The man in the stall next to mine hasn’t given a courtesy flush.  Neither have I.

            Nineteen eighty seven started out good.  Paul Newman won the Oscar for best actor for The Color of Money.  Prince put out Sign ‘O’ The Times.  That Iran-Contra thing was finally over and we could focus on the Democrats taking back the White House.  

            I feel stuck in 1987.  I feel stuck here.  I feel stuck.

            It started in 1960, the year I was born.  Really, it started a few years later, when I was too old for diapers and Mother made me go it alone.  

            Mother never let me stop till I was finished.  I couldn’t leave till I was done and if I did it badly, I had to do it over again.

            Like homework.  When I was in the third grade I had to redo my math problems.  She told me to finish my division problems even though they were already done.  I said I did the work just like the teacher taught me to.  Mother pointed to a problem and said, “Remainders are messy.”

            My father left when I was eleven, and I haven’t heard from him since.  In a fit of rage he hastily filled a few boxes with his possessions and split.  Father thought Mother nitpicked.  He said she was Miss Perfectionist.

            The guy next to me is talking about stocks over a portable phone.  They sound like good tips.  I’d make a few calls myself if I could get out of here.

            I met Molly when I was 25 and she was 22.  We fell in love.  Molly and I worked as computer programmers at IBM.  Molly had perfectly combed, chestnut brown hair and crystal blue eyes.  She and I made love on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

            And Mother didn’t know.

            I don’t know where Molly is now.  I hope she’s still out there, waiting for me.

            When Mother found out about Molly, she began acting strangely.  Calling me at  work, Mother would ask me to come to her house.  To shovel the driveway.  Clean the gutters.  Refinish the hardwood floors.  Polish the silver.  Wallpaper the walls, including closets.  Paint the ceilings.

            And if I didn’t do it right, I’d have to do it again.  I couldn’t leave until it was done right.

            Deja vu.  Repeat.

            Molly said that I was whipped by my Mother.  She said my Mother had instilled in me a “pathological tenacity” to serve her.

            I loved Molly and I still do and I think we could have gotten married.  Maybe we still can.  But I couldn’t stand the way she threw around these psychobabble nonsense terms like “pathological tenacity.”  Molly heard it all from a radio call-in show hosted by Shirley McCulloughssy.  All day and night it was “Shirly says . . .,” “That’s what Shirley’d say,” or “ . . . which is one of Shirley’s mantras.”

            I’m sure Shirley, or one of her ilk, is still making money by throwing around these sloppy musings on radio, on television and in print.

            But she had a point in that Mother was getting out of hand with her demands on my time.  When I was asked to do chores on Wednesdays and Saturdays as well, I knew a change had to be made.

            It made sense to stand my ground then.  Now, I don’t know.  1987 was a long time ago.

            That was the year I decided to propose to Molly.  I bought us tickets to fly to a little Manor in Amherst, Massachusetts.  I would take her on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the snow on New Year’s Eve.  And then I’d propose.  That was the right way to do it.

            I still have the ring in my pocket.  I take it out and stare at it all of the time.  I guess I should feel regret.  But I don’t.  I still feel that this is the right way to do it.

            During our ill-fated trip, Molly and I had a three-hour layover at Dulles International Airport in Virginia before our flight to New England.  To kill some time, I decided to do this new thing where you call your home phone from a pay phone and access the messages on your answering machine.  Very high tech for 1987.  (Not as high tech now, I’ve come to realize, as I’ve heard all sorts of beeps, bells and whistles emitted from the men sitting in stalls next to mine.  Full conversations.  Television shows.  Webinars.)

            A few messages were old.  Molly coyly saying, “It’s Wednesday night, and you know what that means …”  A few guys at IBM called with work issues.

            And then one from Mother.

            She said, “I called and called and there was no answer, so I called your neighbor, Mrs. Brown, and she told me you and that girl were taking a trip.  I can’t believe you.  You don’t tell your own mother where you’re going.  Don’t run away and abandon your mother like your father did.  That’s not the way to do things!  I don’t know what you and that girl are planning with your lives, but just know that I don’t think it’s right.  You should start over again with a new girl, the right girl!”

            I hung up the phone and proceeded to the nearest men’s room.  I entered a stall, closed and locked the door behind me, and prepared to defecate.  It seemed imminent.  I did what Mother taught me to do when I was two.  But I never seemed to get it right.  So I just … kept doing it.  That was December 30, 1987.

            A few years ago, someone dropped a copy of Rip Van Winkle on the floor of the adjacent stall.  God is funny.  No, I didn’t grow a 10-foot beard.  I kept a razor in my shoe – always on long flights.  Even if you lose everything you can still shave.  You can’t go into IBM looking scruffy.

            I suppose Molly left the airport a long time ago.  One day, when I do this right, I’ll marry her and have the right life.  

            I suppose my job at IBM has evaporated.  Not right, leaving without giving two weeks notice.  I’ve always felt bad about that.

            And about how Mother was abandoned again.

            I don’t consider this a waste.  No regrets.  This is just a long layover that will be over some day.

            When I do it right.