6 Short Stories Read online

  The bowl would be streaked with brown, the marks of high-impact ejections. The rim of the bowl would be spattered with brown droplets...and even the seat would be streaked and specked. Sometimes, the brown deposits on the seat would be smeared all around, as if the Shitter had made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning up after himself by trying to wipe it off.

  And sometimes...

  Sometimes, there were even splotches on the floor. And bits of used toilet paper.

  It was the kind of repulsive display that Joe might have expected to see in a gas station men's room, or one at a football stadium...but not on the third floor of a professional building. Not in a bathroom used by the employees of an engineering firm doing business with the United States Department of Defense.

  It was an atrocity. It ruined one of the two toilet stalls for the entire day, because no one would dare attempt to wade into the Mad Shitter's wreckage. No toilet paper nest, no matter how thick, could provide sufficient protection from the mess that the Shitter left behind.

  That left one toilet stall for the thirty-five male employees of Carillon Industries, the company Joe worked for...not to mention the five guys next-door in the executive offices of Gray Tappan, Inc., and the patients of Dr. Stickman, the psychiatrist down the hall.

  Which meant a lot of delayed bowel movements and frayed tempers all around. A lot of elevator trips and hasty dashes through stairwells to the men's rooms on the floor above or the floors below.

  It was enough to disrupt the regularity and productivity of dozens of men. For Joe, it was even worse; the Mad Shitter rattled him good.

  Joe took it personally. When he complained to his fellow bosses at Carillon Industries, he bemoaned the Shitter's lack of regard for the other male denizens of the building...but Joe was most upset by the Shitter's lack of respect for Joe himself. By fouling Joe's favorite stall, the big, handicapped-accessible one, it was like the Shitter was dumping right in Joe's lap.

  Even worse, Joe could not escape him. He tried altering his schedule, but no matter how early he entered the third-floor men's room, the Mad Shitter had beaten him to it. He tried to psych himself into having his bowel movements at home, but his system was just too locked into its routine for him to change his ways that much.

  Worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that Joe thought he knew who the Shitter really was...but he could do nothing about it. At least at first.

  *****

  Mike Shomo was an in-your-face kind of guy. A love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy.

  Most people loved him. Joe Prine hated him.

  Mike was free-spirited and manic. It was impossible to guess what he would do or say next. For five years, he had disrupted the tranquility of Joe's orderly work routine.

  If Joe was out of the office suite for a meeting, he would come back to find that Mike had thrown the place into chaos. Mike would lead the other engineers in paper airplane races or dirty joke contests or competitions to see who could keep their chairs spinning longest with just one kick-off. Everyone would gather around him as he told crazy stories or gossiped about the rest of the staff...or even danced, doing a nutty jig in the middle of a cubicle for no good reason. Sometimes, Mike would even hop around and whoop like Daffy Duck, the cartoon character who was often displayed in black and orange glory on his wide ties.

  Adding to the irritation was the fact that Mike had no fear whatsoever of Joe. Though Joe was head of the department and Mike's immediate supervisor, Mike treated him with no more respect than if he were a peer. If Joe reprimanded him for screwing off, Mike would nod patiently and promise not to repeat the behavior...but always with half a smirk on his face, always a gleam in his eye, always the kind of look that told Joe that Mike had no intention of following through with Joe's instructions.

  And the biggest problem was, Joe could never just get rid of the guy. Carillon Industries was extremely lenient when it came to employee indiscretions; someone had to be trying hard to end up cut from a job there, especially members of the engineering staff like Mike. You had to push your luck to the absolute limit, piss off all the wrong people, and/or sexually harass a fellow employee to get turfed.

  And Mike knew just how far he could push it. Joe had tried to axe him several times over the years, and always, someone farther up the food chain had denied the request. Mike was coated in Teflon and much too smart to go too far...which, of course, was precisely why he had no fear of Joe.

  He continued to make Joe's life miserable in the workplace, doing every little thing he could to get on his nerves...and those were just the things that Joe knew for a fact he was doing. Joe was convinced he was responsible for plenty of other annoyances that he could never prove were Mike's doing.

  For example, Joe would find things moved around on his ultra-organized desk in his tidy cubicle. A paperweight would be on the left front corner of the desk instead of atop a pile of papers where Joe was sure he had last seen it. The framed photo of his wife and kids would be cocked at a different angle than usual. Instead of resting on its Lucite podium on the front edge of the desktop, his Franklin-Covey planner would be closed and sitting in his "in" box.

  And every time he found something out of place like that, Joe knew, he absolutely knew without an inkling of doubt that Mike had been there and done the moving. But he could never prove it. The suite wasn't equipped with surveillance cameras, no one was willing to rat on Mike, and Joe could never catch him in the act.

  Which made Joe just hate him all the more.

  And it made matters worse that he knew what he had to do to make the irritations and misbehavior stop. It was an unspoken fact, something that he instinctively knew: to win Mike over, all Joe had to do was join his fan club, or at least pretend to like him.

  But Joe wouldn't do that. Once he dug in his heels, to hell with everything and everyone else, he would never surrender. He would never give in to the demands of the enemy. If anything, he fought harder.

  Just a few weeks ago, in fact, Joe had made another run at disposing of Mike. He had put in the paperwork to terminate Mike's employment because of a dirty joke he'd overheard Mike telling some co-workers.

  Coincidentally enough, the Mad Shitter started fouling Joe's favorite toilet in the men's room one week later.

  That was why Joe was sure Mike was the Shitter. It was just the kind of thing Joe would have expected from his nemesis, just the type of juvenile behavior that the human Daffy Duck would delight in perpetrating. Mike knew Joe used that stall, and he knew about what time of day he used it, so he would have been able to schedule his carnage perfectly.

  Joe just knew that son of a bitch was to blame. He saw him in the office, flashing that smartass smirk as if to laugh right in Joe's face, and he knew. Mike even winked at him sometimes! When Joe walked into the office suite, Mike would shout, "Hey there, boss!" and give him a big wave. He did everything short of telling Joe to his face, "I've been crapping all over your favorite toilet seat! Nice work, huh?"

  And Joe couldn't touch him. He could never prove it was him. He made extra trips by the men's room in the morning, but he never saw Mike go in or out before the Mad Shitter had done his dirty work.

  It hurt Joe's concentration and his work. In the middle of meetings, Joe found himself thinking about ways of catching Mike in the act. While he read manuals and did paperwork, his mind wandered, calling up details of the Shitter's handiwork, remembering the smug smirk on Mike's face. At home in bed even, he obsessed over the situation, wondering how Mike was managing to work up such a nasty shit day after day...wondering if he even bothered washing his hands before moving around the items on Joe's desk.

  It was driving him absolutely crazy. Joe liked to be in control, and the Mad Shitter was completely uncontrollable. Though he was certain of the villain's identity, he had no way of dislodging him from his life.

  Then, one day, Mike Shomo started losing his cool. It seemed like Joe's lucky day...at least at first.

  *****

  It started with
Mike's first car accident.

  On his way to work one Monday, he overturned his Lexus along the highway. Joe was just getting ready to send Corporate a memo about Mike's being an hour late for work when he got the call from Mike's wife.

  The car was totaled, but Mike walked away with nothing more than some cuts and bruises. He showed up after lunch...but in true Mike Shomo style, did not even appear to be shaken by the experience. He joked about it for the rest of the day, entertaining everyone with stories about the wild ride and his clowning around with the nurses in the emergency room. Every time he overheard the stories repeated, Joe felt rage bubbling inside him.

  Not only did Joe hate to see Mike surrounded by admirers, but he was infuriated because he now knew for a fact that Mike was the Mad Shitter.

  That morning, when Mike had been absent from the building because of his accident, the toilet in the men's room on the third floor had been free of filth.

  *****

  Joe's rage soon turned to pleasure, though. The accident marked the beginning of his enemy's downward slide.

  And during his slide, Mike started pushing his luck too far.

  On the day of the accident, he seemed like the same old Mike, right down to the openly fearless sneer in his boss's face. In the ensuing days, however, Mike began to change.

  Best of all, for Joe, he began to make mistakes that Joe could document.

  Every day, Mike got to the office a little later. Carillon was so lenient that lateness of up to fifteen minutes was excusable; in fact, very few people actually showed up by 8:30 a.m., the start of the workday. But Mike started coming in a half-hour late, then forty-five minutes, then an hour...all without calling ahead, providing an excuse, or making up the time.

  Joe documented every instance of tardiness. His Mike Shomo file grew thicker.

  When Mike finally did make it to the office, he acted listless and exhausted. The zany old Shomo self began to fade. He no longer staged his usual performances; when co-workers came around, expecting entertainment, he could barely seem to muster an off-color joke. And sometimes, Joe actually caught him with his head down on his desk, sleeping.

  Joe documented.

  With increasing frequency, Mike even showed flashes of surliness around the office. He complained constantly about how dissatisfied he was with his job, and how certain co-workers were ruining the project he was trying to finish. He even groused and lashed out during meetings...once, even, right in front of Joe himself.

  Which Joe, of course, documented.

  It was the time Joe had been waiting for for five years. Mike was on the wane; even his friends started trickling away. He slipped up right and left, and finally crossed the last frontier: the quality of his work declined. Even that one saving grace was lost to him, and Joe exulted.

  He documented every slip and stumble, hoarding them like precious gems in the fattening folder in his desk drawer.

  And one day, he had enough evidence to take his case against Mike Shomo to Corporate, and to know that the company's directors could not ignore it.

  That night, Joe went home and celebrated with his wife by having sex even though it wasn't their usual night.

  *****

  This time, when the word came down from Corporate, Joe was not disappointed. Finally, his years of suffering were about to end. He had received approvals all the way up to the company president.

  Mike Shomo was about to become an ex-employee of Carillon Industries. The Mad Shitter was about to be flushed.

  At first, when he was called into Joe's cubicle, Mike seemed to suspect nothing. He sat there, stretched out in the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Joe, hands clasped behind his head, looking as if he were ready to take a nap on the spot.

  Then came the wake-up call. "Mike," said Joe, secretly thrilled but keeping his voice even. "I'm sorry, but we have to let you go."

  "Go where?" Mike said distractedly.

  "You are no longer an employee of Carillon," said Joe. "You are instructed to clean out your desk and leave immediately. I'll be escorting you from the premises."

  Mike sat straighter in his chair. "What's this?" he said, his expression caught between a frown and a smirk. "Did you just say what I thought you said?"

  "You're not working here anymore," said Joe.

  "According to who?" said Mike.

  "Mr. Holloway, the president," said Joe.

  "I see," said Mike, his tone laced with sarcasm. "And why exactly did Mr. Holloway say I've been fired?"

  "Not fired," said Joe. "Laid off."

  "Ah. Yes." Mike nodded, his gaze newly alert and confrontational as he peered into Joe's eyes. "Well, I guess I'll have to give him a call, then, won't I?"

  "That's up to you," said Joe. "But it won't change anything. The paperwork's been processed. You're off the payroll as of today."

  Mike leaned forward with an angry glint in his eye. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You're telling me I've been fired, while deadwood like Garman and Calabrese are still on staff?"

  "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you," lied Joe. "Thank you for your years of service." Then, he picked up the receiver of his phone to signify that the meeting was at an end.

  No sooner had Joe punched two buttons on the keypad than Mike reached over and pressed the hookswitch in the cradle, cutting off the call.

  Joe looked across the desk at him, meeting his eyes, wondering if he was about to launch into a tirade or even a physical confrontation. For a long moment, though, Mike just stared and didn't move a muscle.

  Finally, Mike flashed a trace of his trademark smirk. "Well, thank you for that information," he said smoothly. "It's been a real pleasure working under you."

  And then, he got up and left the cubicle.

  Behind him, Joe clenched a fist. Again, his suspicions had been confirmed.

  "Working under you," Shomo had said. "Under you" as in a toilet seat, as in the handiwork of the Mad Shitter.

  "Fuck you," Joe muttered under his breath. That son of a bitch had had his fun, but who had gotten the last laugh?

  Joe, that's who.

  *****

  Two days later, Joe Prine strolled into the third floor men's room for his 9 a.m. movement. He was so happy about it, he actually whistled a little tune as he swung the men's room door wide.

  Finally, he would be able to return to his old routine. With Shomo the Mad Shitter gone, he could enjoy his morning dump on the toilet of his choice and not have to worry that it would be covered with filth.

  He took three steps into the men's room, angling for the big

  handicapped-accessible stall...and stopped cold. The door was closed. Beneath it, he could see a man's ankles and black wingtips.

  Annoyed, Joe stepped to the sink and washed his hands, waiting for the occupant of his favorite stall to finish. As he drew paper towels from the dispenser, he heard the man behind the stall door pulling toilet tissue from the roll.

  Normally, Joe hated to use a commode right after someone else had finished, but he lingered, adjusting his hair in front of the mirror. In just a minute, he would be free to return to his sacred stall, finally untouched by filthy Shomo; he was willing to set aside his preferences on this long-awaited occasion.

  There was more activity in the stall. At last, Joe heard the rustling of trousers and the sound of a zipper. He heard the man in the stall fasten his belt.

  At last, the toilet flushed, and the bolt on the stall door slid open. As the door hinges creaked, Joe made a final check of his appearance.

  And then he turned and saw the stall's occupant emerge. It was Mr. Vogel, the CEO of Gray Tappan, Inc., the company that shared the third floor of the building with Carillon Industries.

  "Good morning," said Vogel as he headed for the sink. The tall man didn't smile, but Joe didn't expect him to. Vogel had a sour look permanently etched on his puffy, red face.

  "Morning," said Joe, walking past Vogel and into the stall. He closed the door behind him, turned...and c
aught his breath.

  He couldn't believe his eyes.

  As Vogel rinsed his hands at the sink, Joe gaped at the atrocity before him. The seat of the commode was smeared with brown. The rim was spattered with dark droplets, the bowl painted with high-impact streaks. Wads of dirty tissue littered the floor.

  It was then that Joe realized the truth. Mike Shomo had not been the Mad Shitter, after all.

  The Mad Shitter was alive and well on the third floor, disguised as the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company.

  Suddenly, Joe lost the urge to take his victory dump.

  *****

  Hours later, back in his cubicle, he got the news about Mike Shomo.

  There had been a second car accident. This time, Mike hadn't walked away.

  "It's hard to believe he's gone," said Jeff Zimmerman, a manager from another department and one of Mike's fans. "Right after losing his job, too."

  Joe nodded sadly because it was the proper thing to do. "Poor guy," he said.

  "I wonder if any of it would have happened if he'd stayed on his meds," said Jeff.

  That caught Joe's attention, though he tried not to betray too much interest. "Meds?"

  "For the manic-depressive thing," said Jeff. "He went off the meds. Said he didn't need them anymore."

  "Oh, right," said Joe, nodding.

  "He wasn't the same after that," said Jeff. "Complete personality change. Like a different person...and trouble sleeping on top of everything else."

  "Yeah," said Joe. "That was tough."

  Jeff slowly shook his head. He reached for the framed photo of Joe's family and raised it from the desk. "Now he'll never see his kids grow up," he said.