Hot Water(And Other Sketches)
Hot Water
The bar was busy for a Thursday and the bathroom line was long. Travis was waiting his turn to pee but he noticed the man in front of him seemed to be in a much greater hurry, hopping in place and looking nervously toward the door. They were both next in line and when two men finally came out the door Travis and the hopping man went in and took their places next to one another. Travis at the toilet, the other man at the urinal. there was no divider. The bathroom was meant for one person.
Before Travis could even unzipper himself the man next to him already had his eyes closed, head dipped backward, mouth open, and was letting out a moan of pleasure as his stream of piss splashed against the scented urinal cake.
Travis laughed out loud and said “Man, if that ain’t the most relatable thing I’ve heard all night.”
“Right man?” he said back. “And I’m not even that drunk! Been on lite beer all night. If you catch me downing nothing but Bud Lites all night you know I’m trying to watch myself.”
Travis laughed. “Hell, if I’m sluggin’ anything but IPAs something’s wrong.”
The man assured him he’d be floored if he was drinking IPAs all night. Travis laughed as he zipped his fly and went to wash his hands. The man was still shaking himself dry when Travis put his hands under the faucet. “Fuck that’s hot,” Travis exclaimed half under his breath. The man’s head shot over in his direction. His expression was as violated as it was surprised.
“Not you,” Travis reassured him, “the water.”
Blowing Smoke
It was after midnight when the boy came home. His older brother was in the kitchen and looked at him suspiciously, as if he had the right to be (and he certainly believed he did). He asked where the boy had been. The boy hated when his brother tried to act parental. It was always a power trip and the boy had lost his patience for it.
“Don’t act like you care,” the boy said. “You know I was just across the street at Jack’s house.”
“Oh yeah? Why do you smell like smoke?”
“Because we had a cigar,” the boy stated simply.
His brother wasn’t having it. “Then why do you smell like menthol?” He interrogated.
The boy was annoyed enough to be defiantly, foolishly honest. “Because I smoked a cigarette after.” What could his brother do? The boy wouldn’t smell like anything by the time his mom woke up in the morning and then he could just deny it.
His brother simply raised an eyebrow, leaned casually against the wall, and pulled a tin of long cut chewing tobacco from his back pocket. “You’d better watch yourself smoking those.” He interrupted himself to put a pinch in his lip and situate it with his tongue. “They’re bad for your lungs.”
Going Green
Wilson had run to the store for lemons. Imagine his frustration when he went to cook himself lunch and found that it was the only ingredient he’d forgotten to buy. In the produce section he found the lemons and grabbed two of them. No, three. Better to be safe. Then he reached up and plucked one of the plastic produce bags but, just after he dropped them in and was about to tie it, he thought twice. It occurred to him for the first time what an unnecessary waste of plastic this was. Lemons had thick skin and wouldn’t get dirty in his shopping basket. Besides, he was going to wash them when he got home and even the zest from the peel would be cooked and any bacteria on it would be killed. So why waste a plastic bag just so it could end up in some landfill? or the ocean? Changing this habit could save a lot of plastic over a lifetime, and if he didn’t start now, would he ever? Starting now, he decided, he’d no longer waste a single bag in this way.
Proud of himself for catching this and finding yet another way to go green, Wilson emptied the lemons from the bag into his shopping basket, crumpled the bag, walked over to the little trashcan a few paces away, and dropped the bag inside.
He paid for the fruit and drove home with the window down and feeling very happy with himself. He didn’t even turn on the radio. He listened eagerly to his own sense of self-satisfaction and the excited songs of birds hoping to catch a shag before sundown.
Tissue Issue
Johnny was lying on his bed holding his phone above his face when a knock came to his bedroom door. He told them to come in and his older brother opened the door and entered a few steps into the room and spoke immediately.
“Mom told me to tell you dinner is gonna be done in ten minutes and to be ready before you come down so we can leave for Aunt Jenna’s after.” He said.
“Yeah yeah, I’m already dressed and I’ll be down then.” Johnny spoke dismissively without even looking at his brother.
Not wanting to let Johnny get off so easily with being rude he made a show of looking around at the dirty clothes on the floor and asked, “Say Johnny, ever think of cleaning up in here? It looks like you live in a hamper.”
“Say Zach,” Johnny retorted, lowering his phone. “You see these plain white walls? The clutter adds color. You can decorate your room how you’d like, I’ll decorate mine.” He brought his phone back up to his face.
Zach scoffed and wanted to leave him with one more jab. He noticed the wastebasket next to his little brother’s bed and thought he found a path to his certain embarrassment. “That’s an awful lot of tissues you got there,” Zach said pointing at the wastebasket. “I’d almost believe you had a cold or something.”
“You believe what you want,” said Johnny peering around his phone without lowering it. “But you have to take into account that I’m allergic to every pet in this house.” He gave Zach a moment to accept the deflection, turned his attention back to his phone, and then added as if recalling a detail he had only just remembered, “and that I masturbate all the time.”
