In the Handicapped Commode (Part 2)



9:24 arrived in miniature numbers at the bottom right hand corner of his LCD monitor, the pellucid green digital display of his desk phone corroborating this bit of output.



He stood up from his desk with a sense of slow deliberation, the Altoids can with the smuggled spliffie resting inside the breast pocket of his blue and white striped Oxford shirt. He made his way over the carpets, avoiding eye contact with all who passed.



Entering the bathroom, passing and peripherally sighting the humped forms of a few gray haired, ruined meister drones in their rumpled blue and brown suits



standing there spraddle legged, inert before the line of urinals, letting it all drain out, tired old Johnsons, attempting to get it done, waiting for relief, another day, another day, passing and peripherally sighting them, an immense feeling of sadness swept over him, then went away.



And that was a good thing.



He entered the handicapped commode, which was mercifully vacant.



Standing staring at the high tiles of the drop ceiling with the sound of the heavy door locking behind him fading into memory,



standing suspended there in the earth's lower atmosphere thanks to the brick girders and mortar of this fine company's 5th floor he thought,



Now, Randy, old son, it woulda been enough to fire this here puppy this here jibba in ye ole parking lot, in the gentle environs of your girlfriend's Lexus, no foul there and no one would really be the wiser (he'd gone this particular route many times before),



but, let's remind ourselves: that wouldna been the gore slicked elegy and eulogy that you be lookin for here son that wouldna been the



whips flails chains machete to the forehead and blood all over my damn linen shirt and a virtual Shiite theocracy in the southern Iraq of the American body mind



and soul



so fuckers, here goes



now me flick a the orange Bic



in his head, he sang to himself, a little minor-key hymn, the words drenched in thickest accent of Jamaican patois



smoking weed, all day lo-ong

- it the light.

& fire the joint

all my daysssss BE falling down

smoke tha cheeba. And smoke the joint



Then he was singing it again, changing the words, but this time not in his head.



Singing, he thought he should take off his pants to block the space beneath the door.



OK, then.



Because this was his statement, and hell on too soon interruption. This was his own private Armageddon.



Fuck the world. They can't judge me.



He undid his khakis, kicking off his mahogany Nunn Bush loafers as he did so. He was thinking of how in college they used to dampen the towels first. Or maybe the towels had always just been damp as a function of having been recently used.



Fuck it. He wadded his pants into a ball and thrust them in the sink under the faucet. And repeated. The infrared sensor controlling the flow to the faucet clunked on and off. PSSSHHHH. PSSSHHHH. PSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH.



He wrung his pants out a few times, got down on his knees and stuffed the wet snake of them into the crack between the bottom of the door and the rubberized floor.



He stood up, got a look at himself in the mirror, standing there in his rumpled white boxers, the soft hump of his pale belly protruding beneath the tails of his shirt.



Watching himself, he flicked his orange lighter and fired the ladyfinger jibba.



Taking it in, the mellow trim of the burn. He watched himself in the mirror the whole way. Kept his eyes on his own eyes. The long high rectangle of the commode enclosure filled with smoke. He drew in and exhaled, drew in and exhaled, smoking fast in spite of himself, not pausing to hold anything in, just letting the smoke wash into his lungs and back out again.



When he got down to about a thumbnail-sized roach he quelled the thing on the sink's green marbletop. Deposited the roach into the Altoids tin. Deposited the tin into to his breast pocket. Slipped his loafers back on. His bare legs felt cool, felt good.



The first chub of an erection bloomed in his briefs.



None of that, he thought, none of that. You're just getting started.



In a couple minutes he'd open the door and start giving the fuckers their new education. In a couple minutes. In a couple minutes.



Shit, he thought, sniffing the new dry crisp green odor of his right hand's fingertips, that shit was the Creeper...