Echoes of the Wash

It was a hot summer day in central Texas. Norm stood at the front of his house awaiting the arrival of his friend, his best friend, Lee. Lee was late as usual and the heat was unbearable. It was time to go back inside and wait for the dogs to sound the alarm as had been the case his entire life, and for most of history before him. Closing the door, Norm resumed his ineluctable state of eavesdropping on the phone call of his mother, who was speaking with her sister about the state of their poor younger brother, Gig.

“What the hell are we going to do Tess?” inquired mother.

“I don’t know. The more we help the more he sinks and I’m torn. I’m to a point where I don’t want to say give up, because that wouldn’t be the proper phrasing. I'm just to a point where the more he slips the more I want to focus on us. Maybe hedge our bets a little bit.”

“Tess, I hate to say I agree with that. We can’t just give up on Gig. I don’t know if I can. I just-”

“I said that was not the proper phrase.”

“I know, I know. I just can’t help myself. He’s in another country a thousand miles away, killing himself bit by bit every day and we’re sitting over here just talking about it as if that’s going to change something in him.”

Mother’s voice began to gently quiver. Tess responded.

“I know, we just have to think about it honestly. He’s lived at both of our houses at various points and he’s burned the lifeline to our homes through his own actions. His own selfish impulses and weaknesses.”

“I know, I know. Norm won’t ever forget last New Year’s Eve. I think he’ll be fine, but that was hard to see from someone he loved.”

The dogs sounded the alarm and Norm was out the door walking with a purpose to the idling Ford at the end of the concrete pathway, splitting the lawn. Getting in, neither Norm nor Lee spoke immediately. Norm spotted the five hour energy bottle on the floorboard and wondered to himself if that was the bottle of favor to be in roughly fifteen minutes. Lee moved first and turned down the country music that sounded oddly like a pop and rap hybrid that Norm hated. He was pleased with Lee’s course of action. Norm began the conversation shortly thereafter.

“Is this the bottle?” Norm asked while grabbing the bottle off of the floor-mat.

“That’s it yeah.”

“How do you expect me to piss in this thing?”

“Well, just make sure you unscrew the cap first, I don’t think that’ll be much trouble for an educated fella like yourself.”

“Don’t give me that right now, you know what I mean. It’s the size of my thumb, not to mention the entrance is… I don’t know, small. Really small.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit there buddy.”

“Shut the hell up.”

“Alright alright, sorry.”

Lee paused for a moment, then smirked as he continued.

“But yeah, unscrew and take off the cap, uncoil the entity and center her up and give me a few ounces to work with so I can pass this test. If you don’t mind.”

Norm looked at Lee with both anger enough to throw a punch, but all the while feeling compelled to laugh. Lee resumed:

“If Apollo could perform the unceremonious disengagement of the lunar module from the mothership and execute a 180 degree turnaround while traveling 24,000 miles per hour 10,000 miles above the surface of the Earth, and capture the male and the female ends through a hole half the length of that bottle you’re bewailing about, then I think you can stick what you have where you need to and provide me some clean piss. Preferably without dribble... Thank you.”

Norm’s response was merely a bewildered stare. Truly speechless he was.

Lee made a final turn into the parking lot of the facility that would hopefully give him his freedom, thanks to Norm. Norm put what he had where he needed to and provided clean piss. Lee capped the bottle and slid it into the crotch of his jeans and walked into the facility with unflappable confidence. Left to sit in the Ford, Norm began pondering his situation.

What am I doing here? He’s helpless. I’m only encouraging him.

A few minutes passed and Lee came strolling out. He’d just slayed a dragon. He saluted his Ford and his best mate within and completed a heel click skip to cement his victory over the county and the state. Charges were dropped, he was a free man. Norm sat mostly unamused but couldn’t help to crack a smile at someone he could only hope had learned his lesson. Lee entered the Ford.

“How ‘bout a beer huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now?”

“Yeah I’ll drop you off at home no problem.”

The ride home was mostly silent. The music never reappeared and the only sound was the wind howling from the cracked seal left partly open from the waiting in the parking lot on Norm’s side. Norm never bothered to roll it back up. Ten minutes later Lee pulled in front of Norm’s house. Norm shook Lee’s hand and walked back up the pathway feeling satisfied, yet somewhat defeated.

I’ve done the right thing today, haven’t I?

As Norm entered the house he heard immediately that his mother was still on the phone with Tess. He didn’t want to pay any mind but this was his mother, and a son can’t ignore his mother’s voice no matter his aversion. The conversation appeared at least to be on a much lighter note, but his mother’s sentences were being followed by a sniffling of the nose. Though she was not sick. Norm sat down on the couch next to his mother’s empty seat and listened. She entered the room from the kitchen and her puffy red eyes confirmed his intuition. She sat down in her chair and hung up the phone.

“Why are you doing this to yourself Mom?

“Doing what?”

“You know what.”

“Norm, this is my issue, just leave it alone. Please.”

“Your issues are my issues whether you think that’s right or not.”

“He’s my brother and I will always help him. If I don’t help him and something happens to him I would never forgive myself. Then whose problem would I be?”

Norm didn’t have a great counter. He sat silent for a few moments until he found his words and answered.

“I just know that whatever the status quo is right now isn’t helping. We have to brace ourselves for bad news about Gig and there’s a good chance you’ll blame yourself anyway. The only variable it feels like you can control is yourself and how you respond.”

“You might be right about that, but I have to try Norm. I just have to. Please, go find something to do or stay down here and don’t speak anymore of it.”

“Okay.”

Norm sat with his mother for a while in silence, the two of them reading their respective Hemingways. Norm read passively while his mind drifted to his mother.

What will I do when that phone call comes?

His mother’s mind drifting to Gig, she sends him some texts about things to do and meals to cook and scripture to read. No reply. Norm thumbed back about ten pages as he couldn’t recollect what he’d just read. He put in the bookmark and set the book down on the coffee table. He thinks to himself what might the right answer be. He knows just as she that this behavior is enabling and there’s no help to be had by one who doesn’t seek it. Yet how can you tell a lover not to love, a nurturer not to nurture? The only thing Norm felt was a defiant moral stance being carved into his soul that no matter the person and no matter the circumstance, he would not enable anyone from here on out. Whatever the right answer is, that’s not it.

Norm dozed off and awoke an hour later. His phone was vibrating but before he could gather his senses it stopped. Another buzz on his chest and Norm checked his phone and it was a call from Lee.

“Okay but seriously, do you want to grab a beer or not?”

“I’m not grabbing a beer with you. We can watch a game and talk about whatever, but no drinking anymore.”

“Alright fine, no game on tonight though, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow it is.”

Norm got back to reading again, this time in his room upstairs, the hours passing fleetingly from day to night. He’d finished the book he was reading and began another. Nothing of note downstairs so far as he could hear and he took some comfort in that. At once his phone rang. Lee.

“Hey Norm, can you come pick me up?”

“Where are you?”

“Pool hall.”

“You in any trouble?”

“No, just don’t know where the Ford is.”

“What am I to make of that?”

“I don’t know, just get down here if you can. There’s stuff happening and you’re missing it.”

Frustrated, Norm decided he would go but he wasn’t in a particular hurry. Lee seemed fine over the phone so he didn’t fear for him in any way. He read for another half hour and reached a stopping point in the book and put it down. He walked downstairs to hear his mother back on the phone with Tess. Before coming into view he stopped on the stairs and listened like he shouldn’t, for her phone was on speaker as his mother was folding laundry.

“Tess I just, I can’t. I can’t. I know there’s nothing more we can do, he’s not even in the damn country. If my husband goes out of town for work maybe we can get him here and have some people over and talk some sense into him?”

“Do I need to remind you what happened last time he stayed at your house for any length of time?”

“I’d rather you not.”

“He mixed his liquor and benzos and collapsed in his own piss while trying to wipe his ass.”

“Tess please, I know.”

“Your only son had to drag his naked body to the shower for you to wash our fifty three year old brother.”

The sisters remained silent for a few moments. Norm felt it was as good a time as ever to come down and slip on his shoes and walk out the door to go to the pool hall. He hopped in his pick up and began his way down the neighborhood streets, thinking about that night. It was a weird dynamic to begin with, that he not only had surgery on New Year’s Eve but chose to recover the first day at his sister’s house, rather than at home with his wife. However, Norm’s mother is of course a saint so he made it make sense. Gig came home completely spaced out, but Norm chalked it up to nothing other than some anesthesia and painkillers. He could hardly speak for several hours and when he did he might as well have had a sock in his mouth. He peed once without event, then again thirty minutes later, then again 10 minutes later, then every five minutes too many times to count and it was clear was was transpiring. Finally, a crash that shook the entire house and the rest is all known to history. Norm hated Gig for that for a long time. He’d mostly forgiven him now but remained weary about his motivations for coming over that night, and he didn’t fully buy his circumstances now either.

Norm arrived at the pool hall and not only saw the Ford but heard its alarm sounding as well, just off the center line of the front door of the building.

What is he blind and deaf?

Norm entered the building and there was Lee, on the stage, singing karaoke. All my exes live in Texas and all the rest of how it goes. Lee wrapped up the song and tried to put the microphone back in the stand but failed and dropped it on the floor. The feedback nearly made two hundred ears bleed at once. Lee then took a step to his left onto air and fell off the five foot platform as flat as a man can land with a loud smack. Without air in his lungs Lee began to panic. Norm rushed over and Lee grabbed his shirt with the grip of a man who believes death is knocking and has a warrant. Lee struggled for a minute or so and with the first air he breathed slurred:

“You need to get me out of here.”

“Okay.”

The hilarity of what just happened was cut short by the oddly serious tone of the drunkest individual in town. Norm all but carried Lee to the pick up and once he got him in the passenger seat asked for his keys. Lee obliged and Norm turned off the Ford’s alarm from inside the vehicle. He sped off with great haste, so as to try and prevent misfortune from becoming a vomitous calamity in his interior. Thankfully for Norm, Lee’s apartment complex is only a couple miles away and they got there in four minutes. Getting out of the pick up Lee fell again, but without harm this time. Norm gathered him and lead him up the stairs to the second floor. The last three steps were completed wholly by Norm’s will. Norm unlocked the door with Lee’s keys and guided him to the bathroom with dragging feet and heavy breathing intensifying. Norm then promptly removed Lee’s shirt and undid his belt. Next, the socks and the pants. Norm spared both of the best mates the final article and kept his underwear on. He then turned on the shower as cold as the Texas summer heat would allow, which was lukewarm. Out of breath, Norm aimed the shower head to Lee’s legs and sat down next to the toilet. Catching his breath, Norm began to think to himself once more.

He has a problem. This is no way to fix it. I just can’t help it.