The Last Croak

Hoboman 1 - The Legend

"A frog in the mouth is worth two in the cattails"  -- Robert Armstrong

He engendered several urban legends. One of the more outrageous purported that a crazed space alien roamed the wooded areas at night when the moon was new. Unfortunate souls who crossed paths with him were subjugated by his glowing bug eyes while his groping tentacles threaded their way through orbits to dine on fine brain. After desiccating their brains his victims became night zombies forever searching for a replacement brain.

Only slightly less interesting is the true story. It all began when a hungry man, whose name we don't know, was searching for food near a thriving pond off a lonely highway. After considerable effort, he managed to capture a medium-sized frog. He walked to the abutting campground with the idea of roasting his frog for dinner. He did not anticipate coming face-to-face with a camper so soon and when he stepped onto the trail just as a young lady camper rounded the corner, both were quite startled. Fearing the theft of his frog, he quickly stuffed the amphibian into his mouth. The frog didn't entirely fit, causing the man to give a muffled gag while the frog's hind legs protruded from his mouth kicking and flailing all about. To the startled camper, the man's eyes seemed unnaturally large showing an iris on a sea of marble and what looked like prehensile tentacles extending from his mouth. Completing the illusion was the green algae slime and mud covering his body from crawling in the cattails on the pond's edge, and the creepy hissing sounds that could only be coming from gills. Plus, he always seemed to have a pungent smell of urine about him. Frozen in her tracks the young camper screamed as her heart raced, pumping blood through her veins and adrenaline into her brain. The man ran down the trail in blind terror, away from the screaming camper, as he unconsciously chewed his dinner. By the time he returned to the highway, and quite without thinking, he had eaten half of the frog, leaving its now limp legs hanging from the corners of his mouth. He spat the remainder of the frog to the ground in disgust. The young lady camper, exhausted from screaming, turned and ran back to her Girl Scout troop and told her story of a hideous space alien with giant protruding bug eyes and tentacles that had groped her breasts. Her friends were sure that she made up the entire story for the attention yet they enjoyed retelling the story to others as if it were true.

The man had forgotten his name long ago, but the locals called him Hoboman. As a young man, he had left home for adventure. He had only planned to be gone for a few days, but after three days he had lost both himself and his memory. "He's not right in the head". That's what he overheard his parents say when they thought he wasn't listening. He did not know what the phrase meant, but like a mantra, it reverberated incessantly in his head. Due to some genetic abnormality, Hoboman had absolutely no vocabulary, was very much context challenged, and was beguiled by the ordinary. He often blanked out in a fugue state, and when he returned, he never quite knew where he was or how he had gotten there. Hoboman tended to stay close to the highway, and often, without realizing it, reversed his direction of travel. Consequently, he traveled the same stretch of highway for years at a time. Life was a multitude of loops for Hoboman.

Today Hoboman found himself traveling on the side of a highway he had traveled many times before. He was feeling anxious and tired so he sat himself down to watch his toes wiggle through the torn vamp of his shoe. That always calmed his brain and lessened his anxiety. The world slowly faded as Hoboman entered the moment and time deflated. I few passerbys pointed him out to their parents saying, "There's Hoboman!" Hours later a large gas truck honked as it passed dangerously close and jolted Hoboman from his trance. It was evening now. He had wet his pants again he noticed, and wondered when that happened. "He's not right in the head" he heard again and quickly turned to see if anyone was behind him. He was never sure if the voice came from within or without. Hoboman stood and continued to walk the highway. That's all he ever did.