IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE THERE ARE MANY ROOMS -- BUT ONLY ONE BATHROOM
BY
CARL JARVIS
The pavement stung sharply as the paper-thin soles of my ragged shoes slapped, thrust out and then slapped again. Stringy, knobby arms and legs, a clump of straight, blond hair that poked up in places it shouldn't, heavy, thick glasses skittering down a long, skinny nose, and a clumsy, awkward gait made me look like an old stork rushing to deliver its last baby. Little rasps of breath rushed in and out of my slack lips. No time to pause to allow my lungs to catch up. I was on a most urgent mission.
The paved street fell away in front of me and then ended abruptly, dividing into a dirt road and a steep trail. The corner of Taylor Avenue North and...uhh...my eyes always were bad and I squinted through my bifocals but the cross street does not come into focus. In fact, to my eyes the pavement is dull, flat gray--broken only by thin lines marking the individual squares. The trees before me, nodding in the late Spring breeze are a soft, puff of unbroken green. I come to a momentary pause, quivering like a bird briefly touching the ground, ready to spring into flight again. Which should I take, trail or road?
The narrow trail plunged straight down in front of me. The dirt road curved gently away to my right, bending back around to the left. past the faded chalky yellow, box of a duplex where Eddy and his family lived. I don't remember his dad, only Eddy and his mother. I remember the day when Eddy, about two years old, came streaking out the front door dressed in only his little birthday suit, and a great big grin. Down the road he went. His mother was just a couple of seconds behind, all elbows and knees with her long, dark hair flying, a towel in one hand and a diaper in the other.
At some time or another, oil had been spread on the road surface to help keep down the dust, but as it curved around past Eddy's place the oily dirt ended and hand-laid cement replaced it. In fact, the road looked like a very wide sidewalk, made with oversized cement squares that took you past Mrs. Brewer's house, set way back to the right. It was a big solid-built house with a broad front porch covered by a roof. Such a fine house but I never wanted to live there. It always seemed so gloomy, and I could see nothing but dark shadows behind the window panes. Beyond Mrs. Brewer's place, out of sight from the road, was the little shack that looked sort of like a tall pig pen. Originally built by Mr. Bagley. This was his home while he worked construction during the building of Aurora Avenue. Later, Mr. O'Hare moved into the shack. Mr. Bagley had been killed -- hit by a car on the highway he'd had helped to build. The shack was one room partitioned off into an area with a hot plate, a table and one chair, and space enough for a single cot behind the make-shift wall. To this day I don't remember where the bathroom could have been. When us kids were real little, Mr. Bagley would come by our house and sometimes give us candy bars. Mr. O'Hare, however, was a drunk. He had no money but he gave us some real wild stories about his great adventures.
One day the shack was empty. Mr. O'Hare was gone. An Aunt had left him twenty-five thousand dollars--a fortune in the nineteen forties. He went into partnership with a fellow, and they bought a tavern. The story goes that Mr. O'Hare sat in the back drinking up the profits while his partner sat in the front pocketing the money. The little gray shack stood empty for well over a year. One night Virginia came running into the house and breathlessly told Delores and me that she had seen a light in the old shack. Sure enough, Mr. O'Hare had returned "home", broke and drunk.
Around the bend, past Mrs. Brewer's, stood the MacLean's large homely house. Three stories tall, it was painted the same faded yellow as the duplex. Mr. MacLean built this house. He also built the duplex, our house further down the hill, and his shoe repair shop on Aurora Avenue. He and Mrs. MacLean lived on the large main floor. The middle level. There they had raised their son and two daughters. Mr. MacLean died when I was very small and I only vaguely see him, strolling down the path with his lunch pail tucked beneath his arm.Mrs. MacLean was our landlady. A quiet, gentle, woman who spoke softly, with almost an apology in her manner. Her faded orangish-red hair and pale complexion fitted her in perfectly with the washed-out yellow houses. She and her little black, fat dog Patty, lived alone except when her granddaughter Karen, came to visit. The house was built so that the back side set along the road. Mrs. MacLean looked out her kitchen window onto the hand-paved street, but what a view from her livingroom! There was no street directly in front of her. The hill dropped away to rooftops far below along Aurora Avenue and beyond was the view of Lake Union and Capital Hill. The top and bottom floors of the big house were each made into small apartments. the upstairs unit was light and breezy by comparison to the one below. It was dark and dank and surrounded by heavy bushes. A delightful old woman lived there for many years with her little black and white dog. When she moved away...or died, I'm not certain which...the apartment was ripe with her little doggies poo. For a while my Aunt Caroline and Uncle Hank Gabriel had lived there. It was not long after they had been married and I still remember how they smooched,standing close together and looking with love into one another's eyes while squeezing hands. They did this each and every time Hank would leave for work. Later, Bill Rictor and his wife...Carol...I think, moved into the apartment. They were from Spokane, and had attended church there with Mother's brothers and sisters. They too were newly weds and Bill was studying to be a doctor. They seemed so happy and in love -- just like Caroline and Hank had seemed. I heard many years later that they had gotten divorced. So sad! But in those years we did not know how things would come about and it all seemed so very romantic.
But on this particular sunny Spring day, as I bounded down the hill, I was pressing to reach my destination and I dismissed the dirt road as an option. I poised for only a moment at the trail head--surrounded by brightly colored Scotch broom bushes; deep yellows, light buttery yellows, yellows with orange or red streaks and all of them covered by a thick humming sound and furry little winged bodies scurrying to and fro; and just beyond the Scotch brooms was the wild apple tree that always promised so much with its rich cover of Spring blossoms, but bore gnarly bitter little knobs suited only for tree houses to the many worms who took up residency there--then, I sprang forward, out and down the trail, past the thick growth of vine maples and hazelnut trees. And winding among them were the lacy ferns, Oregon grape, black caps and Trilliums.
But on this day I didn't pause to look about and admire all of Nature's beauty. There was something I had forgotten to do, something very important. And now I must reach home at all cost.
If this were the first and only time I'd forgotten, I could explain the whole thing away with a chuckle. But it happened over and over again and I never seemed to learn. Now, here I was ready to explode. When I think back, I know I didn't have to go as I trotted off the school playfield. Yet, about half way home, as if tickled by some fiendish demon, I became painfully aware that I had to pee. I mean I really had to pee-.
Now, there might occur to some children, as they leapt out into the gloomy maw of the trail, a notion that if they stopped about half way down the densely sheltered path,and stepped into the bushes, they might relieve themselves with no one the wiser. I had but one thought in mind. One goal. One purpose. I must, at all cost, reach the bathroom door. There was no room for any other thoughts. I was driven by the burning pressure and the proper upbringing that allowed me only one option, a toilet. In fact, we kids were so properly raised that we never ever said, "pee". Wet, was what civilized children said. "Mother, I have to Wet." And what, you may ask, did we say for the other business?...Well, fortunately I didn't have to do THAT on this particular day.
I could take that trail in about ten long, leaping, soaring bounds. Each time I hit the ground my bladder screamed for release. At the bottom, the trail turned slightly to the right and met the hand-paved road directly below Mrs. MacLean's house. Nestled off to the left, just before the trail ended, was a cute little home, like you might imagine the Three Bears lived in. But Johnny Cook and his mother lived there--at least for some of the years that we lived on the hill. I was never sure if Mr. MacLean built this one or not. The house actually looked too good to be one of his. Mr. MacLean came from Scotland and the homes he built were proof to me of everything that I ever heard about the frugality of those fine people.
At the point where the trail met the pavement, I swung sharply to the left. The final leg of the trip. A well packed dirt path headed downward and Northward,parallel to the highway far below. I passed the coal chute on my right hand. Here, Reed Wright, with his coke-bottle glasses and his driver, delivered our coal. They backed the truck down the paved road and tossed the shovel full's of coal onto the chute. The shinny black rocks would bounce and clatter along the metal-lined wooden chute and come to rest in the coal shed behind our house. Of course this chute did have one major drawback. Temptation! We children were absolutely forbidden to ever, ever slide down it. It's hard to imagine how our clothes sometimes looked as if we had actually disobeyed our parents instructions.
Down the path I pounded and around the bend to the right. Now, only a few more frantic feet! There, sitting on the edge of the path was our house. Making the sharp turn without breaking stride, and now heading due South, and far too desperate to even care to recall what was around me, I hurtled myself onto the porch, through the kitchen door, a quick turn to the bathroom and--No! It can't be. the door is closed--the door is locked! I frantically rattled the handle--pulling--hoping against hope--but the voice of my dad, relaxed and absentminded buried deep in a magazine, calls from the other side, "I'll be out in a minute".
It doesn't matter that in the bathroom, his minutes are hours long. It wouldn't matter now if he sprang to the door and welcomed me in. I sat on the kitchen floor, a crumpled mess in front of that closed door, knees tightly clenched, tears welling up in my eyes. It didn't matter now at all. I couldn't have moved for all the Tea in China. And as sure as I sat there, I knew what would happen next.
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