The door whizzed open, I could hear a woman arguing, and then the door shut. As it opened a second time, the clamor was louder, and when I looked up from the sink, a few beads of water dropped from my face onto my checkered shirt. “Damn it,” I mumbled. This is the ninth consecutive day where I’ve had no appetite, and I am inhaling and holding it to near collapse to avoid another anxiety attack. If my food ever does become ready, I doubt it will do anything to settle me. It will be thick paste in my mouth, foil on my fillings, a rock in my throat, a boulder in my stomach. Today was not an afternoon meant for rattling away on a computer; inside an office building where the drones are as fabricated as the promises they give to their clients. I reached for a paper towel, and behind me, the door was being held open by a woman who was attempting to corral her ornery little boy. “Mommy, I want food!” “Honey, I got you a hamburger. Now go to the bathroom and then we’ll eat.” Her tone was the forced into calmness, bubbling variety, where the water was about to boil and spill everywhere, scalding all inhabitants of the room if she were pushed any further. “Stupido mommy! I said hot dog!” “Gilbert, get in that stall and go pee-pee.” Gilbert? For a little kid? That bothered me. I hope by now you’re wondering either why was a woman in the men’s bathroom, or why was I in the women’s bathroom. If you were wondering if we were in France in a unisex bathroom, we were not. It was a bathroom designed for boys and men, not for girls or women. I recall being a small lad, dragged into the women’s bathroom by my mother. It was strange, but that’s just the way it is done. If I have a little girl, you won’t see me romping through the women’s. Those are just the rules. The adult stays in the designated bathroom, while the child does their business and pretends not to care. Most of the time they probably don’t care anyway, I was simply a precocious one, interested in giant 80’s perms and ruffled socks well before the standard. “Go ahead, Gilbert. Our food will be ready.” “Stupido hamburger mommy!” I tore the towel from the dispenser and covered my face, because the tone that accompanied that statement was outrageous. I was directly in the line of site from the stupido mommy, who was waiting outside of the stall while her little boy was messing around, not even urinating. I could see his size 3’s running around the stall, shouting “stupido” feverishly and engaging himself in the Indian pee-pee dance. If he has to go that badly, why doesn’t he just go? And didn’t the mother notice that her son was running around? Was she that haggard? That spent from the divorce and the death of grandfather and Gilbert scrawling “Stupido” in black sharpie on the new SUV? I turned away, towel still in hands and hands still over face, red with withheld laughter, and smiling teeth baiting the brown, recycled paper to smile back.
Recycled. I know it has been reconstituted, and heated to seven billion degrees, and disinfected, and all of that. Even still, I am not particularly fond of the notion of putting my face in used toilet paper. That made me smile larger, and catapulted me even closer to laughter. Finally the noise began to seep out the sides of my face, little hisses at first, and then a full on laugh. Was this kid’s Spanish “stupido” thatfunny, or was I thatdesperate for some levity? “What’s so funny? Something funny?” Gilly was racing around the stall, and I was standing in front of her with a paper towel over my face, so she had to be talking to me. My face shrunk back down to standard issue, and not even a grin was detectable. I inhaled and peeled the brown sheet from my face. “Excuse me?” I uttered it in a hurried and not overly confident fashion. “You laughing at me and my kid?” She was a raging beast, frazzled and angry, ready to deliver pain. Her fullet [female mullet] was coiled and she was ready to strike, set to issue venomous blows upon my lean frame. “No.” “What’d you say?” “I said, ‘no.’ No, I was not laughing at you or your kid.” But as I completed my sentence, the kid kicked open the door, delivering a blow to stupido mommy’s backside, and unleashed a stunned yet even more enraged woman. Gilbert’s gray shorts were soaked with urine, and he continued to jump around as droplets split time by either running down his leg or flying off and splashing either mother or the ground. “I swear, you better not be laughing at me! Gilbert, damn it, why did you pee-pee your pants? She grabbed him and shook him and then pressed him against the wall. Stay here, stand here and be quiet while mommy goes to the bathroom.” She pointed at me and yelled, “make sure he stays right there.” A mother cursing at her child? Slamming him into walls? Ordering me to keep tabs on the super soaker? Using a men’s bathroom for her feminine needs? What planet was I on? These aren’t the rules.
That’s like God creating a man, and creating another, and the second man takes it upon himself to take the life of the first. Like a person who has been given everything by their mate, from compassion to understanding to laughter to warmth, and then abandoning that person because the affection frightened them. Revert to the budding stages of a relationship, or even better, the first date, when you and your partner-to-be agree with everything, laugh joyously and become overwhelmed with uncanny coincidence. Then, as the months mount, the laughter subsides and is replaced by an unsettling lack of comfort. It was there before, where has it gone? How about working at the Salvation Army or Goodwill, and robbing the institution of its most prized merchandise as you close up at night. If I were in charge, all of those would be against my rules. But I am one of the only who abides by the rules. From inside the stall, where she was fiddling with her purse, she was yelling at both of us, and making sense to neither. It got to a point where I was ready for the consequences, from a full on fullet brawl to management bursting in to see us screaming through the cowering pee-pee dancer. “I don’t know how long you’re gonna be in there, but I have to get back to work. I’m in here washing my hands, and you come charging in to take care of your feminine needs and have mewatch your kid.” Then I stepped up the decibels. “One day you should learn the rules,” I screamed. “The rules dictate that the adult takes the child into the bathroom of relative sex to the adult. Not the relative sex to the child. Get it right.” The fidgeting was getting louder and more intense. “Shut up! Go into the women’s bathroom and get me a tampon from the machine.” Gil and I exchanged an incredulous glance. I think even he, at four years old, identified the preposterous nature of the request. “What? Aren’t you listening to me? I’m talking about the rules. If you had obeyed the rules in the first place, you would bein the women’s bathroom right now, able to get a tampon for yourself. No!” “No? Don’t tell meno, DAMN IT!” This was no mumble. “Gilbert’s father is gone, I’m not taking him into the women’s bathroom to get molded into some pansy! My son is not a pansy! She emerged from the stall and stuck a bulbous finger in Gilbert’s face, her fullet looking raunchy and her face downright evil. “If you move, I’m gonna whoop you silly.” Glaring at me with seething intensity, she headed off toward the women’s bathroom without another word.
This is what is happening to children these days. But what could I do? Gilbert scooted over to me, grabbed my hand and widened his eyes. “Mommy monster hurt me. When she comes back, she hurt me more.” Social workers and months passing, investigations and legal disputes, orphanages and foster homes and "you’re allowance is less than our ‘real kid’s" and all related belittlement. These are against the rules as well. Against myrules, at least. This is behavior that I cannot permit. I am the caretaker. I am the one who is in charge of instilling the morals. We will teach one another what there is to know and what is important in this life. “Come on, Gil. Let’s go get a stupido hot dog with mustard and plenty to relish.”
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