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Josie didn’t want to get in the portable toilet with PJ. She went earlier and told PJ to go earlier too, and now Josie had a soft pretzel and wasn’t about to get in the germ-infested toilet. Not going to happen. PJ’s hunched figure might be waving someone else over.
The opening act started on stage a few minutes ago, drawing the last few straggles away from the toilets and food carts. Warm bodies brushed past Josie, parting like water around her still form as she held her pretzel with both hands and ignored PJ’s frantic waving. Everyone looked past her at some far-off point on the stage like Josie was invisible.
“Would you get over here please?” PJ stage-whispered, eyes darting at uncaring people who moved in between her and Josie. “This is fucking serious, ok? Would you please? It’ll take one fucking second.”
Inhaling through her nose and then holding her breath, Josie ducked between people until she stood a few feet in front of the row of blue port-a-potties, PJ hanging out of one as if it were her front door and Josie was a Jehovah’s Witness who she’d just bothered.
“Where’s your other shoe?” Josie asked, glancing behind PJ at the looming toilet rim. A warmth seemed to emanate from the toilets, the air thicker. “You know what, forget I asked.”
PJ cocked her head, face falling as flat as her tone. “You’re really going to strand me here? Ok, enjoy the concert on your own.”
Josie shrugged with her soft pretzel. Raising her voice to be heard over the opening act, which heavily featured a saxophone solo apparently, Josie said, “Forget about it. Being barefoot at a concert is like really hip right now, I think.”
PJ stalked out of the port-a-potty, hair flipping back and forth in its high ponytail. Sweat matted the top of her hair to her forehead and dotted along her cheeks. She’d worn a long-sleeved shirt despite Josie’s warnings of the forecasted heat. “These shoes cost like thirty dollars, Josie, I’m not just going to forget about it. You’re always saying you’re taller than me so prove it: grab my shoe.”
“First of all, I am taller than you, just objectively—”
“Your hair is taller than me.”
“And secondly, you won’t even be able to wear your shoe if I pull it out of there. It’s got shit and chemicals in there.”
The crowd continued to grow over Josie’s shoulder and her pretzel began to harden as it cooled off. Her legs itched from wading through the knee-high grass of the parking lot to get to the flat dirt venue.
PJ stared at her. The saxophone solo ended.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll look and see how far down it is. I’m not promising to stick my arm down there though.”
The sharp smell of chemicals stung, making it feel like her nose hairs were burnt off just by inhaling. The shuffling of their feet echoed off the narrow walls and low, sun-bleached ceiling. Josie tucked her elbows close to her sides and hugged her pretzel to her chest as she leaned over the toilet seat.
“Oh yeah, that’s in there,” she said. The shoe sat, half submerged, in the blue liquid that was currently killing their braincells. “You’re lucky it didn’t sink to the bottom.”
PJ adjusted beside her, jostling her arms, almost knocking her pretzel into the waiting mouth of the toilet. “So, you can get it?”
“I never said that.”
“But you can?”
Josie considered it. She’d have to put her whole arm down there and she knew from earlier that there was no sink on the venue, just giant bottles of hand sanitizer. The bottle in this toilet had had its top screwed off and was half empty.
Eyes sliding from the dark, half-submerged shoe to PJ’s bare foot standing on the hot plastic floor, Josie shoved a huge bite of pretzel into her mouth before thrusting what remained at PJ. PJ took the pretzel and backed up, offering Josie a wide berth.
The skin on Josie’s forearm prickled with goosebumps as she removed her bracelet and shoved it into her pocket. The rectangle of bright yellow light that had been illuminating the toilet like a spotlight vanished. PJ had closed the door, trapping them with the moist air.
“Why’d you do that?” Dots of sweat grew on Josie’s upper lip. “This thing is an oven.”
PJ raised her eyebrows as if it were obvious. “So that no one sees you sticking your hand down a toilet? Do you want to be known as toilet girl? Because I don’t want that for you.”
Josie held her eye a moment before nodding. “Good call.”
The air thickened the further down the toilet her hand went. She kept her arm firmly in the center, not wanting to risk getting anything wet on her arm, but the air itself felt palpable, pressing on her skin like a warm breath.
Her tongue escaped her mouth to lick away the salty perspiration on her lip. It tasted like chemicals too.
The tips of her fingers scratched across the canvas of the shoe. She couldn’t see what she was reaching for anymore, the rim of the seat almost touching her shoulder. PJ rushed forward to hold Josie’s hair back to avoid touching the seat.
“Do you have it?” she asked, pushing to her toes and peering down as if she could see through Josie’s body and into the hole. “Can you get it?”
“Almost,” Josie choked out, scissoring her index and middle finger to try to catch the material between them.
While her right ear could only hear her own echoed breathing in the toilet, her left ear searched passed PJ’s constant shifting and found the music outside. The second song was coming to a close, the audience singing along so loudly she couldn’t hear the artists.
“If I miss Straight to the Thought I’ll never forgive you,” Josie said, pressing her lips together and lunging her arm further down, hair brushing the seat now.
“If I make you miss Straight to the Thought I’ll never forgive myself. Now hurry up.”
Channeling all her strength as a lesbian, Josie scissored harder. The material caught between her fingers and like a tentative claw machine, she raised her whole arm out, keeping her hand rigidly in place. It crossed the threshold.
“Grab it, grab it!”
PJ snatched the shoe away from the toilet and hugged it to her chest. The blue stains on the bottom half of the shoe pressed into PJ’s shirt, marking it up too. Still, her shoulders sagged in relief.
From the ground, Josie held a hand up. “Pretzel?”
Once they both stood facing the door, Josie adjusted her hair and nodded at P.J. who reached for the handle. She twisted and pushed. The door didn’t open. She twisted further and pushed harder. The plastic bent under the force, but the door remained closed.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Bracing her hands against each of the walls, PJ reared back and launched her foot at the door. The whole unit shook. The door didn’t budge. She kicked again and again and again. At one point, her kicking fell in time with the beat of the music outside.
“Ok, alright, this isn’t working!” Josie grabbed PJ’s shoulders to still her.
“You’re free to try something,” PJ said, out of breath, waving Josie off toward the door as she retreated a few inches back into the unit.
Josie scrutinized the door, handle, and lock. Shoving the rest of her pretzel into her mouth, she spoke around it, muffling her voice like the music. “Yeah, I’ve got this.”
She calmly turned the handle and pressed just above where the lock would be. The resistance held her upright. Dropping to her knee, she closed one eye and followed the seam where the door met the wall, a thin stripe of light bleeding through. The light stopped at one point. The lock.
“It’s locked,” she said.
“Uh, yeah? I think we already knew that?”
“No, I mean the handle is broke or something because its still locked even though the handle is turned.”
PJ huffed behind her. “And that helps us how?”
“If we could get something small enough, I could wedge it in there and lift the lock up.”
Josie turned around and raised her eyebrows at PJ who raised her eyebrows right back.
“What?”
“Do you have anything small?”
PJ waved her hands around, stained shoe still clutched between her fingers. “Sorry, I forgot my collection of small stuff in the car.”
Josie bit her lip, considering the door again. She pressed her finger against the seam between the door and wall. Her finger didn’t fit and she quickly adjusted her hair, looking at the floor a moment.
“Seriously? And you’re acting like my idea to kick the door down was stupid?”
Bumping into PJ as she backed away from the door, Josie ducked her head. “Please, continue.”
Again, the kicking fell in time with the muffled music from the concert. Josie bobbed her head to it all, already having missed three songs. PJ started grunting and huffing with each kick, red in the face, before screaming and attacking the door with her shoulder and fists.
“This fucking door!” One final, spiteful kick. “Why does a bathroom need to be built like Fort fucking Knox?”
Josie swiped a hand across her brow to prevent sweat rolling into her eyes. A few seconds later the sweat appeared again. She drew in a deep breath, the back of her mind alarmed she no longer registered the sharp sting of chemicals. “Nobody’s ever died in one of these before, right?”
“Think we would’a heard about that.” PJ leaned a heavy shoulder against the hot, plastic wall. She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows, cheeks flushed with exertion. “It’d be fitting for us though.”
A smile tugged at Josie’s mouth like a fishing hook had gotten caught on the edge of it. “It would be kinda funny. Better to die locked in here than of something boring like…fucking…cancer.”
Wide-eyed, PJ stared at her before a smile flashed across her face. “You’re awful, anyone ever told you that?”
“Yeah, someone.”
PJ reached back to adjust her ponytail, bracelets sliding down her forearms and gathering at her elbows. “Sounds like that someone—wait, shut up!”
Having been best friends for so many years, Josie knew better than to inform PJ she’d just told herself to shut up. Instead, she raised her eyebrows in a question.
The look of devastation that passed over PJ’s face made Josie’s stomach clench. Lips pressed in a thin line, eyes round in apology. Josie didn’t hear it yet, but she knew PJ heard the worst thing she could at this exact moment other than a bulldozer—the first notes of Straight to the Thought.
“Do you wanna punch me?” PJ whispered, wringing her hands. “You can. I won’t do anything.”
Even through the warm plastic walls, Josie’s heart sped up at the sound of the opening piano notes. She had a theory that every few years you come across a song that sounds just right to your brain; a song that can do no wrong because it unlocks the perfect mixture of chemicals in your brain.
With Straight to the Thought starting, she no longer cared about being stuck in a portable bathroom. For the next three minutes and fifteen seconds her brain chemicals would be perfectly balanced.
She waved P.J. over. “Here, just sit down for a second.”
Knees jammed against each other, they lowered to the ground, backs pressing tight to the walls. PJ’s eyes continued to stray toward the toilet seat now at eyelevel with them, but Josie kept her focus on PJ and the muffled song.
“At least we’re avoiding the crowd this way,” PJ said, starting to bob her head to the rhythm.
“Your optimism is weird,” Josie said back.
Soon their shoulders swayed to the music. They propped their wrists on their raised knees and flicked their hands to the song, Josie pointing at different heights at each different note as if she were conducting the band.
They mouthed the lyrics, but didn’t dare sing for fear of not hearing the actual singer. They’d heard their own rendition of the song hundreds of times; it was the artist’s turn to shine in their lives.
And shine they did.
The live transition from Straight to the Thought to the next song of the album was so smooth Josie didn’t realize it ended until a few seconds later. Crammed together, PJ clunked her head against Josie’s.
“You ready to get outta here?”
“Oh yeah.”
They tried the door again. It stayed shut.
“Yeah, I don’t know why I thought it would open this time.” PJ went back to kicking the door.
“Help!” Josie yelled, banging on the walls. “Help us! We’re young and stuck in here!”
“I know you hear us!” PJ screamed, growling in anger as she thrust her foot at the lock. “You’re fucking bigots and that’s why you won’t help us!”
“Ok, ok, we don’t mean that!” Josie yelled to their invisible audience outside. “We don’t mean that! We appreciate you! Please help us out of here!”
“Or you’re a fucking bigot!”
“Stop helping,” Josie hissed at PJ. Glancing up, Josie noticed a seam running along the roof of the structure. “Here, I have an idea. Gimme a hand.”
Clunkily, Josie climbed onto the toilet seat and, with one hand braced against PJ’s head, pushed at the edge of the roof. It lifted, wobbled, then clunked back into place. Josie bit her lip and pushed harder.
The white roof separated from the walls, lifting up and listing to the side as Josie’s wrist bent under the weight. A waft of fresh, crisp air hit Josie’s face, sweat cold against her skin. The roof clunked back down, but far enough to the side to slide off the walls of its own weight.
“Motherfucking yes!” PJ said under Josie’s hand.
Josie scrambled up, stretching one leg up to get over the wall. Clutching the frame with a white-knuckle grip, she straddled the wall before leaning and, much like the roof, sliding off the wall.
She landed in a tangle in the dirt, popping up and dusting it off with quick open-palmed hits to her clothing. The air she’d previously thought of as stifling now felt cool in her lungs. Before she could rush to the front of the porta-potty to try the lock from outside, PJ’s fingers curled around the edge of the wall.
The muscles in Josie’s calves ached as she stretched them to reach PJ. “Little more, little more.” One of PJ’s hands disappeared a moment. Her blue-stained shoe flew overhead, kicking up dust as it skidded to a halt a few feet away.
Following Josie’s form, PJ clung to the wall and got one leg over before sliding off. Josie tried to catch her and they both ended up in the dirt. Josie had never felt closer to nature.
“Is the concert over?” PJ asked, standing with a groan and lending a hand to Josie. She retrieved her shoe, hopping in place as she shoved it back onto her bare foot.
They limped out front of their prison. The music grew louder and clearer as they approached. A crowed bounced in place in front of a low-set stage where the band screamed their heart out into the mic.
“We didn’t miss it.” Josie said it in a daze, starting toward the stage as if drawn by a magnet. PJ followed. “I thought for sure you messed this up for us.”
PJ scoffed, tightening her ponytail again. “Name one time I messed anything up for us?”
Josie smirked. “Where do I start?”
As they shoved their way into the crowd, PJ elbowed Josie. She had to yell to be heard over the music, so loud it made the earlier music feel like a dream. “Thanks.”
Josie offered a real smile before rolling her eyes. “Obviously.”