Whoopsies

I

“Hey, pop. How's it going down there?”

“Mijo! Que bueno. Esta bien. It’s good to hear your voice.” Three sentence fragments in and my ex-pat turned gringo dad’s Spanish was effectively exhausted. After seventeen years in Costa Rica he still hadn’t picked up much, although he had a great accent, if you like arguably offensive and cliched impressions. Sometimes I do.

“Good to hear yours. How’s the wife and the doggo? I saw your pepper pic. Looks like you’ve got a knack for it.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s been a blast. You sound tired. You doing okay?”

I sighed, took a swig of my beer and leaned back in my chair. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” I took another. “Long day.”

“Still driving down to San Rafael?”

“Sure am.”

“Oof. Been there buddy. Tough one today?”

I shook my head. Damn near fifty and my dad was still always ten steps ahead. “Almost got run off the road today. People can’t drive.” What I didn’t tell him was that I cut off a handful of people myself as I chased him, even going so far as to take a difficult exit that added untold minutes to my already arduous commute. In the end he got away, willing to take a series of dangerous turns that I wasn’t.

“Tell me about it.”

I snorted, remembering the traffic around the mountains and beaches of Guanacaste and feeling like I had no right to complain. The 101 might be a bear, but the 160, the Ruta Del Sol, from Guiones to Tambor was a roll of dice every time. “How do you deal with it?” I rocked in my seat remembering all the times my dad had kept it cool through sticky situations. Always checking on us rather than cursing or shaking a fist.

“Honestly…”

He was unable to see me nodding from his side of the phone.

“I just imagine that they’re about to poop their pants.”

I laughed.

“What? You’ve never had to poop your pants while you’re driving around?”

“No, dad.” I wiped a tear away. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, listen to mister fancy pants.”

I tried to respond but my words just spilled out as chuckles.

“You know what your problem is.”

I could picture him pointing into the phone. “What’s that, dad?”

“You need a lady around.”

I blew a raspberry into the phone. “Ah, that’s the last thing I need right now.”

“Nonsense. It’s always the first thing.” I could hear the timbre of his wife’s voice calling to him in the background, then his voice, muffled by his hand. “Absolutely, babe. Just finishing up. Yeah. yep. I’ll tell him.” then his unmuffled voice again. “She says come in March.” He had a knack at boiling it down to the basics.

“I don’t know, Pop.”

“Yeah, yeah. What about that April girl?”

April was older than me, 48. “Alright, dad. Sounds like you should be getting to it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Love you too, buddy.”

a.

I read children's books long before I learned about mathematical logic, so when I discovered that the opposite of ‘Everyone poops’ isn’t ‘No one poops,’ it’s ‘Someone doesn’t poop,’ the idea gave me the creeps, still does.

II

My rear bumper barely missed his front as I lurched my car into the lane, veering into the next as I did. Horns blared. I slammed on the breaks, skidding to a stop, inches short of a collision. Traffic moved and I didn’t look, pushing my way into the next lane, more horns, and squealing tires, shouts. I glimpsed a car or two throwing up clouds of dust as they tried to keep their cars on the road.

I sped to the exit, rode the shoulder past the line of cars, and skipped to a stop behind an old minivan waiting to take a right. My stomach gurgled violently, buckling me over as sweat began to pour down my face. I wasn’t going to make it. I could see the station from here, not two blocks away, and I wasn’t going to make it. The minivan missed another window and I started to give up hope.

An unexpected wave of relief hit me, not full relief, not even close, but a space for the eminent and exponentially growing storm to expand into. I watched the minivan miss yet another opportunity, clutched my stomach and hollered frantically, and began to honk. Honk and inch my car closer to theirs. The minivan edged forward nervously, brake lights blinking, small wide eyes in the side view mirror.

My stomach growled and my sphincter flinched and I laid on the horn, cursing unconsciously. The minivan pulled forward at a speed no one drives. Another car honked as it swerved. Another slowed and honked, not politely but not quite as rude as the last, waving them in. The minivan pulled in as clumsily as anyone could.

I pulled past the line. As the light turned green I saw the field as a whole. Like recognizing the pattern in frogger, seeing the ones and zeroes, capturing the patterns in the wind. I stepped on the gas and cut across six lanes in a straight line. Not quite perpendicular, but close. The car leapt as I hit the steep ramp in to the department store parking lot, I pushed it to second and sped past the store front, past yells, shaking fists, and leaping figures. The car scraped its bumper, reeling onto the side road, and up, and cutting under an oak canopy and into the half-eroded ramp leading to the back lot of the station. The part of the lot with the bathroom.

I skidded to a crooked stop, feet away from the bathrooms, felt like miles. There were two side by side. Steel doors chipped and worn, bar handles. As I ran the fourteen steps(I made them in seven) all the possible scenarios ran through my head.

One: Both are regularly locked, key upon request, requiring an intermediate step of unforeseeable length. An impossibility at this point.

Two: No key is needed but they are both occupied, locked from the inside, their occupants unresponsive as you frantically pound on one door and then the next and back to the first.

Three: They’re out of order. The fixtures aren’t malfunctioning, they’re missing. Dilapidated, dingy wide-tiled rooms.

Four: They aren’t bathrooms at all. Their illusions, a phantom oasis, the idea of salvation passing through your soul just after you already died.

Five: the doors are fake.

Six: Society is just a construct and the overgrown hedge that became a high cinder block wall across the alley that ran behind the station was just as much a restroom as this possibly fictitious, designated room.

Seven: I’d lost my mind altogether. Family lost, life in prison. If I even had a family, or a life. I’d driven recklessly through traffic for miles, killing thousands. I was really walking into the same padded room I had been in the entire time.

Eight: The handles were fake and pulled of and as I looked closer, I saw that the doors were painted on.

It was about here that my hand fell on the handle of the door and a scenario I never saw coming unfolded. The handle was real. The door was real and it was unlocked. It swung into a perfectly acceptable, gas-station bathroom. I shut it behind me and was saved.

I came out a new man, focused, patient, aware. As the wave of relief subsided, I started to hear the sirens, the commotion of the gathering crowds. It all looked pretty close to what I’d imagined. Police cars, lights flashing, one blocking the exit, the other blocking my car from the front. An agitated crowd had gathered, intermittent shouting and sporadic static, radio bleats.

I stepped out onto the walk and stood behind the rail that ran in front of both bathrooms. Some officers were managing the growing crowd, others were managing traffic, others were inspecting my seemingly abandoned vehicle. Since no one was needing my attention I put my hands in my pockets, puckered as if to whistle, and turned and strolled around the corner and into the station.

I came out, minutes later, finishing off a tiny bag of chips. The crowd was already growing thin and two of the police cars had left. The remaining officers were at their vehicles either on their radios or otherwise engaged, except one who was still poking around the driver’s side of my car. I took my time, there was no rush now, and sidled up behind the officer. He was young, put together and in shape, a little skinny.

I crinkled the tiny bag, smoothing the edges open and brought it up, tipping the last crumbs into my mouth. I crumpled the bag and shoved it into my back pocket as I chewed through my words. “Can I help?”

The officer turned, an unappreciative scowl on his forehead. “Please, sir. Move along.”

“I’m sorry. I mean, I can help.”

The officer waved this time pointing at the nearest squad car. “Please move along, sir. This is an ongoing investigation and we need to keep the scene clear.”

I took a few steps back, and watched for a few moments as he returned back to his investigating. “That’s my car. I’m the guy you're looking for.”

He turned, a look of both restrained frustration and professional acceptance. He raised his eyebrows, I assume in an attempt to relay how ridiculous I sounded, and how serious it was if true.

I pointed at my car, “My car,” then at the bathroom. “I had to go.”

The officer looked me over, stole a glance at the bathroom door, and turned to stare at the driver's seat. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the leather.”

I chuckled and shrugged as I nodded at my cloth seats, the edges worn thin. “So, what do you need?”

He took a deep breath. “Do you have an I.D.? Mr. …”

I pointed into the cab. “In the console.”

It turned out okay. Don’t get me wrong, it was an expensive mishap.

b.

I’m not sure if I heard it from my dad first, or not. As I think about it now, it seems like I probably gleaned it over time, from movies and tv. Possibly, I just downloaded it from the zeitgeist, I’m not sure where. But, when my father reinforced it so casually and pointedly, it really stuck with me.

In this day and age I think the saying “picture them in their underwear,” has become nearly universal. I’m wildly curious how universal the term is. I’m almost certain that if you were able to speak the language of one of the remaining uncontacted tribes and were able to articulate the question in a functional manner, that they would probably not understand the concept, but I’m not completely certain.

Surely, even people living in young and rudimentary societies come under the collective scrutiny of their cultural peers, and if that’s the case, surely it has raised their anxiety, and surely they’ve developed techniques to help mitigate the negative effects caused by this intense and unusual situation. And surely someone who’d already been through it, saw another of their tribe struggling through the experience, offered a word or two of advice.

“Imagine all the ladies wearing loin clothes on their breasts, and all the men wearing no loin cloths at all.”

They could also respond to the same question by saying, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

III

A perfect summer night. Warm winds after a cool evening fell on a hot day. The smell of thunderheads in the distance, a promise of petrichor. We cruised down the highway, windows down, laughing nervously. There’s no escaping the cliche of the first date, and so we leaned into it, both of us nervous. We laughed at each other making clumsy attempts at classic courtship, and although neither of us was ready to admit it in front of the other, we were in love.

“So when your wife asks how tonight went, what do you think,” She rubbed her chin as she thought about it herself and then snapped her fingers “Three stars?”

“Three?” I scoffed, put my blinker on, and eased into the middle lane, clearing the way for a fast approaching headlight. “Out of how many?”

She shrugged. “Fourteen.”

“Fourteen? Three out of fourteen?”

She shrugged, looked off as she nodded, then shrugged again, flashing me a playful glance. “Four stars?”

“Yeah, four stars sounds fair.”

She pushed my shoulder. “What? Four stars?” She crossed her arms. “I think we should be graded separately.”

I scoffed. “You think I’m not pulling my weight on the group project?” I pointed a thumb at myself as the car passed us on the left and matched our speed, three or four car lengths ahead, hard to tell. “My middle name is ‘Group Project.'

She squinted, “I thought Group Project was your last name.” and raised her chin.

I squinted back, letting her know that I was still into the bit that we had beat deader than a dead horse over the last four hours. “Is that what I said?” Lights flashed in my side view, an engine revved as the lights darted ahead. “I thought I told you my name.” I gave her a suspicious appraisal. “What did I say it—whoopsies!” I swerved, halfway into the right lane, its bumper missing mine by inches.

“Oh, shit,” she screamed, clutching my shoulder.

Horns honked as I made my way back into my lane, the green or dark-blue sedan zoomed ahead, cutting others off as it went.

She shook an open mouth at me, “What was that guy thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, he could have killed everyone.”

“Everyone?”

She rolled her eyes, commendably cool so soon after a brush with death. “Almost everyone.”

I shrugged. “He probably has to poop.”

She looked me up and down, apparently stunned, then back to the car as its taillights intertwined with others. “Huh.” She slid closer to me in the bench seat and leaned her head against my shoulder. “Did you yell, Whoopsies?”

“Did I?”

c.

SPEECH COACH: “You look nervous."

TARO GOMI: “I'm fine.”

SPEECH COACH: “Just picture everyone in their underwear.”

TARO GOMI: “Naw, I’m going to imagine that they’re all about to poop their pants.”