My grandmother lived in one of those white houses designed to catch the slightest breeze during South Carolina’s endless hot and humid summers. She lived with my uncle, aunt, and cousins, who built the house over the years. A screened-in back porch wrapped around the kitchen and rear bedroom.
That porch contained all sorts of things, including tools, a washing machine, and a large freezer. Pumpkins and strings of homegrown peppers hung from the rafters. The ubiquitous garbage pail was just below the kitchen window, which opened onto the porch. The pigs loved seeing that bucket until they ended up in Uncle Henry’s heavy black pot of hashish.
Indoor plumbing arrived, replacing the old outhouse. But when I woke up during the night, I was afraid to look for that bathroom, with its pink tub and sink. He knew the way to the old latrine. I had nightmares about falling into that garbage can.
It was not easy to find that elegant room to go to the bathroom in the dark. It was on the far left side of the porch. Going to the bathroom meant getting out of a high wrought-iron bed and groping around the kitchen and porch without waking anyone.
There were no lights at night. The farmers needed a good night’s rest and the rooster crowed early. To make matters worse, the bathroom was right next to the bedroom window, which of course was usually open. So what you had to do, you did as quietly as possible.
When several families came to visit, four large wrought-iron beds were piled into that bedroom, where my parents, aunts, and uncles slept. The children slept where there was space in other places. I was the youngest cousin, and I was usually in bed with Grandma.
This was all very well until one particular night. Aunt Lois needed that back porch bathroom. She arrived fine. But crawling back into the right bed was a problem, a big problem, as it turned out. It was completely dark in that bedroom, with four practically identical brothers, two of them twins, sleeping soundly. That is, they were until Aunt Lois came back and put her knee on what she thought was her own bed.
The problem was that his knee was not on the bed. She was on Uncle Henry’s chest. And Uncle Henry wasn’t Aunt Lois’s man, he was Uncle Jake. My dear aunt was a big woman with a strong voice. Poor unsuspecting Uncle Henry, with the sudden onset of pain and immense pressure, woke up screaming, certain that he was dying of a heart attack. Aunt Lois rumbled, “Jake, where are you? Jake, where are you?”, her knee still firmly planted on Uncle Henry’s chest.
Chaos ensued. Everyone in the house woke up from their dream. But help did not come for a simple reason. No one could stop laughing. Laughing out loud Fortunately, someone finally turned on a light and fixed things. Uncle Henry’s heart immediately returned to normal once his injured knee was in its proper bed.
Everything was finally fine again. I don’t remember going back to sleep that night. As for going back to the back porch bathroom? Advantage, toilet!
