Trapped in the Shitter

We were in Hội An, on our second week of touring around central and southern Vietnam with Rosie’s dad and her step-mom, over for a visit from Canada, and after two weeks of responsible evenings, I had finally convinced Rosie that we would have an actual night out — so I started off the evening by dumping liquor into myself like a man possessed, drinking five double cocktails at dinner alone. Then, with the light still fading from the sky, it was time to head back to the hotel, because Rosie was tired.

“Do you really need another one?” Rosie asked, watching me go to the fridge.

“Thought we were partying tonight?”

“They’re old,” she said. “They don’t want to go out with us.”

“What about you?” I asked, cracking open my beer.

“I’m too tired,” she replied. “I’m just not feeling it.”

“Well, that’s because you’re boring.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t know if I can say it any more clearly than that.”

By that point, I was drunk enough to enjoy a little verbal jousting, but she wasn’t in the mood for that, either. She just quietly went to the bathroom and got ready for bed, while I balanced a can of Tiger on my stomach and listened to the AC groaning above my head, wondering if this was it — just another forgotten night, raging, silently, against the darkness of time — a lonely candle on a gentle river, a wavering heart in an empty room.

I could’ve gone out on my own, taken to the night like a shadow creature, chasing the voices of stories untold, but then I heard Rosie fumbling with the doorknob.

“Can you help me?” she asked. “The door won’t open.”

The knob twisted, but it felt weird, like nothing was connected inside. I tried it every which way, both pushing and pulling, but it wouldn’t open. She was stuck.

“For fuck’s sake,” she mumbled.

I had to cover my mouth so she wouldn’t hear me laughing. “I’ll go to the front desk,” I told her. “Stay right there.”

“Fuck you.”

The English-speaking staff weren’t there anymore, so I had to explain the problem to the sleepy maintenance guy. Frustrated, I waved for him to follow me to our room — around the pool and by the indoor waterfall — showing him with elaborate sign language that the door wouldn’t open.

“No work,” I said. “Không … work?”

He twisted the knob a few times, with a look on his face like he fully expected it would be that easy — like we were that stupid. Then he used a key and tried to unlock it, which made me laugh even harder, so he muttered some harsh Vietnamese at me and left.

“Where’s he going?” Rosie asked.

“Do you speak Vietnamese?”

She whimpered, “I don’t want to be in here.”

“I’ll mention that when he gets back.”

He arrived with a bucket of tools, and the first thing he tried was to use some pliers to twist the key even harder, which snapped it right in half.

“What’s he doing now?” Rosie asked.

“He just broke the key off inside the doorknob,” I told her, facing away he wouldn’t see me laughing.

“Oh my fucking god … just tell him to break the fucking door down.”

I got his attention and mocked like I would use my shoulder to break the door, but he gave me a dirty look and said, “You pay?”

I shrugged and went for a refill. Then I watched him unscrew the face-plate and try to disassemble the knob. Unfortunately, he soon realized knobs aren’t meant to be bypassed from the outside with just a flat-head screwdriver. I knew thirty minutes before he did what would have to happen — and the closer he got, the angrier he looked, until he finally grabbed a railroad spike and a mallet.

To make room, I brought my chair out into the hallway and stood on it to look in the tiny bathroom window, which was near the ceiling and barely large enough for a cat to escape from, let alone a human. “Get ready,” I said. “He’s about to wake up everyone.”

“What?”

Then the entire building rattled, and I had to close my eyes because there was dust floating off of the window ledge. Across the hall, a door flew open, and out came a large man in his underwear.

“People are trying to sleep!” he shouted, with a German accent.

Rosie stood on the toilet so her eyes peeked out of the window. “Sorry, sir, the doorknob for our bathroom broke and I’m stuck in here.” The man wobbled around for a few seconds, unsure how to respond. Then he backed into his room and closed the door.

I reached into the window and touched Rosie’s hand. “This is so exciting!”

“Fuck off,” she said. “Can you please just go and put your shoulder through this door?”

“I suggested that, but he told me we’d need to pay for it.”

“That’s fucking bullshit!” She leapt off of the toilet and tried as hard as she could to pull the doorknob off, growling like a starved pitbull. “Get me the fuck out of here!”

I went back inside the room and watched him beat the hell out of the railroad spike, but the door still wouldn’t open. After a while, he leaned down and spoke to Rosie: “Hello, you okay?”

“Yes,” Rosie replied.

“You sleep here tonight, okay? I come back tomorrow morning.”

“No!” she screamed, punching the door a few times. “Get me the fuck out of here! I am not staying here until the morning, and I don’t care if you have to break this fucking door! Get me out of here!”

He rubbed his forehead and started again, still muttering to himself. After a few more hits, it began to look like he was making progress, and I could see some light coming through. He tried to kick the door with his flip-flops, but it didn’t move, so he gestured for me to have a go. I crashed my shoulder into the door as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge at all.

“Motherfucker,” I said, still massaging my shoulder as a young backpacker poked his head in the room.

“What’s going on, mate?” he asked, looking and sounding rather Australian.

“My girlfriend’s stuck in the bathroom,” I told him. “The doorknob’s busted, so he’s trying to get her out of there. Sorry about all the noise.”

“Far out,” he said, looking at the tools splayed out on the floor. “Yeah, the missus and I were sleeping upstairs when we heard the loud crashing. Figured something was up if they were shaking the whole building like that. Man, this is wild.”

“Hello,” Rose said, speaking through the mangled innards of the doorknob. “Sorry about all of the noise.”

“Yeah, no worries,” he said. “Not like you tried to get stuck in there. Say, is it alright if I hang around to watch? I want to see how he does this, and it’s not like I’ll be sleeping through this, anyway.”

“The more the merrier,” I said. “Want a beer?”

“Actually, I do,” he replied.

As I handed him a Tiger from our fridge, the maintenance guy used his flashlight to look inside the doorknob, and I saw that it was hopeless. The latch wasn’t moving anymore, so he had no choice but to go through the wood and completely destroy the door. He must’ve realized the same thing, because he got into a low squat and put his face in his hands — pure defeat if I ever saw it.

“How long’s she been in there?” the Aussie asked.

“About an hour now,” I told him.

“Reckon he’s gonna have to go through the wood here in a bit.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I think he just realized that as well.”

We had to back up and give the maintenance guy some more space, because he had an even larger mallet now, and he looked about ready to murder us. For another hour or so, we watched as he beat the ever-loving shit out of the wood around the doorknob, raining splinters onto the tiled floor. Outside, in the hallway, random strangers were milling about, waiting for the noise to end. Then we listened to some drunk British girls, who were crying because their friend had locked them out of their room and was now sleeping with a guy they’d both been flirting with all night, which was, like, such a bitch move….

After a few more Tigers, the maintenance guy threw down his tools and gestured for me to give it another go with my shoulder, so I told Rosie, “Watch out, I’m coming in!” I was only joking, but I went straight through the door, and I almost smashed my face on the toilet.

“Holy shit,” I said, brushing myself off, “didn’t think I’d actually get in.” Then I stood up and smiled at Rosie. “Hi, darling — how’re you doing?”

“Better now,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“So that’s what you look like,” the Aussie said, peeking in and waving. “Alright, I’m gonna head upstairs to sleep now, but I’m glad you’re out safely. G’night, and nice to meet you!”

Rosie tried to thank the maintenance guy, but he wouldn’t even look at us, and he left as soon as he had his tools, leaving behind a pile of splinters and debris and empty cans. 

Turning off the lights, I tried to snuggle in next to Rosie, but she wanted nothing to do with me, so I gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “Well, that wasn’t boring.”

“Goodnight,” she said.

And as I fell asleep, drifting through memories and stories to be told, I saw a candle flickering in the darkness, and I smiled.