When Martin handed me his underpants.
#1
When Martin handed me his underpants
I didn't look at them too closely
and I wasn't thinking analytically
he’d asked me to hand wash a few items for him
in his bathroom
and I had only done that for him once before
a couple of years previously
and from what I remember
it was pretty normal
at the time
now the thing is
Martin occasionally asks me
to take some clothes to the Launderette for him
and I do that
but there's never many clothes
and there's never any kind of
and there's never any kind of
strong or pronounced soiling or odour
on any of the items he gives me
they all seem pretty clean okay
but today
he gave me two things to wash that seemed quite clean
relatively clean as usual
that was a shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms
so I put them into a washing up bowl in the bath
with some laundry liquid and some water
and I put them on to soak
and then he gave me a pair of Y-Fronts
now the thing about these Y-Fronts is that they were dark
originally
possibly black or navy blue
the thing is
I wasn't looking too closely
or trying to work out what colour they were
or indeed necessarily seeking to discern
anything particularly about them
but evidently the gusset area
or whatever you call it
the crotch area was very dirty
profoundly soiled with something
I don't know how to describe it
because I didn't look at any of it
with an analytical or with an investigatory
eye at the time
I think that I thought that possibly
that these underpants were soiled with feces
I mean I think that that's what I thought at first
but anyway I put them into the sink in the bathroom
and I put some water in with them
and I started to try and to rinse them out
to get rid of the matter
that made them so stiff and heavy
well I didn't rinse them easy
but the thing is that they took a lot of rinsing
the water was going brown and browner all the time
as I manipulated them
but the thing about this brownness in the water
is that it wasn't really feces at all
there was no feces in these underpants
obviously you know as a home care worker
I'm familiar with feces
I know what it's like
and I know what washing things that are soiled with feces is like
and what it involves
in relation to the senses
so it wasn't that
anyway so with repeated washing
when I say washing look
I'm swishing these things around in the sink right
I'm swishing these things around in the sink over and over again
you know, draining the water, putting new water, swishing them around
and then there is this endless brownness
that keeps on coming
that never goes away
this brown color is coming
into the water on and on
and you know
the underpants
these dark navy or black underpants
are kind of bleached in the area
you know, where most of this soiling is originating
the colour of the material is annihilated where
most of this soiling is
which is obviously you know
in the gusset area or whatever you want to call it right
and they're kind of sort of bleached where the
you know
the urine has acted with a ferocious
or with a remorseless concentrated chronic intensity
this is what I'm thinking right
its evaporated urine the solid concentrated residue
what I feel like I had in that sink was a pair of y-fronts
that had been worn every day for several years straight
and never washed
at all
that's what I think I was encountering
so after these protracted rinsings
and drainings of the water
fresh water
swish them around
and the brown keeps coming right
but it's not feces
the brown keeps coming and then you know
I soak them in bleach
I start using bleach
once you know
I've gone through this with the rinsing and the draining
and the rinsing and the draining
I start you know using bleach
and I'm soaking them in bleach and then rinsing them and doing it again
and eventually
the brown keeps on coming
I left them in the sink in the bathroom with a lot of bleach
and then I went out to the shops with Martin
and we bought some stuff in the shops
and when we came back
I put his lunch into the oven and then
I carried on the process
I rinsed them out drained them rinsed them drained them
and still the water is going brown brown brown
but I'm thinking that this brown color
right
is not feces
I know it isn't right
because I know what feces smells like
and it wasn't
it didn't really smell of that much
what I think it was was urea
reduced by evaporation
into a kind of persistent tar
I think that this was urea super-residue
brown tar
by the megaton
and you know so finally
after soaking in bleach a good few times
rinsing rinsing rinsing
eventually they started to rinse out clean
these underpants
you know with the water being somewhat
progressively clearer now
and then by this stage these black Y-fronts or navy Y-fronts
they look
they looked like they didn't have any
they looked like they'd been tie-dyed
there were areas where it was still black
and then there were all these
little white patches all over them
like tie-dyed
they'd been tie-dyed you know
with white areas
from bleach and from hyper-urea/tar residue
you know
so I didn't examine them that closely
but really
as far as I can see
what I hand washed today was a pair of Y-fronts
that had been worn every day for several years without washing
likely since when Martin’s mother died
she would not have let him do that
look Martin never cleans his teeth
not ever
I asked him
he told me that he cleans his teeth
every morning
from eating cheese and crackers
that is how it is.
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