It all seemed familiar when I opened the bathroom door that day.
The smell of pee soaked para-dichlorobenzene came from the urinals, as usual. The sickly florescent lights were nothing out of the ordinary. The Tim’s cup left on the soap dispenser displayed a pleasant painting of children playing in the snow, but was otherwise no different from the hundreds of others I’d seen.
All things considered, the public washroom of Spencer’s Breakfast is a terribly uninspiring location. At least, that’s what I had initially thought.
My change of heart, however, came when I was absently scanning the scribbles along the side of the stall. Beyond the renditions of genitalia and past the assertions that Tom Patterson should go fuck himself—I saw it. It was a poem, and it went like this:
In the forest there lay a man
who held his member in his hand.
Since a chill came as it snowed,
thus his “spirit” never growed.
It was perfection. Wonderfully direct. I had never read poetry with such honesty or integrity. I wanted more. I searched the rest of the stall and found nothing. Looking at the neighbouring stall, I found little more than an angry patron.
Could that have been it? Had the artist just laid down a single verse and then left? No..he couldn’t have—I would not accept it! With the culture continually moving toward banality, repetition and with an audience who have only a six-second attention span, I was enthralled to find such a beguiling piece of work that I could truly hold on to.
It was because of this that I returned to Spencer’s the next day, and the following day and the day after that. It became a routine. I would order a breakfast, then venture into the restroom with hopes of finding another enchanting poem.
Then, two weeks later, I found one. A second beautifully-constructed verse was scratched into the small of the wall of the stall—the gull! Word for word, it exceeded it’s predecessor in every way:
There once was a man named Nate,
who felt the need to compensate.
He built a big palace
in the shape of a phallus.
And his wife thought it was great.
I must have read the poem nearly 30 times before leaving the bathroom, the words forever committed to memory.
Afterwords I stumbled back to work, completely internally focused. “Who was this artist?’ I asked myself, “Why does he make the bathroom of Spencer’s Breakfast his canvas?”
Eventually I stopped caring about why and how. The only think I could thing about was that I desperately needed more.
As it turned out, I did not have to wait long. Only three days after seeing the second piece scrawled into the paint of the stall, there was something new. I instantly recognized the starchy, sharp contours of the poet’s handwriting.
If you are looking for a good time, call 645-73-oh-nine!
My heart leapt into my throat…his number…could it be his actual number? I mean, it was obvious from his poetry that he was a vulnerable man, but to completely expose himself to his fans?
Breathlessly, I ran from the lavatory, and out of the restaurant, dialing all of the way. The
line rang.
“…Hello?” It was him. I knew it. don’t ask me how, but I knew it was him. I asked him to meet.
He agreed and we…had a good time!
