Froggy Frenchman

No, not in the flesh — if Jesus was ever in ordinary flesh — but in the faces of the Christian ladies, heads held high chanting their sorrows and joys for all to share. He had turned away, Froggy said, from sacred things since he was old enough to pay his way. And here he was half-gone on muscatel when he felt the soul soar loose from the wreck of his body, all 350 misshapen pounds of it. No, not in church, but on “the damn crosstown streetcar running late.” A distant Sunday night in the City of Dreams, Froggy on his way to his weekend of the usual low-notes, cheap cigars, Michigan wine, and stud poker, when Jesus “come a knockin’.” At Twelfth Street the trolley stopped and a dozen ladies mounted, each in her best flowered dress, each with her worn Bible in hand, each one blessed and glowing. “Changed my life,” Froggy says — for maybe the hundredth time — though how is hard to say. Orphan of destiny, descendant of voyagers, fur traders, whiskey priests run amok in the final wilderness, Froggy takes his ease on the battered throne of history — a sprung barrel chair — his tiny slippered feet resting on a mismatched ottoman out on the driveway. Sunday’s his day, he tells us. Sleeps late, breakfasts on OJ and sips of “Morgan Davis” — a consecrated beverage — , and delivers his great truths to anyone slow enough or dumb enough to listen.