Chris Bachelder - The Throwback Special

“My wife would like me to piss sitting down,” he said.

Fat Michael nodded, staring at a piece of blue gum in his urinal that resembled a brain. His wife, too, had asked him to sit down. It was not an unreasonable request. The validity of the request, in fact, was what had made Fat Michael so angrily opposed. Danish men sit down, she had told him, which only made him more recalcitrant.

“She doesn’t like the mess I make,” Gary said. “She says men in other countries sit down.”

“Do they?” Fat Michael said.

“I don’t know,” Gary said.

On several occasions through the years, when afternoon sun was illuminating the bathroom in a soft and golden light, Vince had seen his urine splattering out of the toilet while he stood. Honestly, it was like a fireworks show. There was no denying it. His wife, too, had asked him to sit. She had read something about Sweden. When he finished at the urinal, Vince turned and saw, on the glistening floor of the middle stall, a brown canvas bag and two books.

“I tried sitting once,” Gary said. “I did. I was trying to be considerate. Because one time, when the sun was slanting into the bathroom at the perfect angle, I could see the piss just shooting out of the bowl. Have you ever seen those salmon when they return to their spawning grounds?”

Of course, of course the other men had seen the salmon.

“It does make a mess,” Gary said. “But the one time I tried sitting, the only time, my dog came into the bathroom. He’s this old, handsome black Lab with a grizzled snout. You know what I mean?”

Fat Michael and Vince nodded, solemnly affirming the way that old handsome Labs become grizzled in their snouts.

“He just looked at me,” Gary said. “And I honestly think he was judging me. I was down at his level, sitting on the toilet, and I just think he totally lost respect for me. I could see it.”

“I don’t think your dog was judging you,” Fat Michael said. He turned from the urinal, eliciting the ferocious automatic flush. On his way to the sink he noticed, beneath the door of the stall, the brown canvas bag and the books.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” Gary said.

“You really should,” Vince said, though he did not.

“What do you think, Charles?” Fat Michael said at the sink, scrubbing his hands like a surgeon.

“Hey, Charles,” Vince said, knocking on the door of the stall.

“Doesn’t he work with young girls?” Gary said.

“Settle this one, Charles,” Fat Michael said. “Was Gary’s dog judging him?”

“Charles, do Danish men sit?” Vince said. He knocked again, harder, pushing the door open and revealing an empty stall and a comprehensively vandalized partition. Vince entered the stall, followed by Gary and Fat Michael.

“Holy crap,” Gary said, facing the wall.

“Wow,” Vince said.

This happened a long time ago. In high school i used to go out drinking with my friends and then late at night i would sneak over to this girl’s house to have sex. She wasn’t even my girlfriend. I would throw gravel at her window to wake her up then she would come downstairs to let me in. She would close the door and then lie down on the rug in the foyer. She was so tired. Why would she let me in? Do not write slut. Imagine being woken up for sex by a drunk boy who doesn’t love you. What i’m trying toone night i was throwing rocks at the window and then another window opened in the back of the house and her father stuck his face out and said oh for god’s sake just come in! I went back home instead. The night was ruined. Do not write faggot. I told myself i would never go back there again but i went back several more times. Do not write hell yes. Do not draw a vulva. Someone should have put me in a kennel. All of us. Her name was stacy demps and i’m sorry. Do not write pussy .

Gary laughed, patting his front pockets, his back pockets.

IN THE LOBBY, the model of the atom had collapsed into a tight cluster of men that moved gradually, and without the volition of its constituents, toward the front desk. Tommy’s mustache made Robert uncomfortable — it was a statement in a language that he did not understand — and so Robert broke from the cluster, and retreated to the locked door of the conference room. There was, he recalled, the year that Chad tried to break-dance atop the long, gleaming table. Once again Robert checked the foam board schedule on the easel beside the door. The room was still booked for the entire weekend. The repaired chinstrap dangled from his long flannel cuff like a chrysalis. He did not like change, which he experienced nearly always as loss. He felt forlorn about the conference room, and exasperated at Randy, and bitterly envious of Prestige Vista Solutions.

Jerry, the director of transportation for Prestige Vista Solutions, checked the schedule on the easel beside the door, but he saw only a scribbled sketch of a fish. He asked Robert if Robert was one of the football players that he had seen in the lobby. Yes, Robert said quietly. He did not want to talk, or to explain, particularly to this man with a laminated name tag. The name the Redskins had given the flea flicker play was the Throwback Special, and thus some of the men, never Robert, referred to the group as “specialists.” Neither did Robert care for the term reenactor , which made him think of the freaks with hardtack and muskets, running through the woods and endeavoring to keep their powder dry. There was not a good way to talk about what he was doing here.

“It’s an annual thing,” Robert offered. Jerry stood beside him, facing the locked conference room. From the lobby behind them came the waves of masculine sound, the toneless song of regret and exclamation. Then, like a child handling an item he has been forbidden to touch, Robert said, “But this is the last year.” He rubbed the inside of the chinstrap with his thumb, stared at the honeycomb carpet in the conference room. “Last year,” he repeated, rubbing the strap. There, he had said it, though he did not know why. He had no idea if his claim was true. Its truthfulness was somehow beside the point, as he had not intended to disclose or predict. He had intended something else, some reckless spell or counterspell, he did not know. Robert suddenly felt dangerous to himself, and he glanced at Jerry to gauge the potency of his remark. It was something of a relief and a disappointment to observe that Jerry seemed undisturbed.

Jerry had seen the jerseys and helmets in the lobby, but had no idea what the men were here to do. He asked Robert if Robert remembered when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann’s leg on Monday Night Football . Robert said yes, he remembered. Compound fracture, Jerry said, wincing. A comminuted fracture, as well, Robert said. His voice was too high, and honestly, why was he talking at all? A comminuted fracture is when the bone breaks into several pieces, Robert explained. The men stood side by side, staring through the small window of the door of the conference room. Now Robert worried that Jerry was going to tell a story about the night it happened. Strangers who saw the helmets and uniforms always wanted to tell a story about how a friend’s mom fainted and the bowl of popcorn just went everywhere and you could see up her skirt. Or about the friend, now serving time, who laughed when Theismann’s leg broke in two. Or about how they were doing geometry homework, and the sound was down so they didn’t hear Frank Gifford say, “Theismann’s in a lot of trouble,” and they didn’t hear Gifford say, “We’ll look at it with the reverse angle, one more time, and I suggest, if your stomach is weak, you just don’t watch,” and they didn’t hear Monday Night Football color commentator O. J. Simpson groaning at the violence, and they happened to look up and see the reverse angle, and they either threw up or they very nearly threw up. Jerry told Robert he would always remember Lawrence Taylor’s reaction. Yes, of course, Robert said, hoping to curtail Jerry’s memories. After having snapped Theismann’s fibula and tibia, Taylor frantically waved for the medical personnel on the Redskins sideline to come onto the field. And then he stood with his hands on his helmet. Did Robert remember? Robert did. And there was something about that gesture, that very human gesture, an archetypal sign of despair or disbelief, holding one’s own head. For comfort, or perhaps for protection or containment. Except that Taylor still had his helmet on, Jerry said, staring through the small window of the door of the conference room. He would never forget it, Jerry said. So his hands, Taylor’s hands, rested not on his forehead or scalp, but on his helmet. The circuit of anguish could not be completed. The very equipment of his profession was an impediment to his humanity, to the proper expression of shock. Jerry from Prestige Vista Solutions did not say circuit of his anguish , but it’s precisely what he meant. Robert understood. He nodded. He did not want Jerry to have the conference room this weekend, and he didn’t particularly want to be standing here talking to Jerry about Theismann, but nevertheless, everything Jerry had said was correct.