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Revelation, Part Deux
Kermit had not actually gone to see his father, so Fate had intervened. His Father had come looking for him. James the Frog found his eldest puttering around camp like a stray puppy and had put his hand gently under Kermit’s elbow.
“Take a walk with me, son,” said James. “You look like you’re in the way and underfoot.” Kermit had grinned and ducked his head, embarrassed at being caught moping. The two men set out for a leisurely constitutional around the swamp, enjoying the bright sun filtering through the leaves and the moist and often buggy air.
Despite his cane, James walked with the vigor and stamina of a much younger frog, and while Kermit didn’t exactly have to hustle to keep up, he found he couldn’t lag for fear of being left behind. They talked while they walked in the manner of male frogs—the weather, the tides, the likelihood of locusts this year, but Kermit knew his father was angling toward something other than mosquito futures. It had always been this way, with small talk preceding conversations of more substance, and Kermit looked with mostly equal parts anticipation and dread to where this conversation might turn.
When it turned, it turned abruptly. James stopped suddenly in a pale beam of filtered sunshine, planted his cane firmly into the marshy ground, and looked at his son with deliberation.
“’Bout time you got married,” said James, but his eyes were twinkling with fond approval.
“Dad!” Kermit wailed, and then burst out laughing at how juvenile it sounded. He gave his father his best stern look—a pale imitation of James’ own look, but not bad. “This isn’t going to be a repeat of the lecture you gave me when I started losing my tail, is it?”
James was unperturbed. “Why?” he asked. “Do you need a refresher?”
Kermit held up his hands in surrender. “Uncle! Uncle already, Dad!” he cried, blushing furiously.
James laughed silently, and thumped Kermit on the back. “As I was saying, it’s about time you married that pretty little pig.”
“Um, thanks?” Kermit tried again. “I—it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
This was a good answer, but James gave his eldest son a penetrating look. “What about now?”
Kermit took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, Dad,” said Kermit. “I was such an idiot for waiting this long.”
James did not disagree, but studied his son fondly. “Well, you came around,” he said gently. Kermit made a rude noise of disgust at himself, but said nothing. James let the nothing hang there in the air, but he saw the restlessness in Kermit’s frame and began to walk deeper into the swamp. Gratefully, Kermit followed, glad to be moving again.
“So,” he said finally. “What prompted this sudden change of plans?”
Kermit sighed, looking rueful. “It wasn’t really sudden,” he admitted slowly. “I—I think I’ve known for a long time that Piggy was the one.” He cast a sideways glance at his father. “Do you believe in the one true love thing, Dad?”
“Of course,” James said. “I don’t just believe in it—I’ve lived it.” He patted Kermit affectionately on the back. “Once I met your mother, that was it for me. There wasn’t another woman on the planet that could hold a candle to her.”
Beauregard wasn’t here, but Kermit’s mind heard him say, “Why would they do that?” The answer came—in Gonzo’s voice—“Hey—that sounds like fun!” Kermit shook his head. He’d worked in chaos for so long that it followed him even here, into the relative peace swamp.
“But,” James continued thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s true for everyone. Some people can get happy by themselves. Others can bloom where they’re planted with whomever happens to be in the same garden.” He looked to Kermit to see if he understood, and Kermit nodded. “So…you decided Piggy was the one. What made you decide to act on it?”
Kermit was quiet for a moment, half stalling for time and half thoughtfully pondering his next answer. “Well….” He said slowly. “The show was over. We had a good run, but it was time to do something else. We’d started filming the third movie and….” He stopped and shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Have I…did I tell you the plot of the third movie?”
James inclined his head. “A little,” he said. “And your Mother would tell me little bits along when you talked to her about it.” He looked at Kermit out of the corner of his eye. “So, you were already thinking about it before you wrote the script.”
“Well, it seems to have been on my mind,” Kermit said ruefully. “I mean, initially it was just going to be about the gang going to Broadway and getting discovered.”
James sighed and shook his head. “You show biz guys do love to reinvent history,” he sighed.
“Dad,” Kermit complained again, but affectionately. “So I had the script mostly written, but I couldn’t think how to end it. I couldn’t think what to do after the show. And then, when I was thinking about it, I realized that—sheesh, Dad—it was the end. The end of the show, the end of the movies we’d contracted to do.” He gave his dad the same little sideways look he had just received. “The end of seeing my friends every day at work.”
“And the end of having Piggy around all day, every day.”
“Yeah,” Kermit said. “That too.”
“So, you decided to invent a little history of your own,” James said. Kermit was grateful for his insight. His dad seemed to know on some instinctive level that Kermit sometimes found it easier to cross into new territory wearing his director’s cap.
“Yeah, maybe,” Kermit admitted. James made a sound that might have been a snort, but when Kermit flashed him an irate look, his face was carefully neutral.
“So you scripted yourself a dream wedding,” James the Frog prompted. “Complete with a beautiful bride.”
“Uh huh.”
“But once you’d tried that idea on for size, you—“
“I didn’t want the dream wedding—or the dream bride. I wanted…the real one. I wanted Piggy.”
James was quiet for a moment. They were deep under the overhanging trees now, and the sounds of the water gurgling and singing, and the crunch of pine needles and leaves underfoot were the only sounds. The trunk of a fallen tree lay conveniently nearby; they sat.
“I guess that was a little hard to admit, after…after everything else.” Thankfully, James did not comment about the years of public breaking-up-and-making up that he and Piggy had gone through. It had long been a tacit rule back at the swamp that—whatever Kermit said about the status of the relationship, James and Jane just smiled and nodded and hoped for the best.
“Maybe,” Kermit said, and there were a lot of things implied but not said. He cast his father a sheepish glance. “But once I was sure about what I wanted…then suddenly I began to wonder if that’s still what Piggy wanted.”
“So…making the movie was a way of sounding her out about that.” James looked thoughtful. “Kindof an unfair advantage, wasn’t it?”
Kermit looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “I—yeah. I guess that wasn’t very….” He grew quiet. “It took me a long time to recognize what I felt, and even longer to admit it. During all the time, Piggy was waiting on me. I was…I was afraid I’d made her wait too long.”
James said nothing but his expression was kind.
“So, after Piggy got the finished script, she was…I had a hard time getting a read on her at all. Sometimes, she’d breeze past me like I didn’t exist, and other times….” Kermit blushed.
“Other times,” his dad prompted, deviling his son a little.
Kermit put his hands over his face as he felt a deep blush spread across his features. “Other times, she seemed to like me just fine. Finally, we got close to the end of filming, and we needed Piggy to find a wedding dress.” He hesitated, thinking. “At first, she said Hilda should just pick one for her. I guess…I guess picking out a wedding dress when you aren’t getting married would be sortof hard.”
“You don’t say,” said James dryly, and Kermit nodded, accepting this parental censure because he deserved it.
“So…I said I’d take her dress shopping—buy her any wedding dress she wanted.”
“Talk about a two-edged sword,” said James. “I’m surprised she didn’t flatten you.”
Kermit rubbed his middle ruefully. “Yeah,” he muttered. “But Dad—when we were—when she was trying on dresses, that’s when I knew she still loved me. That she was still waiting on me.” He smiled—a quirky, lop-sided smile that was so very familiar. “I’d catch her looking at me, catch her watching me out of the corner of her eye. If I’d had the ring by then, I would have proposed, but I didn’t. But that’s when I started making my plans.”
“I saw the rock,” his dad said. “Looks like you did a nice job.”
“Piggy likes it,” Kermit said, brightening. “Tiffany’s always comes through.”
“And from the look of that thing, I’d say business is doing well.”
Kermit grinned. “Business is very good.” He looked at his father and shrugged. “The rest you know---and here we are, the happy couple!”
“Happy couple indeed,” said James thoughtfully, “but your girl has had a bit of a rough go here in the swamp.”
Kermit nodded miserably. “I know!” he moaned. “Nothing’s turned out exactly like I thought. I wanted Piggy to feel at home here, but bad things keep happening.”
“Some of the bad things haven’t happened by themselves,” James said. “I’m sorry to say that Maggie and those two incorrigibles have had a flipper in some of that.” He put a hand on Kermit’s back by way of apology.
Kermit made a little morose sound of agreement.
“What should I do, Dad? What can I do?” Kermit asked. For just a moment, Kermit looked at his father and wished that he still had the power to make everything all right.
James rubbed Kermit’s back, and Kermit had a powerful skin memory of sitting beside his father on a log in front of the fire when he was about twelve. He could not remember what they had talked about—only that he felt much better after.
It was James’ turn to hesitate, but at last he cleared his throat.
“Sometimes, Kermit, you can’t protect the people you love from the bumps and scrapes of life. But you can be there for them when it happens.” For a second, he thought about telling Kermit about Jane’s upset over Maggie, but changed his mind. No need adding this worry to the others. “Just be there for Piggy,” James said warmly. “That’s the best thing you can do, and I know you won’t let her down.”
Kermit nodded and smiled wanly. “Thanks, Dad.”
James stood, and Kermit stood with him.
“C’mon, son,” James said. “It’s time to be getting back.”
“Yeah,” said Kermit. “Piggy might be back from the store by now.” He looked at his father and shrugged. “That usually cheers her up. When in doubt, shop.”
James laughed. “Or in your mother’s case—cook.” He looked at Kermit speculatively. “But we could take the long way back—I hear the crickets are particularly fine on the far side of the old stump.”
“I’m your guy!” said Kermit enthusiastically.
James put his arm around Kermit’s shoulder and patted. “I never doubted it for a moment.”
Kermit had not actually gone to see his father, so Fate had intervened. His Father had come looking for him. James the Frog found his eldest puttering around camp like a stray puppy and had put his hand gently under Kermit’s elbow.
“Take a walk with me, son,” said James. “You look like you’re in the way and underfoot.” Kermit had grinned and ducked his head, embarrassed at being caught moping. The two men set out for a leisurely constitutional around the swamp, enjoying the bright sun filtering through the leaves and the moist and often buggy air.
Despite his cane, James walked with the vigor and stamina of a much younger frog, and while Kermit didn’t exactly have to hustle to keep up, he found he couldn’t lag for fear of being left behind. They talked while they walked in the manner of male frogs—the weather, the tides, the likelihood of locusts this year, but Kermit knew his father was angling toward something other than mosquito futures. It had always been this way, with small talk preceding conversations of more substance, and Kermit looked with mostly equal parts anticipation and dread to where this conversation might turn.
When it turned, it turned abruptly. James stopped suddenly in a pale beam of filtered sunshine, planted his cane firmly into the marshy ground, and looked at his son with deliberation.
“’Bout time you got married,” said James, but his eyes were twinkling with fond approval.
“Dad!” Kermit wailed, and then burst out laughing at how juvenile it sounded. He gave his father his best stern look—a pale imitation of James’ own look, but not bad. “This isn’t going to be a repeat of the lecture you gave me when I started losing my tail, is it?”
James was unperturbed. “Why?” he asked. “Do you need a refresher?”
Kermit held up his hands in surrender. “Uncle! Uncle already, Dad!” he cried, blushing furiously.
James laughed silently, and thumped Kermit on the back. “As I was saying, it’s about time you married that pretty little pig.”
“Um, thanks?” Kermit tried again. “I—it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
This was a good answer, but James gave his eldest son a penetrating look. “What about now?”
Kermit took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, Dad,” said Kermit. “I was such an idiot for waiting this long.”
James did not disagree, but studied his son fondly. “Well, you came around,” he said gently. Kermit made a rude noise of disgust at himself, but said nothing. James let the nothing hang there in the air, but he saw the restlessness in Kermit’s frame and began to walk deeper into the swamp. Gratefully, Kermit followed, glad to be moving again.
“So,” he said finally. “What prompted this sudden change of plans?”
Kermit sighed, looking rueful. “It wasn’t really sudden,” he admitted slowly. “I—I think I’ve known for a long time that Piggy was the one.” He cast a sideways glance at his father. “Do you believe in the one true love thing, Dad?”
“Of course,” James said. “I don’t just believe in it—I’ve lived it.” He patted Kermit affectionately on the back. “Once I met your mother, that was it for me. There wasn’t another woman on the planet that could hold a candle to her.”
Beauregard wasn’t here, but Kermit’s mind heard him say, “Why would they do that?” The answer came—in Gonzo’s voice—“Hey—that sounds like fun!” Kermit shook his head. He’d worked in chaos for so long that it followed him even here, into the relative peace swamp.
“But,” James continued thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s true for everyone. Some people can get happy by themselves. Others can bloom where they’re planted with whomever happens to be in the same garden.” He looked to Kermit to see if he understood, and Kermit nodded. “So…you decided Piggy was the one. What made you decide to act on it?”
Kermit was quiet for a moment, half stalling for time and half thoughtfully pondering his next answer. “Well….” He said slowly. “The show was over. We had a good run, but it was time to do something else. We’d started filming the third movie and….” He stopped and shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Have I…did I tell you the plot of the third movie?”
James inclined his head. “A little,” he said. “And your Mother would tell me little bits along when you talked to her about it.” He looked at Kermit out of the corner of his eye. “So, you were already thinking about it before you wrote the script.”
“Well, it seems to have been on my mind,” Kermit said ruefully. “I mean, initially it was just going to be about the gang going to Broadway and getting discovered.”
James sighed and shook his head. “You show biz guys do love to reinvent history,” he sighed.
“Dad,” Kermit complained again, but affectionately. “So I had the script mostly written, but I couldn’t think how to end it. I couldn’t think what to do after the show. And then, when I was thinking about it, I realized that—sheesh, Dad—it was the end. The end of the show, the end of the movies we’d contracted to do.” He gave his dad the same little sideways look he had just received. “The end of seeing my friends every day at work.”
“And the end of having Piggy around all day, every day.”
“Yeah,” Kermit said. “That too.”
“So, you decided to invent a little history of your own,” James said. Kermit was grateful for his insight. His dad seemed to know on some instinctive level that Kermit sometimes found it easier to cross into new territory wearing his director’s cap.
“Yeah, maybe,” Kermit admitted. James made a sound that might have been a snort, but when Kermit flashed him an irate look, his face was carefully neutral.
“So you scripted yourself a dream wedding,” James the Frog prompted. “Complete with a beautiful bride.”
“Uh huh.”
“But once you’d tried that idea on for size, you—“
“I didn’t want the dream wedding—or the dream bride. I wanted…the real one. I wanted Piggy.”
James was quiet for a moment. They were deep under the overhanging trees now, and the sounds of the water gurgling and singing, and the crunch of pine needles and leaves underfoot were the only sounds. The trunk of a fallen tree lay conveniently nearby; they sat.
“I guess that was a little hard to admit, after…after everything else.” Thankfully, James did not comment about the years of public breaking-up-and-making up that he and Piggy had gone through. It had long been a tacit rule back at the swamp that—whatever Kermit said about the status of the relationship, James and Jane just smiled and nodded and hoped for the best.
“Maybe,” Kermit said, and there were a lot of things implied but not said. He cast his father a sheepish glance. “But once I was sure about what I wanted…then suddenly I began to wonder if that’s still what Piggy wanted.”
“So…making the movie was a way of sounding her out about that.” James looked thoughtful. “Kindof an unfair advantage, wasn’t it?”
Kermit looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “I—yeah. I guess that wasn’t very….” He grew quiet. “It took me a long time to recognize what I felt, and even longer to admit it. During all the time, Piggy was waiting on me. I was…I was afraid I’d made her wait too long.”
James said nothing but his expression was kind.
“So, after Piggy got the finished script, she was…I had a hard time getting a read on her at all. Sometimes, she’d breeze past me like I didn’t exist, and other times….” Kermit blushed.
“Other times,” his dad prompted, deviling his son a little.
Kermit put his hands over his face as he felt a deep blush spread across his features. “Other times, she seemed to like me just fine. Finally, we got close to the end of filming, and we needed Piggy to find a wedding dress.” He hesitated, thinking. “At first, she said Hilda should just pick one for her. I guess…I guess picking out a wedding dress when you aren’t getting married would be sortof hard.”
“You don’t say,” said James dryly, and Kermit nodded, accepting this parental censure because he deserved it.
“So…I said I’d take her dress shopping—buy her any wedding dress she wanted.”
“Talk about a two-edged sword,” said James. “I’m surprised she didn’t flatten you.”
Kermit rubbed his middle ruefully. “Yeah,” he muttered. “But Dad—when we were—when she was trying on dresses, that’s when I knew she still loved me. That she was still waiting on me.” He smiled—a quirky, lop-sided smile that was so very familiar. “I’d catch her looking at me, catch her watching me out of the corner of her eye. If I’d had the ring by then, I would have proposed, but I didn’t. But that’s when I started making my plans.”
“I saw the rock,” his dad said. “Looks like you did a nice job.”
“Piggy likes it,” Kermit said, brightening. “Tiffany’s always comes through.”
“And from the look of that thing, I’d say business is doing well.”
Kermit grinned. “Business is very good.” He looked at his father and shrugged. “The rest you know---and here we are, the happy couple!”
“Happy couple indeed,” said James thoughtfully, “but your girl has had a bit of a rough go here in the swamp.”
Kermit nodded miserably. “I know!” he moaned. “Nothing’s turned out exactly like I thought. I wanted Piggy to feel at home here, but bad things keep happening.”
“Some of the bad things haven’t happened by themselves,” James said. “I’m sorry to say that Maggie and those two incorrigibles have had a flipper in some of that.” He put a hand on Kermit’s back by way of apology.
Kermit made a little morose sound of agreement.
“What should I do, Dad? What can I do?” Kermit asked. For just a moment, Kermit looked at his father and wished that he still had the power to make everything all right.
James rubbed Kermit’s back, and Kermit had a powerful skin memory of sitting beside his father on a log in front of the fire when he was about twelve. He could not remember what they had talked about—only that he felt much better after.
It was James’ turn to hesitate, but at last he cleared his throat.
“Sometimes, Kermit, you can’t protect the people you love from the bumps and scrapes of life. But you can be there for them when it happens.” For a second, he thought about telling Kermit about Jane’s upset over Maggie, but changed his mind. No need adding this worry to the others. “Just be there for Piggy,” James said warmly. “That’s the best thing you can do, and I know you won’t let her down.”
Kermit nodded and smiled wanly. “Thanks, Dad.”
James stood, and Kermit stood with him.
“C’mon, son,” James said. “It’s time to be getting back.”
“Yeah,” said Kermit. “Piggy might be back from the store by now.” He looked at his father and shrugged. “That usually cheers her up. When in doubt, shop.”
James laughed. “Or in your mother’s case—cook.” He looked at Kermit speculatively. “But we could take the long way back—I hear the crickets are particularly fine on the far side of the old stump.”
“I’m your guy!” said Kermit enthusiastically.
James put his arm around Kermit’s shoulder and patted. “I never doubted it for a moment.”
