The Graveyard of Used Toilets

Norman always did make me laugh, even when we were hauling demolished urinals to the junkyard. Sometimes I laughed with him at the absurdity of it all. Mostly, he laughed at me, for taking things too seriously.

When we first met, I was just beginning demolition work on an old church. I pulled up with a dumpster filled to overflowing with musty choir robes and moldy books by dead German theologians. He was ripping out rotten timber in another old church up the road, near the Mason-Dixon line. At the county landfill, we began striking up conversation as he heaved old hymnals over the rails. He told me I would be cursed if I was chucking out any Bibles.

I told him, "I'll wager you are headed for an eternity in purgatory, the way you like chopping up altars."

Before I even knew his name, I called him Parson Brown. His buttoned-up black shirt made him look just like a scholarly man of God. I sermonized that if I ever was cursed, I would be taking him with me.

"Misery does love company," he said, and called me by a new name. "Preacher, you just watch yourself. I'm bound to do the same."

That was how many lifetimes ago? But if you counted up all the laughs we had over the dangers of demolition work, you'd have thought we were school kids on holiday.

But I'm forgetting to tell you the most important thing, about the old commodes. Most people take their place on the porcelain thrones or stand silently before them, with never a thought to where they all are heading: The Graveyard of Used Toilets.

Norman and I were undertakers on this sacred mission, the funeral directors of the flushed and forgotten, grim reapers of grime. Like everything else, we made light of offering these last rites as a coping strategy for the worst job in the world.

"Parson Brown, I got a new contract on the old stadium. I need to call on your services," I'd said.

He replied in serious tones, "I charge extra for Extreme Unction in such cases. I find the even the best stadium bathrooms require the patience of Job. Too many years of managing other people's crap."

We joined in with gusto at first, swinging sledge hammers to break up the porcelain, plying our trade with pry bars and claw hammers, cartloads of debris straining against our aging backs. How many rooms of rest could there be in just one temple to America's favorite past-time? We were there for weeks, just getting rid of other people's used toilets.

Someone was complaining about all those trips to the dump when we heard the train whistle in the distance. There's got to be some easier way than lugging all this to dumpsters and then paying to haul them away, said one middle-aged preacher.

"Sure thing," said Norman. "Just like there's a train bound for Glory, there has to be one heading in the opposite direction." We had a good chuckle about that then, didn't we?

But then again, we didn't know what we would do once we found ourselves on-board, surrounded by the remains of the day, with no sign of stopping. It all seemed to go by so slowly at first, when we could clock our distance from departure in minutes. Rounding that first bend, gaining speed was exciting, exhilarating even. We were on our way to potty paradise and the jokes just kept getting worse.

Looking back on all these years on this runaway train, I remember when I thought it was funny, the way I turned to Norman with the revelation, "Pastor Brown, urine trouble now."

"Preacher," he said, "that is the worst ever. If I have to listen to your jokes for all eternity, that would be cruel and unusual punishment indeed."

I wonder now, don’t you, if we had been preachers instead? Would Norman and I have found any more joy on a train bound for Glory?