Bathrooms

I have been in all three bathrooms many times. They have small sash windows with net curtains opening onto the same triangular collection of backyards. At one end of the yards there is a small charity-run community centre with public recycling bins and a private garden. The garden is filled with sculptures done by people recovering from depression, many of whom own dogs that are very large and very friendly. With difficulty I can see into this garden from my window, but only if I pull the sash window up half way (as far as it will go), put my head way out and turn, bent double, to the left.

If I turn to the right I see the mossy detail of a small nightclub’s back wall. I cannot do this in any of the bathrooms other than my own --- blocks of wood have been securely screwed above the lower sashes to prevent them from being opened further than a few inches. The rooms themselves are long and thin, and in complementary proportions to the windows. Below the windows are standard white porcelain toilets with plastic fittings. The flush handles are made of the same material, but covered with a chrome-like layer which has in any case mostly worn away.

The bathtub in which I soak is identical to the two others on floors below which, I am told, have held a total of three deaths, and a total of three bathrooms. I am assured that nothing has taken place in the one I use, but haven’t asked if it is the first floor or the ground floor which is one ahead, or if a single bathroom has seen all three.

Whenever I happen to leave my window up while I piss I have the same thought: that if anyone in a building opposite is watching, all they would be able to see was a rectangular framing of my urinating penis. For some reason I consider this an aesthetic victory, and laugh at myself for the thought.

The bath has it's foot beside the toilet, and it's head by the door and sink, so your feet point towards the window while washing. It has two brass faucets, the hot on the right, the cold on the left. The chain also seems to be brass and the plug is very ordinary in both design and material - a rubbery white plastic. I sometimes smoke while in the bath because it fulfils a cliché, though I always become light-headed and sweaty when I do. I can never remember where I got the idea it was a cliché from in the first place… but in the bath I mostly take the time to divide three by two and choose where to place the remainder. Two is both one more and twice as much as one. Three is a different sort of consideration, and an insurmountable order of magnitude larger among values so eminently countable. When I think about three I push my hips forward and lie flat with my eyes closed and my hair underwater, listening to the sound of the tap filling the tub with more hot water.

I get out. Without drying myself I fill the sink halfway, scald my face with the water, and begin to shave. After every second stroke I rinse the razor. If I cut myself I put my palm to my face and note the red blotches on my hand before washing them away. When I’m tired, or the razor is old and dull, the water becomes noticeably pink with shaving soap and blood. I let the sink drain and take the time to carefully rinse away the hundreds of quarter-inch hairs.

I dry myself, put my clothes back on, place the towel on the radiator, go to my bedroom, take off my clothes, get into bed, go to sleep.