You Can Live Without Love

Back and forth I paced our small bathroom, biting my nails while the water ran hot. Anticipation goosed my skin; blood sped through my veins. The tub filled. It could have been Christmas morning, my excitement was breathtaking. I quickly got undressed and jumped into the bathtub. The hot water embraced me, completely. I imagined drowning. My pores opened, singing praises, tingling. Eventually, no other embrace was required to be graced and blessed. It was Love. It was Saturday night - bath night! My greatest nightly adventure. Once in the water, I heard the murmur, "I love you."

Glistening mounds of Mr Bubble turned mud to starburst, anxiety to hope. Like a kitten in a box of kittens my soul purred in the hot water I loved and my memories gathered around me as I slid deeper and deeper into my wet Heaven, submerged to my chin. More than humanity, more than peace between my parents, I loved my Saturday night baths and to this day I swear, my bath water loved me back.

The water's tongue informed me God exists. He is neither gas nor solid. His salvation is in some Almighty flow of water. I vowed to surrender my soul to His liquid bosom. Previous exploits in my brief but frenetic lifetime had been mean and selfish. But soaking my flesh in lengthy childhood baths turned my heart and mind tender. I was exposed and vulnerable and forgiveness was possible. I met Serenity. Hot water was warm seduction. I remained submerged until the water cooled and turned grey from my filth, my head completely underwater for minutes at a time, eyes tightly shut, holding my breath, expecting Jesus.

Vanishing from the second floor bathroom I'd reappear, a coiled wet embryo orbiting the frightening black sky where I had to breathe without oxygen. Love of water morphed me. I submerged my whole being for a time longer than I ever thought possible, hoping to drown in my bath water of Love. If I drowned in the water of Love, I’d die the happiest kid in the universe.

Saturday afternoons were horrible. The day crawled and anxiety peaked at dusk. What if the pipes ran dry and Saturday night love went unrequited? We were poor. The water bills were high. What if the city shut off our water supply? Once, I recall, this happened. I was just a shell of myself that night. How can water have a price? What’s the price of Love: a bathtub full of Love? Was water or Love in short supply?

Love was in short supply in our house and Saturday night baths meant the world to me. I’d never seen my dad enjoy the embrace of a hot bath. He hated baths, despised the bathtub and the shower curtain. Hated himself and hated me too, I came to understand. He had large hands and a mean disposition. I met them both on multiple occasions. He worked as a handler at the docks. He smelled of fish and alcohol. He should have come home and turned on the faucet; taken a hot bath. Wash away his sins. I wanted him to take a bath. He shaved, though. I watched him shave while I sat on the edge of the bathtub where the shower curtain used to hang before he tore it down at the conclusion of a fifth of Five Star brandy. He held a brown ceramic cup and a stiff cream-colored brush in front of the mirror, working up a lather in the cup and brushing it on his face then he did his business, nicking himself three or four times. But he didn’t take a liking to water. The mirror fogged up while he shaved, which I enjoyed, but he made a fist and circled the mirror with the side of his fist and quickly cleared the fog, all the time cussing about something bothering him in his brain. A hot shave was not a hot bath. I think he hated shaving too.

Dad never gave water a chance at Love or forgiveness. Water’s everlasting language hadn’t burned his motives. His destiny would be the fine ash of disbelief and self-loathing, not water. Love would elude him without the embrace of hot water, a hot bath. Taking a bath wouldn’t have killed him. I was confident that if he’d take a bath, he’d be a great dad. He’d probably draw a happy face in the fogged mirror. If he’d just get into the tub, bathe until his fingers wrinkled plum purple. He might crack a smile. “Just one bath, dad,” I tried to tell him. “It doesn’t have to be Saturday night. A hot bath will take you back to catching frogs at the slow winding creek with your best friend. You’ll want to drown in fourteen inches of forgiveness.”

It wasn’t required that I kiss my bath water, although I tried. I puckered my lips. Cupped the water that already greyed in my hands, but love slipped through my fingers and I kissed my pink palm. I made the decision then that my children will bathe every night of the week, if I could afford it. Love will never be past due and shut off in my house. There would always be love galore in our tub. Saturday nights, of course, would be special. I’d let the kids splash to their heart’s content. “Let’s run more hot Love in the tub, kids!”

Allan Ebert