Post by meggers369 on Dec 21, 2011 16:30:53 GMT -5
Glass Houses
The Hookah bar was lowbrow enough, but that didn’t excuse the state of the bathroom. Nothing could excuse that. I opened the door and was assaulted by the grime-covered cheap laminate flooring, the trashcan overflowing with an unholy assortment of used paper towels and filth, and a drawing of a woman’s naked torso on the wall. For a solid minute I stood in the doorway debating whether or not the urge to pee was worth the risk of the possible, and very probable, diseases that started playing through my mind at such a sight. The urge to pee won out. Once in the bathroom, I began to notice that the poorly drawn breasts were not the only graffiti littering the walls. The mindless drivel, and screen names followed by a desperate plea to be followed on Twitter were almost more upsetting than the sickening state of the bathroom. Then I noticed the flecks of vomit on the ring of the toilet, mingling with the still wet spots of urine. Maybe the graffiti wasn’t more upsetting, but it was upsetting enough.
Walking out of the bathroom, I hesitated with my hand just above the doorknob. Surviving this bathroom had been something to be proud of; I had to make my mark. Besides, the destroyed space had awakened some rebellious desire to vandalize. I dug in my purse, found a red sharpie, and wrote ARE YOU READY FOR SEX? in large letters that took up at least a square foot of space. I giggled as I finished scrawling it at the wall. At least this would get people’s attention, and hopefully make them giggle too.
Finally out of the horrid mess, I made my way through the crowded, smoke-filled lounge to the outdoor patio. My friends sat enjoying our hookah with the grenadine flavor that we had spontaneously picked to be experimental and different. They didn’t have a care in the world because they did not understand that the next great epidemic was probably breeding in that bathroom, and I had just done battle to avoid becoming patient zero.
“That bathroom,” I paused, “was disgusting. It was…you just couldn’t understand. It was horrendous.”
My friends laughed.
“No. You seriously don’t understand. This is no laughing matter. I am traumatized.” I pulled out my chair and let out a dramatic sigh. “Thank God there was at least soap.”
The hose from the hookah was passed to me as I sat down; it almost seemed like a reward for surviving. I cringed at the faded mustard yellow seat, with its cracked and stiff upholstery. At least it was somehow oddly comfortable despite its appearance. I inhaled and focused on the grenadine flavor: cherries and various sickly sweet mixed drinks. Instantly I felt comfortable and relaxed; the terrifying experience in the bathroom was behind me. I exhaled and watched the intricate patterns of the smoke, and remembered how amazing relaxing a hookah bar was, and why it was worth braving the terrible bathroom and the rude crowds of drunken college students in order to make it to our small table in the corner of the patio; to just enjoy the process of smoking. Inhale. Exhale. Pleasant chatter and laughter. Repeat.
“Ok, number one celebrity you’d sleep with? Your freebie even when you eventually get married or something.” She asked.
“Easy. Channing Tatum.” He replied.
“Um… I dunno.” I said, and brought the hookah hose to my mouth again to defer answering.
“You have to play. Come on.” She said. She gave me an overly dramatic glare and began tapping her fingers on the table.
“Johnny Depp?” I attempted. Inhale again.
“Seriously? Stock answer. Be creative.” She said as she grabbed the hose away from me.
I laughed at myself and shrugged my shoulders. “Your mom?”
Our laughter was broken by the sound of his chair scraping across the cement.
“I’m gonna go get some water. Anyone want anything?” He asked.
We shook our heads no, and my eyes casually followed him as he walked back towards the entrance.
To get back into the hookah lounge he had to walk through a somewhat narrow gap between our table and a table spilling over with drunken students consisting of girls in skin tight, barely existent dresses, and guys with perfectly spiked hair. The brand of each of the guy’s clothing made smirk. All those brands were synonymous with douchebag as far as I was concerned. I nudged her and pointed at the table. We giggled for a second at how ridiculous they all looked. One girl even had matching leopard print on her dress and stripper heels.
I stopped laughing abruptly when he was almost out of earshot of the table. I could just barely hear one of the douchebags say, “What a little fagot.”
The douchebag turned and watched him walk away, and kept laughing until he was back inside the building. I saw them pointing at him, and snickering as they did. Leopard print girl whispered something in the douchebag’s ear and they burst into fresh peals of laughter.
He continued walking like he hadn’t heard, and didn’t notice them continually making fun of him, but his demure posture gave it away. Having to see him shrug this off because it had become part of how the word was, and how powerless I was sure that made him feel, enraged me. I felt my hands shake, and hated myself for not having the courage to walk over to the table and do something about the comment.
The girl with the matching leopard print had long dark hair that would’ve been pretty if it hadn’t been teased to a comical height. I noticed that she was cackling with her friend. The laughter alone seemed so cruel. It’d be worse if they had just began purposefully harassing them. At least then he could fight back. This snide laughing was just cruel, and damaging in a very different, and almost worse, way. She held out her hand for a high-five and nodded in agreement. As her friend gave her the high five she held her stomach and doubled over with laughter. Her exuberance was revolting; I simply stared in disbelief and abhorrence. I was shocked, such judgment and hatred towards someone they’d never even met was a concept I just couldn’t understand.
The foul-mouthed douchebag was handed the hookah hose. As he brought it to his lips I was convinced he wished it were a penis he was bringing to his mouth instead. I’d taken Psych 101, and we’d talked about all the studies that said the most vocal homophobes were only compensating for their own homosexuality. I imagined them hooking him up to all the various monitors that measure sexual excitement. I took a few seconds to imagine how great if would feel to see his humiliation when the machines, which can’t lie, would finally tell him what he’d been hiding from himself all along. As I continued to glare I began playing out other scenarios. Scenarios where I stormed over to the table and poured the soda sitting in front of him right in his smiling, laughing, cruel face. Scenarios where I smacked him across that same face. I could storm over and yell, or calmly destroy them with wit and intellect. I could stab that bitch with her leopard print stiletto.
Of course I sat and did nothing. They could probably feel the hate emanating from my glare. At least until leopard print girl announced she was going to the bathroom, and I cowardly looked away so she wouldn’t see me staring as she walked past. Once I’d snapped back to reality I took a deep breath to try to calm myself down. It didn’t work very well.
I finally brought my attention back to my own table. She didn’t appear to have heard the comment.
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked, “Are you still upset about that bathroom.
I gave a forced smile and replied, “It’s lifechangingly awful. I’m going to need a minute.” No point drawing even more attention to the humiliation he’d experienced. No point making her feel just as angry as I was.
“Oh my God, I need to see this damn bathroom. I’ll be back.”
She left and went to explore. Now I wished that bathroom had been the vilest thing I’d encountered that night.
I sat and quietly fumed. I took drag after drag from the hookah. It wasn’t as sweet. The smoke was just smoke; the shapes didn’t matter anymore, and I began to feel the sting from it in my eyes. My throat began to burn. When the leopard print girl returned to her table, I glared at her back as she walked past, and then turned around and continued to inhale more hookah while I waited for my friends to return.
They arrived back at the table together, laughing.
“What?”
“Leopard bitch over there was walking out of the bathroom right as I was walking up.” She spoke between bursts of laughter, and paused to take a breath. “Her ridiculous stiletto got caught in a crack in the floor…” another pause, another breath, “and she fell face first.”
I laughed. “Her hair must be throwing off her balance.”
“It gets better. Her panties are leopard print too.”
I laughed, and looked over at the table. We’d spoken quietly enough, they probably didn’t hear. But I wanted them to know the laughter was about them. They didn’t seem to notice me.
I turned back to my table and gave him a searching look to see if he was okay. He seemed to deliberately ignore it. I hoped the long wait for his water had distracted him somewhat. But, he didn’t seem quite as happy as before. He was just a little bit quieter. He was chuckling instead of laughing, or at least laughing half-heartedly, and only grinning instead of really smiling. His eyes seemed to dart over to the table of douchebags and big haired whores pretty frequently too. All these little signs were almost imperceptible. Almost.
“Alright,” she said, “I see what you mean about that bathroom. It’s fucking disgusting. Some of the stuff on the wall was so funny though. Someone wrote ‘are you ready for sex’ in these giant red letters, and someone else wrote ‘only with another woman’ right below it.”
“Really?” I asked as I handed her the hookah hose.
“Yeah, freaking great right?” She answered as she took the hose from me.
An outburst of laughter brought my attention back to the table of douchebags, mainly out of paranoia that they had found some new and hateful way to mock my friends, or me. They seemed to be amusing themselves now, thankfully, finding something to laugh at that didn’t involve degrading the people around them. There was one person who was only distractedly laughing with the others though. Now leopard print girl was glaring at us. Our eyes met, and for a brief second I felt the same kind of hatred emanating from her that I’d been convinced they could feel from me. I quickly averted my eyes and tried to forget about them.
“Hey, I have to pee again. I’ll be right back.” I said.
“Be safe, don’t die!” she said.
I got up and headed back to the biohazard wasteland to investigate what had been added to my own little contribution. As I walked away I could still hear her talking about how bad the bathroom really was
“No, seriously, she wasn’t exaggerating…” Her voice trailed away as I approached the door.
I walked back through the crowded hubbub of the hookah bar. When I reached the bathroom door I took a deep breath, and opened it. I carefully avoided looking at anything but the spot containing my random little donation. Sure enough, right below it were the words “only with another woman” written in the girliest possible hot pink ink.
The same rage that I’d felt when I first heard the douchebag demean one of my closest friends overwhelmed me now. My eyesight began to cloud. Everything had a blurred edge, and a haze seemed to be overwhelming my senses. As that haze began to take on a red tint I finally understood what people mean when they say, “I saw red.”
A sharp and brutal pain brought me back to my senses. I could see the world around me now, sharper and clearer than before it seemed. This disgusting bathroom was not a welcoming sight. I looked down to my right hand, where the pain was coming from, and saw more red. This time it was blood. I had a large gash across the knuckles and top of my hand. I looked at my feet and saw shattered glass. Finally I looked straight up, and saw that the mirror was broken. Most of it was on the ground around my feet, but there were still a few shards holding on. They seemed to still be there out of sheer force of will. Defying gravity. My reflection was broken, jagged, and ugly, distorted by gaps from the missing pieces, and the cracks in those that remained.
I took a few very deep breaths, and splashed some water on my face. After several minutes I decided there was one thing left to do before I gathered my friends and made a hasty retreat, and possibly began looking for some medical attention. I walked over to the bathroom wall conversation I had started.
I rummaged through my purse, trying to find a different colored sharpie. There was no luck with the sharpie, but I found a black pen. It took me a while to make it dark enough, and big enough, to read, but finally I managed to scrawl “Not in this gross bathroom.”
The Hookah bar was lowbrow enough, but that didn’t excuse the state of the bathroom. Nothing could excuse that. I opened the door and was assaulted by the grime-covered cheap laminate flooring, the trashcan overflowing with an unholy assortment of used paper towels and filth, and a drawing of a woman’s naked torso on the wall. For a solid minute I stood in the doorway debating whether or not the urge to pee was worth the risk of the possible, and very probable, diseases that started playing through my mind at such a sight. The urge to pee won out. Once in the bathroom, I began to notice that the poorly drawn breasts were not the only graffiti littering the walls. The mindless drivel, and screen names followed by a desperate plea to be followed on Twitter were almost more upsetting than the sickening state of the bathroom. Then I noticed the flecks of vomit on the ring of the toilet, mingling with the still wet spots of urine. Maybe the graffiti wasn’t more upsetting, but it was upsetting enough.
Walking out of the bathroom, I hesitated with my hand just above the doorknob. Surviving this bathroom had been something to be proud of; I had to make my mark. Besides, the destroyed space had awakened some rebellious desire to vandalize. I dug in my purse, found a red sharpie, and wrote ARE YOU READY FOR SEX? in large letters that took up at least a square foot of space. I giggled as I finished scrawling it at the wall. At least this would get people’s attention, and hopefully make them giggle too.
Finally out of the horrid mess, I made my way through the crowded, smoke-filled lounge to the outdoor patio. My friends sat enjoying our hookah with the grenadine flavor that we had spontaneously picked to be experimental and different. They didn’t have a care in the world because they did not understand that the next great epidemic was probably breeding in that bathroom, and I had just done battle to avoid becoming patient zero.
“That bathroom,” I paused, “was disgusting. It was…you just couldn’t understand. It was horrendous.”
My friends laughed.
“No. You seriously don’t understand. This is no laughing matter. I am traumatized.” I pulled out my chair and let out a dramatic sigh. “Thank God there was at least soap.”
The hose from the hookah was passed to me as I sat down; it almost seemed like a reward for surviving. I cringed at the faded mustard yellow seat, with its cracked and stiff upholstery. At least it was somehow oddly comfortable despite its appearance. I inhaled and focused on the grenadine flavor: cherries and various sickly sweet mixed drinks. Instantly I felt comfortable and relaxed; the terrifying experience in the bathroom was behind me. I exhaled and watched the intricate patterns of the smoke, and remembered how amazing relaxing a hookah bar was, and why it was worth braving the terrible bathroom and the rude crowds of drunken college students in order to make it to our small table in the corner of the patio; to just enjoy the process of smoking. Inhale. Exhale. Pleasant chatter and laughter. Repeat.
“Ok, number one celebrity you’d sleep with? Your freebie even when you eventually get married or something.” She asked.
“Easy. Channing Tatum.” He replied.
“Um… I dunno.” I said, and brought the hookah hose to my mouth again to defer answering.
“You have to play. Come on.” She said. She gave me an overly dramatic glare and began tapping her fingers on the table.
“Johnny Depp?” I attempted. Inhale again.
“Seriously? Stock answer. Be creative.” She said as she grabbed the hose away from me.
I laughed at myself and shrugged my shoulders. “Your mom?”
Our laughter was broken by the sound of his chair scraping across the cement.
“I’m gonna go get some water. Anyone want anything?” He asked.
We shook our heads no, and my eyes casually followed him as he walked back towards the entrance.
To get back into the hookah lounge he had to walk through a somewhat narrow gap between our table and a table spilling over with drunken students consisting of girls in skin tight, barely existent dresses, and guys with perfectly spiked hair. The brand of each of the guy’s clothing made smirk. All those brands were synonymous with douchebag as far as I was concerned. I nudged her and pointed at the table. We giggled for a second at how ridiculous they all looked. One girl even had matching leopard print on her dress and stripper heels.
I stopped laughing abruptly when he was almost out of earshot of the table. I could just barely hear one of the douchebags say, “What a little fagot.”
The douchebag turned and watched him walk away, and kept laughing until he was back inside the building. I saw them pointing at him, and snickering as they did. Leopard print girl whispered something in the douchebag’s ear and they burst into fresh peals of laughter.
He continued walking like he hadn’t heard, and didn’t notice them continually making fun of him, but his demure posture gave it away. Having to see him shrug this off because it had become part of how the word was, and how powerless I was sure that made him feel, enraged me. I felt my hands shake, and hated myself for not having the courage to walk over to the table and do something about the comment.
The girl with the matching leopard print had long dark hair that would’ve been pretty if it hadn’t been teased to a comical height. I noticed that she was cackling with her friend. The laughter alone seemed so cruel. It’d be worse if they had just began purposefully harassing them. At least then he could fight back. This snide laughing was just cruel, and damaging in a very different, and almost worse, way. She held out her hand for a high-five and nodded in agreement. As her friend gave her the high five she held her stomach and doubled over with laughter. Her exuberance was revolting; I simply stared in disbelief and abhorrence. I was shocked, such judgment and hatred towards someone they’d never even met was a concept I just couldn’t understand.
The foul-mouthed douchebag was handed the hookah hose. As he brought it to his lips I was convinced he wished it were a penis he was bringing to his mouth instead. I’d taken Psych 101, and we’d talked about all the studies that said the most vocal homophobes were only compensating for their own homosexuality. I imagined them hooking him up to all the various monitors that measure sexual excitement. I took a few seconds to imagine how great if would feel to see his humiliation when the machines, which can’t lie, would finally tell him what he’d been hiding from himself all along. As I continued to glare I began playing out other scenarios. Scenarios where I stormed over to the table and poured the soda sitting in front of him right in his smiling, laughing, cruel face. Scenarios where I smacked him across that same face. I could storm over and yell, or calmly destroy them with wit and intellect. I could stab that bitch with her leopard print stiletto.
Of course I sat and did nothing. They could probably feel the hate emanating from my glare. At least until leopard print girl announced she was going to the bathroom, and I cowardly looked away so she wouldn’t see me staring as she walked past. Once I’d snapped back to reality I took a deep breath to try to calm myself down. It didn’t work very well.
I finally brought my attention back to my own table. She didn’t appear to have heard the comment.
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked, “Are you still upset about that bathroom.
I gave a forced smile and replied, “It’s lifechangingly awful. I’m going to need a minute.” No point drawing even more attention to the humiliation he’d experienced. No point making her feel just as angry as I was.
“Oh my God, I need to see this damn bathroom. I’ll be back.”
She left and went to explore. Now I wished that bathroom had been the vilest thing I’d encountered that night.
I sat and quietly fumed. I took drag after drag from the hookah. It wasn’t as sweet. The smoke was just smoke; the shapes didn’t matter anymore, and I began to feel the sting from it in my eyes. My throat began to burn. When the leopard print girl returned to her table, I glared at her back as she walked past, and then turned around and continued to inhale more hookah while I waited for my friends to return.
They arrived back at the table together, laughing.
“What?”
“Leopard bitch over there was walking out of the bathroom right as I was walking up.” She spoke between bursts of laughter, and paused to take a breath. “Her ridiculous stiletto got caught in a crack in the floor…” another pause, another breath, “and she fell face first.”
I laughed. “Her hair must be throwing off her balance.”
“It gets better. Her panties are leopard print too.”
I laughed, and looked over at the table. We’d spoken quietly enough, they probably didn’t hear. But I wanted them to know the laughter was about them. They didn’t seem to notice me.
I turned back to my table and gave him a searching look to see if he was okay. He seemed to deliberately ignore it. I hoped the long wait for his water had distracted him somewhat. But, he didn’t seem quite as happy as before. He was just a little bit quieter. He was chuckling instead of laughing, or at least laughing half-heartedly, and only grinning instead of really smiling. His eyes seemed to dart over to the table of douchebags and big haired whores pretty frequently too. All these little signs were almost imperceptible. Almost.
“Alright,” she said, “I see what you mean about that bathroom. It’s fucking disgusting. Some of the stuff on the wall was so funny though. Someone wrote ‘are you ready for sex’ in these giant red letters, and someone else wrote ‘only with another woman’ right below it.”
“Really?” I asked as I handed her the hookah hose.
“Yeah, freaking great right?” She answered as she took the hose from me.
An outburst of laughter brought my attention back to the table of douchebags, mainly out of paranoia that they had found some new and hateful way to mock my friends, or me. They seemed to be amusing themselves now, thankfully, finding something to laugh at that didn’t involve degrading the people around them. There was one person who was only distractedly laughing with the others though. Now leopard print girl was glaring at us. Our eyes met, and for a brief second I felt the same kind of hatred emanating from her that I’d been convinced they could feel from me. I quickly averted my eyes and tried to forget about them.
“Hey, I have to pee again. I’ll be right back.” I said.
“Be safe, don’t die!” she said.
I got up and headed back to the biohazard wasteland to investigate what had been added to my own little contribution. As I walked away I could still hear her talking about how bad the bathroom really was
“No, seriously, she wasn’t exaggerating…” Her voice trailed away as I approached the door.
I walked back through the crowded hubbub of the hookah bar. When I reached the bathroom door I took a deep breath, and opened it. I carefully avoided looking at anything but the spot containing my random little donation. Sure enough, right below it were the words “only with another woman” written in the girliest possible hot pink ink.
The same rage that I’d felt when I first heard the douchebag demean one of my closest friends overwhelmed me now. My eyesight began to cloud. Everything had a blurred edge, and a haze seemed to be overwhelming my senses. As that haze began to take on a red tint I finally understood what people mean when they say, “I saw red.”
A sharp and brutal pain brought me back to my senses. I could see the world around me now, sharper and clearer than before it seemed. This disgusting bathroom was not a welcoming sight. I looked down to my right hand, where the pain was coming from, and saw more red. This time it was blood. I had a large gash across the knuckles and top of my hand. I looked at my feet and saw shattered glass. Finally I looked straight up, and saw that the mirror was broken. Most of it was on the ground around my feet, but there were still a few shards holding on. They seemed to still be there out of sheer force of will. Defying gravity. My reflection was broken, jagged, and ugly, distorted by gaps from the missing pieces, and the cracks in those that remained.
I took a few very deep breaths, and splashed some water on my face. After several minutes I decided there was one thing left to do before I gathered my friends and made a hasty retreat, and possibly began looking for some medical attention. I walked over to the bathroom wall conversation I had started.
I rummaged through my purse, trying to find a different colored sharpie. There was no luck with the sharpie, but I found a black pen. It took me a while to make it dark enough, and big enough, to read, but finally I managed to scrawl “Not in this gross bathroom.”