Wisconsin Air (2005)
by Dan Senn

Spoken Narrative

"A few years ago I visited my parents in Wisconsin who were still living in the house I was raised up in. At lunch, in the kitchen, I looked out the window into the back yard which was covered with autumn leaves. In the middle of the lawn there were two white enameled objects which I asked my Mother about. She said that they were the old bathtub and sink­that they had remodeled the downstairs bathroom. After eating I walked out to have a closer look and found that these were the same bathtub and sink I had washed in while growing up and then thinking how these sort of things fetched a good price back in Portland. Very old. As I inspected them, my eyes traced their features with a familiarity that had not dulled over thirty years. The scratches. The brown stains. The faucets and drains. Every detail. I had forgotten nothing of these obscure objects which I had not seen for thirty years. Strangely entranced, after looking around, I considered climbing inside the tub but the neighbors were probably watching. It was like that here. Already I had heard a man shout at his big dog after it had barked at me. Soon, under the cover of sunning myself, I pulled up a plastic lawn chair and in the warm October sun, I sat and gazed at these childhood artifacts. Memories, some intimate, flooded my mind. I remembered once putting bath oils in the water and afterwards slipping and hitting my head hard on the side of tub. We never did have a shower. I remembered never locking the door until I was about thirteen when I started to need privacy. I remembered stuffing a rolled up wash cloth in the overflow drain and then filling the tub to the brim with water so hot that it took me five minutes to inch in. About stepping out of the boiling tub onto the cold linoleum floor to pee in the nearby toilet. About soaking for hours until my fingers were wrinkled and the water turned cold. About hearing my parents fighting and shouting in the other rooms and all the knocks from my five brothers and sisters asking when I would get out. The memories were as fresh as the Wisconsin air. "

"Then I got up and walked 'round the bathtub to view the sides which had been hidden against the walls. These were painted unfamiliar colors and were chipped and pealing. Lying on the leafy ground now, and giving the neighbors something more to talk about, I looked even closer at the sides and bottom of the tub, and then at the back of the sink where I read the letters "M and M." Hmmmmm. How curious. While in high school, I knew a group of clich-ish girls, the daughters of teachers and shop keepers in our small town­girls known for being well-behaved and good students. I was attracted to them because they were pretty but mostly because they had come from well-organized and quiet homes with books and where old bathtubs and sinks would have never been thrown out on the back lawn. Even so, for some inexplicable reason, while driving around with a friend, it occurred to me to call this group the "M & M" girls, a monicker that soon became popular. Often asked what it meant, I said I didn't know, which only added to the interest. And I really didn't know. Just some rediculous nonsequitur which seemed to perfectly characterize a group of people without knowing why. And now, here, these same letters were molded into the sink's casting and for a moment I fancied that they had been the source of the mysterious name all along. As if I had been influenced by what I could not see in a room where, afterall, I had spent lots of time thinking of girls. Or, perhaps, as if I had visited my future and somehow taken back with me this fragment of what I was seeing now. Then the neighbors dog suddenly yelped and I rolled to a sitting position. After a bit, I rose to my feet, brushed myself clean, and walked slowly toward the house. The back porch was falling down these days. The roof leaned to the north and was detached on one side. The concrete base was cracked widely exposing and an ancient cistern filled with broken bricks. As I opened the screen door, there was my Mother. Old now, she asked if I would like a cup of coffee. She too had been watching." (DS, July 15, 2005, Beaverton)

TOC | Introduction | Director Statement | Clip | Dan Senn