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THE GORKO’S WHOOPS SELECTION FOR 5-11 August

Fury of the Gorgons

By Steve Passey

‘Civilization rests on two things,’ said Hitzig; ‘the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?’
― Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels

To be a man is to conceal pain, and, if that pain is discovered, to brag about it.

I had been divorced for two years and on line-dating for about two-and-a-half when I had my first actual, in-person date. Her name was Sherri. We lived ninety-miles apart, so I went to her town. I’m a trucker, so I don’t mind driving. I’ve been by a thousand times. I took her to the Big Rig Hash House – breakfast served twenty-four-hours per day and always busy. Big parking lot, well-lit. I had read a little on-line about how to date on-line and I was mindful of women’s need for security. Many of them march back out into dimly lit lots with their car-keys clutched between their fingers. You understand.

Sherri showed up about five-foot two and two-hundred-and-forty pounds I’d guess, make-up done nicely and smelling of something floral or, more accurately, several-somethings floral. Good enough, I thought. A couple of years ago I’d not even have looked at the chubby little fucker at all, but right now she seemed kind of alright.

We ate and drank and talked about our children. I do not drink alcohol, so it was fountain sodas. I had some sort of hash with hollandaise, she had something with an extra side of bacon. She loved bacon. She had three daughters, or two, or some combination of daughters and nieces living with her. None seemed to have mental health problems or any form of criminal record. Sherri wasn’t looking for help, she said, she was looking to go out and date. Neither of us looked at our cell phones. Very civilized. I excused myself to use the washroom, and we finished up. I paid and tipped decently, but not ostentatiously. There’s another on-line tip for you: You are trying to be good for your date, and not trying to impress your server – in this case a girl with blue streaks in her hair, a bull-ring in her nose, and the name ‘Jem’ on her name tag. Made sense.

Save that for school, I said, in regards to the tip. If you want to work for NASA there’s a lot of school.

What, Jem said?

She left and I told Sherri, I don’t think she’s gonna make it, and we both laughed.

In the parking lot I walked her to her car, and she stood on tip-toe to hug me. I thanked her for the date. Being a gentleman entitles a man to no more than being a gentleman. It is its own reward.

On the way home my guts began to boil. Most unfortunate. I thought I could make it back to my place but as I began to have leg and lower back cramps from holding it back, I knew I’d have to look for a place to drop my pants and go go go until whatever it was that had set my insidey-parts to turmoil was done. There was a Gas and Go just off the highway at the halfway point. God help me, sweet relief was nigh.

I walked in and went up to the counter where Raj was working. I’d stopped here before and he recognized me.

I need a key to the bathroom, I said.

Raj went to get the key from the peg it hung on behind the counter.

You need to buy something, his wife said. The washroom key is for customers only. Nav, his wife, was sitting on a stool reading a magazine at the other end of the counter away from the till. I hadn’t seen her.

No purchase, no key, she said.

Raj looked at me and shrugged.

Are you really going to do this to me, I asked? I’ve been a good customer. C’mon man, we know each other.

Nav didn’t even look up from her magazine. Bangra played on the radio.

Goddamn it, I said. Goddamn it. You fuckers are ruthless.

I took a twenty out of my wallet and laid it on the counter. Fill a bag with whatever, I said, just give me the key. Please. I’m begging. I’m in a bad way.

Raj gave me the key. Nav never looked up at all.

I went outside to the bathroom door and struggled to get the key in the lock. I was shaking. Sweat poured like the dew. I wiggled out of my pants without even taking my belt off or unzipping my fly and, when I finally got the key to turn, threw the door open and penguin-hopped into the bathroom. My ass never made the toilet seat before the first violent torrent of lava issued forth from my most sacred of orifices and splattered over the toilet seat, the floor, and the back of my jeans down around my ankles and even my socks and shoes. I braced myself against the walls of the stall with both hands and stuck my ass out hoping against hope that I was centered over the bowl.

I was not.

The foul and hot miasma came in intermittent jets. It made three different types of sounds. One when it hit the floor, one when it hit the porcelain, and another yet when it hit the water in the bowl. My intestines contracted and spasmed like a bolus of worms. I was sweating like a man on fire and I held my breath at the end of each spasm, hoping it was the last, but no sooner had I dared to hope than the torture would begin again anew. I was shitting myself to death standing up. With the logic born of fever I could think only that I dare not sit down – I was terrified that I’d not be able to stand back up if I did. The intestinal spasms were the worst. I had, for a second, held in my mind a vision of the Medusa’s head, the gorgon with the poisonous snakes for hair, and thought that inside of me the head had taken presence, and the vipers roiled and spat and bit and envenomated me and I that I was going to die. I thought too, of a distant relative, who when she was eighteen had suffered from months of abdominal misery. Tests were undertaken, scans made, medications applied. None worked. However, a specialist, through some other sort of medical divination, ascertained the real cause. A surgery was performed immediately and there, from deep within her, a vestigial twin was removed. She’d absorbed her twin when both were in their mother’s womb, and then, at some unknown time, the twin – a mass of hair and nail and cartilage, but mindless – had begun to grow and grew unchecked until it caused its bearer all kinds of pain. I thought, in the illogic of my suffering, that I too bore a vestigial twin and here it was, about to be born via my alimentary canal, a creature of cruel and bloody vengeance.

Then I was done.

Exhausted, I tried to clean up. I had to take my pants and socks off. My underwear I had to leave on, for fear of arrest for indecent exposure should I cross the Gas and Go parking lot to my car at the wrong time, although they stuck to me with some sort of hideous, tacky moisture. The smell was more than I could bear. I used all the toilet paper up in the entire bathroom wiping things down – including the handle, upon which I had shat. When I pushed it, the toilet glugged and gargled to a stop, but would not flush. There was nothing I could do. The room smelled like a failed exorcism. I smelled like a failed exorcism. It would have offended even the infernal.

I folded up my jeans to minimize any contact with my recent effluence and rested them on my shoulder, picked up my shoes in one hand, and with the key in the other went back to the front door of the Gas and Go. Raj was still at the till, Nav at her magazine. On the counter a plastic bag filled with something – who know what – representing my twenty-dollar purchase waited for me. I dared not risk entering, so as nonchalantly as I could I walked to my vehicle and sped into the night. I barely made it home before once again, the Gorgon’s serpents began to writhe and an encore ensued, shorter and more succinct than the opera in the Gas and Go’s bathroom. Eventually I was able to shower and, diapering myself in an old towel, I fell asleep on my belly on my bed.

(Eventually I burned the jeans, underwear, and socks. The shoes I donated to goodwill. Fuck the poor.)

The next morning my belly lied to me and told me that it was over, and that I had its permission to move and that the sensation I had was just air, not liquid, and that I would not scald myself again.

I texted Sherri, like a gentleman would, and thanked her for the date, and added that I’d look to do it again.

She texted back immediately.

It was a picture of her, and my ex-wife, each saluting the camera with their middle finger. She’d captioned it with:

How are you even alive you piece of shit? I’m Sandy’s cousin. We got you good you motherfucker. Eyedrops, magnesium citrate, and a little bit of a damp dog turd off of my neighbor’s lawn. I hate that dog, too. Fuck you.

She must have done it while I went to the bathroom. Salted my food or beverage with eye drops, magnesium citrate, and a bit of mostly fresh dog feces. Jesus, some people are just evil.

I was a gentleman, I texted back. You know I was. You poisoned a gentleman.

I grabbed a coffee and half dozen doughnuts from a drive through and drove to the Gas and Go. Twenty dollars is twenty dollars – and I still had their bathroom key.

I walked back in and there was Raj at the till and Nav in her same spot, but reading a different magazine.

You motherfucker, Nav said, when she saw me. You motherfucker.

Your key, I said, placing it on the counter. Where’s my purchases?

You get out, said Raj. He seemed to be at least as scared of Nav as he was me. You get out now.

You destroyed our bathroom, Nav said. The plumber said it will be six-hundred dollars to fix. I want six-hundred dollars.

How do you know it was me, I said? It could have been anyone.

Motherfucker, motherfucker, Mother. Fucker. Nav shouted.

At this barrage of profanity – and the coffee and the doughnuts I thought I could have – my bowels once again began to turn liquid, and hot.

Can I have that key again, I asked, bent over now, with my hands on my knees, like a man worn out after a long run.

Raj said no. Nav said a lot more things but was inarticulate with rage.
I scuttled out of the building and went to the bathroom door with Raj and Nav in hot pursuit. I held up a hand, as if begging a referee for time, and managed to get my shoes and pants off and my underwear down. Nav had a cell phone and started dialing.

I am calling the police, she said.

She’s calling the police, Raj said.

Ung, ung, ahh, ugh, I said as once again, my sphincter failed and I shot the liquified manifestation of my ex-wife’s vitriol and her cousin’s connivance over the side of the building in great, syncopated spasms each lasting longer than what one would have thought possible in any venue, save Hell.

I’d like to report a crime, Nav said into her phone. There is a man outside my store – a very bad man – shitting on the building. Yes, that is correct. He is shitting on my building.

Please don’t look at me I said, to both of them. Please.

Nav walked away in disgust. You deal with him, she said to Raj. And the police.

You should leave now, sir, Raj said to me.

I will as soon as I can, I said. Believe you me. I will go.

Raj walked back into the store and left me to the Gorgon’s thrashing venom working its course through me. I gasped with each spasm like a drowning man, gulping for air then holding my breath, wanting desperately to move but being unable to exert the effort needed.

Raj came back while I panted and sweated, my buttocks pressed against the wall with my hands on the ground for balance, not unlike a sprinter about to start a race.

Here, sir, he said, setting a plastic bag holding the twenty-dollars in groceries compiled for me from the night before in front of me. I could see some Dr. Pepper in there, some beef jerky, and a big ol’ bag of jalapeño-flavored pork rinds – and some mint-flavored chewing gum.

Nice.

Now please, he said, please go, and don’t ever come back. Ever.