block out what I saw that day. And with time, the thoughts, and dreams and worries went away. Hatch was workin at the lumber yard in town, and mama was still mama, makin dinner and sitting on the front porch in her rockin chair.   I was a senior at the community college two towns north of Tillman. I was two months short of graduating with a degree in environmental science when I saw that a group of kids had found a body in Bullfrogs Paradise. Back then I was a child, I was afraid and had good reason to be. I was Ferris, the girl who witnessed a murder and didn’t tell. Later that day I went over to Bullfrogs Paradise to visit mama, I was going to tell her what I had seen that night. I was going to go to the police and tell them everything. I wasn’t afraid anymore. “Mama, you know that body they found down by the swamp?” I say, sitting across from her at the kitchen table. She sips coffee. “I do.” “Well I watched her die.” I said, staring down at the table. “I know you did baby.” Mama said while patting my hand. “What, you knew that I saw that girl get murdered.” I was in complete and total shock. My mouth was wide open and my eyes were blank. Mama must not have been listening. “That day that you went out looking for Hatch in the woods, he came back soon after you left. I told him that dinner was almost ready and he was to find you. Hatch ran down the trail that leads to the swamps, told me he saw Sammy holding Maya’s head under water, and said he saw you laying in the bushes watchin. He was hidin behind the big beach tree, the one with all the carvins on it.”             I was in complete and total shock. “Why didn’t you tell the police what had happen! Why didn’t you tell me that you knew what I had seen?!” “Baby, if we told or let on that we knew anything Sammy or one of his cousins would have killed us. Playing as day.” Mama sighed. “ Me and Hatch decided that it was best just to leave things be. For all of our safety.” “Well we can tell now.” I said staring into her eyes. “If we told the police that we knew all along what had happened we could go to jail. And Sammy could come back. We would have to testify in front of him, and his family. The girl is dead Ferris. Dead and gone and nothing that we do now is going to bring her back.” Mama got up and walked into the living room, sat on the couch and turned on the television. I got up from the table and walked out, slamming the screen door. It’s true, no one in Bullfrogs Paradise ever did the right thing, not me or Hatch or mama. I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, staring. “Miss, we are investigating a possible homicide. Do you live in this trailer here?” A lady in a suit was standing at my car window, holding a pad of paper and a pencil.  I paused, started at the lady in the suit, leaned my head out the window and said; “Yes, I use to live here when I was younger, and I saw the murder of that girl you are bringin up. And I’d like to tell you about it.”

Re: Bullfrogs Paradise

10 Years Ago


I liked it but it needed to be broken into paragraphs.