Toilet

A small story:

By temperament, Consort fixes things. A classic middle child, he is eternally convinced an accord can be reached, and that he is the person to broker this detente. More often than not, he accomplishes this.

His very job - interim CFO for start-ups- is an exercise in mediation. He is slotted between the young men in hoodies and the bankers who fund them, because neither side entirely trusts the other, but both sides understand Consort will safely steer them through the shoals.

He also fixes things around the house.

He installed our dishwasher.

He installed our water-heater.

He fixed the dishwasher.

He replaced and installed our front door.

He fixed the dishwasher.

He fixed the roof.

He fixed the dishwasher.

He tiled our bathroom.

He finally gave up and got a new dishwasher.

This is still novel to me because I grew up in a neighborhood of gay men, went to a high school with a primarily Jewish population and have hung out with writers most of my life.

These are three demographics who don't fix so much as hire, and then complain about the cost.

But Consort's ability to fix has a fatal flaw: in order to fix something, it must not be insane. If a thing is insane, you can't reach a halfway point because its halfway point is hinged on something inscribed in a Mexican wedding cookie.

Our house is insane.

Consort can install things in the house, he can replace things in the house, but if he is forced to consider something which has existed in the house for a while, it is going to defy all laws of construction codes and gravity.

Consort, knowing I was writing this, asked, "Which story are you going to tell?"

This is how unhinged this house is. I have options.

Let me begin with the oldest story. When I moved into the house, the second bedroom had a standing wall heater installed. It clearly hadn't been used in decades. It was ugly. It was dusty. Consort carefully checked the lines going into it. They were turned off; it was officially dead so he removed it.

I returned home that night, walked into the house. I sniffed.

Gas?

I called Consort.

"Could I be smelling gas?"

"GET OUT RIGHT NOW," he shouted. I heard him grabbing his keys from his desk.

I have virtually no sense of smell. If I smelled gas, it was reasonable to assume it was a big problem.

Consort drove up, the leaking gas creating an oasis effect as I sat in the yard. By the grace of God, it was one of very rare times in my life when I had no indoor pet.

One of the rusted-out, clearly unused-for-decades lines had been the major gas line for the house. We have a friend who has a contractor. He told us there was no reason to have it there. We smile; the Mexican wedding cookies had decreed otherwise.

But this is not a story about our anti-personnel heater. It is a story about our toilet, and it will end with the single most obscene thing I have ever heard Consort say. This is a man who worked in construction — specifically, roofing — to pay for college and then as a sports cameraman for one of the big networks, so you know I'm benumbed to the occasional expletive. If obscenity bothers you, check back later.

A few years back, our toilet developed a...sigh. Nothing catastrophic, just sort of the passive-aggressive sound a Midwestern mother might make if you brought your college boyfriend home for the holidays and seconds before dinner was served he announced he was vegan.

It didn't appear to affect the toilet's ability to toilet, so we ignored it, as is our right. The sigh slowly escalated into a quiet throat-clearing, then a post-nasal sniff, then a congested gurgle, at which point the toilet’s ability to toilet was being compromised so Consort swung into action.

"Toilets have relatively few parts," he announced. "It's one of four things." He then explained what they are. I did my bit, which is look in his direction as if I was listening.

He went to the hardware store where a neighbor's cat spends most of the day sleeping on the hoses, so I went along. He whistled happily as he bought four objects. A simple problem he could fix; this is middle-child Christmas.

I petted the cat; this is my Christmas.

Consort fixed the thing he thought was broken. The noise continued.

Consort fixed the thing he thought might be broken. The noise continued.

Consort replaced two parts, three parts, the first and the third part, all four parts, the second and fourth part...the noise continued.

I stopped going with him to the hardware store, because there is no cat worth being stuck in the car with a man who is being bested by a toilet. I stopped commending him on his patience and started softly suggesting he wear his bite plate because he was grinding his teeth again.

Somewhere in this process, the tank got cracked.

He bought another tank.

He then decided that even though it had nothing to do with it, maybe it was the fault of the bowl.

He replaced the bowl.

He then replaced every single internal part. Again.

At this point, we were the proud owners of an entirely new toilet. He would work on it late at night, after I went to bed, because the water had to be turned off. Finally, late one night he finished perfecting the new toilet. He turned the water on and ran several experiments.

I lay in bed, in the dark, and heard the sound of a classic American flush. I could imagine him standing in the bathroom, hands on hips, squinting appreciatively down at something I would never take for granted again. He came to bed, the conquering hero.

He could now sleep for a few hours, get up, and basically provide the exact same service for three teenagers who just got their second round of funding. He breathed deeply. A few minutes passed.

From the bathroom, a noise.

The small, passive-aggressive toilet sigh.

Consort's eyes snapped open so violently I actually heard it. I lay still, feigning sleep.

"You," he began, calmly, "son of a cocksucking whore. You ratshit-fucking, bleeding dick of a-"

On and on and on.

The part I appreciated was how measured his voice was. He wasn't raging. He was merely taking the measure of his now sworn enemy, our toilet.

He had underestimated his foe.

He would not let that happen again.

Coda: He worked and labored and struggled and replaced and watched YouTube videos and swore and went back to the hardware store and stood around with men and stared at video he had taken of the toilet and eventually it just stopped, possibly because it felt like it.