The Washcloth

"Mom, can I take a shower today?" I was ten now, and had graduated from taking a bath, but as it was still new to me, I still had to ask permission.

She was curled up on the couch, basking in the glow of God's warmth, reading a passage from the Holy Bible. Mildly irritated by my interruption, she turned and peered at me over her teardrop shaped reading glasses, lips squinched together like she had just eaten a grape after brushing her teeth. "Ok, but make sure to wash your ears."

"Ok, thanks Mom."

"I will be checking, so make sure you do it right."

That was her thing lately, my ears. They had to be clean, and try as I did, they never passed inspection; her temperature rose with each successive failure.

The water was heavenly. The steaming jet stream soaked my long moppish hair and trickled over my body like warm plaster, spackling over my goosebumps that popped away like champagne bubbles. I twisted the yellow bar of Dial soap, with that distinct, bright odor, into a coarse red washcloth I held in my left hand. The water saturated the cloth and allowed it to relax from it's contorted shape, freeing it from it's rigor mortis; it was revitalized now with an angry mouthful of soap suds, looking like the gaping maw of a rabid dog.

The sun outside fell past the horizon as dusk banished the world to shadow. I called out, "Ok mom, I'm done!"

She marched through the bathroom door with her arms crossed behind her, one hand holding the other wrist. "Let's just see how you look." She pinched my ear closest to her and peeled it down. She growled, "This is FILTHY!"

She jerked my head around and yanked at the other ear. "My God Scott, what is it going to take!"

Her head whipped towards the back of the shower where the washcloth dangled expectantly on a rung. She pointed and screeched, "Give me that. Apparently you need to be shown!" The bathroom light was occluded by the back of her head, casting her face into a dark mask, but her ears were glowing and transparent like crimson embers. She forced me into the tub basin and sawed back and forth on top of my ear. The washcloth bit into my skin like sandpaper to paraffin wax as she scrubbed mercilessly; she switched to the other ear and repeated her vicious assault.

She was insane, like Lady Macbeth, trying to wash away a terrible blot on her soul. Was she washing away my sins? Hers? My dads? I stopped flailing, as my resistance was only fueling her madness. Both ears were bleeding when her killing fever passed, as her eyes registered her return to control and the auspices of God, who would surely forgive her. I never told my father, nor did I ever forget to wash my ears again.