MZ's very own Joey Bag-O-Donuts wrote this short piece of fiction as a tribute to Chuck Palahniuk's "Guts". He has since been trying to force it on new people even though it's not very good. Good for a laugh at least. -J.O.
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When I was 15, I was really into practical jokes. That year I found myself totally unprepared the day before April Fool’s Day. I had already exhausted all the best pranks I knew. Last year, I wrapped saran wrap around my toilet seat and my mother found my little brother crying because he shat all over himself. The year before that, I fed my cat fishing line and watched as my parents chased him with scissors to cut off the shit trailing behind him. I needed something new, still involving feces though, it seemed to be a recurring theme in my life. Everybody loves poop.
I looked to the internet for answers. There were sites dedicated to lists and lists of the dumbest pranks I had ever heard of. Switching the bags of cereal between boxes so that Cheerio’s would come out of the Lucky Charms box. What the fuck is that? Who cares? I needed something bigger, something toilet related. So I googled “toilet pranks”.
The page that came up was really poorly put together. The font was a shade of the same color that the background was and I could barely make it out, but there it was. My mischievous prayers had been answered by the same all-knowing deity that showed me my first vagina, the internet. Right there on my computer screen was the best prank I had ever heard of. It was called “The Upper Deck”, it involved someone shitting into the upper tank of a toilet, the tank that you were not supposed to shit in. This seemed simple enough. The really great part is that every time someone flushed the toilet after that, instead of clean water flooding in and sucking down the waste, more shit would flood in. Then once the victim realizes what has transpired, they have to take the lid off and pull the shit out with a glove or a spoon. This would be my greatest moment.
The mechanics of the prank were easy and it took no planning whatsoever, aside from maybe eating a lot that day. I just needed to choose a victim, not someone necessarily deserving of it, just someone who would be really disgusted by it. I racked my brain for a little while and realized that one of my friends’ mothers was particularly obsessive about keeping the house clean. You could even say that she was obsessively compulsive about it. I’m sure she would have a nervous breakdown if her toilet bowl kept filling with shit every time she flushed.
My friend’s name was Nick, he was the one in the group that everyone secretly hated, but we weren’t mean enough to completely kick him out of our group. Freshmen year was bad enough with a group of friends, I couldn’t imagine doing it alone. I called Nick’s house and asked if I could come over the next day after school, he asked his mother and she permitted it. My evil plan was coming together without a hitch, and I was so thrilled I could almost shit.
That day I made it a point not to do number 2 at school, and I ate as much food as I could. I knew that I would have to shit anyway, but I wanted it to be an extra special shit. I didn’t want anything to come between me and the glory that awaited me. I daydreamed through all my classes. I was too excited to pay attention to algebra or french. I had my eyes on the prize.
Finally the last bell rang. Nick had never felt so wanted by any of our friends. I tracked him down within 30 seconds of school’s ending. He was in the pick up zone out front, waiting for his mom. I pounced on him like an excited dog, grabbing his arm and jumping up and down. He was a little shocked. I began talking enthusiastically about how much fun we would have that day. Nick seemed confused but played along. He was a loser, but he wasn’t dumb; he knew that he was lucky to have a friend like me.
Nick’s mom came through the big front parking lot of my school in her shiny silver Lexus. I jumped in the back seat, Nick jumped in the front. His mother asked how school went in a very forced, uninterested tone. Nick didn’t even bother to answer. I barked out that it was great. She just looked ahead, focused on driving. What a bitch. Desecrating the toilet of this unpleasant woman would be my defining moment.
When we got to Nick’s house, his mother told me I had to take my shoes off before I went into the living room. Almost all my friends’ moms had this same rule about the nice carpeting in their houses, but when she said it, I got pissed. I kicked my shoes off, purposely showing my disgust for her house rules. Just more fuel for the fire, I thought. I had never noticed I hated her so much, I remember thinking about how ugly she was. I wondered if this was how she looked when Nick’s dad married her or did she deteriorate over time due to the stress of raising kids. Maybe I was just focussing on all her flaws so I could convince myself that she deserved to have someone shit in her upper tank. This act of tom-foolery was going to happen regardless, even if I hadn’t considered her a miserable bitch.
Nick talked my fucking ear off. I just zoned out like I always did back then. I did it to my parents, my teachers, and almost all my friends. I just played video games and nodded occasionally, sometimes muttering one word answers so that he would think I was listening. I pretended to focus on the video game only as a cover. I was really using my peripheral vision to see where his mother was. She was still too close to the bathroom. I needed to wait till she was far enough away that there would be absolutely no chance of her coming in. She seemed like the type who wouldn’t knock. That bitch! Having your friend’s mom walk in on you using the bathroom is brutally awkward, but today it would be catastrophic. I can’t imagine anything worse than your friend’s mom catching you perched over the wrong part of her toilet with a shit half out of your ass.
The phone rang and Nick’s mother picked up. It must have been one of her dumb housewife friends, she started chatting about the stupid bullshit that housewives use to distract them from their own mundane lives. This was my chance. As she left the room with the phone to her ear, I handed the controller to Nick. While I stood up, I interrupted him in mid-sentence without even making eye contact. I said I had to use the bathroom. Barely keeping the smirk off my face, I shuffled across the linoleum kitchen floor. I hadn’t realized how bad I had to shit while I was sitting down. I began to rush a little bit, my socks were so new that they hadn’t been worn in at all. I slipped a little on the kitchen floor, almost falling down, I grabbed the doorknob to the bathroom and pulled myself across the shiny floor. I thought to myself that Nick’s mom probably cleaned every surface in the house like 20 times a day because she had nothing better to do.
I closed the bathroom door behind me, and, much to my chagrin, I saw that they had a bunch of stupid knickknacks on top of the toilet cover. Little white angels, all in different prayer poses. I took them off one at a time, I made it a point to put them down on the floor in the exact order that they had been on the toilet. I wanted to leave things the way they were, without leaving any traces. I pretended to be a ninja in there; silent and deadly. I took the lid off of the upper tank and quietly rested it on the floor. Then I put the seat down and climbed up, aiming my ass over the open tank.
It was more straining than I had anticipated. I had held it for too long, now I was compacted. After straining quite a bit, I had made some progress, but it wasn’t going to be a quick, easy shit. I took a deep breath and pushed as hard as I could for as long as I could. I kicked one leg out in frustration as I let my breath out. All my weight was on my other leg, and my brand new sock slipped off of the toilet lid. With a loud smash, I fell down onto the toilet. Pieces of porcelain scattered all around me as I bounced and started to fall toward the hard tile floor. Of course the stupid fucking angel knickknacks were lined up in perfect order right in my path. They hit me in the side all at once and shot out around me in different directions. There was water and broken porcelain all around me, I could hear footsteps right outside the door. I didn’t even try to move.
After a few seconds, I got used to the temperature of the toilet water. It was cold, so I noticed the difference when a warmer liquid began pooling against my leg. I put my hand down and touched the puddle. It was blood. I lifted myself up enough to see the disgusting puddle of shit and blood forming around my legs. I gagged a little, I had never seen anything like that. I was still in shock so I couldn’t feel where the blood was coming from, but I knew it had to be a deep cut; there was a lot of it. I shifted my weight back down onto my side and just laid there in my puddle of blood and shit. I knew I was bleeding from somewhere, but I didn’t have the motivation to investigate any further. I remember thinking that it couldn’t be any vital organ, probably just my thigh or my ass cheek. I would probably need stitches, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Then there was a quick knock on the door and I anticipated shame worse than anything I had ever felt before. It was Nick’s mother. She asked if everything was alright and then just walked in with Nick behind her. Their eyes widened simultaneously as they observed the pathetic display in front of them. I was laying on my side, squealing in pain, surrounded by little angel knickknacks covered in blood and shit. The broken porcelain was everywhere; the mix of piss, blood, and toilet water was almost covering the entire white tile floor. I couldn’t have said anything even if I wanted to; the fall had knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t even make eye contact with either of them, I just stared straight ahead at one of the shit-covered angels, thinking that this was Karma.
It seemed that Nick’s mother couldn’t even comprehend what had just happened. Her OCD compelled her to just start cleaning around me, acting like I wasn’t there. She seemed to be mumbling to herself as she picked up the pieces of porcelain and tried to put the toilet back together. She whispered to Nick to go get her the crazy glue, he ran off toward the kitchen, leaving me alone with her. Then she grabbed a rag and started wiping up the toilet water and blood. I thought to myself that this bitch was actually going to make me beg for help. She was more worried about her fucking bathroom being clean than she was about the bloody, shitty deviant literally wallowing in his own filth on the floor.
Nick came back with the crazy glue and handed it to his mother. She was really about to start working on the toilet, I couldn’t believe it. I had gotten enough air in my lungs to whisper: ”It’s serious.” I guess it didn’t hit her until I spoke, she started bawling and dropped the crazy glue. She couldn’t handle the fact that her bathroom was destroyed and there was nothing she could do to fix it right now. Then she just walked into the kitchen with her hands on the sides of her face, I assumed she would call an ambulance or my parents. I could just barely see through the crack in between the door and the wall that she was just pacing in there crying to herself. I sighed in disbelief and looked up at Nick. He didn’t know what to do, it became obvious then that I would have to direct him if I was going to be rescued.
I sat up to tell Nick to call 911 because I was hurt. When I shifted my body, the blood leaked even faster, it seemed to be coming from my ass. I couldn’t see it, but Nick could and he started crying. Seeing the look on his face scared me, I started crying too. Then I screamed for him to do something and he ran to get the phone. Thank god, I thought. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, but at least I wasn’t going to die here, bleeding to death out of my ass.
After way too long, the ambulance arrived. I could hear their voices in the kitchen. When they asked Nick’s mom what happened she just started ranting about how much it would cost to fix the toilet. After an awkward pause, they realized she would be no help, and they walked past her. Nick couldn’t do anything but point at the bathroom doorway where watery blood was starting to leak into the hallway. When they saw me they knew there would be no point in asking questions at the moment, they had to get me out of there. When they lifted me up, more blood shot out and I fainted.
I came to in the ambulance, the shock had worn off and I could feel everything. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t even tell exactly where it was coming from. I could hear them talking about testicular torsion, and atrophy. I had no idea what these words meant but they sounded horrible and they were a clue as to where the blood had been coming from. This was enough to get me crying again and, in an attempt to console me, the female EMT told me that my parents would be waiting for me at the hospital. The idea of them seeing me like this just turned my slight whimpering to an all out hysterical fit. After about five minutes, I couldn’t cry anymore and I was silent for the rest of the ride.
When I got to the hospital, I did everything I could to avoid eye contact with everyone that I passed, including my parents and the doctors. My parents were told to wait in the lobby of the emergency room, and I was a little relieved by that. The doctors told me that I had ruptured my scrotum and I would need surgery right away. I cried uncontrollably again until the drugs kicked in.
I was out of it for the next few days. When I finally became coherent, the first thing I saw was my father leaning toward my hospital bed with my mother crying in the chair next to him. Instead of waiting for me to explain how this happened, he just started talking with a seriousness that I had never seen from him. He proceeded to ask me if I knew what a eunuch was. I had no idea, but I was still euphoric from the drugs they had given me so I just assumed it was something good. It sounded like a good word. With a nervous grin stretching across my face, I asked him to enlighten me.
My father continued and I slowly began to make the connection. I was sure he must be fucking with me. He was just trying to scare me, to teach me a lesson, I thought. Trying to make sure I would never try a stunt like this again.
Just then, the doctor came in with his face hidden by his clipboard. He pulled it down to reveal a very concerned expression and began telling me that time was a huge factor in my little accident. He said that if I had made it to the hospital only a few minutes sooner things would have been different. My dad leaned back into his chair, putting his arm around my mother. He began to cry too and then I knew he had been serious. I instantly blamed Nick’s mother. She had started cleaning instead of calling 911 right away, I had to tell Nick to do it. That dumb bitch had castrated me with her OCD.
The doctor went on to tell me that severe blunt trauma to the spermatic cord was an injury that needed immediate medical attention. He said that there was a very short window of time in which to save testicular function. Then, he handed me a pamphlet. Through the tears forming in my eyes, I could just make out the shapes of a bunch of happy men playing football and smiling. I wiped my eyes and saw that it was some eunuch support group flier, telling me that I could still have a fulfilling life without a working dick. I thought this was a joke, but when I opened my mouth to laugh I just starting crying even harder.
After they gave me some time to flip through the pamphlet and ask some naive questions, they pointed to my clothes and told me I could get dressed now. I stood up slowly and shrieked in pain. It felt like my legs were tied together, I couldn’t walk right. As I shuffled slowly toward the nurse who was holding my clothes, I started to get hysterical again. I slapped my bloody clothes out of her hands and onto the floor. From one of the legs of my pants flew a shitty little angel. It slid across the floor until it bounced off of the doctor’s foot. Everyone’s eyes followed it the whole way.
I laughed. A great big delirious chuckle had forced it’s way up from the bottom of my lungs. I couldn’t stop it. When I tried to, it just made the muscles in my face hurt. Everyone else in the room was perplexed. I just kept laughing like a mad man, staring at the shit covered angel with tears leaking down the side of my face.
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That was the last time I ever laughed like that, it’s been ten years. Sometimes, when I listen to the sad stories of the other eunuchs in my support group a nervous giggle comes up as I think to myself that I’m not like them. I always manage to choke it down just before everyone turns to look at me. There is no prank that would ever make me laugh as hard as I did that day at the hospital. I kept the angel, unwashed, in a plastic bag. For the first few years, I would look at it and almost smile, but lately I just use it as a visual aid when I have to get up and tell this story to new group members. After telling the story about a hundred times, it’s pretty easy to pretend that it’s a work of fiction or that it happened to someone else. Then I go home, high on pretending, and I try to masturbate. The reality hits me all at once when my dead dick doesn’t respond to my best efforts at arousal. Then I just hold my shitty little angel and cry until my ribs hurt.
