When Toilets Attack

I STARED DOWN AT the mess in the toilet bowl, not wanting to think about it. I'd just flushed, and things swirled around, and the toilet made all the right noises. Then everything was still again-and everything was still there.

I flipped the handle once more, and the whooshing of water began again, as did the swirling in the bowl. This time, however, it was clear that something was wrong.

My depth perception, admittedly, is almost non-existent, but it sure as hell looked liked the mess in the bowl was getting closer to me, instead of disappearing the way it was supposed to. Like it was rising instead of sinking. I stared at it, almost transfixed, trying to figure out what was going on. Then I heard the first splash as the water began to overflow onto the floor.

"Oh, man," I thought.

I quickly washed my hands and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me as if that would put an end to the ugly reality of what was going on in there.

I found my way back to the table where, thank god, Morgan was settling up the bill.

We left the restaurant a few minutes later, my crime as yet undiscovered. I was thinking it might've been nice of me to tell somebody, but then again?well?I didn't.

It was a bad day for toilets. Earlier that morning, my own toilet had stopped flushing altogether (which I guess is the better alternative of the two). Making things even worse was that just two days earlier I'd been scolded by the landlord and the maintenance man for a leak in the bathroom that turned out to be my own damn fault. Now I had to call them again. In the meantime, Morgan taught me how to flush a toilet with a bucket.

It was a procedure I wasn't familiar with, and I wasn't very good at it at first. But after a few tries, it seemed to work well enough, so long as I kept a towel handy.

The landlord and handyman showed up later that afternoon and crowded into my tiny bathroom. As the handyman poked and tapped around the inside of the tank, I paced and emitted high, quiet whining noises. I always get real nervous when people come to the apartment to fix things. They always end up yelling at me for something.

After about 10 minutes (and much to their surprise), they found that there really was a problem, and it wasn't my fault. For lack of tools, however, they wouldn't be able to fix it for a couple of days.

"It's gonna be a mess," the handyman said.

"Not any worse than this morning," I thought, remembering the scene in the restaurant. "That's for goddamn sure."

Until they could get around to fixing it, I'd have to use the bucket.

I'd been fairly down of late, and strangely, being able to flush the toilet in a new and unique way helped some.

By the next morning, however, the bucket really started to lose its charm. But there was no choice in the matter, so I did it. Even got pretty good at it as time went on, even if I sighed the whole while.

At 5:30 a.m. on the day the handyman was supposed to stop by, I poured one last bucket into the bowl, made sure all the cigarette butts had been flushed away, and got ready to head out to the office.

A block away from my apartment, as I tapped my way toward the subway, a man stopped me. The only people who are usually on the streets at that hour are people walking their dogs, joggers and lost souls. This guy didn't seem to have a dog with him, and if he was talking to me, he clearly wasn't jogging.

"Excuse me," he said. "But could you tell me how to get to Flatbush?"

Now, consider that for a second.

Granted, there aren't an awful lot of people around, but even if no one else was around, would you still ask the blind guy for directions?

(Later, Morgan suggested that maybe a blind person is exactly who you want to ask for directions-after all, they have to keep pretty solid track of where they are and where they're going.)

And maybe that was indeed how this guy was thinking. Even if it wasn't, he got lucky, and I was able to point him in the right direction (assuming, of course, he meant the street and not the neighborhood).

"Got a long way to go, though," I warned him.

"Long way?"

"Yup."

"Oh well," he said, before walking away.

Forty-five minutes later, I was approaching the office. The light hadn't even thought of coming up yet, and so I was still moving pretty slowly. After crossing 27th St., I heard a voice some ways behind me.,

"Hey!"

I ignored it. He could've been talking to any of the dozen other people who were around. But as I continued up the street, each subsequent shout contained some new detail that made it clear this guy was talking to me.

I was hungover, I hadn't had my coffee yet and getting into the office was hard enough without dealing with loudmouthed strangers. As I veered toward the coffee cart, though, he caught up with me.

"That's a nice hat," he said.

"Thanks." I never believe anyone who says it's a "nice hat." It's not a nice hat-it's a battered, dusty and stained hat. It's a mess. Already I don't trust this guy.

"What are you, blind?" he asked. That one still makes me laugh every time I hear it-but this time I had no idea what had prompted him to ask. Maybe it was the stare.

"Yeah," I told him.

"So why don't you have a dog?"

"Don't want a dog."

"How'd you cross that street, then?"

I sighed. I just wanted to get my fucking coffee and sit down. "I take my chances."

"Can I have 75 cents?"

This guy was all over the place. Apparently he'd decided somewhere along the line that transitions were for the weak.

"So?" I said, trying to put things together, "you're telling me that you followed me for two blocks, yelling the whole way, so you could ask for change?"

"I really need 75 cents."

I sighed again and, lord knows why, pulled out my plastic change thing. This was absurd. I held it out. "I don't know what's in here, but whatever's there, you can have."

That was not exactly true. I knew that what was in there was mostly pennies, but I wanted to get rid of them anyway. It seemed to be the quickest way to get rid of him, too. I emptied the change into his palm.

"Hey, this is mostly pennies," he said a moment later, after poking through the coins.

"I told you that I didn't know what was in there."

"Yeah, but I got no use for pennies."

"What?"

"I don't want the pennies. There's a quarter here, that I'll keep."

"What?"

"I'll keep the quarter. You can have the pennies back."

I said nothing.

"Hey," he said, "I'm not bugging you-"

"Yes you are. I'm on my way to work."

"I just need 75 cents."

"And now you're partway there."

With still another sigh, I took the pennies back from him and jammed them in my pocket, then turned to head into the office.

"Hey, you forgot a couple here."

I paused. "What?"

"A couple pennies. You forgot them."

Again I said nothing, just continued on into the building, half expecting him to follow me.

"Jesus Christ," I thought, as I rode the elevator up to the 14th floor. "Bums today. No class."

In my office I turned on the computer, sat down and wondered idly what kind of awful mess would await me in the bathroom when I got home.