David sat on the toilet with the door open while he read. He was expecting company and didn’t want to not hear a knock at the door—the overhead fan inside the bathroom tended to overpower any sound once the door was shut.
It was one of those moments where he could expect company at any time. The confirmation online had said 3:00 p.m. but those confirmations are usually wide-varying guesstimates. Sometimes you could see a delivery as early as ten o’clock.
At about noon his guts had just about had it with him. A pot of coffee and a handful of vitamins will do that. The book he had been reading was a hardcover, a novel that went to press when he was about nine years old. It told a story about a writer in the throes of struggle involving a case of Doppelganger and a whole pile of murders building up around him. The protagonist was being held accountable for the deaths of his colleagues. The evidence suggested they all seemed to have died by his hand. The story intrigued David so much that when his insides kicked into motion he didn’t take his eyes off each page as he gallantly rounded the corner from the living room into the bathroom.
After two murders, the first two, the protagonist was approached by the small country-town’s Sheriff. He was then questioned about sets of fingerprints which had been found all over the two scenes—his fingerprints—thus connecting both the crimes and his name to the crimes. While the protagonist had an alibi, one which had checked out, the Sheriff remained skeptical.
David sat there with his nose in the midst of the action, both in the reading and the shitting, while the blaring overhead fan joined the light in peeking over his shoulder. He squeezed between paragraphs. He felt a short strain with his attempt and each push turned out the desired result. A little dry, it was.
Outside David sensed movement coming along the walkway which led to his apartment door—footsteps; the postman, maybe—but he disregarded it and kept on reading. The wife of the protagonist seemed more concerned with the scenario than her husband.
Then it came time to wipe. David reached over and peeled the soft two-ply from the roll and had a go at it. The dryness had caused a few snags in the hair along the way. When he brought the paper up it looked like old cake frosting that had spilled onto the carpet.
As he dropped the first tissue behind him into the toilet the sound David had heard just a moment prior grew steadily closer. The certain sound of footsteps. They marched right up to the front door and stopped abruptly. David had almost not realized that he had held his breath in anticipation. Then the knocking came—it was gentle, but in a hurry.
The postman was here. The delivery man. And he had shown up at just the right time, David thought. He craned his head out of the bathroom and toward the door. Between breaths, he said, “Be right there.”
Then that’s when common courteously took him over. He had, in a matter of just few seconds, been faced with a dilemma. He still had to finish wiping, but when the second round of knocking came (even more in a hurry; reminded David of a woodpecker at his door) he had to either stall, or just answer the damned door.
This was an important package, he thought. If he hadn’t heard me when I had said ‘Be right there’ he may assume no one is home and take the package back to the hub and leave his mark—a scrap of paper taped to the door indicating where and when it will be available for pickup. If only I had a doppelganger of my own, he thought, a double to answer the fucking door I could get both jobs done in the same time. Well, let’s not waste any more time.
Make a choice: Wipe your ass, or answer the door.
He chose the latter—to stand and answer the door.
Still holding onto the book, David stood and pulled his pants back on. He made very, very careful not to move any more than he had to; not to move in any way that would result in a shit smear down the inside seam of his pants. It may stick to the hair, he thought, it may dry to the inside of my crack, but that’s nothing a little visit to the shower won’t remedy.
A third knock.
He unlocked to the dead-bolt and pulled the door open, interrupting the urgent little woodpecker.
The delivery man stood in the nook just outside of the door holding package that looked like a it housed a giant dictionary from another realm. The man held the package out in front of him like it was a delicate animal freshly struck by a vehicle or as if it were an unmarked bomb about to trigger. The postman said, “Uh, delivery for uh,” he looked at the label, “A Mister David Carrier.”
“That’s me,” David said. He reached out and took the package from the urgent delivery man. He watched as the man hurried off and out into the sun, around the corner, back to his idling truck sitting in the parking lot. Some signatures are required, and some aren’t, David thought. He pushed the door closed and threw the dead-bolt back in place. He stared at the label and recognized the return address.
He caressed the label for just a moment and had a quick lapse into a week ago, when he originally placed the order. It was said that the order would take 3-5 days to process, and he even paid extra for overnight shipping. But here it was, a little over a week later, past his point of expectancy for the fucking thing.
His lapse transitioned to contempt for a minute, contempt for the lazy shit-heads responsible for this package being a few days late. He had expected it to come Monday and here it was arriving Wednesday. He had taken an extra day off of work to await the arrival and to his surprise it didn’t show. And to top it off now that it had arrived, he wasn’t prompted to sign for it, which basically told him he may have not even needed to be there when it arrived. These things are never accurate, he thought. Just like everything else. He shook his head and took a deep breath.
Then he remembered about the situation he had left stewing in his pants. Shit, he thought—Shit was right. He could already feel it drying up further. Itching. Nagging. This is going to be like one large band-aid that has to come off, he thought. And come off fast.
Let’s not waste any more time.
He placed the package at the foot of the bathroom doorway. He scurried back inside while he shuffled his pants back around his ankles, and sat. He thought of dried mud when the Earth’s plates shift. He thought of mucky dishes soaking their crust under the faucet. He thought of the glue that holds the book in his hand together. The door closed and the fan drowned out the all sound.
Author: Lawrence Goodwin
