The Telltale Toilet Read online

The Telltale Toilet

  By Grayson Queen

  Copyright 2013 Grayson Queen. Editing and cover provided by Queen Creative.

  It’s natural to assume that one apartment is the same as any other. You may have lived in a one level complex-- twenty rooms side-to-side, encircling landscaped grounds, the type of place with pool hours and car ports. The person living next to you has the same view. You might know someone who’s lived in a citadel of rooms. A fortress filled with thousands of working class soldiers stacked on top of each other. Maybe you’ve driven past a house with a for rent sign spiked into the front yard-- a ramshackle place posing as a home for those who can’t afford one of their own, or a converted basement looking for a little extra income.

  Apartments are the natural occurrence of cities that gave grown too small. There are so many people in a tight location that we need to store them like boxes in a garage.

  In this world, the apartment dweller is constantly aware of the person a wall or ceiling over -- and is wondering what the hell that person is doing that could make so much noise. Sometimes we come up with an elaborate image of who that person is in the next room. Often there are horns and pitch forks in the visualization.

  On an occasion, you might wonder who lived in your apartment before you, but it’s rare. It’s the way of human nature to concern itself with more pressing matters and to forget the past. Frequently it’s the tendency of the past to sneak up from behind to give you a surprise.

  Fear of the dark fades with childhood. A wild imagination filled with hairy beasts waiting behind closet doors becomes a ridiculous reminiscence. There’s a feeling of embarrassment over the idea that, just twenty years ago, you couldn’t let your hand dangle over the side of the bed. It was a tantalizing invitation to the shadows looking to pull you into the night.

  At any age, those fears never completely dissipate.

  One late weekday night you go to the bathroom before slipping into bed. Finished, you flip off the light and, for that eternity before your eyes can adjust, you are helpless. In pure darkness there is no distinct shapes in the room or distance to the darkness. Your hand gropes for a wall to help guide you in your empty vision. Arm stretched out in front you, you pause--wondering if you’ll come across something that isn’t supposed to be there. A person could be standing three feet away and you’d never know.

  The benefit of waking up with the need to go to the bathroom is that your eyes are prepared for the night. The creeping light from behind the window and the soft ambience of the digital clock is enough, though of course, there are patches where light gains no ground and darkness has a stronghold.

  There’s a science to walking in the dark. I shuffle my feet to keep from stepping on foreign objects I might have left around. Keeping my steps short, I prevent my toes from finding a hard corner. One arm is stretched out in front of me in a sweeping search pattern. The other arm is angled low in a desperate attempt to protect my shins. If the lights were to come on, I imagine I would look like one of those zombies from my childhood nightmares, a hunched over creature with an arm reaching out for fresh meat.

  Knowing there’s a pile of laundry against the left wall, I take a deep turn around the corner to avoid it. The maneuver leaves me somewhere in a field of open carpet. I’ve lost my sense of direction, and I’ve decided heading somewhere is better than standing nowhere. Searching outward I’ve found the bathroom door frame and now...

  ...sliding my hand up...

  ...the light switch.

  The bare bulb hurts. Brought back into the light, I cover my eyes to return to the familiar dark.

  But the adventure has also sworn me to safeguard the night and keep the silence. I close the door to keep the light separated from the dark. My effort invokes the forty decibel dragon. The dragon’s roar comes as the creaking hinges of the door. Parrying sword, the metal clangs, the doorknob clicks shut. All the while, the princess is asleep in her bed unaware of my struggle.

  A prolific thought dances to the night.

  When done right, love goes unnoticed. A held door or properly folded laundry is the minute detail of a relationship. Coffee with two creams and one sugar or remembering to squeeze the toothpaste from the end are things you do because there is no point in not doing them. You do them because nothing is more important than to see the princess smile. These things become commonplace, granted events, and to call attention to them would undo the love they are designed by.

  If you did these things in order to say, “Hey, I did these things. What have you done for me?” The selfless act of love would be slain.

  I flush the toilet.

  Our toilet squeaks.

  All apartments are the same. The rooms next to you, above you and below you all have kitchens in the same area, carpet in the same color and walls the same thickness. All apartments are the same in the fact that they all have eccentricities. It could be something as simple as the noise of freeway traffic, or something as absurd as the lights going off every time you shower. If you could call it an exception to the rule, the exception would be that some apartments have more quirks than others.

  Otherwise they all have bathrooms, bedrooms, light switches, and running water; some have two bathrooms or a small kitchen. Some have a linear design that goes something like living room, bedroom, bathroom and then kitchen; like mine. Some, like mine, have a front door in the living room and in the kitchen. The windows are sealed shut and the oven smells like paint whenever it’s turned on. You could live in a place with quirks like this, like mine.

  Sure, your apartment may be old, but that’s not much of an eccentricity. Worn floor boards, twenty-layer painted walls, ancient appliances and faulty wiring are all alike no matter where you live. In the hierarchy of quirks, it’s on the lowest echelon, right under bug infestation.

  When you live in a place with a foot high door hidden in the bedroom closet, then you begin hitting the upper levels of weird.

  Initially, I had filed the squeaking toilet into the category of age. The thing was old, not old enough to run on the gravity system of flushing, but old. However, the squeak is beginning to become stranger than the light switches that have no purpose.

  The squeak has been growing in intensity.

  I cringe alone in the bathroom hoping I haven’t woken the princess.

  Looking down I’m strangely fascinated with watching the toilet flush as if, in all the randomness of the world, the future might be revealed in the swirling water. This time I watch as the water rises...

  ...and rises...

  …and rises.

  I’m hoping with all hope that it’ll stop before it crests the rim.

  When it finally does run onto the floor, I grab a hand towel, but I’m not sure why. I try to take the lid off the toilet tank, but it’s stuck. In times of crisis, I look to others for help. There I am in the mirror looking at myself for an idea of what to do.

  I go to wake the apartment manager and slip out of the bathroom, putting clothes on from the pile outside the door. Then, avoiding the loose floor boards for less loose floor boards, I go downstairs.

  It’s three o’clock in the morning, so for a second I hesitate to knock. Should I take the chance of bothering him to fix something that could possibly be minor?

  I head into the basement of this converted house looking for an alternate solution.

  In the isolation of the basement, the dragon comes under my reign and silence is slain. The overhead fluorescent lights flicker on. Keeping my eyes up, I follow the winding dance of pipes across the ceiling. Like a series of tributaries, the pipes merge into a single lane. At the end of the dance is a junction with levers and dials, all very technical. I tur
n one and the ambient hum of rushing water stops.

  The princess has been saved from drowning.

  The Holy Grail of this quest will be to find the pipe that drains the toilet.

  Eliminating all the pipes that come off the water main, and the thin ones for gas and electricity, I’m left with four suspects.

  Mister Plumber, with the candle stick, in the basement.

  Four pipes with four tributaries of their own. There’s one for the kitchen sink, one for the bathroom sink, one for the shower and one for the toilet.

  I reach a moment where I’ve stepped back from myself. I watch me looking up at the ceiling as though I was looking to the heavens for an answer. Buddha and Zeus offer their condolence that there is no god of plumbing to worship. I laugh alone in the basement as a sick thought passes through me-- if there were a god of plumbing what would be our offering? I know the intestinal answer.

  Feeling generous, Crack, the god of plumbing gives his version of a lightning bolt.

  The pipe squeaks. The sound comes from the one to the far left. I can see a section of pipe that’s connected at an elbow joint.

  Me, with the wrench, in the basement.

  I found the wrench in a rusted tool chest in a cobwebbed corner. It fits perfectly, but the overhead reach affords me no leverage. I find myself in a strange jump, swing, push and pull kind of maneuver.

  It’s not working.

  The basement is a storeroom of cardboard boxes and unused furniture. Hidden in the clutter is a couch. Pulling it out I line the couch up under the pipes and step up.

  I wipe a bead of sweat from my forehead and in the movement spot something. Shoved away in the dust is an expensive guitar and amp. I remember the apartment manager telling me about the man who lived in the apartment before us, a noisy fellow who disappeared one day.

  “You’d be surprised how many people just leave everything and move on,” the manager said.

  This is all his crap.

  I’m struck by another memory of playing that board game. All those suspects and possible weapons, a knife, a gun, rope, but they never say who was killed. Why is it that a murderer becomes famous while the victim remains anonymous?

  I can tell it’s getting late because my mind won’t stay on target, let alone the original train of thought.

  I have leverage in my favor now, and I shove. The pipe gives, spraying a jet of pressurized water in my face. I try to hold on, changing my footing. Weight shifts, the couch topples back and I’m sent sprawling. The pipe spins free clattering to the ground. I’m covered in rusty red water trying to spit the taste from my mouth.

  Picking up the pipe, I look down its gullet. A deep dark clog sits in wait. I have to pound the pipe against the floor until a black sludge bursts out. Chunks, slime and assorted bits pool on the concrete. There’s a large white thing among the mess. Using the pipe, I give it a jab and when it doesn’t move I bend down to look closer.

  A white plastic bag wrapped in metal wire. More specifically guitar strings. I pick the thing up, fondling it. My touch knows what it is before my brain processes the information, and I instantly drop the severed hand.

  When the toilet would flush, this thing-- wedged with metal against metal pipes-- would catch against the rushing water.

  This was the source of the squeaking.

  For some reason I take issue with leaving the hand on the floor. It could be the sanctity, but it's more likely that I have the disturbing image of me stepping on it. I pick it up when suddenly the puzzle pieces fit. The guitar strings, the guitar and the missing tenant. Then, on cue, a body falls out from inside the couch.

  If I want to be accurate, it is the upper half of the body that comes out. The head knocked against the concrete floor while the legs were tangled in the couch springs.

  The man’s tortured face screams at me from the plastic bag he’s been stored in. I put the hand in my back pocket, tuck the pipe under my arm and try to pull the body free.

  A throat clears behind me. The apartment manager is standing at the foot of the stairs watching me. Here, I am covered in rust red water, with a severed hand in my back pocket, a pipe and a dead body in my arms. I don’t even bother with an explanation. There’s only one logical conclusion.

  Me, in the apartment with the lead pipe.

  ###

  About the author:

  Grayson Queen is a full-time novelist and painter located out of Orange County, California. His artistic passions range from deeply philosophical to unusual science fiction and fantasy.

  In his free time, Grayson dabbles with music, sculpture, and various explorations of geek culture. He is happily married to a dinosaur, and is happily owned by two amazing cats.

  Novels:

  Orange Buffalo

  Short Stories:

  3676

  A Pirate's Life for Me

  Coinage

  Dehydration

  Fix It

  Hostile Takeover

  The Telltale Toilet

  Graphic Stories:

  Dead Happy

  The Eater

  Children's Books:

  The Angry Dragon

  The Lonely Robot

  Check for other upcoming books in print or follow at:

  https://www.graysonqueen.com