The thing about old bathrooms is that they never really look clean. Not matter how hard you go at them.
Like, you can foam them up and get down on your knees and scrub deep. And when you're done, they certainly look like they were just cleaned. You will certainly be able to see and smell your handiwork.
But they never really look Clean.
I'm talking about that fresh, untouched, ready-to-start-over-again look. That look that is actually more of a feeling. The feeling of a reset and a new beginning. The feeling of a solid white line between the before and the after. Not simply 'not dirty', but Clean. With capital C.
It's the same sort of feeling you get when you first check into an airy hotel room by the beach. There is an ocean breeze blowing through a sheer curtain. Crisp, white bed-sheets with the slightest scent of starch. And you drop your suitcase by the door and sit down on the high edge of the bed. Everything before is gone and now there is this new thing. Something else.
Wow. Ok. So, that is probably a little bit tortured and hyperbolic. Actually, there's no "probably" about it. It's hyperbolic as fuck.
All I'm trying to say is that time fades things. And, most of the time, faded can't be un-faded. And old bathrooms never look clean. They get older. And when they do, they can't be reset no-more.
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I met her in a bar in Byron Bay. That bar opposite Main Beach. The one that starts off indoors and sprawls out onto the lawn with white benches and orange couches. She wore tight, white jeans with rips at the knees and silver studs on the pockets. On both wrists was a mess of silver bangles. Those thin wiry ones. I'm not sure how many exactly she had on, but if I had to guess, I'd say sixty three. On each wrist.
Her hair was buzzed down to a yellowish fluff. Her lips painted yellow too. But a different shade. More of a canary yellow. With all of that, you'd expect some sort of nose stud, right? I did. But, no - she didn't have one of those. She did have those piercings you see that travel up on the outside of the ear, above the lobe. Do you the ones I'm talking about? On her left ear, there looked to be a couple of tiny diamonds pressed into that spot.
It was a lot. Her whole look was a lot. And so was she.
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She was the youngest of ten children and she grew up with all the attention. Not all of it was voluntary. Her mother worked long and irregular shifts as a nurse and she deputized the two oldest girls as surrogates. They were always around for her. They were too young to know better and too scared to do too little. They took her with them everywhere teenage girls would go. She became the fun, novelty presence. At 6 years old, she'd sit around in garages, as the older high-school kids smoked bongs and showered her with attention.
After graduating university, she struggled to navigate life in a big city. No one noticed her. And no one seemed to care that no one did. This was back when Byron was still a really small town and she packed up and moved up to its white sand, crystal shops and vegan curry houses. She found it easier to have her noise heard out there.
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"Do you surf?" she asked rather aggressively.
"Nope. I do like to watch, though. I like that spot out under The Lighthouse on Tallows. I go out there a couple of mornings a week." I replied.
"You should learn to surf, if you're gonna be out here."
"I should? Why?"
"That's what guys do out here. It's a good way to meet people."
"Ok." I accepted.
I had moved out to Byron for very different reasons than her. I wanted the quiet. The anonymity. I wanted the phone that never buzzed, the questions that never came and the drinks that were never shared. I was going to tell her all that, but I could tell she wouldn't understand. Or, more importantly, I didn't think she would like what I was looking for. So, I left all that out.
Why?
Because she was beautiful. Sharp, angular features set off by her buzz-cut and her manic energy left her thin and light. Yes, those white-trash jeans were at the same time both sad and funny, but the legs under them were toned by mornings among the waves out at Wategos. I wanted to fuck her, so I played along. Played along with her suggestions for me. Her ideas for my best life. I made out like I would accept them and let her lead me. And, most importantly, I gave her that specific type of attention the youngest of ten craves.
And then we went back to her place.
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The key to any great story is that is should always contain three parts. No more, no less. Exactly three.
With that in mind, this story should've ended above the last break. But it didn't. It kept going. I kept going. We kept going.
And that's fine, because life is long enough for detours. In fact, detours can be the best part of it all.
But the problem here was that sometimes - even if nothing remarkably bad has happened to it - an old bathroom reaches the point of not being able to be scrubbed up anymore. And, sometimes, if you hang on too long, you can't just pull up stumps and head off into a reset. You can leave. But it won't be a reset. More of a unsatisfactory maintaining type deal.
And, then what do you do?
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Oh yeah - I suppose you could always just build a new house with several new bathrooms.
