(c) 2003 Bill Dodds
Chapter 18
The walk home seemed a lot longer. I was really tired and
I needed to go to the bathroom, too. I mean poop, not pee. It wasn't like we
were passing any gas stations or hamburger places along the way that had
restrooms. I think Charlie was tired, too. We hardly talked at all.
When we finally started heading up the driveway, I said,
"I got first dibs on the bathroom."
"What?" he asked. We sure said that a lot to one
another.
"Or have you got more than one?" I asked.
"More than one?"
"Nature calls," I said. "I need to... you
know."
"Oh," he said. "Sure. People in the future
still do that?"
"Oh, yeah," I said, "and I need to right
now."
"Come on," he said, leading me around the back of
the summer kitchen and along a well-worn path. I knew what it was because I've
been camping. It was an outhouse. Painted the same color as the regular house,
with a little sliver of a moon carved into the door.
"You're kidding," I said. He shrugged. I opened the
door and stepped up into it. I noticed that outhouses hadn't changed much in 88
years. This one smelled pretty much like every other one I had been in.
"I gotta get started on my chores," Charlie said.
You take your time." He shut the door and it was dark in there. Warm, too.
I could hear a fly buzzing up in one corner. There wasn't a toilet seat, just a
hole in a board.
Good enough! I sat down and took care of my business and then
started looking around for the toilet paper. Uh oh.
On the seat next to me was an old Sears, Roebuck and Co.
store catalog. I leafed through it while I continued to sit there and wait for
Charlie to come back. I figured I could tell him what I needed.
I was amazed at how cheap everything in the catalog was. Just
a few dollars for suits and dresses and musical instruments and just about
anything else you could ever want.
There was no electronic stuff, not even some big, old radios.
I wondered when the radio was invented. I tried to imagine my family going
through a day without electricity, hot and cold water, flush toilets, radios,
televisions, VCRs, microwaves, computers, cell phones. The list went on and on.
My buns were getting kind of sore from just sitting there. I
heard someone walking around outside and so I shouted, "Hey!"
"What?" a little voice answered.
"Who's that?" I asked.
"Sissie," she said.
"Sissie, where's Charlie?" I asked.
"He's doing his chores," she said.
"There's no toilet paper in here," I said.
"Mama has toilet water," she answered.
"She has what?" I asked.
"Toilet water," she said through the door. "It
smells real good. One time Brigid put some on me and I smelled just like lilacs
and Papa said..."
"No," I said, "I need toilet paper."
"What's that?"
She was kidding, right?
"It's a roll of perforated paper," I said.
"You tear off a piece after you're done... after you're done and you use it
to..."
"What's perfrated?"
"What?"
"What's perfrated?" she asked again.
"That doesn't matter, Sissie," I said. "I need
some paper."
"Oh," she said. "To wipe your butt."
"Uh... Well, yeah."
"It's supposed to be in there," she said.
"I know," I answered, "but it's not. Could you
go get Charlie?"
"Charlie's doing his chores. Can you hurry up in there?
I gotta go."
"Sissie," I said, "there's no paper. I
can't..."
"The catalog isn't in there?" she asked.
"The catalog?"
"Yeah," she said. "Right next to where you're
sitting. Rip out a page and hurry up 'cause I gotta go!"
It was then I noticed the first third of the catalog was
missing. The pages had been ripped out.
"Come on!" she was yelling and starting to bang on
the door with her little hands.
"Somebody fall in?" I heard Pat ask and laugh.
"Cousin Michael's in there," Sissie said, "and
he's talking about toilet water and he won't give me a turn and I gotta..."
She went on and on and I ripped out a couple of pages and used them. They had
drawings and descriptions of ladies shoes with buttons. At least the paper was
more like a newspaper than some slick magazine.
"All yours," I said, stepping out.
" 'Bout time!" she huffed.
"You all right?" Uncle Peter asked me. He was
standing in the back yard with Pat.
"Yes, sir," I said.
"You ever pitch?" he asked, holding up a horseshoe.
"Pitch?"
"Horseshoes," he said, pointing down at a metal
pole that stuck about a foot and a half out of the ground.
"No," I said.
"You want to try?" Pat asked.
"Careful," Uncle Peter warned me. "Pat's one
of the best in the county."
"The best after next Saturday," he said.
"That's when I take first prize at the Culver City Founders' Day
Festival."
"This could be your year," his father agreed. Pat
carefully aimed at another pole that was about 40 feet from where he and Uncle
Peter were standing. He threw the metal shoe and it hit the pole with a clang
and spun around it.
"So what do you like?" Uncle Peter asked me.
"Baseball?"
"It's all right," I said, "but my game is
bask..."
"IT SURE STINKS IN THERE!" Sissie announced, coming
out of the outhouse and I felt myself blushing.
"Sissie!" her father scolded her.
"Oh, that's right," Pat said, "Michael here
doesn't pitch horseshoes. He's a juggler. He was telling me and Charlie all
about it this morning. Promised to put on a show right after supper."
Go to Chapter 19.
