Excerpt from “The World According To Garp” by John Irving ~~Under Toad~~

Duncan began talking about Walt and the undertow – a famous family story. For as far back as Duncan could remember, the Garps had gone every summer to Dog’s Head Harbor, New Hampshire, where the miles of beach in front of Jenny Fields’ estate were ravaged by a fearful undertow. When Walt was old enough to venture near the water, Duncan said to him – as Helen and Garp had, for years, said to Duncan – ‘Watch out for the undertow.’ Walt retreated, respectfully. And for three summers Walt was warned about the undertow. Duncan recalled all the phrases.

‘The undertow is bad today.’

‘The undertow is strong today.’

‘The undertow is wicked today.’ Wicked was a big word in New Hampshire – not just for the undertow.

And for years Walt reached out for it. From the first, when he asked what it could do to you, he had only been told that it could pull you out to sea. It could suck you under and drown you and drag you away.

It was Walt’s fourth summer at Dog’s Head Harbor, Duncan remembered, when Garp and Helen and Duncan observed Walt watching the sea. He stood ankle-deep in the foam from the surf and peered into the waves, without taking a step, for the longest time. The family went down to the water’s edge to have a word with him.

‘What are you doing, Walt?’ Helen asked.

‘What are you looking for, dummy?’ Duncan asked him.

‘I’m trying to see the Under Toad,’ Walt said.

‘The what?’ said Garp.

‘The Under Toad,’ Walt said. ‘I’m trying to see it. How big is it?

And Garp and Helen and Duncan held their breath; they realized that all these years Walt had been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore, waiting to suck him under and drag him out to sea. The terrible Under Toad.

Garp tried to imagine it with him. Would it ever surface? Did it ever float? Or was it always down under, slimy and bloated and ever-watchful for ankles its coated tongue could snare? The vile Under Toad.

Between Helen and Garp, the Under Toad became their code phrase for anxiety. Long after the monster was clarified for Walt (‘Undertow, dummy, not Under Toad!’ Duncan had howled), Garp and Helen evoked the beast as a way of referring to their own sense of danger. When the traffic was heavy, when the road was icy – when depression had moved in overnight – they said to each other, ‘The Under Toad is strong today.’

‘Remember,’ Duncan asked on the plane, ‘how Walt asked if it was green or brown?’

Both Garp and Duncan laughed. But it was neither green nor brown, Garp thought. It was me. It was Helen. It was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.

Excerpt from “The World According To Garp” by John Irving ~~Name~~

It was 1943. When Jenny’s pregnancy was apparent, she lost her job. Of course, it was all that her parents and brothers had expected; they weren’t surprised. Jenny had long ago stopped trying to convince them of her purity. She moved through the big corridors in the parental estate at Dog’s Head Harbor like a satisfied ghost. Her composure alarmed her family, and they left her alone. Secretly, Jenny was quite happy, but with all the musing she must have done about this expected child, it’s a wonder she never gave a thought to names.
Because, when Jenny Fields gave birth to a nine-pound baby boy, she had no name in mind. Jenny’s mother asked her what she wanted to name him, but Jenny had just delivered and had just received her sedative; she was not cooperative.
‘Garp,’ she said.
Her father, the footwear king, thought she had burped, but her mother whispered to him, ‘The name is Garp.’
‘Garp?’ he said. They knew they might find out who this baby’s father was, this way. Jenny, of course, had not admitted a thing.
‘Find out if that’s the son of a bitch’s first name or last name,’ Jenny’s father whispered to Jenny’s mother.
‘Is that a first name or a last name, dear?’ Jenny’s mother asked her.
Jenny was very sleepy. ‘It’s Garp,’ she said. ‘Just Garp. That’s the whole thing.’
‘I think it’s a last name,’ Jenny’s mother told Jenny’s father.
‘What’s his first name?’ Jenny’s father asked crossly.
‘I never knew,’ Jenny mumbled. This is true; she never did.
‘She never knew his first name!’ her father roared.
‘Please, dear,’ her mother said. ‘He must have a first name.’
‘Technical Sergeant Garp,’ said Jenny Fields.
‘A goddamn soldier, I knew it!’ her father said.
‘Technical Sergeant?’ Jenny’s mother asked her.
‘T. S.,’ Jenny Fields said. ‘T. S. Garp. That’s my baby’s name.’ She fell asleep.
He father was furious. ‘T. S. Garp! he hollered. ‘What kind of name for a baby is that?’
‘All his own,’ Jenny told him, later. ‘It’s his own goddamn name, all his own.’
‘It was great fun going to school with a name like that,’ Garp has written. ‘The teachers would ask you what the initials stood for. First I used to say that they were just initials, but they never believed me. So I’d have to say, “Call my mom. She’ll tell you.” And they would. And old Jenny would give them a piece of her mind.’
Thus was the world given T. S. Garp: born from a good nurse with a will of her own, and the seed of a ball turret gunner – his last shot.