THE OLD building was near the campus boundaries: the lot on which
it stood alone was an expansive field of weed and grass, but on one
side, through a creek that ran behind the building and cut through
the ground, the field bled into a small bog. Because of the water
from the creek the bog thrived all year long, spawning vegetation
and innumerable types of insects. It was a favorite place of frogs.
The occupants of the building took full advantage of the frogs'
proliferation in the bog. Many rooms in that building were laboratories
packed daily with college students, and the study of the prevalent
amphibians was a requirement in all the classes. It was for this reason
that at one point during each semester, some time after the students
had done studying their zoology manuals and making sure that the instruments
in their dissecting kits were ready for use, the frogs were gathered
to serve their purpose. Members of the maintenance crew did the hunting
for the students. The crew often wore rubber gloves and brandished
makeshift nets, but sometimes they simply trudged resolutely into
the thickness of the swamp and hunted frogs in the mud with their
bare hands.
On one such occasion, in a very light drizzle, a janitor lagged behind
two others as they clambered off the swampy ground. The two were sturdy,
swarthy young men who bore a bulky sack between them, and together
they made fun of the much older janitor, Mang Ed. Mang Ed carried
a small sack that appeared enormous in his dark, bony arms, and it
was lumpy with roundish things, quivering on its own sometimes. The
old man was stuck ankle-deep in the mud but he did not call on the
young men for help; instead, he tried to move forward on his own.
But he sank a few inches more, so he froze for a full minute, stepped
forward again, but sank even deeper. He waded through the watery soil
this way for five whole minutes until the mud almost reached his shins,
and all the while the two younger janitors laughed so hard that tears
formed in their eyes. Mang Ed made a hilarious sight, with his thinning
gray hair and mud-spattered mustache, his scrunched-up face, his crooked
back, all of it struggling to break free from the heavy sludge. Finally,
the young men tired of laughing and climbed out of the creek onto
the field, heading for the building, and the moment they turned away
Mang Ed slipped and doubled over, his face halting just an inch from
the muck. At last, though, he managed to reach the creek; there he
washed off some of the mud from his shorts before scampering up onto
the grass. As he stumbled towards the building, the sack and its restless
contents in his arms, he glanced up towards one of the windows on
the second floor. Mang Ed's face wrinkled into a respectful smile,
then he shuffled into the building.
It was a young instructor who had been watching the bog from one
of the laboratories. When the old janitor disappeared into the building,
the young man shook his head in exasperation, then pursed his lips,
as if trying to suppress a grin that seemed determined to surface
anyway. Eventually he allowed himself a chuckle. He did not look like
a thoughtless fellow at all, for on the contrary, in his white short-sleeved
polo and black necktie, he carried himself like any full-fledged professor.
Yet his hair was still black and full, and his fair skin had yet to
be marked with age; he was only in his early twenties, young enough
to appreciate the source of amusement that the two callous janitors
had found in Mang Ed. And the young teacher continued to smile to
himself, perhaps thinking still of Mang Ed's plight in the bog, and
all other comical things--
"Sir Gilbert?"
His face grew solemn the instant he turned away from the window.
"Ah, yes," he said, staring at the student who stood in the doorway
of the laboratory. She was a petite girl, slightly built and not even
five feet tall, and she wore outdated jeans under a long-sleeved blouse
that was the color of dried leaves. "Yes, Ms. Torres," he went on.
"You're the first to come."
The girl pulled weakly at her ponytail. "It's Salvador, sir," she
said. Her voice was small and soft. "Claire Salvador."
"Oh, yes," he nodded, walking over to the teacher's desk. He began
to concern himself with the tools in his dissecting kit. "Well, as
you can see, your classmates aren't here yet. You may sit down, though."
Claire entered the laboratory. There were only three long tables
for the students, and each table, the top paneled completely with
tiles, had three workplaces. She made her way to the workplace at
the end of the last table. About three yards away, right up against
the back wall, was a large display cabinet. The glass casing was clear
but rather thin, and the shelves were lined with glass jars, each
about two feet tall and one foot wide. They were filled with an amber-colored
liquid that set off the paleness of animal scales, and one jar was
stuffed full with small fish, another was crowded with the thick,
silent coils of serpents, while in other jars the fish mingled with
slender dark snakes. The eyes of all the animals were black and flat.
In all the jars, flakes of scale and flesh floated in the liquid like
lost gossamer.
Claire stood looking at the jars for a while. When she finally sat
down at her workplace she said aloud, "Sir Gil, I think these jars
have sprung a leak. It smells like formaldehyde back here."
Indeed, there was a strange odor that permeated the room. It was
very faint but it was acrid, fishy. Gilbert looked up from his desk
and pointed in the direction of the sink, under the windows that overlooked
the bog. "Mr. Cruz from the class before ours knocked over one of
the frog jars. He disposed of the frog but I guess he didn't scrub
off all the formaldehyde that spilled onto the tiles."
Claire walked towards the windows, under which the sink, long and
white, was attached to the wall. A number of faucets branched off
from a pipe that ran the length of the sink, and along this pipe was
arranged a row of about twenty pint-sized jars. In every jar a skinless
frog bobbed up and down in the yellowing liquid.
The girl looked for a while then said, "I think he broke mine, sir."
Gilbert shrugged. He seemed busy, leafing through the pages of a
yellow-covered lab manual. "Never mind. Anyway, you'll learn a lot
more today than when the class skinned those pickled frogs."
"But— but where did he put my pickled frog, sir?"
He rose and turned around to face the chalkboard, one hand still
holding the manual. "I said it's all right, didn't I?" For a few seconds
he stared at the black-green vastness of the chalkboard. He was frowning
a little when he glanced around at Claire. "Was it you who drew the
digestive system last time?"
"No, sir."
"Damn." He glanced at his watch. "If we wait for whoever it was we'll
never get down to dissecting the frogs. Will you do the drawings?"
He handed her the manual and a piece of chalk as he explained exactly
what she had to draw. "So you'd have one diagram of the frog's veins
and another of the arteries. Now, I need to go downstairs to check
on our frogs."
She was slow to take the chalk from his fingers. "But sir, I'm no
good at drawing."
"Nonsense. It's all quite simple—but don't forget to draw all
the organs in their proper places. And make the lines distinct."
He was already at the door when Mang Ed showed up. The old man had
changed his clothes and combed his mustache, but the tips of his earlobes
still looked like they had been dipped in mud. Gilbert blinked and
then looked down at his watch. His mouth twitched a little as he asked
where the frogs were.
Mang Ed beamed, showing his perfect yellow teeth. "Hey, Manong, they're
in a very safe place, they are."
"You mean they're not with the frogs requested by the other teachers?"
The old janitor made a face. "Manong, I do not want my frogs with
the others! Your co-teachers are very stuck up, they are, Manong,
they are so very different from the people where I worked last."
Gilbert took a deep breath. "Look, I really don't have the time—"
A tall, gangly boy with glasses came up behind the old man. "Sir
Gil," he said, "does the fact that we're to dissect frogs today have
anything to do with the big brown toad in the men's room?"
"Son of a—" Mang Ed croaked before he sped off. The corners
of Gilbert's mouth turned up but he gritted his teeth instead.
"Aaron stepped on it," the gangly boy informed his teacher.
Gilbert clutched at his face with his fingers. When he lowered his
hand, his mouth no longer twitched. "That's enough. Are the others
coming at all?"
"Of course, sir! They wouldn't miss this for the world."
Five minutes later the rest of Gilbert's students had come, and they
quickly began laying out their tools on their workplaces. Claire,
however, was only halfway through her first drawing when Gilbert and
Mang Ed brought in a large styrofoam icebox.
"I realized that the class would have difficulty pithing these frogs,
since Mang Ed here seems to have hunted the toughest ones—"
"But that scoundrel there crushed one with his boot, Manong! It is
a good thing I hunted more than you told me to."
"All right," Gilbert said, waving Mang Ed out the laboratory. The
old man scurried off but peeked through the door every now and then.
Gilbert turned to the chalkboard and looked surprised to see Claire
still laboring on the first drawing. "How much longer, Ms. Torres?"
She opened her mouth to correct her name, but instead of speaking
she went on quietly sketching for a few more seconds. A drop of sweat
slid down the side of her face as she said finally, "I don't know,
sir." She paused to tug on her ponytail. Chalkdust trailed down her
hair but she did not seem to notice. "Can somebody else draw the other
diagram?"
He shook his head. "Everyone is already wearing gloves. Just go on."
He turned back to the class. "To make pithing easier for you people,
I placed a bit of chloroform in the icebox. It knocked the critters
out but the effect doesn't last long enough to suit our needs, so
we are still going to pith them. Anesthesia is great until it wears
out. You guys wouldn't want to wake up with your guts hanging out
over your carefully quartered flesh, correct?"
"As long as it's carefully quartered…" the gangly boy with the glasses
said, and a handful of the guys laughed.
"This isn't funny, people," Gilbert snapped. "We pith the frog so
that it ceases to possess the capacity for all sensations, particularly
pain. You should have read all that in the manual by now, but let
me run this over with you again."
He put on his gloves and lifted a frog from the icebox. It was soft
and mottled green, like lichen on a malleable rock, and its eyes were
closed.
"Listen closely and remember. I've paired you people off, so working
together, pithing should be no problem-after all, you'll be pithing
unconscious frogs. Now watch: hold the frog firmly with your left
hand, because your right hand will be holding the dissecting needle—yes,
the one that looks like a really big and sharp nail—yes, of
course you may switch hands if you're left handed."
Gilbert paused. "People, I'm warning you." He did not shout but a
note in his voice commanded—truly commanded—the students
to be serious.
The class hushed down and the instructor continued, "Observe how
its legs are outstretched. Now, with the index finger of the hand
holding the frog, bend its head downward over the middle finger."
He held the frog exactly as he said. Its eyes opened but it posed
no struggle. It seemed like a beanie bag in Gilbert's gloved hands.
"See the cup-like depression at the base of the skull? If you run
the needle posteriorly from the head you'll be able to feel it… see,
it's wide-open now: the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord
passes from the brain."
He moved the point of the dissecting needle to the cup-like depression,
then pushed it in. His right hand was deft, and the fingers that held
the needle did not waver.
"Now push the needle. Push the needle and destroy the brain completely.
Don't stop until you think you can hear the tip of the needle scraping
against bone." The length of the needle glinted as its tip moved around
the inside of the frog's skull. "Remember that it is important to
completely destroy the brain."
There was no blood, no ooze. Gilbert brought the frog to the sink
and washed the animal under running water. "Get your frogs from the
icebox now so that we can get started."
Each pair of students picked out a frog and began pithing. The boys
worked swiftly enough, but several of the girls seemed to need reassurance
that the frogs were still asleep and would not feel the needle at
all. Gilbert paid them no attention. He took out a dissecting pan
from under the sink and filled it with a little water. As he laid
the frog down on its back, spreading out its forelimbs against the
pan, a pretty, perky girl approached him.
"Sir, Claire is my partner and she's still drawing on the board.
I can't pith our frog alone!" Levi's jeans and a sleeveless blouse
hugged her lithe figure. She waved her hands as she spoke, and for
a few moments a delicate fragrance filled the air around her.
Gilbert raised his head and smiled. "That's all right, Ms—
Torres. You're Torres, correct? I suppose you'll have to ask someone
else to help you with the pithing. Ms. Salvador isn't quite through
with the diagrams yet."
He turned back to the frog. Its underside, now turned up to the air,
was a tender yellow-brown, and its chest rose and fell in quiet rhythm.
He stuck the pins through its webbed feet, right into the wax bottom
of the pan. Then he carried the pan to his desk and stood looking
at the chalkboard.
The girl was almost done with the second drawing. Gilbert moved to
her side, where with her left hand she held up the lab manual.
"Will you darken the pulmocutaneous artery?" he asked. "It's almost
impossible to see how it connects from the heart to the lung."
"Sir, but the diagram on the manual…" She held up the manual closer
to her face. As she did, the cuff of her long sleeve pulled back a
little, exposing her pale wrist.
"The manual isn't perfect, see. Here, now you have to make the artery
longer." He removed the glove from his right hand and tapped on the
manual's page. As he did, he happened to glance at her wrist.
"Okay, sir." She set about correcting her drawing. Gilbert glanced
at her wrist again, then at the drawing on the chalkboard. A moment
later he coughed.
"What's that?" he asked. When the girl looked up at him blankly,
he tapped the inside part of her wrist. There she had a long, vertical
scar that disappeared up her cuff. It must not have come from a very
old cut because the scab and the surrounding skin still seemed a little
raw.
"The drawings are done," Claire said, shutting the manual and lowering
her left arm. She put the chalk and the manual back on the desk and
hurried to the back of the room, where her partner appeared to have
finished pithing the frog, for it already lay pinned by its feet in
a dissecting pan.
Gilbert looked pensive for a while, gazing at his own wrist, but
when he saw the time on his watch he shook himself and put his glove
back on. As he turned to the class he said, "Put a little water in
the pan to keep the frog's skin moist. And remember, don't spill water
onto the floor, we don't want any accidents. Let's get to work: take
out your forceps and scalpels."
(Next page)
