The Chandelier in the Shithouse

That was one thing about Dave Hamilton. He never quibbled about
cashing the checks he wrote to me even though I was just a non-
employee, a diaphanous soul in the underground economy, and didn’t
exist as far as the IRS was concerned or anybody else for that matter.
Thanks to him, I always had my own Andy Jacksons and a Ben Franklin or two, but to earn them I had to go to some strange-ass places like ‘the second telephone pole with red reflectors past the chicken farm.’

That’s what the directions said. Dave wrote them on the back of the
invoice. In chicken scratch. One Econo King waterbed with a
particleboard pedestal to go. Hold the headboard, the vibrator, the
four year degree from an accredited university, and thank God, Nature
doesn’t pass on the acquired traits of a parent to its offspring.
That’s all I had to give to any little dobber I would ever have. A
five-year, pro-rated warranty. Then they would be on their own like me
driving up and down a fucking country road for half an hour, forty
miles from home, trying to find the telephone pole with red reflectors
on it.

Where was it? Was this a wild goose chase involving a chicken farm?
Why would anybody out here buy a waterbed? Did the chicken come before the egg? That’s what I wanted to know. Fuck it. Find that telephone pole! Pronto!

And there it stood, camouflaged in an indifferent landscape, the
telephone pole with red reflectors on it, exactly where the directions
said. I had driven past it several times before actually seeing it,
and with the wind blowing the way it was it didn’t take someone with a
bloodhound’s nose to smell the steamy chicken shit from the metal-
roofed chicken farm nearby. It was all there, just like the invoice
said.

I didn’t see a house though, but there was a dirt road that led
towards a secluded, capitalist glen surrounded by shady, idyllic trees
so I drove the waterbed van on the uneven trail into the thicket of
Timbuktu and Shangri-la. The Econo King bounced around in the back
until I spied a sprawling, single story house guarded by man’s best:
an attack dog, a large Rottweiler, tethered on a chain to a stake. A
young boy stood nearby.

I parked Dave’s van in the front of the house. The dog’s head swiveled
on his massive body, but he stayed alongside the boy. I expected to
find a young couple inside, but when I knocked on the front door it
was an old codger and a young woman. He was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and his belly thickened like an inner tube around his
midsection. The woman was trim and wore pastel slacks and a white
blouse.

The old guy led me to their spacious bedroom in the back of the house.
Sliding glass doors with beige drapes covered one whole side. Beyond
the glass doors was an open patio area where they parked their anti-
nature vehicles: a Jeep with roll bars and huge tank tires; alongside
it was a jacked-up pick-up truck and a camping trailer that didn’t fit
into their two-car garage, already stacked ceiling high with boxes and
enough junk to hold a flea market.

He motioned to a nearby freestanding, maple headboard with book
shelves.

“We want the waterbed centered on the wall over ‘heeyah’ and use
that headboard.”

I walked over and examined the headboard he pointed to.

“Nice piece of furniture,” I said.

“Bought it off a fella. He was moving and had to sell it. Gave him
fifty bucks for it,” he said, proud of the bargain he had struck.

The lady had other concerns.

“What about leaking? Do waterbeds ever leak?” his attractive, dark-
haired companion asked.

“Only if they get stuck with something sharp,” I said.

“So what do you recommend?” the old man followed up.

“No guns, knives, or scissors in bed. Nothing sharp.”

“I see,” she answered like she had just bitten down on an olive pit.

“Bunny, we’re not going to worry ’bout that, huh? I mean, I ain’t
missed yet with old Ironsides,” he said.

He roared with laughter.

“Jesse!” She looked at him sharply. “Be serious now,” she said.

“I am, honey bunch.”

I could see the setup already. Jesse was her Sugar Pops, and Bunny
was his sweetie with a kid from another guy. I knew what had to be
done with the headboard and the waterbed too. Make an alloy, like this
odd-matched couple, of the Econo King waterbed and the finely crafted, maple headboard that Jesse had lowballed out of someone desperate, and center it on the wall. No problem. I could do it. After all, I was a seasoned dream mechanic. I had set up a flotilla of plastic and particleboard, sleek edifices consecrated to slumber.

Before I could start though, there were logistics to take care of.
Mainly, I wanted to avoid man’s best friend, descended from the Hounds of the Baskervilles, in the front yard.

“Mind if I pull the van around back so I don’t upset the puppy?”
I asked.

“Whatever’ll make it easy for you. Just get it set up. I ain’t
been asleep for two whole days,” Jesse said, looking a bit haggard and
showing his age.

“He has back problems,” Bunny confirmed.

“Sorry to hear that,” I replied. “A waterbed will help. It’s all
about Archimedes’ Principle and the underlying forces of nature,” I
said, waxing philosophical, before driving the van around to the back
yard and parking it next to their anti-nature vehicles.
Jesse opened the sliding glass door. They had such a big, open bedroom with thick carpeting, almost like the pampas of Argentina. It gave me plenty of room to work. I brought all the things into their bedroom.

“It comes in parts, huh? I’m glad I decided to have you set it up.
I’d be at it until hell freezed over,” he commented.

Jesse looked over everything.

“Hey, this is particleboard!” he shouted, startling me more than
the Rottweiler.

“The Econo King comes with a particleboard pedestal. That’s why it’s
in the economy price range,” I explained.

His face reddened. Circles appeared on it like sunspots. My words
didn’t soothe him, and he turned into an old grizzly.

“Your boss told us it came with a stain finish. That son bitch!!”

Jesse scratched his chin.

“Honey, this is particleboard. It ain’t worth a shit or shinola!”

“It’ll hold up anything,” I reassured him, “as long as it doesn’t
get wet.”

That was true too. It was an axiom, a postulate and a given of post-
modernism that whenever and wherever possible dream mechanics were to suspend twelve hundred pounds of water above water-soluble supports. That was our job description.

“Jesus! That son bitch!” Jesse stammered.

It took him several minutes to cool off.

“Go ‘head. I’ll call him tomorrow. I wanna sleep tonight. Hoddammit!”

The old grizzly eventually calmed down so that I could start the
assembly process. The current ruckus wouldn’t ruffle Dave Hamilton at
all. He had been in the furniture business way too long. It would roll
off him like water on one of our Naugahyde beds. He was back at the
store in his Lazyboy, probably into his third bag of cheese popcorn or
shooting the shit with the security guard.

“I’ll help you center the headboard where we want it,” Jesse said.

His offer surprised me considering the previous tirade. We carried
the heavy, maple headboard to the wall.

“That’s good, don’t you think, honey bunch?” he asked.

Bunny had joined us a few moments earlier when she heard him
sonbitching Dave.

“Yes, that’s fine.”

I looked at the sturdy bookcase headboard pressed close to the wall.

“I’ll put a shim under the headboard. Just to keep it from
tipping over while I work.”

“That thing’s heavy as lead. It’ll stand by itself without a
shim. It’s been there for a week with no problem,” Jesse said.

I was skeptical, but I didn’t want him going grizzly again so I shut my trap.

A telephone rang in the adjoining bathroom. It must have been
attached to the telephone pole with red reflectors out on the road
right past the chicken farm. I couldn’t believe it! A telephone in the
bathroom. No shit.

He walked a few steps to the door and turned on a bright light that
transfigured and completely illuminated the coal-black bathroom.

“How the hell you doing?” he shouted. “I’m having my waterbed
set up by a boy,” he said loudly to the caller.

This boy looked at Bunny after Jesse’s remark. Being a non-employee
like I was, I heard stuff like that all the time, and I was kind of
sensitive about it and being a young urban failure.

“Jesse put the phone in there when we added the bathroom. Some
people read. He talks on the phone. You’d be surprised how much work
he does in there.”

I could only imagine him sitting on the crapper talking to other
high rollers on how to lowball unsuspecting people. After a few moments he walked out of the bathroom. I had lined up
everything on the floor. The particleboard lay flat on the carpeting.
What a breeze this had turned out to be! I couldn’t wait to get it
all set up and head home to my second story dustbowl of an apartment.

“Mind if I use your bathroom?” I asked.

I didn’t really have to use it, but this boy was curious and
wanted to see what it looked like to have a telephone in a bathroom. I
didn’t even have shower. My apartment only had a tub with claw feet.

“Light switch is on the right,” Jesse said. “Let’s get a beer, honey bunch.”

They left. I closed the door after flicking the switch. Light flooded the room. Small, bright lights blazed around the vanity. The smoky, black-tiled shower and bathtub were sunk below ground level. Three steps led down into the black lagoon where I pictured the old grizzly submerging himself with Bunny. Maybe he dipped the Rottweiler
in there too.

The main lighting hung from the ceiling several feet off center from
the toilet. I looked up at it and couldn’t believe it. Not only a
telephone but a chandelier in the shithouse! It was like a sparkling
earring full of cats’ eyes. The light reflected off the tile and the
large mirror that covered the front wall.

This place was perfect! It was the Taj Mahal! Everything was dazzling
and well-lit, a sanctuary, where the old grizzly didn’t have a worry,
where he and Bunny were secure and protected, where life’s
vicissitudes were overcome by chandelier light, where I didn’t have to
duck my head to walk like in my own apartment, where…shit!
A loud crash shattered the silence. It sounded like a bomb went off. I
wondered if someone he had lowballed out of their life savings had
shot the old grizzly. I rushed back into the bedroom. Jesse and Bunny
also raced there where I examined the pieces of crushed particleboard.

“Fucking A. The headboard tipped over,” I moaned.

They stared coldly in disbelief at the pieces cut in half. Chips like oatmeal covered the floor.

“I knew I should have shimmed it.”

“You carry extra particleboard?” Jesse asked.

“No sir.”

“How about Super Glue?”

“That won’t work,” I said.

“Get me that Super Glue in the kitchen,” Jesse said to Bunny.

She returned with a small tube. He applied the special salve to the
broken pieces of particleboard then we waited an awkward ten minutes
for it to somehow heal the crumpled pieces. When he lifted one of the
boards, it fell apart.

“Ain’t worth a shit either,” Jesse grumbled.

Forget it. I knew I had to climb into the van for the long drive back
to the store. Dave Hamilton would be in his Lazyboy, maybe waiting on
a late-night customer. By then night had fallen. When I reached the
main road, the telephone pole that I couldn’t find earlier, with a
line back to the old grizzly, stood out, transfigured by the red
reflectors on it. You couldn’t miss it. It’d be easy to find when I
came back later that night, tired, haggard, used-up and used, to start
all over again. Some things only come out when they’re supposed to,
like on a dark night of your soul, like those red reflectors on a
telephone pole that now stood out like a chandelier in a shithouse.

The Chandelier in the Shithouse was originally published in Subtletea
Magazine