The long shower is the only way to wash off the diesel exhaust and fryer oil that cling to you after a grueling shift. You can find a way to cleanse your skin and spirit starting tonight.
He accessed the deadbolt with his shoulder leaning into the door the way you have to - stepped out of the non-slip shoes without untying them, and left them on the mat where the laces had gone the color of sidewalk. The linen closet was mostly empty - a fitted sheet that never fit, a pillowcase, and then the towel on the top shelf, folded into thirds the way it came off the rack at the Bed Bath & Beyond going-out-of-business sale - white still, kept white on purpose. He lifted it down with both hands.
He turned the single handle as far left as it would go, which wasn't very far, and the pipes knocked once the way they always did before the water came through rust-colored and then clear. He stood in the steam with his work shirt still on, the cotton going dark at the shoulders first - until the mirror above the sink had gone completely white. Then he undressed slowly, the shirt peeling off and hitting the tub floor with a sound like a hand on a table, and he pressed both palms flat against the tile above the faucet, fingers spread, eyes shut - while the grease smell lifted off him in the heat and circled once and went somewhere else.
He stepped forward into the spray when it went cold, chin down, and the last thin heat ran off his collarbone and was gone. His phone screen lit through the fog on the bathroom shelf - a notification, the scheduling app, and where the shift total had been a number with a one and a nine - there was a zero with a dash beside it and nothing after. He stood there with the cold water ticking against the back of his neck for another few seconds, not moving, the way you hold still after something falls and you're waiting to hear where it lands. Then he reached past the curtain and lifted the white towel from the top of the toilet tank and pressed his face into it, both hands, the cotton going warm against his skin from the inside out.
He brought the towel down from his face and folded it once along the long edge - the way his mother had shown him with the dish towels, the white touching white. He dried his left arm first, then his right, pressing the cloth flat against the inside of his elbow where the skin was softest. The single bare bulb above the mirror had burned out two weeks ago and he hadn't replaced it, and in the dark from the hallway the white towel was almost its own light. He stood on the bathmat with the folded towel across both forearms like something carried - not moving, his breathing the only sound in the apartment.
He hung the towel on the hook he'd put in himself, the one with the chrome faceplate and the toggle bolt he'd driven in with a butter knife because he didn't own a screwdriver, and he smoothed it once from the top edge down with his open palm until it hung without a wrinkle. The hook was three inches higher than the door hook, which he'd measured with the span of his hand before he drilled. He left the light on - not forgot - left - and walked to the bed in the hallway dark, and pulled the fitted sheet that never fit up to his chin, and lay there with the white rectangle of the bathroom door bright at the end of the room like something he'd placed there on purpose, which he had.
In the morning he took the jacket from the chair back where it had hung overnight and carried it to the window in the gray light, turning it slow in his hands along the seam - checking for grease the way you check bread for mold. There was a small dark comma near the second button, the size of a thumbnail, and he wet the corner of a paper towel at the kitchen sink and worked at it in circles until the wool pilled slightly and the comma was gone or close enough. He hung the jacket on the shower rod above the tub and ran the hot water for three minutes without stepping in, just let the steam rise around it, the charcoal wool going darker in the damp - the lining swaying once. When he came back after his coffee it had dried without a wrinkle, and he pressed two fingers to the lapel the way you'd press a stamp, and left for the bus.
He found a crack in the bar soap that morning, a split down the center where it had dried too fast, and he pressed it back together with his thumb until the edges held. At the dollar store on his lunch break he stood in the soap aisle for longer than made sense for a man with eleven minutes - turning a wrapped bar of Ivory over in his hands, reading nothing, just feeling the corners. He bought two and carried them home in his jacket pocket, one on each side, so the weight sat even. That night he unwrapped the first one over the sink - folding the paper into quarters before he dropped it in the trash, and set the bar on the dish with the smooth side up.
He found a box of baking soda under the sink, the orange kind, the flap folded down and refolded until the cardboard had gone soft at the crease, and he shook a small amount into his palm and worked it around the inside of the tub with a folded washcloth - his knuckles going white with the pressure, until the ring that had been there since he moved in wasn't there anymore. He rinsed it twice with the detachable showerhead he'd bought at the hardware store and attached himself, the chrome fitting he'd wrapped in plumber's tape three times before it stopped weeping at the joint. The water sheeted off the porcelain clean and clear and ran down the drain making a sound like nothing, just water, and he dried the tub walls with the edge of the washcloth and draped it over the faucet to dry. Then he stood back in the doorway with his shoulder against the frame and looked at it for a moment - the white tub - the white towel on the chrome hook, the new soap on the dish - the way you look at something you have made, before anyone else can see it.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and doesn't constitute professional medical advice or health diagnosis. Always consult with a qualified provider regarding your personal wellbeing routine.
