(Note: This is an old performance piece of mine. Entirely too much of this story is true.)
I can feel it, somewhere near the end, bubbling and churning, anxious to breathe, but not yet. I have a few moments before I’ll have to get out of my chair and start my trek down the long hallway to the restroom. I’m at the office, and my mind begins negotiations with my ass. “Can you wait? Can you make it for a few more moments until today’s deadline? If you can hold it for 10 more minutes, you will be able to make it home, where the toilet paper won’t chafe.” To which my buttocks replied, “You know I’m sensitive. You already went earlier this morning after you got here and two dumps in a row with the one-ply sandpaper they provide … to put it short, I promise blood if you do that to me again.”
I have no answers. I try to concentrate on the front page. Five minutes to deadline and Terry needs any errors marked. I got it one minute ago. Six minutes to proofread everything on the front page of the newspaper. Why am I doing this?
“You done yet?”
Terry needs it now. One minute to proof the front page. He expects me to proof a damn paper when I’ve got a stew brewing in the basement, homemade chili nearly spilling out of the pot. My mind quickly flashes to an image from a television show where insects, worms and scorpions were put through a meat grinder, the black, eviscerated remains dripping from one end into a contestant’s mouth.
I look at the secondary picture, a llama playing with children. We had another llama picture yesterday, one of the owner trying to get it back on the trailer to drive away from the school. The owner came in later that day and requested a meeting with Terry. Terry came back ten minutes later to ask if I had any more pictures.
“The owner said the one we ran misrepresented llamas. They aren’t ordinarily stubborn. So we’ll do a correction in tomorrow’s paper.”
At the time, I didn’t need to take a crap. I had time to do the mental gymnastics. You pansy-assed mutant son of a bitch. Misrepresenting llamas? You are freaking joking. The frickin llama was stubborn. Is shooting a picture of a house fire misrepresenting houses since they aren’t ordinarily on fire? Take your fucking llama and cram it up your ass.
What I said was, “I think I have another usable picture.”
So now the llama is on the front page again. And I have to seriously shit. Screw going home and screw the blood. I scan the headlines and hand it back to Terry with a word of advice about the main photo. “Perhaps there’s a better headline for the visiting missionary talking to a local school than “Priest reaches out and touches children.’ Just a suggestion.”
Getting up released some sphincter control, I can feel it poking out, touching cloth. I’m already late for my appointment with nature. I force it back in, quickly promising my ass relief, “I will give you all the Preparation-H you can handle if you just hold on.”
An old lady comes in before I can sprint off down the fifty-foot trek to the porcelain palace.
“Who does the obituaries?” She asks me.
Damn.
“I do.”
“I’d like to know something,” God, she’s going to drag this out in the same passive-aggressive way everyone in this fucking town does when they find something spelled wrong or disagree with the angle of a particular story.
“Yes?”
She has yesterday’s paper under her arm and unfolds it mercilessly slow. I grit my teeth in an effort to smile while I focus all energy on keeping the sphincter shut. She points to the obit. “Can you read this to me?”
“Doris Anderton, 88, of Harford Lake, died Tuesday…”
“That’s enough,” she says, smugly triumphant.
Sweat begins to gather on my eyebrows. My eyes start to water. I imagine asking her if the person was actually alive. But instead…
“What?”
“The copy I wrote said she went to meet her heavenly father.”
“Christ.”
“Yes, you remember.”
“Look, it’s standard policy, we change everything to died.” I’m losing control, in more ways than one. “We try to base this paper on fact, and we don’t know if this person went to meet her heavenly father, stress on the heavenly. From what I heard, she was secretly stitching satanic prayers into her doilies.”
I leave her. Terry can handle it. I have business to attend to. Terry tries to call after me, but I keep going, talking out loud all the way. “Screw you, screw this job that pays less than retail, screw this fucking town where everyone’s a critic, screw everybody.”
I’m still talking when I get to the bathroom, fling the door open, get in the stall, drop my pants without unbuttoning them and let it all go. The first wave splashes water back on my butt cheeks. My stomach drops an inch. My feet go numb. Goosebumps rise on my arms. I find myself wishing bidets were more common in the states. The last of the solid matter drops. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and take a few deep breaths. I can feel the next wave coming, the liquid wave. It flows out and sounds like a horse pissing into a pond. I begin to get dizzy and the stall becomes dark, but my head hits the metal door and knocks me back to the present before I can fall to the floor. I even feel my heart stop for a few seconds. Visions of wide meadows, long grass stinging me as I run through in the soft autumn breeze, deer lapping up water from a tiny brook before heading off to hump among the aspens. My personal musk rises from below, filling my nostrils with a heavenly scent. The tension in my neck melts away and I have trouble keeping my head from dropping to my chest as a low moan passes through my lips. “God, yes. Jesus. Oh man. Son of a bitch.” Drool runs down my chin.
I hear the door to the restroom open and Terry’s voice over the top of the stall. I can tell he’s speaking through the neck of his shirt.
“Holy Mary, it smells like burnt batteries. You in here?”
“Yes, God yes.” Another solid one hits the deck.
“I’m going to have to let you go you know, after that.”
“Yes!”
That was the last one. I’m done. I sit back and rest my head against the wall while craving a cigarette. My legs quiver as I look at the toilet paper dispenser. “Terry, could you do me a favor and grab a newspaper? It’s softer than this stuff.”
No comments:
Post a Comment