He stumbles blindly into the bathroom, turns on the faucet, and splashes two cupped palms of water into his face. The shock of the cold water alerts him with alarming urgency of his need to urinate, and he pivots, sleepy frozen eyes shut tight, and aims for the toilet. His hands are still cold and wet, so he simply thrusts his hips forward, trusting in his stream’s ability to find its intended target. He listens. The liquid sound that fills the small room is not that of urine hitting toilet water, but he does not open his eyes. He continues to relieve himself, trying to identify from the sound alone what it is he is pissing upon. There’s not much in this bathroom . . . the sink, which sits behind him; the toilet; a small plastic garbage can with a lid that pops up when one steps on a small foot-lever; two towel racks; a wall-mounted mirrored cabinet in which an assortment of medicinal collections reside; and a greenish-yellow rug she bought at a discount store, saying as she presented it to him that it would camouflage vomit flecks. She is occasionally too much in his business.
The exact color of the rug is “Chantilly Chartreuse,” according to the manufacturer’s tag, which makes him think of The Big Bopper and doe-eyed chanteuses in lace dresses causing him to feel all loosy goosy as they sing sweetly and mournfully to him of loves lost and not yet found. The Big Bopper died in an airplane crash of some sort; there was a song about it that involved pie he is certain. He puzzles for a moment over the kind of pie that song mentions, but as he cannot recall any lyrics beyond something something pie drove my chevy to the levy and the levy was dry, he settles instead for a plan to make pie. It seems the least he can do to honor the man who comes to mind every time he uses the toilet. He wiggles his bare toes in the deep plush of the bathroom rug . . . cherry pie . . . definitely.
The sound of his urination stops and he stands naked, his eyes closed, trying to work out the recipient of his offering. He eliminates the rug immediately, because urine meeting the plush of chantilly chartreuse would have been noiseless. He also eliminates the sink and the medicine cabinet due to their elevated positions in the room. Which leaves the walls, the garbage can, and the toilet itself (which, he now realizes, may have been left in the lid-down position). He reaches with unseeing hands for the walls that should be on either side of him, and having found them, gauges that he is properly positioned. That means he is lined up with the toilet, so it is unlikely that he has urinated on the walls. And unless someone moved the garbage can from its spot just to the right of the toilet, he has not pissed on the garbage can. She is the only one who might have inappropriately placed the garbage can, but she has never done that before, and he can think of no reason for her to do it now. That means that he has pissed on the closed toilet.
Yes, that’s his final answer.
He opens his eyes.
He has indeed pissed on the closed toilet; urine has flowed around the white porcelain curves of the toilet’s base and onto the floor in a big wet horseshoe puddle. The rug’s anti-skid bottom is probably wetted with urine where it nears the toilet, but he does not bend to inspect this likelihood. He grabs a towel and throws it into the U-shaped puddle, taking some satisfaction in the bright yellow that seeps into and spreads quickly across the white cotton fibers. He recalls an experiment he did when he was a child in which he placed stalks of freshly cut celery into a glass of water into which he had also placed several drops of red food coloring. Capillary Action: The Attraction of the Molecules in a Liquid to the Molecules of a Solid. He had gotten a C on that assignment because “Neatness counts.” His teacher had been unmoved by his explanation that the spilled grape juice across his report constituted another demonstration of the very phenomenon he had endeavored to explain. Now that he was an adult he could say what he had not been able to say at the time, which was that Mrs. Hamilton could take her C and shove it up her ass. He giggles as he realizes that it is possible to interpret this sentence in even dirtier fashion than 9 year old him had intended.
He stands nude in the bathroom, facing a toilet and a floor and a towel and a rug all flooded with urine and thinks that Mrs. Hamilton would likely give him a C for this effort because “Neatness counts.”
He speaks in a sassy little-boy voice, “Take your C and shove it up your ass, Mrs. Hamilton.” He giggles happily.
Now about that toad.
Sitting on top of the closed toilet and drenched in urine is a very large toad. The toad perches as though it is just about to startle and hop away, its eyes narrowed to suspicious dark slits behind green eyelids. The toad stands perhaps eight inches tall and is about ten inches long, big and round all over. Too large to be real, it is nevertheless a very real-looking toad.
He moves to pick up the toad, which is very light and made of some sort of foam that is covered with a rubber skin. He grabs another towel and pats the urine from the toad’s body and face, “I will call you Demetrius.” He presses the towel to the toad’s individual toes, hoping that the toad’s rubber skin is watertight, looking for gaps through which urine might have passed to the interior foam body. He finds no gaps and turns to the sink, toad in hand. He dampens an edge of the towel and carefully wipes at the toad, apologizing as he does so, “I am sorry for this inauspicious beginning, Demetrius. I am not in the habit of greeting new friends by pissing upon them. Nor am I in the habit of greeting new friends naked and blind, for that matter.”
He rubs the toad dry, “We’ve started out badly, but there’s no reason we can’t be great friends. Now where did you come from, Demetrius? Why were you sitting on my toilet?” He sets the toad on the edge of the sink and stands up straight, examining his face in the mirror, “Let me just brush my teeth, Demetrius, and I will introduce you to . . . What’s this, then?” He plucks a small yellow Post-it note from the bathroom mirror, on which is written in her small loopy handwriting . . .
Theremin –
Have you slept past 10 again?
Naughty you.
There is a toad sitting on the toilet.
Don’t pee on him.
Eat cereal.
Walk the dog.
Bring in the newspaper.
Remember to put on pants.
See you at 5:00 pm.
Mother
Sometimes, she is too much in his business.
He sticks the Post-it to the toad’s bumpy back and carries both items into the bedroom. He sits the toad on the bed and leans to check the time on the bedside clock – 3:30 pm. “We had better get moving, Demetrius. Mother is expecting things of us.”
He bends to whisper in the toad’s ear, stopping first to appreciate that the ear is a small camouflaged circular flatness against the side of Demetrius’ head (it really is quite a realistic looking toad), “As we are friends now, I hope that I can trust you to keep quiet about you-know-what.”
Demetrius sits quietly.
He sighs, “You require me to speak plainly, I see. Let me speak plainly, then . . . I would appreciate it if we could keep the urine between the two of us.”
He stares at the toad, who appears to be agreeable.
He goes in search of pants.
