The Shower

For the last year or two of college, I lived in a small room attached to a garage at the back of a house on Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena. I’d been living in a room of the main house for a year and leaped at the opportunity for more privacy. The room was tiny — but I didn’t have much stuff and it had its own bathroom. It was just right for me. There was only one thing that was a little disagreeable, and it had to do with the shower. I remember when I took my first shower. There were the usual two temperature-control knobs but only one of them, the one on the right, was fitted with a fawcett handle. It had an H on it. This was kind of puzzling, as in the US the hot faucet is always on the left and the cold faucet is always on the right. I thought to myself, well, there’s one handle for two knobs, so I guess you adjust the water temperature by putting the handle on the left or right knob. The handle came off easily, so I switched it to the left knob and it worked. It wasn’t great to take a shower there because the water never got very hot. At best, it was tepid, which wasn’t bad as this was Pasadena. I’d leave the water running for a while before I jumped into the shower (which in retrospect was something of a sin, seeing’s how this was southern California). I’ve got lots of happy memories of that little room — I remember listening to the radio there and feeling a special connection to the unforgettable counter-culture show Retch along with Mitch on KPFK. That was where I learned to play the guitar — “studyin’ hard and hopin’ to pass” (C. Berry). There was some sadness when, at the end of the year, I slept in my little place one final time. I got up in the morning and took my shower as usual. But it wasn’t quite as usual. I don’t know what made me do it but I took the handle, which had been on the left since I’d put it there on the first day, and placed it on the right knob. Turning it, I was stunned when, within a matter of seconds, a stream of hot water came from the shower head.