I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. To celebrate the good times. That there’s a party going on and that it’s going on right here.
So come on.
I first heard ole Kool and the Gang twenty-five years ago, in the nights I used to flare my collar and dance until the polyester of my shirt looked metallic from the amount of sweat underneath. Now, for some reason, they’re on the oldies station. Go figure.
This week Kool was playing in my car as I burned through yellow lights on my way home from work. I hadn’t peed all day. Or yesterday. Or the day before.
Every time I tried, it would come in squirt-gun spurts like from a mister, and then it wouldn’t come at all. No matter how hard I squeezed or relaxed or just stood there, I was milking an empty well.
This time I could feel the relieving pressure pushing on my bladder until I slightly dripped in my underwear. This time, I was ready to pop if I could just race home quick enough. If I could just get home and run straight to the can. If nothing stopped me.
“Surprise!”
It was my fifty-sixth birthday party, and all the pompous and smiling faces of friends and family were blocking the path from my front door to the john. All of them wishing me a great birthday. My kids saying congratulations. My wife telling me she loves me.
I could still feel the pressure, pushing my crotch lower to the ground, but I knew I couldn’t go anymore. I knew it was too late.
Because there’s a party going on and it’s going on right here.
“You know, you really should call the doctor,” my wife said later that night as I wobbled back to bed from the bathroom and another fifteen-minute session of wag and wait.
“Thank you, Sarah,” I mumbled, crawling in and rolling over.
“It’s not healthy, you know,” she said, resting her most recent issue of O magazine on her lap. “You should be flowing freely.”
“Thank you,” I grumbled, bunkering deeper under my covers. Maybe if I put enough blankets between us, she wouldn’t feel it if I managed to wet myself during the night.
I could only hope.
“And besides,” she said, her stare pressing into my back, pushing on my kidneys. “You should have at least started getting checked ten years ago. You’re not that young anymore.”
I was still young.
Sure, a little bit of gut hung over the belt, but no more than any other guy my age. In fact, if you asked me, I would say less than other guys. Sarah and I were still having sex twice a month. I still had my hair. Most of it, at least.
This was nothing. Stage fright, at best.
Sarah woke up before I did the next morning and called the doctor. She drove me to the appointment under false pretenses of going to the Home Depot and an RV show. And then there I was, alone in the examining room, the doctor smearing Vaseline on his latex glove.
Overhead, the oldies station vibrated in the background from the speaker in the ceiling. Otis Redding faded out about a dock on the bay and the DJ started giving away tickets for a band that broke up twenty years ago but just got back together.
With a pinch, I started feeling bad for all those times I used to beg Sarah, early in our marriage.
And then those drums. Then that guitar. Those horns.
Good ole Kool and the good ole Gang.
The doctor paused just slightly enough to make it awkward. Just keep going, Doc, I thought. I’ll celebrate those good times when I find them.
Right now I’m getting too old.
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