“I need your help with something.”
He stood directly under the air conditioning vent, one of sixteen that where spread around the ceiling. His hair tried to grab me as it swayed in the cold, artificial breeze. My father was standing in a familiar offensive pose. My father is calm early in the morning. It was as if he had just been born and was a happy infant. Then at nine he seemed to age forty-seven years. My father hated going to work, although he was the boss he felt that someone was responsible for his poor working conditions and his terrible pay. He thought there was some old bearded man who laughed at his every hardship. Over the years it became hilarious. I was relived to see that it was only six thirty. My father did not say another word, he just started walking. I was forced to follow him as he entered the kitchen. We entered the moonlit room like drummers on a somber occasion, disturbing the silence with our unsteady, loud beats. The big yellow refrigerator hummed, as it always did. As we passed it seemed to hum louder, as if we woke it up. I looked at the pile of dirty dishes on the Formica counter. My mother stood over the sink all day wiping and scraping the dirty round surfaces. She got them spotless. I could almost see her now awake all night polishing and cooking. She would ask about school and I would recite my grades. She polished more vigorously. She didn’t talk much when she wasn’t washing or cooking. When my father would scream at her she would say nothing, just look down scrubbing, as hard as she could see the image of her husband in the dish. Then it would shatter and the screaming would stop. The dishes had been shining for five years. The big window that was located right above the sink was now glowing from the moonlight. My mother would occasionally look out of it and watch me play in the snow or in the rain. When dinner was prepared she would knock several loud times on it and I would know that it was time to eat. There were various stains on it most from outside but my mother never cleaned them off. She would watch the fireworks from the window on the fourth of July instead of going to the park with us.
“Why don’t you come with us, it will be fun,” we all asked, almost
simultaneously.
“I can see it just as good through here, and I have dishes to wash,” she
answered, lying.
“Come on, we’ll wash the dishes for once,” we offered.
“No, it’s just as good from here, better even ... at least for me,” my
mother answered staring through the window.
We did not try to convince her anymore. My mother could not watch anything unless it was seen through the big window that hung over the sink. She simply went blind anywhere else.
So we marched on through the graveyard and approached the hallway that lead to the three bedroom of our small house. My father flicked on the lights and I heard the hallway yawn.
“Who turned on the lights,” my brother screamed a few moments later.
“It’s me, so go back to sleep,” my father called back.
He gave no warm milk or bedtime story. The hall seemed to grow as we walked through it. My shirt rubbed against the bare wall. It was not covered in wallpaper or paint for five years. It soon became sore and rough like it was mad at us for not clothing it. Even the three small, separate light fixture seemed to sway back and forth in agreement. Everything shook as my father stomped and he kept a steady pace. I remember running across the hallway when I was younger and the races my brother and I had. I never won any medal. Now it seemed that my father was racing me trying to beat me with his fast steady pace. He crossed the finish line at the bathroom and turned off the hall lights as he entered.
As we entered the small room I looked around. Everything was in disarray. The black rotting cabinet doors were open and the drawers were overstuffed with magazines. There were opened shampoo bottles many toppled over with a thick colored puddle at their mouths. The shower was moist and the mirror was fogged. It showed two shadowy figures entering, one with a long wrench in his hand.
“Well, come on and help me here,” my dad commanded.
He was hunched over the toilet that had it’s heavy porcelain top removed. I heard people drowning. My father flushed the toilet twice, observing how slowly the tank filled.
“It looks like there’s something wrong with the flapper or the chain,” he informed me underestimating (as usual).
I walked closer, peered over his shoulder and pretended to look interested. I opened the small window that was on the left side of my father. A cold breeze filled the room. I heard a grumbling noise rise slowly from the bowl.
“How is my favorite young plumber doing,” my mother asked while on her way to the kitchen. My father gave a grunt of acknowledgment thinking she was talking to him. I did not answer her. I knew she would be stationed at the sink for the rest of the day. My father motioned for me once again and I gladly came.
“Hold this up, don’t let go,” he instructed.
He always had me hold something up or together when we were repairing something. I felt he was trying to make up for all the times he held me. On joyous holidays he would always put on his shoulders and dance no matter how much his back hurt him. I would feel scared and grown up at the same time and soon want the ride to end. It never has. I am still peering over people’s heads and waving a flag sickly as my dad carries me painfully on his back like a broken old mule.
After thirty minutes of screwing, banging, and holding my father begins to talk to me.
“So how’s school going?” He asks while turning a bolt.
“Not bad I got four ‘A’s’ this report card marking,” I answered briefly
letting go.
“That’s good, I am very proud of you,” he answered.
To think that it took my father a half an hour of toilet repair to drain a conversation out of himself. He flushed it again. I felt like the floater, slowly sinking as the water beneath me drained out then rising once more stopping the flow. Now I felt fixed.
“It’ll hold for now but I think we need a new toilet,” my father
assessed.
“I agree,” I said, lying.
I sank, but no water rushed in to rise me. My dad cleared the bathroom of the magazines scattered on the floor ( “a precautionary measure” ) and gathered his tools. They were cleaner that his hands were. Then he went to the sink lathered his hands with a white bar of soap that I always used, and washed his sweating face. He used my shoulder as a towel rack. And I stood there, now a bathroom attendant, handing him his light blue towel and putting away his soap. I was not tipped. Then I followed him out the door.
“We did a good job,” he said proudly, not noticing the giant puddle lapping at his foot that had formed across the floor and that continued to flow from the sad mouth of the toilet.