Found Art #5: Out Of Toilet Paper

At first it would seem that this piece would invoke lighthearted mirth and whimsy. I understand this. Looking at it from the outside without the knowledge I have would leave you in this position. Look, toilet, ha ha, let's move on. I, unfortunately don't have this luxury. Part of me wanted to leave it like that, to spare you the tragic human drama that revolves around this piece. I just couldn't, though. I couldn't let you all live a beautiful lie while I knew the horrible truth. Truth, my friends, is the essence of pursuit. So it is with a heavy heart that I have to explain this piece. Have a look. It's the last time you'll see it without being gripped by anguish.

I really should have placed this in its own section, like, 'found notes', 'found warnings', or 'found little depressing things' but this site is hard enough to read as it is. It isn't Found Art in the traditional sense, and hence cannot be critiqued as such.
I'll tell the story.
This past weekend I went to a board game day in Los Altos, CA, at the library. A nice town, it seemed, in the heart of silicon valley, with plenty of small shops and a great Italian-American delicatessan (the hyphenated titled being shown because that was what was written on the wall of the place) where I ate lunch, and despite the heavily technological importance of the local economy, abundant with shreds of small-town charm scattered amongst the downtown area.
The games went well. I was thoroughly trounced in a game of 'Civilization through the Ages' by my friend LG and his buddy, and by saying 'trounced' I mean I had about 49 victory points to the winner's 185, and the second place finisher's 140. Trounced. As poorly as I did, it was still fun. Now, the library was a nice place, at least as nice as the town itself, seated in the treelined streets seamlessly and flanked by a school, park, baseball diamond and soccer field. A perfectly nice place to have a library. Game day was a regular occurrence there, and some sort of deal had been worked out with the city where when the library closed at 6pm the game club in the rented board room could stay as long as they wanted, and could prop the door open with whatever was available. A nice chair was used in this instance.
So I started a game of 'Arkham Horror' at about 3:30pm, and to anybody who hasn't played it it is a perfectly enjoyable game. The atmosphere is fantastic, it is difficult, and you play with everybody instead of against them. I was playing with some perfectly obnoxious people, so yes, I did fit in perfectly. So now everything seems to be going famously. My blood sugar started to tank so I went to the front lobby to get a granola bar from the snack bar, which, to stress the niceness of this town, was operated under the honor system. I found the lobby darkened, which was understandable, and there was a drop-down gate that was blocking the rest of the library.
A few hours after I got the snack, I had to go to the restroom. I got up to excuse myself and left the room, following the man who was leading our game of Arkham Horror. When we got into the bathroom I discovered a scene of horror that I could not have anticipated, even during an epic battle against the Dunwich Horror.
The restroom was like most other restrooms. Stalls, urinals, small anteroom for privacy and small tile floor underfoot, nondescript paint on the walls. There was something terribly wrong with the air in this restroom. It had a definite sourness to it, like someone had freshly relieved himself, and I don't mean to be scatological for sensational purposes. With the gamemaster taking the first urinal, I opt to take the first stall, as he was much taller than I am and I truly fear urinating next to tall men. Stepping into the stall I was greeted with something so horrible that it would grip my heart with fear just to recount such a scene. There were brown muddy smears on the floor, on the seat, pasted around the bowl, and thinly all over the floor around the base of the toilet.
I did what any grown man would do. I said 'Wooooah!!!'.
Very calmly, I kept the rest of my commentary to myself and moved quickly to the urinal, the image of the scene just two feet to my right burnt into my emotional psyche, unshakeable.
I stood at the urinal, doing what men do at the urinal. Stand straight up and stare at the nearest speck on the wall, trying as hard as possible not to think about what he just saw.
I was about finished when I realized that there was a child of some sort in the restroom with me. He was shuffling around, nervously, with small murmerings and shaking hands gripping great wads of paper towels freshly moistened from the sink. As I turned around he dove to the ground in the stall, frantically wiping the floor, madly moving the mass of moist paper in ways that I've never thought of using to clean a floor. Still murmering, still shaking, still redfaced and humiliated. The combined reek of urinal cakes and liquid feces hit its high point, and I looked at the poor creature scrambling against himself, who barely knew I was in the room, being trapped in there alone with his filth, trying to climb out of his own self-built slick-walled pit. I noticed the back of his leg...and I will describe the back of his leg with some dialogue.
"Hey kid...you got a little bit of that on the back of your right leg."
He responded with several subdued murmers, so busy with his shameful task, and so disoriented, that he likely didn't even understand what I said.
I went back to the game, shaken to my core. The game went swimmingly. We seemed to be losing, badly, with plenty of head scratching, arm crossing, and shifty-eyed worrying. It is exactly how the game is supposed to go. Portals to the other worlds were opening at a rapid rate and the dunwich horror had been summoned, a terrifying beast that would whiten my hair with the mere attempt at description; a truly abominable creation. Half of us were in the other worlds, attempting to stem the flow of monsters, while the others scrapped for what little supplies were available in such a desperate city. I stopped by the local newspaper building to see if I could commission any of my tales of fright and fancy in order to buy much needed supplies but there was nothing but grief for a disheveled drifter, and I set off to the hospital to rest and treat my ugliest supperating wounds. Safely in the hospital, I went to fill up my water bottle.
The trip to the bathroom started as normal, but the darkened hallway took on a new character that seemed just as strange and non-euclidean as the game from which I'd just stepped. The jovial sounds and sights of the gameroom dissipated and I was treated to the sight of two young boys lying on the cold tiles beneath the drinking fountain, which was, unfortunately, my destination.
So then as I approached, attempting to maintain my composure, and the stench hit my nostrils like no stench should ever be allowed. It was stale, yet was strong, like the reek of a rancid infection coming forth through a scab recently cracked open. Whatever efforts put forth in cleaning were totally spent on the bathroom floor and no care was apparently taken in cleaning the boy himself. I filled up my bottle, sadly, wondering if the smell had innoculated the fluid as it travelled from fountain to receptacle. I hastily capped the bottle and made my way back to the game room.
I'm sorry friends, but I cannot stomach any more of a description except to say that the game ended famously, in a very tight victory won over the great old ones and without a single casualty amongst those present. A truly masterful attempt at the game, and I must say with vigor, ending with victory for my first instance of the game. The game was won on a lark, with two people emerging by the skin of their teeth into two separate portals, one of which had been open and one of which had serendipidously just opened on that turn. One more turn and we would have been hopelessly lost in oblivion.
But the boy. I still feel for the child, who was in his own hopeless struggle, and by his behavior, was just not altogether there. It is the fact that his lucidity was so questionable, in his murmering and permanently furrowed brow, that leads me to sorrow at the very mention of the event. I will never forget the happenings of the night. Not only was my victory at such a difficult game memorable, and worthy of both story and song, but the child who sadly reminded me so much of a young Budiak (or a young Bud Dwyer) whose struggles had not started that night...and certainly didn't end there either.

I did venture into the bathroom one more time before I left that night, before getting into my car for the two-hour long drive back to Sacramento, with only a stop at the Suisun exit fast-food oasis for a spicy chicken sandwich and to use the comparably clean restroom at my favorite Valero. When I got back into the bathroom, I stood at the urinal that was farthest away from the horrible scene of that day's most heinous crime. I made the mistake of glancing over at the stall, giving in despite my best efforts to separate myself from the happenings forever. I was re-introduced to terror as I saw, wadded up and shoved behind the toilet, a pair of once-white underpants, now wholly corrupted and no longer, in any sense, 'white'. I simply bowed my head, prayed for the boy silently (as is the only option in such a situation) and finished my business.
Turning to go to the sink to wash my hands which would never again be clean, I spotted, on the handicapped stall door, this note.

There it was, shining there, the one piece of paper left in the bathroom, as the rest of the paper of all sorts had been consumed in the harried attempt to conceal the boy's shame. I walked up to it, greeted it, honored it, and looked under the stall door to make sure nobody had gone in there unprepared. I was clear. I tugged on the door, and it had been locked, as apparently the boy had been clever enough to make sure nobody went in there while simultaneously not being clever enough to control his own bowels. I snatched the note up, confident that nobody would likely fall into the trap of entering either stall until the janitor arrived, and stuffed it into my grubby pocket.
There isn't much I want or really even need to say about the note itself. It is highly utilitarian, but the desperation in which is is scrawled is transcendent of both age and culture. The misspelling threatens to belie the crude affection of the note, and it does not escape me; that the boy, with all of his troubles, still holds on to basic human dignity and courtesy. I made my way to my car through a very nice empty and nicely quiet courtyard, and drove off, note in hand, so distracted by the preceeding events that I got absolutely, hopelessly lost.

Budiak@dynamitegun.com

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