My house was built at the end of the Great Depression. It is charming but small, and is missing a few things considered essential in most modern homes. Topping that list of things is a shower, of which my house has zero unless you count the thing someone rigged up in the basement between the laundry sink and the "Pittsburgh toilet." Practically speaking, this means I either shower at the gym or I take a bath. Because yes, we have a bathtub, and you've never seen a cleaner, or more frequented, bathtub in your life.
This morning, I was taking a bath and talking to my wife as we prepared for our respective days. Winston the dog licked my arm and neck and face as I got clean, and, for reasons that will become clear momentarily, a distant childhood memory surfaced.
I don't remember why I thought it needed to go down like this, but I'd figured out a certifiably kickass hiding place for my mother's running shoes and no way was I going to help her find them now. She was going to have to do it on her own. I feigned inattention as she bumbled from room to room, puzzled and crooning her neck to inspect dark corners, behind couches, under chairs and beds, and beneath piles of laundry. Like the dog, I thought, thorough in her way but not clever enough to solve the puzzle. After a while, my fake disinterest gave way to the real, and I drifted on to other things.
Hours floated by. I was almost to the end of "Pitfall" on my Atari when my success and Mom's failure finally traded places.
"Geoffrey! Michael! Barnes!" she yelled all staccato and out of time with her clompy footfall racing toward my room. She appeared in the doorway, New Balances held up, Exhibit A in the trial now getting started.
"Do you know where I found these, mister?"
"Where," I asked, looking from the screen to her and back.
"Oh, don't you dare," my mom stepped closer like she was going to block my view and ruin the game. Her face was pretty red, and my guy got eaten by alligators.
This was getting bad. I was obviously not going to beat "Pitfall" now. I turned off the TV and looked at my mom. "Where?"
"In my underwear drawer! Oh, Geoff, why would you put a woman's dirty shoes in with her underwear? Why would you do that to your mother?"
Dirty shoes. Clean underwear. Mom's lady parts. I suddenly understood why my mom was so excited, why she looked so terrified, and why she sounded so heartbroken. Shit.
"I'm sorry," I said, admitting everything. "I didn't think about that!"
It was a hard day from there. I was scolded for mischief, instructed in the importance of thinking as opposed to not thinking, and made to clean both bathrooms and the kitchen floor in recompense, all before being allowed to even ask about playing my Atari some more. But I never put anything in a lady's underwear drawer again, retained a pretty healthy sense of where shoes do and do not belong, and, most saliently, I learned how to clean the shit out of a bathtub.
As my dog's tongue swabbed soap from behind my ear this morning, I spotted the clicker in the soap dish. Not the clicker like what I used to change the channel on my Atari TV with, but a quarter-size noisemaker we use to get the dog's attention. Without thinking, I picked it up and clicked it. The dog snapped to attention and Julie and I chuckled.
"What's this doing in here," I asked.
"I must have left it there after I gave Winnie a bath yesterday. Every time I clicked it, he got a treat. Look at him sitting for you. He's so cute."
The words bounced off the interior walls of my skull and got louder with each echo. "…gave Winnie a bath yesterday."
"Just curious," I said, my heart pounding, "but did you clean the tub after Winnie's bath?"
"Yes," Julie said. "I did."
I couldn't stop. That wasn't enough. I had to know for sure.
"With soap?"
A terrifying pause, then clarity.
"No," Julie said, acting like she didn't understand exactly what was going through my head, "I didn't scrub it or use cleanser, because I had just cleaned it after my own bath before his, but I did spray it down."
Dirty dog. No scrubbing. My bath. Winston had stopped licking my neck and backed away from the tub. The water was green like after a storm. I was one with dog. Shit.
Sometimes it's funny what brings things to mind. Other times, not so much. It's hard to know when you're Luke Skywalker facing dream-Vader in Yoda's swamp, and when you're Indiana Jones tied to the pole, better off not to look at the Ark. But the important memories never stay down. They come back, welcome or not, unannounced, to test and cleanse and clarify.
She's been asking if we can convert the tub to a shower for years. Today I call the contractor.