Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 502 (5 page)

My usual stall was empty, thank God.
This restroom only had three stalls, two the size of my linen
closet and one fit for a king. It was the handicapped stall of
course, set aside by society for those less fortunate. But being as
there were no employees on our floor confined to a wheelchair, what
was the harm in me staking claim.

I settled in. I'll spare you all the
embracing details, but suffice to say, I visited my local Mexican
restaurant the previous night. I didn't eat there, mind you; I
can't stand the ethnic music they play and watching all the white
patrons attempt to apply what they remember from high school
Spanish class is enough to turn my stomach. I ordered to go and
went home to watch Jersey Shore.

I know, I know; what kind of single
young professional would waste a Tuesday evening watching Jersey
Shore? I watch it like some might watch a disaster movie. The
people portrayed on that show are shining examples of everything I
find wrong with America today.

It was just another bunch of self
centered shallow kids cashing in on their fifteen minutes of fame.
Not one of them took the time to learn about their
heritage.

And fuck their heritage
anyway. Mussolini sided with Hitler in World War Two, didn’t he?
How the fuck did Italy get off so easy on that one? As far as I'm
concerned, Italian Americans in the 21
^st
century are a joke. They
think they can embrace the word 'Guido' like the blacks embraced
the word 'Nigga' and everything is going to be alright. Why
shouldn’t those kids have to go find jobs and work for a living?
America's fixation on the blacks pretty much ended when Bill Cosby
retired, but this new fixation on Italians made me question what
this country is all about. Don't even get me started on the
Kardashians.

I dropped trou and parked my behind on
the elongated toilet with the horseshoe shaped seat to do my
business. I really don't understand why the commercial toilet
industry thinks that cutting six inches out of the front of the
seat is going to work. Anyone willing to piss on a toilet seat
isn't going to limit themselves to that small space missing from
the front and the few shlubs that would have lifted the seat think
they don't have to because the seat has that gap. So they do their
best to stand directly in front of the gap to do their business. Of
course, more often than not they defile some part of the seat,
whether it’s due to inattention, or a lack of respect for the
future users.

When was the last time you dribbled a
few drops on a public toilet seat and took the time to clean up
after yourself with a few squares of toilet paper? Not fuckin'
likely. That's why I bring an individually wrapped Lysol wipe with
me every day. Then I lay down the recycled paper seat cover,
recycled from what? I don't even want to know.

The article I'm stuck reading is a
fluff piece, just more Obama propaganda about how the Democrats
could pull us out of the recession if the Republican Party would
just work with them. I figured at some point the shock of being the
first African American in the White House would wear off and Obama
would get down to business, how wrong I was. He talks a good game,
he wouldn't have been elected otherwise, but I feel like I wasted
my vote. Maybe Hilary was a chump for staying with Bill, but in
hindsight, she probably could have brought more to the Presidency.
With Bill as the First Husband, it would have been like two
Presidents for the price of one.

The outer door squeaked open and
slammed shut. I listened to the shuffling of feet echo in the way
that only the tiled walls of a public toilet can. I'm not the type
to get nervous about using the public restroom, but I am the type
to sit and try to picture what the other occupants are
doing.

The new occupant seemed to be an old
man as far as I could tell. He shuffled a few steps then stopped. A
few more steps then stopped. With my luck, the poor sucker was
using a walker or one of those canes with the pronged base. The
kind that should have good sturdy rubber tips that would outlast
the aluminum frame, but seemed to end up with tennis balls instead.
Bastard probably thought he was going to stroll right into the
handicapped stall. Well, the old codger would just have to
wait.

He shuffled right up to the door of my
stall and I could hear the thump of something on the painted steel
door.

“There's someone in here,” I said,
pissed that he wouldn't even try the other, smaller stalls. I knew
the doors were wide open. How hard could it be to sink your ass
down on one of those? It should be easier considering that there
were two good handrails on either side well within
reach.

I stared at his shoes under the door.
They weren't old man shoes. Not that there was a type of shoe that
old men had to wear, but these were DCs. Who the hell wore
skateboard shoes to the office? His jeans were faded and bunched up
heavily at the cuff. The denim was frayed and stained along the
back where it had drug on the ground. I shook my head, whoever this
guy was, he definitely didn’t work here on the fourth
floor.

There was another thump on the
door.

“Hey, I'll be out in a minute,” I
said.

There's nothing worse than being rushed
when you're trying to do your business. The asshole didn't even
have the common courtesy to take a few steps back and wait like a
normal human being.

If he hadn't been moving like a
decrepit, old man, I would have given him a piece of my mind, but
chewing out some hadicapable kid dressed like a skater seemed in
poor taste. It wouldn’t bode well for my standing in the company to
chew this inconsiderate prick a new asshole only to find out later
that he was the grandson of the CEO or the son of some outside
consultant hire to minimize the company's cost base.

In any case, my fifteen minute respite
was ruined. How can you expect a man to do his business while your
stand right on the other side of a one inch thick hollow metal
door. I folded up my newspaper and reached for the toilet tissue.
Just my luck, there was about three squares left on the industrial
sized roll in the plastic dispenser.

While I might trust three squares of
the heavily quilted, double ply toilet paper in the comfort of my
own bathroom at my apartment, three squares of the semi transparent
scratchy stuff common to public restrooms just wasn't going to cut
it.

“Hey, Mister, could you do
me a favor and hand me some T P under the door?” I asked as
politely as I could. I was at his mercy after all. I watched his
feet shuffle and there was another -
thunk
- on the door, but that was the
only response I got.

I waited for a good sixty second then
started to become annoyed.

“Look buddy, if you want the stall
you're going to have to help me out here,” I said.

Still no response.

I searched the stall for any help, and
finding none weighed my options. I stared at the newspaper in my
hand and thought it fitting that the Obama propaganda be used in
such a manor, but couldn't bring myself to tear up the newsprint
and do the deed. Knowing my luck, the high pressure toilet would
get backed up and I would soon become the laughing stock of the
fourth floor.

I thought about using the toilet seat
covers from the dispenser behind me, but they were thin and rough
with no absorbency what-so-ever; I could just imagine how they
would spread my mess around without aiding in cleaning my person.
That would be my last resort I decided.

Just as I was about to give Mr. DC
shoes a piece of my mind, I heard the door open and slam shut
again.

“Hey, Mathew, was it? How’s it going?”
I heard a voice say.

No answer.

“Excuse me,” the voice again,
“Hey...Hey! What the fuck man...”

There was a
-
thump
- then I
heard the door to the next stall slam shut and the lock slide into
place.

“You mother fucker; fuckin' bite me,
what the fuck man?” It was Colby from accounts payable.

CHAPTER TWO

I could see that the DCs had changed
positions. I could still see the left shoe, but they were pointed
towards the now occupied stall next to mine.

“You mother fuckin' piece of shit. Why
the hell would you bite me? My arm is fuckin’ bleeding now,
bastard,” Colby said to his assailant.

There was a
-
thump
- as Mr. DC
Shoes banged against Colby's door.

“Hey, somebody help!” Colby yelled then
waited a moment for a response,
“Hey...somebody...anybody...”

Nothing.

“Hey, Colby, is that you?” I asked
tenuously.

It took a moment for him to answer. I
think he was trying to place my voice.

“Don?” he finally asked.

“Yeah, it's Don,” I
responded.

“Hey, Don, that mother fucker out there
just bit me,” he said, as if I hadn't heard, “That fat, sweaty
piece of shit grabbed my arm and took a big chunk out of it, I'm
bleeding pretty bad.”

He seemed shook up, I really felt for
the guy. Colby was one of those poor suckers who lost his hair in
his early twenties and developed a weight problem just after high
school. I gave him a moment to collect himself before I
spoke.

“Hey Colby, you got any toilet paper
over there?”

There was a few seconds of silence
before I heard him go to work on the dispenser next to him. He
seemed to be struggling and I felt guilty for a moment. It was hard
enough trying to get more than a few squares from the dispenser
without it breaking, let alone enough to do a thorough job.
Luckily, Colby was a like minded man and when he handed me the
paper it was a wad big enough to stuff a pillow.

I don't know why businesses
insisted on using the cheapest single ply bathroom tissue possible,
it's not like anybody is going to think,
well, I only use about ten squares of the good stuff at home
so I'll do the same here
. Fuck that, you
use more than enough to get the job done, after all, you ain't
paying for it, right?

I took the huge wad of paper Colby was
offering up from under our dividing wall. I quickly pulled off the
pieces soaked in his blood and let them fall to the
floor.

“Thanks,” I mumbled uncomfortably as I
did my wiping, grateful that my newspaper and toilet seat cover
were now safe from the abuse.

There was another
-
thump
-
thump
- on
Colby's stall door.

“Fuck off, man,” Colby yelled, then,
“Help, somebody help!”

He was starting to sound a little
hysterical.

“What gives, Colby?” I asked as I
fastened the button on my slacks and buckled my belt, “Did that guy
really bite you?” I didn't know Colby swore so much, but he didn't
sound like he was practiced at it, so I guess it was the
situation.

“Yeah, he fuckin' bit me,” Colby's
voice echoed in the tiled confines of the restroom, “Sweaty bastard
sunk his teeth right into my arm.”

“Why?” I asked.

Now
that seems like a dumb question, but back
then
, it was the only sane one;
people don't just go around biting strangers in the
john.

“What do you mean, why? I don't fucking
know why. He just bit me,” Colby sounded like he was close to
tears. “Fuckin' punk kid named Mathew. I just cut him a check ten
minutes ago.”

“He works here?” I asked a bit
surprised.

“No he doesn't work here. The little
shit participated in a one day drug trial down in the
labs.”

Colby was calming down a little now,
but I could tell he was still clenching his teeth in
pain.

“When the drug trials are over the
researchers send the test subjects up here to accounts payable and
we cut them a check. That little bastard out there's name is Mathew
Stubs.”

I climbed up on the edge of my toilet
and looked over the wall separating us. Colby was sitting on the
toilet holding his injured arm. Blood was flowing freely down his
wrist and pooled on the floor beneath his hand. I watched as the
blood crept along the grout between the tiles on the floor,
wondering how good of a job the janitor would do in
cleaning.

“That's a pretty bad wound, you better
watch out that it doesn't get infected, especially in a place like
this,” I offered in the way of advice.

He looked up at me shaking his
head.

“Help!” he called out again.

I tried to look over the wall at the
man standing in front of Colby's door, but it was too far for me to
see.

“Do you think he's crazy?” I asked
Colby.

“How the fuck should I know,” Colby
responded.

I tried again to get a look at Colby's
attacker.

“Maybe he has rabies or something,” I
said.

“Look, Don, none of this is helping,
why don't you hop down off that toilet and go get
security?”