It's the stink of blood and chemicals, I think, as I bounce my knee impatiently on the thin brown carpet pulled tightly against the floor like the last remaining lifeboat in an impossible ocean of dirty, hidden linoleum. The blood is in tiny transparent tubes and is kept in oxygenless chambers and is used for medical research only. Every time the door opens and a blue or green scrubsed woman peeks out or around the window my eyes dart up and the bounce in my leg stops. They say someone else's name (Frank, Marv, Sheila) and the bouncing resumes. I get used to the stink.

A man sits in front of me with a cane and one leg. Another man is next to him and from time to time they discuss what it is they are here for. The other man reassures the one-legged man that he's sure they'll find the record and that everything will be "hunky dory." I imagine the men are not co-workers in some nameless assembly line, but are in fact lovers comforting one another in a life that can only be considered "the long haul." On weekends they go down to Silver Lake and feed seed to geese and smile at one another warmly. Their frosty demeanor is all a show for these stiffs in this room, on these red cushioned chairs, in this office that hasn't been redecorated since the 1980s. They sleep in the spoon position, nuzzling deeply, breathing in the other's tiny, tiny particles. They share Thanksgivings and give thanks for each other. It is this fact, real or imagined, that turns them from lovers into partners.

"Robert Evers?"

"Yes."

"Right this way."

The blond nurse with the crimped hair who looks like a Tammy or a Stacy leads me to the rest room marked "Men" and gives me quickly a series of instructions. They are too quick and I try to follow them all, but the first is arbitrary and thinking of it now distracts me from hearing the rest. I hang my coat on the hook, like she says. She tells me the water is off, so I cannot "wash my flesh" but to just "fill it to the black line" and "bring it out when I'm done."

I uncomfortably lean over the cold porcelain toilet with a foggy plastic cup. I notice that there is in fact water in the toilet and realize that the water couldn't be off, as she said. Why did she tell me the water was off? Maybe she told me the water was off so I wouldn't try to use it to dilute the urine by dipping the cup into it. Fair enough, I suppose, but could there have been a better way to prevent this than lying to my face?

I have spent the day consuming liquids (Pepsis, waters, juices) and have had to urinate for the last four hours. Now that I am standing with the tip of my tiny, flaccid penis touching a foreign plastic object, I experience performance issues. I make it to the top of the black line, and then pull my hand away to empty the majority of my freight into the toilet. Out of fear, I pee the rest into the cup, a little bit over the black line.

Placing the cup on the lid of the tank, I flush the toilet and slowly button my shirt, eyeing my reflection in the mirror in front of me. Who is this boyman? Is this the one that once looked disheveled but is now shaven and ready to take the world face-first? Is this the man who at seventeen caressed the bare buttocks of a girl his own age for one summer for lack of anything better to do? Is this the man who, out of pride, refused to sell air filters to strangers, entering their closets and criticizing their vacuums? Is this the man who at 8:30 this morning awoke, showered, so he could be told an hour later all he had to do for employment at a corporate giant superstore was pee into a tiny plastic cup?

My thoughts are interrupted by Tammy or Stacy or Maureen who opens the door and, insulted, tells me that she told me not to wash my flesh, told me to bring the cup right out. Defensively, I tell her she told me that the water was off, I didn't wash my flesh at all, I was just buttoning my shirt. That she didn't tell me to "bring it right out" but just… "out." Can a boyman not have a moment to button his shirt after peeing into his foggy cup, Tammy?

She takes the cup of my urine to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what with it. There is tension between us. Not the good sexual tension you see in meet-cutes of romantic comedies that leads to us making spaghetti and then babies (in that order). Nay, the kind of tension that burns buildings down and crumples highways into blown-out candle wicks. In this moment, and for several hours after, I hate Tammy or Stacy or Dorothy, for giving me too many instructions too quickly, for not being understanding. For talking to me as if I should already know what I'm doing, for being impatient with me for not knowing what to do. For placing too much importance on arbitrary details, for confusing me with her lies. She returns, with a small amount of my urine still in the plastic cup. I am apparently an overachiever around these parts. "Alright, we'll just send that to the lab." She hands me the remainder.

"What should I do with this?" I ask, not wanting to get anything wrong.

"Dump it in the toilet," she says.

I do. "What should I do with this?" I motion to the empty cup.

"Throw it away."

I throw it in the wastebasket in the bathroom. I come out. "Now what?"

"You can finish up if you want."

Finish up? "What do you mean?"

Judging me, "Don't you want to wash your flesh?"