Chapter 9

My conversation with Lisa the previous evening – made at Dunkin Donuts to give me some privacy from my mother – had been a short one, because she had told me she wasn’t feeling well. In fact, she said, even mentioning the coffee I was drinking made her a bit queasy.

It wasn’t a surprise, then, to see a text message flash across my phone when I turned it on after landing at the Raleigh-Durham airport: “Welcome home. Can you grab me some Pepto-Bismol when you drive by CVS on your way home?”

A short time later, I knocked on Lisa’s apartment door. When I didn’t hear anything, I tried the door and found it unlocked.

“Lisa?” I called out as I poked my head in.

A voice I vaguely recognized as Lisa’s moaned, “Oh, God.”

“Are you okay?”

“Um ... can you give me a bit? Don’t come in here.”

If she didn’t sound half dead at that moment, I might have obliged her, but her voice had me concerned enough to move forward.

I found her mostly naked, except for a tank top, in the bathroom. However, whatever fantasies I may have had about seeing her in this state of undress most definitely did not start out like this. I found her laying on the floor, with the floor, the toilet seat, and much of her lower body covered in excrement.

I gasped as I dropped the CVS bag on the floor. “Lisa, what happened?”

In response, she burst into tears.

“Oh ... I don’t want you to see me like this. Please go away. Please?”

The thought occurred to me in that moment that I had definitely not signed on for this scenario in any lifetime, but I wasn’t about to leave her alone, either. “What happened?” I repeated.

A weak sigh escaped her lips. “I couldn’t make it onto the toilet in time.”

I stood up and stripped off my sweater, down to just the t-shirt underneath. I made my way to her linen closet, where I found several washcloths and towels. Gathering them into a pile in my arms, I walked back into the bathroom – admittedly breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell – and turned on the hot water.

First, I used a washcloth to clean off the toilet seat, tossing the dirty washcloth off to the side. I grabbed another one, soaped it up, and knelt on the floor next to her. She was wearing a pair of boxer briefs for underwear, and they were down near her ankles. Trying not to think too much about what I was doing, I lifted one leg, then the other, and removed the filthy briefs, tossing them aside with the washcloth.

Next, I took a clean, soapy washcloth and cleaned at least the worst of the mess off her legs before that washcloth joined the growing dirty-laundry pile.

I stood up and ran another washcloth under the faucet. As I did, I glanced down and noted that the mess was now on my jeans too. Mentally, I shrugged. Oh well. Nothing to be done at the moment.

I started to move toward her with the washcloth again, but then I realized what my next step would be.

“Listen, babe ... I need to clean up your rear end. Is that okay?”

She was still moaning and crying and curled in a semi-fetal position, certainly in no position to respond to the term of endearment that had unconsciously escaped my mouth, but she rolled her body slightly to present the backside in question to me. I took that as assent and did a quick wipe-down to clean up the worst of the mess.

“Okay, Lisa, the good news is that you don’t have to reach very far, but I need you to put your hands around my neck and we’re going to stand you up, okay?”

I maneuvered so that I was straddling her with my legs. I placed one hand on the sink to brace myself as she sat up just enough to wrap her arms around my neck. With my other hand, I reached under her arms. Together, we managed to maneuver her so that she was sitting on the toilet. With that done, I took some of the bath towels and cleaned up the mess on the floor, then returned to do a more thorough cleanup job on her legs.