Self Portrait

The plumber came and made a video of Dan’s sewer line. He emailed Dan the video, and Dan received it while waiting for the Friday team meeting to begin. He kept his phone in his lap watching the video over and over, which was easy because when the video ended it kicked back to the beginning and repeated.

The footage was unremarkable, a halo created by the camera’s light, not unlike the image of a solar eclipse. But each time Dan watched, some new detail emerged, a chip in the pipe, a strand of roots. At the bottom of the screen, the path of the camera kept track in feet and inches, a timer counting seconds in blocky red numerals.

Dan continued to watch as his manager set priorities for the upcoming week and congratulated Anderson on her five-year anniversary with the company.

Collins nudged Dan.

Huh?

Anything for the benefit of the group? His manager was asking.

The manager liked to end meetings by going around the table so each of them could make a verbal contribution.

Dan forgot his line. He said the same thing each week.

Dawkins said: Not happy to be here?

The team enjoyed a chuckle.

Yeah, Dan said. Just happy to be here.

On his phone the camera hit a small break in the line after 20 feet, 9 inches (19.33 seconds). The screen jostled to the rhythm of a crash landing. The plumber said it would have to be fixed one day, or not. It could go on working for years. It might never cause a problem.

A colleague recited an inspirational quote for the benefit of the group and the team meeting adjourned.

When Dan got home, he walked the length of the sewer line, from the cleanout behind the camelia bush to the manhole in the street where his line connected to the city main. The video began at the main and journeyed back to the cleanout. Dan attempted to walk in time with the camera as it traveled to the house. When the video ended, Dan paused it and jogged back to the road, where he’d make the trip again, trying to keep pace with the camera. He did this over and over, imagining everything he saw on the video three feet beneath him, ensconced in the brittle terracotta.

After defecating the next morning, Dan flushed, jerked up his pants and sprinted to the manhole cover, lifting it free and peering down into the darkness. He couldn’t see much, but he could hear the trickling wastewater. He waited for the sound of his dump joining the sewage flow, but it didn’t come. He knew his feces had not traveled faster than his run to the street. He knew it was still in the pipe somewhere, and this thought nagged him all day.

The next morning, Dan flushed and turned on the shower. He flushed the second toilet on his way to the manhole. This time he brought a flashlight. After a few moments, he saw his turd and accompanying paper come dropping from his line into the main, where it sailed down 5th Terrace on its way to the future.

That day at work Dan found it easier to focus. He caught an error McNew made in his projections and finished everything early enough to leave by three. He went for a stroll in the park that he passed daily on his commute, each time regretting how his schedule disallowed leisurely walks. He made the turnpike early enough to beat traffic, and for dinner, he attempted a dish he’d seen demonstrated on a TV show.

Weeks passed, each morning with Dan using the restroom and jogging outside to watch his excrement float off in the direction of downtown. His across-the-street neighbor, Delroy, was retired army. He had a full, dark beard and when he wore shirts, they were tank tops. Their relationship amounted to polite nods of acknowledgment.

After several mornings of Dan lifting the manhole cover and peering down at the connecting pipes, Delroy started watching from his porch, still in his robe with a steaming cup of what Dan imagined to be very strong coffee.

One day he asked if Dan had a plumbing problem.

No, no problem, Dan said.

You just like watching the sewer?

Dan didn’t want to say yes, but he also didn’t feel right about lying. He wished he’d said he was checking the plumbing or something like that. That would’ve been the right way to go.

Instead, he said: I’m better at work when I do this.

Delroy said he watches Sportscenter and everything seems to be going okay for him.

The next weekend, upon noticing a flush that was not his, Dan realized his wife was using the sewer line too. She was only flushing once. That afternoon, he spilled gasoline in the garage. He tripped and fell when stepping off an escalator at the mall. He spent twenty minutes on the phone with a stranger from Las Vegas believing he was lucky to have won fifty thousand dollars in a contest he couldn’t remember entering.

Instead of approaching his wife, he taped a sign to the bathroom wall. It read:

     To all who use our seat,

     Flush not once but twice at least,

     and please do flush again, reapeat, repeat!

With his rhyme, he included clipart of a smiling dolphin to match the bathroom’s sea life theme. The shower curtain was decorated with seashells and starfish. A watercolor of the beach painted by his sister-in-law hung over the commode.

When his wife saw the sign, she took it down and brought it to him where he was reading a book.

She said, Does this have to do with your fixation on the sewer line?

Dan said, It’s important you flush three times.

He explained how she could run the shower and flush the toilet in the guest bathroom if she would prefer not to stand and wait for the tank to refill between flushes.

That’s a waste of water, she said.

Dan’s wife was conservation–minded. She regularly overflowed the recycling bin.

Dan’s wife said she didn’t mind if he wanted to run out to the street in the morning and stare at sewage. God knows she has dealt with stranger quirks of his personality during the course of their marriage, but she would not join him in this bizarre new habit.

Dan’s work began to slip. He was late to meetings. He neglected to check his voicemail in a timely manner. A vindictive McNew, copied Collins, Anderson, and Dawkins on an email to their manager wherein he helpfully adjusted Dan’s quarterly numbers to reflect the team’s goals.  

And it was no better at home. He cut himself shaving. He forgot to cover his soup before cooking it in the microwave, causing it to bubble and spatter all over the microwave ceiling. He showed up at the dentist’s office when he was scheduled to get his tires rotated.

He continued to run to the manhole each morning.

He watched the plumber’s video again, letting it roll and repeat, trying to come up with some way to right himself. He kept the video repeating in a tab he kept open on his work computer. At home and during his commute, he kept it going on his phone.

Then he had an idea. After work, he went to Best Buy and asked the sales associate for their smallest waterproof camera, one that came with a light—not just a flash. The sales associate showed him a camera people use when scuba diving and hang-gliding. Not only was the camera far too large for Dan’s intended use, but it was prohibitively expensive. He leaned close to the sales associate. He asked if she knew where he could get something very small, something, maybe, used by doctors. The sales associate said that question has come up before, more than Dan might think, and she gave him the number of a home security shop in the next town over.

When Dan called and described to the man on the other end of the line what he was looking for, the man muffled the phone and said something to a person standing close by. When the ambient noise returned, Dan could hear mischievous laughter.

The man said, I think we can satisfy your needs, sir.

Dan raced to the shop, arriving to purchase the camera just before they closed.

The next day, Dan called in sick. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do this with his wife home. He needed the peace offered by the solitude of home at midmorning.

First, he took a wire coat hanger and twisted it straight. With electrical tape, he fastened the new camera, no thicker than one of the fountain pens his grandparents had given him for graduation, to the end of the wire. He tested the camera to be sure it was synced with his phone before slathering it with the clear gel he used to heal his dry hands during the winter months.

Then he pulled off his pants and underwear. He set his phone on the bathroom counter and bent his knees just enough to relax the muscles of his abdomen and lower extremities. He pressed the red dot to initiate recording, and as he inserted the camera up his ass, the terrible thought struck him that no matter how painful it was, he would never reach quite far enough.