Toilet Stories

by Pat Dowd

  We went around the back of the house to see what we could do about the door, it was old, needed paint, some new screens and a new closer spring, in other words it was well used. I found a latch that was hanging down dangling off the side of the door. It had lost its screws somehow during its lifetime and was no longer able to hold the door closed. I found a few screws sticking out of the side of the frame of the door and took them out with a small pocket knife that I had. They were slot type screws so I had to use the tip of the knife to get them out so I could use them for putting the latch back on. Lucky the holes were still there from the where the old screws had fallen out. When I was finished I tried out the door and with a minor adjustment it worked about as well as one could want with an old door like that. We started walking away back towards the street then turned around and took a last look at the door for some reason before it went out of site. The shock wave hit us like a sneaky wave at the beach where it is just there and you did not see it coming. Although we both saw it at the same time we still could not believe it, we just stood there first looking at the door and then looking at each other. Then I said, “Oh my God, did you see what I saw?” After a short pause she said, “Yes, if you are referring to the face of Jesus on the screen door?” Of course neither of us had ever seen a real picture of Jesus since the last time he was suppose to be on earth that we know of, cameras were not invented yet. That did not matter, it was the kind of face that you would expect if it were really him on the screen door.

  We went on around the block to finish our walk but could not stop thinking about the thing we just witnessed at the old grey house. Maybe it was just the way the dimming evening sunlight was shining on the door that made it look like Jesus or maybe we were just letting our imaginations run away with us. We went home, made a few drinks and laid back on the couch thinking about it some more. We decided to wait until the next day before going back there again. We were hoping that the people that lived there would still be gone so as not to arise any suspicion about why we were being there. Even if it still looked like Jesus’s face in the morning, it was not our door so what could we do about it anyway? Could we offer to buy the door from the people that live there? No, we could not do that because they would want to know why we wanted to buy an old screen door when we could buy a new one with all the hardware on it for under a hundred bucks at any of the home improvement stores in the area. They might ask what is so special about their door and in the process we might end up giving the secret away by mistake. If we let them in on the secret then they might not even want to deal with us at all. They could put the door up for bid or sell it in a classified add or even donate to their church. We would be the ones screwed here, I could see that coming.

  The next morning we went casually over to the grey house looking around to make sure nobody was watching us or might figure out what we were up to. Lucky for us nobody was home once again so we just walked around the back of the house and took another look at the door. At first we saw nothing and were obviously disappointed and felt let down. Then as we were walking away about twenty feet or so, the image appeared once again. I guess you had to see it at the right angle and in the right light but it was there as sure as there is sin on a Saturday night. What should we do now we thought? We looked at each other and then went home to think about it for a while before we made any decisions. After what we had witnessed we were not about to just let it go and drop it. It was time to make a life changing decision here and we needed time to think it through.

  We decided to wait until dark and then go over there and steal it, then hide it in our shed behind our house until we could figure out what to do with it. We picked out some dark clothes and I got an old cork that we had some pins sticking out of and took my lighter and burned the surface of it. Then we could use the black part to darken our faces so they would not be as visible in the dark. Besides, it was a lot easier to wash off afterwards then some type of marker and we might have to get rid of the evidence in a hurry. I gathered up some tools to take the hinges off and free the door from the back of their house. If only they would stay away for another day we could pull this off and have us something that might be worth something for a change. It seemed like the longest day in history but the sun did go down and the evening was settling in. The neighborhood had calmed down and most people had gone to bed because they had to go to work in the morning.

  The time now felt right so we took a deep breath and then went for it. We snuck down the street without anyone seeing us, went around the back of the grey house and listened for a minute to see if anyone was stirring. It was quiet so we went right to it. Within five minutes or so we had the door off and were carrying it back to the house where we lived. We felt like a couple of teenagers pulling off a high school prank. It was the most excited we were about anything in a long time. We tried to be quiet about it but ended up dropping the door once, making all kinds of noise and nervously laughing the rest of the way home.

  Once we got back home we opened the shed, put the door in and ran back to the house locking ourselves in before anyone could see us. We were so freaked out that we did not even put the lights on for a while. We just stood there in the dark peeping out the windows to see if anyone had come out to see what was going on. When we felt that we were in the clear, we turned one of the lights on, mixed some drinks, put on some calming music and just chilled for a while. A little while later she turned to me and said, “What are we going to do with the door now that we have it?” I did not know what I was going to say to her. Would the people that we stole the door from recognize it if it were on display somewhere? Should I paint the frame and disguise it somehow? All this was swimming in my head like a fish trying desperately to free itself from a hook, it made no sense. Why were we doing this anyway? I was about to go smack nuts when all of a sudden it hit me. We don’t have to be in a rush to do anything, we got the door, it is not going anywhere, we could just wait until we are ready and take our time about making any decisions about it. No hurry, no worry.

  We decided to wait a year before we did anything about the door. By then the people that we stole it from would have forgotten about it and we could do with what we wanted with it. It was all settled, we would wait and then do it up big. The year went by fast and then one day we were standing in the kitchen fixing breakfast when my wife said, “Let’s start thinking about what we are going to do with the door in the shed?” Surely by now it was safe to explore the possibilities. We talked back and forth about it all day long and then at the end of the day we decided to take the door down south to her sister’s house and maybe find a place to display it to where we could charge admission without getting in trouble with the cops or have permit problems. My wife contacted her sister and asked if she could help us out some. He sister was a middle-aged woman that was recently divorced from her low life husband that could not keep a job or keep sober enough to be around with for some time now. She finally bit the bullet and filed for divorce a few months ago. It was the perfect set up for our Jesus display to work out.

  We arrived at her sister’s house late in the afternoon just before dark. We had put the door in the back of the pickup truck and covered it with a tarp so no one would be able to see it along the way. We took the door out of the truck and leaned it up against her sister’s house so she could see the Jesus image on the screen. Just like before, you had to walk back about twenty feet or so for the image to appear. She stood there with her hands over her face and said, “It is Jesus, there is no doubt about it, oh my God, were did you find it?” “We will tell you all about it if you could find a place to put the door in the meantime.” I said, so we placed it in the garage where we could hide it until we decided where we were going to put it on display for all the world to see. Well, maybe not the world yet, but at least the locals might enjoy it and cough up some money for the privilege.

  We all sat around over a few drinks the rest of the evening throwing around all kinds of ideas for
us to not only to display our door but make money doing it. We got so involved in it that we forgot all time and went well into the night before we decided to put off any further discussion until the next day. My wife’s sister’s name was Jenny. She looked a bit worn for her age but considering some of the things she had been through with her former husband you would have to expect that. She still was somewhat attractive when she wanted to be but did not work much at it. Maybe this Jesus thing might get her back in the swing of things where she could shine once again? After we all got up and ate breakfast she called the pastor of her church and asked if he had any suggestions to help us out. He told us that he had the use of a small wedding chapel (with a small donation falling his way) down the street from his church that was available on a daily basis for rent if we might be interested in that. He said he would contact the owner and find out when it was available and get back to us soon. As it turned out the chapel was already rented for a wedding on Sunday but was open for Friday and Saturday. We decided to take it anyway. We had to slip Jenny’s preacher a hundred bucks under the table and it cost two hundred dollars more to the owner for the two days we were going to display the door for the public to see.

  We advertised the viewing of the Jesus door in the local papers. We were hoping to at least get enough donations to cover the three hundred we had already had to dole out for the rental and the forty dollars we had to put out for the advertisements. We spent all of Friday morning setting things up. We put the door propped up near the front of the chapel and then measured off about 20 feet or so to put the line down for people to stand in order to best be able to see the image. We played with the lighting and placement for about an hour until we felt that we had the best overall set up. We had said in the add that it was going to be on display from three o’clock in the afternoon until seven o’clock in the evening. We figured that four hours a day would be enough.

  By the time we opened the chapel, there were about twenty five people standing outside waiting to get in. We told them it was going to cost them a dollar to see the door and for them to not touch or go near the door in any way but to just stand behind the line drawn on the floor and observe without bothering anyone or making a fuss to where we would have to ask them to leave. Everyone agreed so we opened the door and let them in. Not everyone at first saw the image but after they stood there a minute or two they all found a way to focus in on it. They were amazed and quickly took pictures of it with their cell phones and most of them called someone they knew to come down and see the image for themselves. By six o’clock there must have been two or three hundred come through. Most tried to hang around, but since the chapel was so small we had to send them out the door once they got to see, take pictures and call someone so as to not cause any problems. Besides, the more people we could get through the more money we could make.

  It took us until about ten o’clock before we could get everyone out of the chapel and get things locked up so we could get home and celebrate our good fortune. We ended up taking in about six hundred fifty dollars for the first night. Well, if this keeps up we could have well over a thousand dollars in by tomorrow night. We went out on the town and celebrated with some wings and a few pitchers of beer. When we got back to Jenny’s place there were notes on the front door from people that wanted to see the door up close at maybe a private showing or two. It was all good. The next day we started at two instead of three because there were already a few hundred people waiting when we got over to the chapel to open things up. It was fantastic that people were so obedient and filed through as if they were at a funeral for some diplomat or important person like you would see on the news. They kept on coming, by six o’clock on Saturday night there were about five or six hundred people lined up outside waiting for a chance to come in. We tried to get people moving as fast as we could but they kept arriving and getting in line faster than we could move them through. In some ways it was tremendous, we were making more money than we could have imagined and it was only the second day we had the door on display. Should we go nation wide or should we stay local? Was it going to fall apart or be proven in some way to be a fake or was this just the beginning? Those were the decisions we were going to have to make and from the attention we were getting we were going to have to do it sooner than later.

  Like the night before people kept showing up so we did not get to close up until after eleven o’clock when the local police dropped by to tell us that in this section of town there was an eleven o’clock curfew on noise. They told us that if we were to continue to ignore it than they would have to issue us a citation that would end up costing us two hundred fifty bucks. We assured them that we were trying our best to get everyone out but they did not want to leave on their own. The cops hung around for a while and helped us disperse the crowd and send everyone home. Because they were having a wedding there the next day, we decided to take the door home. We carefully placed it in the back of the truck and covered it with a tarp. We then went back to Jenny’s house and threw the money on the kitchen table. This time we counted over twenty three hundred dollars to add to our stash. It was working out to be the best thing we had ever done. We could not wait until we could get a more permanent place to display it so we could continue to rake in the cash.

  It took some looking around but in the next larger town a little south of Jenny’s house we found an old movie theater that had been closed for about three years now and was for sale or lease. We decided to lease it and signed a contract for one year. We figured we could not lose, after all we nearly raked in three thousand dollars for the first couple of days we displayed the door at the chapel and it was a lot smaller than the theater. We were on our way to riches for the first time of our lives. We could not be happier, everything was going smooth and working out just like we planned.

  We set things up in the theater like we had in the chapel only better. We had bought some decorative angels that we hung from the ceiling and put a sound system along with some heavenly music that Jenny’s friend Larry had made for us with his buddies from the college nearby who used to sing together at the church that Jenny worshiped in while she grew up. It was great, a combination of spiritual and some old funeral music rolled up into one long CD that we put on a loop so it would automatically start over after it played through. We had someone to control the lighting to create the right mood and fixed it so people could file past the door without any trouble in order to get the most people through in the shortest time. It was working out perfect. The first day we were open from eleven in the morning until eleven at night. In the twelve hours we took in nearly five thousand dollars. It was a gold mine and we knew it. What a country?

  The next day things went even better since the word got out that we had the image of Jesus on display for them to see at a reasonable price of just a dollar. Rumors started coming out that there were miracles happening to the people that prayed in front of the door although nothing was confirmed or proven. It was more people’s imaginations running away with them as their frenzy built from mouth to mouth and from the coverage we were starting to get from the local media that was dropping by to see for themselves what all the commotion was about. Before long there were people fainting and crying as they were filing by causing more of the same coming from the people behind them. Some people were even throwing themselves down on the floor in front of the screen door having all kinds of emotions and antics that were causing things to get out of control. It got so wild we had to close the doors to keep more people from getting in and causing more problems. They were no longer observing the line we put for them to file by but coming right up to the door itself. One woman even ran up to the door and hugged it nearly knocking it over. Then out of nowhere a man broke out of the crowd and ran full speed toward the door yelling out, “I am coming to join you Jesus,” just as he dove right through the door scattering pieces of the door and screen everywhere. People were screaming and going crazy. It was complete chaos, the people that were s
till in the theater stampeded to where the display area was and one by one grabbed what they could of the remains of the door and ran off out the exits. They were tearing at the screen and pieces of wood that was left on the floor for keepsakes or maybe they thought that the pieces had some kind of religious powers that they could use on themselves for one purpose or another, I don’t know. All I know is that when they were through there was nothing left of the door or the screen that was on it. We were finished, no more display, no more money coming in and I was probably going to get sued for the rest of the money I owed on the lease. It was a horrible end to what started out to be a beautiful thing.

  The End

  The Clothes Makes The Dog

  There once was a couple of neighborhood dogs sitting on a bench in the park on Sunday morning just doing a little people watching and enjoying the nice morning air. It was late May and although it was a little cool right now, later in the afternoon it should warm up nice so everyone could be taking their time meandering through the park and enjoying seeing everyone so happy and carefree. Being it was Sunday some of the people cut through the park on their way to church all dressed up and looking like a new spring flower on its first day in the sun. Then there were these two dogs and their dilemma, well, let me have them tell their own story.

  We were just ordinary dogs that did not have one thing to wear that made us look pretty or stand out in the crowd. I am just a run of the mill male mutt dog, part one thing or another and about forty pounds on a good day. I have this chain like collar that has been on a few years now with a tag from the vet’s office where I get those horrible shots that is rusting in places and itches me on hot days when I get wet. My partner over here is a poodle mix that wears this red leather collar with little silver stars on it in about two inch intervals around the center of the collar. It is faded and scratched up a bit but is still functional and also has a tag from the veterinarian’s office that is silver to match the collar it is on. She is a good and loyal dog but lately has become a pain in the butt about the way she looks. “Do I look fat with this fluffy hair?” she says when she looks into a puddle or a mirror somewhere. She sometimes waits until night and then says stuff like, “What color eyes do I have?” as she puts her paws over her eyes and looks off to the side. It is driving me nuts! Sure we are both a little older now and are not as active as we were a few years ago but we do alright getting done what we have to do. I need to think of a way to make things better so I don’t have to hear that kind of thing every day.