When I started at my accounting firm fifteen years ago, my colleague Nina witnessed me griping over frustrating tasks, the ones that I dreaded so much I waited until the end of the day to complete them, oftentimes pushing them into the next day, and the next day, and finally completing them in a panic before the end of Friday. 

She strutted up to my cubicle with a mug of coffee given to her at the Secret Santa Gift Swap, reading “My Corgi is My Best Friend” and already stained from three cups a day. Her voice sounded like a song at 1.5 speed. “Eat the toad, Fender.” 

I was frazzled back then, even more so than now. I was competent, and smart enough, but too new into my career to understand task prioritization, how to organize an Outlook calendar, and let’s forget about navigating office culture and politics. Thus, my wrinkled shirt and poorly knotted tie were a perfect match for my overwhelmed face. 

“Eat the toad. Check your calendar every morning. Rank your to do list. Whatever item is your most important task, the one that you know needs to get done and won’t if you push it to the bottom, complete that first. It might be the worst thing on your list, and you know once you get that done you’ll feel better. It’s why I work out in the mornings. I know I won’t do it after work, the same way I know you’re not going to work on the Funderman account if you don’t start on it this A.M. Food for thought, buckaroo.” 

It’s an odd thing, the nicknames we choose for people.

I didn’t take her advice on the Funderman account, even though she was a Senior Accountant at the time, and always receiving praise for her work during standing huddles and monthly meetings, despite looking the same cool and collected in the morning as she did leaving work on time.

I ignored the Funderman account and checked off less complicated files. Friday rolled around. We had an impromptu meeting to go over key accounts. Out of the seven of us in the room, me and another guy, Ward Daley, not new but had been around so long no one questioned his procrastination, were the only two with pending work.

To me, our V.P. John said, “I want it on my desk by 2 P.M., no later.” 

To Ward, John said, “When we going golfing next?” 

I’ve made good money, and a job’s a job, but encounters like that extract a sliver of your soul. They’re micro, invisible, like prayers or my friend James. But they add up. Death by a thousand microaggressions. 

There were lessons there, which I did learn, growing and becoming a Senior Accountant, a Manager, a Director, and go on up the list. The picture painted was of a white-washed building with large, dark windows for eyes, a gaping revolving door for a mouth, and a line of professionals holding briefcases willingly walking into its maw, laughing and telling each other stories from the weekend before being swallowed whole. 

Hey. I have a job, and one that’s allowed me to take a road trip for Dad. I finished the fucking Funderman file. I ate the toad. I’d never questioned where the phrase came from, only that I knew Nina hadn’t come up with it. 

Until I woke up at 6 A.M. the morning after Red Rocks. The comforter was tossed on the ground. The sheets were twisted into a cocoon around my torso leaving my legs hanging bare in the A/C, which I’d cranked down to 64 before dropping into bed. I rubbed my eyes and howled so loud at activating the bruised socket I wondered what type of protocols the hotel had on volume control, and then remembered some of the parties Spin Cycle used to throw after a show. It’s funny, the fleeting images that remain, the shuffling between rooms, of women and food, of a reporter named Bill Zansky who wore tinted glasses and cherry red sideburns down to his chin. 

When the party was tame enough for a child, meaning most likely the drugs hadn’t started and no clothes had been removed, Paul put me in charge of ice. One after another, I’d haul buckets of ice from the machine down on the corner to the bathroom sink and bathtub. It was fun to be included. It’s hard to know what’s wrong or right when the only context you have is Paul slapping a woman’s ass and crowing, “Watch it jiggle, watch it jiggle, it’s J-E-L-L-O Jell-O!” 

I grunted and pissed and confirmed I still had a swollen shiner around my right eye. Rings of red and blue circled my eyeball like a planet. I swallowed four Motrin with a plastic cup of sink water. Denver hotel coffee was served with hot water in a kettle poured over grounds placed in a funnel set on top of the mug. It was more manual, but tasted richer, and even writing that sentence makes me wonder what Dad would say. “Shit, who the hell woke up and made you Mr. Perfect? You think your shit don’t stink now?” 

I opened the blinds to shades of blue creeping over a gray horizon. I drank coffee in bed and discovered my colleague Nina had been quoting Mark Twain. He said if you have a job eating a frog, you should do it first thing in the morning. Then that’ll be the worst thing you do all day. And if your job is to eat two frogs, you might as well eat the biggest one first.

My knowledge of U.S. geography was basic. I knew Seattle was a trek, but I didn’t know how far. Twenty hours via GPS, so tack on another hour plus for gas and food stoppage, and one overnight. 

The smaller frog was Phoenix, where Larry lived. The scavenger hunt hadn’t led me there yet, but it had to be a stop, and one seven hours shorter than Seattle. I didn’t have an address, but I could find it. It’d be backtracking, but who cared? As I pondered which route, wondering why the coffee burned my scratchy throat before remembering I had thrown up at Red Rocks, my feet tapped a song, something uptempo and almost techno. 

Part of the hesitation was the drive. Twenty more hours was a haul. My back throbbed, my wrists and elbows had begun to click. I was now viewing the road through one and a half eyes. 

The main hesitation was Paul Newman. Deacon had me inflated, almost excited, at the prospect of seeing an old friend. Then I remembered all the shit that went down, and the Paul the persona, the way he spoke. My stomach sunk. 

I flipped through Heather’s photographs for motivation. There was the picture of Paul and Dad reenacting the biceps flexed handshake between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in Predator, and I heard Dad’s voice, “You’re an asshole, Paul. Always will be. But you’re my asshole, and despite all the shit you did, I know you have my back. I don’t know why, but I just know. I love you, man.” 

And it was younger Dad before his voice cracked and turned to rocks. Man, to hear his voice again, then or now. 

I rubber banded the photographs, finished my coffee, confirmed my shit still stank, took a shower, and got on the road to Seattle. 

I ate the fucking toad.