Bell Did It

“I thing I drang too mush,” he slurred. “I think we all...drank...too much,” he offered between dry heaves. Stone was currently puking in the toilet and Bell was puking in the sink. ‘In’ being a relative term because both of them were missing their respective targets in different ways, with Bell ricocheting Taco Bell infused vomit all over the vanity—shit-colored specks dotting the mirror like tiny spitballs, while Stone, so drunk he could barely see, puking directly onto the floor in front of the toilet despite both hands holding onto the bowl so tight one would have thought he was hanging on for life. What wasn’t known to any of the drunks but Stone was that with every heave of his ho, shit was filling his size 38 underwear. Even Fraternity bathrooms get cleaned up at some point. Not usually by the rich trouser stains that soil them up to waste level, but still. But the hosts of the “party” where Stone is shitting his pants, obliteratingly drunk as well, have no idea what they are in for. Cleaning vomit out of a bathroom is easy enough with 800 rolls of paper towels and some version of a mop. Windex can clean a mirror no problem, even if it is specked with burrito vomit. And my god, back in those days, everyone had Clorox on hand. In a few hours, Stone will raise his head off that bathroom floor, his right cheek will suction out of his own quesadilla and beer vomit, with his brain pounding with cement fists to escape his skull “LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!!!” His sandy-blond hair littered with cheese, almost-caramelized onion, and digested hamburger meat the FDA didn’t inspect, will not bother him an iota. He’s got to get his pants off. His undies are full of shit. He can feel it, worse he can smell it, even over the stench of vomit from two different people who ate the same awful food and drank the same cheap beer and shot the Jager shots till their bodies rebelled convulsion style. Always one of superior hand eye coordination—he once struck out 17 batters in a 21 out game—Stone, still jarringly drunk, was able to somehow stand, remain standing, and get his pants off, without falling into the vomit covered floor. This was a feat. Not a 17 strikeout feat but a feat nonetheless. All that remained was the shit-filled underwear. And the stench. The stench of a gyro and beer, more beer than gyro but still two large gyros, lunch digested defecation, now two hours old, steaming and accumulating foulness in his fruit of the looms. “Oh, ahh, grrbb,” he whispered in the dark. It was dark but he could see the toilet—a beautiful red rose nightlight illuminating his salvation. Hand now on the wall steadying him, he slid the other under the waistband, pulled out and crouched in drunkpain/discombobulation until one leg was out and the undies dropped to the floor, heavy with chocolatey, bulbous feces. A shit he’d never shat before. “Oh, gulln, dehu,” he exhaled with delight and relief, the stench now further from his nose. He looked down and his drunken, blood-red eyes glowed hot upon sight of it. “Toy he vehumi,” he mumbled. He carefully got the other leg out of the underwear. As carefully as an 8 shots of Jager man can. There, drunk, in the bathroom, donned in white ankle socks and a Cleveland Indians t-shirt, penis shriveled and cold, he knew what he had to do. Get rid of the evidence. No one could know he shit his pants. He may have been drunk but he wasn’t stupid. And that red rose nightlight, haloed the bowl in an aura of peace he hadn’t experienced since his first hand job from Tara Weaver back in 84. But, he hadn’t packed any underwear. He had one pair for the weekend. They packed light back then. He couldn’t just toss them like a used condom after a romp in the pool shed with Christie Langham back in 87. With his brain still pounding to get out of his skull, he was somehow able to fire up the circuits and have a thought. In the glow of the itty nightlight he reasoned that he could swirl his poop-heavy underwear in the eddy of the flushed toilet. The undies, smeared and replete with ungodly feces, could be salvaged—a veritable washing machine in front of him. He creaked down to the undies on the floor, one hand against the wall for support, and grabbed a non-shit smeared portion of waistband with two desperate fingers. “Oill degallum,” gurgled from his throat as he rose, undies held as far away as possible, in hopes of not vomiting again. Now all he had to do was flush. But the lever was on the other side. Shit, he’d have to move. The inches may well have been miles in his condition. Jager burps with every quarter-inch flat-foot shuffle, he got close enough to flush, after ten minutes of shuffle stop brace, shuffle stop brace. Finally, left hand on the silver that would ignite his resurrection, and clean his drawers, he flushed in the glow of the rose nightlight. Before he could appreciate the moment, he realized he had to bend. “Digh forkeylop,” he blurted as all the pain of hangover collapsed into his body in one fell swoop. He missed it, he missed the flush, he couldn’t bend. Throb after throb after pulse after pulse of pain ramrodded his brain. “Safuotip brojjew!” Agonizing and yearning to be lifeless, he watched the eddy go wasted, the gurgles a rueful reminder of his bender. He waited in pain. There have never existed a longer two minutes in the history of the universe. This time he would bend first, then flush. He may have been drunk and hungover, holding shit-filled underwear, but he was still drunk and hungover with a plan to bend then flush. He bent, he flushed, then lowered the soiled mess down into the eddy to watch it be cleansed and rid of his waste. But the swirl, the swirl was like Niagara fucking Falls and it ripped the undies from his hand -give me those!- and gurgled and burgled them down the hole, as tears began to fill his eyes. Just until he saw the water begin to come back up the hole, and up and up, higher and higher, then panic filled his drunken bloodshot eyes and his heart as the dirty water rose over the bowl and onto the floor in waves of brown with bits of brown and his toes were suddenly ice cold. Not remotely sober, he realized he’d gotten rid of the evidence and left the bathroom as if returning to a nap after a mid-morning sesh with Angie Hermann back in 92, found a pair of sweatpants in his bag and passed out on the bag, feet still wet.

The next morning (near noon actually) there was a tremendous hungover uproar outside the bathroom. As if happening upon a mystery he’d been privy to all along, feces caked to his inner thighs, bag of Doritos already in his hand, fingers and lips already orange, he said, “Oh that. Bell did that.”