There was the whole week of Spring Break to get through before he could see Katie again. He thought maybe they were going steady now and he wondered what other people would say about them as a couple. Certainly his parents wouldn't like it. His father was the founder and CEO of Packer Development, the biggest developer in the region, and they lived in a huge house on the hill and insisted that Colin would go to an Ivy League law school. He would have to see Katie in secret. In the meantime Colin tried to play Risk with Andrew and discuss comic books with Steve, but his heart wasn't in it. Conquering the world, or keeping baddies from conquering the world, it just didn't seem all that important any more. And anyway it was a complete contradiction, any moron could see that. He was outgrowing stuff very quickly, as quickly as the eggs turned into the frogs he had tortured back when he was a mere boy. But it was like holding your breath: whatever came next was suspended until he could see Katie after the break. And this time it had to be at school — before he set foot in her home again he would wait to be invited.
How he dreamed of that invitation! He wanted the pleasure of returning to the mud and feeling Katie on top of him and shooting off a load and a turd at the same time, and then basking in the watery sense of no-boundaries that came afterwards and took a delicious long time to fade before he became a human being again. He figured that when he had experienced this enough times — but could there ever be enough? — he would be human in a new way. Until then all he seemed interested in doing was jacking off and watching the Animal Planet network in the den.
At last the week passed, and Colin returned to school. He didn't see Katie in PE, nor was she in last-period Biology. While Mr. Witt explained about the production of ammonia in the nitrogen cycle, Colin passed Angela Poulos a note asking about Katie.
Angela's response, in large girlish loops, read, Do I even know you?
Beneath this Colin scribbled, She wanted me to do her bio homework. Since Colin was one of the smart kids and Katie and Angela were Cs, he thought this might sound credible.
Angela wrote back: They moved away or something. You are so totally the last to know.
Colin couldn't let himself believe this — it was just Angela being a snot. He got up the nerve to go back to the ditch after school. It was a sunny afternoon much like the one over a week ago when he and Katie had spawned, and like then he felt a big dump coming on. This time, however, he didn't stop for a soda and a glance at the porn-mag covers but made his way purposefully around the 7-11 to the field.
He was stunned. The field was leveled flat. Gone were the landfill humps where the boys had popped wheelies on their dirt-bikes. The soil was newly turned and evenly graded, and at one end — where the pink-ribboned stakes had been posted last week — a large yellow land-hoe was parked next to a deep pit. Nearby were three or four sections of concrete pipe large enough to crawl through, and a blue port-a-john.
With every step across the leveled field something was leveled in Colin, too. He could see that the irrigation ditch was gone. It was buried and its place now looked the same as the rest of the field, as if it had never existed at all. Colin looked around wildly to make sure he was in the right field and not somewhere else. But it was the same field.
There was a large sign posted at the end where the pit was dug. Colin raced across the field and around to the front of the sign, breathing hard and barely able at first to make out what he saw. It was the depiction of a three-storey luxury condo complex with balconies and gleaming windows and a swimming pool, and a large paved parking lot with trees and shrubs in bordered planters stretching out behind a security gate. Katie's ditch was underneath a long stretch of the parking lot. Units would be available soon, a phone number was given. Finally, in bold but elegant cursive, "The Packer Development Corporation."
Colin clutched at his head and groaned. He picked up a dirt clod and hurled it at the sign, where it shattered into dust. He ran past the earth-mover and flung back the door of the port-a-john. A humid wave of stench filled his nostrils. He crept up to the dark central opening and peered over the edge. In the dim light he could make out wads of tissue on a chunky dark surface.
"Katie?" he called. A long-shot, but it seemed worth a try. He would still love her — it would just be like she'd had to move to an even less desirable neighborhood. He could barely keep from gagging, but he was full of a spirit of sacrifice. "Katie, are you there? It's me — Colin." When he heard nothing but the dull, foreshortened echo of his own voice, he climbed all the way inside and secured the door. He lowered his trousers and sat on the sticky rim. He squeezed his eyes shut and stroked until he had a half-chub and said Katie's name over and over again, trying to make himself come and poop at the same time. Eventually some watery semen came out and then a dribble of turds, but the whole thing felt forced and unsatisfying. He hadn't disappeared into a state of watery communion, not even for a second. He wiped and zippered and when he stepped out and closed the door behind him he felt that another door had been barred forever. He pounded at the port-a-john and his blows resounded hollowly inside. He pushed at the blue fiberglass box and felt it sway. Digging his heels into the earth, he pushed again until he got a slight rocking movement going and heard sloshing deep in the port-a-john's own bowels. But even in his fury and despair he was no match for this portable toilet full of the sturdy dumps of construction workers.
"Hey, uh, whaddaya doin'?"
Colin wheeled around. There were three boys standing astride their motocross bikes. They looked at Colin and then they looked past him at where the landfill humps used to be. Colin couldn't believe these were the same kids whose arrival in the field used to make him feel threatened and ashamed.
"Don't just stand there!" he cried. "This was your place too! Gimme a hand!"
One of the boys stayed on his bike, looking up and down the street, but two of them joined Colin and together they pushed and rocked and the bottom of the port-a-john left the ground further and further until they felt it tip away from them.
"Timber!" yelled one boy.
"Geronimo!" whooped the other.
The port-a-john crashed onto its side and rolled into the pit of the future swimming pool. Brown liquid vomited out of the door and the stink rose to Colin's nostrils as he and his new comrades danced and made war-cries on the edge of the pit.
"Shit!" said the kid who had stayed on his bike. "Car coming! Let's bounce!"
The two boys clambered onto their bikes and sped away after their friend; Colin took off across the field without looking behind him. He ran faster than he had ever run in his life, in the direction of the huge house on the hill, pausing only once to snatch up a new-looking disposable lighter that someone had dropped.
Author's Bio: If you have any information about the individual calling himself "Edmond Caldwell," claiming to be a "writer" and publishing so-called fiction in intranets "zines" such as Word Riot, DIAGRAM, and SmokeLong Quarterly, please contact the Boston Police Department.