Choices and Consequences

This story contains strong language, references to drug and alcohol intake and descriptions of body function some may find disturbing or offensive, please read with forewarned knowledge.

Short, sharp breaths through his nostrils filled the spaces in between the tap-tap of the light rain on the uninsulated metal roof of his 'classic' truck. He called it that, often playing off to his friends that sure, he could go buy a newer model with LED dash, heated seats and power windows, but where was the character? His 1981 Dodge 150 had it all! 3 matching tires on rims, a 1 barrel carb to help with keeping the noxious air quality in check, a modest AM/FM stereo system...well a speaker in the dash.

The truth is, it's all he can afford. Calvin wasn't the schooling kind, never was interested in classrooms, computers, carpentry, chemistry, cooking.....he paused to wonder why everything to do with schools started with C's.

A wash of those LED headlights from a car pulling out from the pumps of the gas station he was parked infront of pulled him back to reality. Calvin winced from the pain of the brightness as well as his unsettled guts. Beads of persperation began forming at his hairline, he knew what he was here for, he knew it had to happen, sitting and procrastinating wasn't going to change anything but the urgency to get this over with.

Procrastinating, that's what he was good at, that's where he was comfortable, that's why he drove a shitty beater truck because he doddle-fucked his way through high school with no intention of going to university, he had no career path, he figured something would come along and he'd grow into it. But at the time, he liked playing video games, drinking beer and hanging out with friends.

The rain was picking up, the customers were beginning to only show up sporadically now as night fully decended onto the city, this wasn't a regular stop for Calvin, he'd stopped here when he was in this part of town before and saw that it was laid out perfectly for what he had planned. The clerk was tucked away in a back corner, the lighting was old and dingy, there was a restaurant attatched to the other side of the building, and they shared an enterance, but the restaurant closed long before the gas station did, so it was lights off and locked up long ago, before she left, the waitress cleaned the shared washrooms in the hallway that linked the two businesses, Calvin watched her do that, then leave for the night. Now was the time, now or never...he reached across to his glove box and felt inside until his hand fell on the brown paper bag he knew was in there. "I really hope I don't have to use this" he thought as he tucked it into his jacket whilst he exited the truck.

He started walking across the parking lot, his cowboy boots clop-clopping over the wet asphalt, "What did I do to wind up here again?!?" Calvin muttered, already knowing the answer. He suddenly spun around in terror at the deafening sound of a police siren seemingly coming from everywhere, yet nowhere all at once, the movement causing the brown paper bag to sing it's own anthem in response. Calvin clenched his teeth as his eyes widened in horror, a police cruiser was a blur as it sped by in hot pursuit of another vehicle..."Oh God, I'm not gonna make it!" Calvin's resolve was seriously under question. His knees were shaky and weak, his muscles, all of his muscles were tight as he returned to his advance on the door. "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!!!" he cursed, "I must look like the world's most suspicious, methed out zombie!" he panicked during his next four shuffle-steps.

This all would have been hilarious to 18 year old Calvin, drunk or high most of the time, living the high life, nary a care in the world. Of course, the world isn't so scary when there's so much of it infront of you, and you don't have a second hand pot to piss in, or a over-priced rented window to throw it out of mused a 38 year old Calvin. He was fresh out of school at 18, watching all of his friends making plans, going to trade schools, university, getting loans and slowing down the wild life as they pooled their resources and got houses or apartments near their new school-prisons. "Chumps" thought young Calvin, "All I need is a job, and a basement suite, beer money and my playstation, and I'm GOLDEN!"

The jingle-tingle-tingle of the door brought Calvin back to the present, he stood in the enterance, shivering. At first he thought he was wet from the rain, but then he realized he was soaked with persperation. His breathing slowed, became quiet as he stared into the convenience store, an explosion of colours from all the candy and drink displays, almost like a carnival from his youth, beckoning to him in slow motion. He clenched his fists, narrowed his eyes...it's go time! His mind exclaimed right as the wounded t-rex in his guts howled, surely shaking the building with it's growl, sending a shiver of urgency up Calvin's spine, "oh no!" he squeaked as his eyes went from Clint Eastwood to Amanda Seyfried in less than a nanosecond.

Calvin quickly spun, he headed into the bathroom, the fresh, clean, deserted bathroom that he had cased out those many years before...he may not have many fancy things like a law degree, a new car or even a suit that isn't second hand, but he has something more that one can only have from choosing the path of life he did...the knowledge of the best emergency bathroom to shit in if you have hangover guts, the fast food shits or a bad flu, that knowledge and the ability to poop in public. You only gain this ability through a life of poor choices...poor financial choices, poor dietary choices, poor life planning skills...however, the case, more often than not is the consequence of those poor choices is a stripped down and almost visceral survival instinct.

In this case, eating Mexican food from a sketchy new food truck after a hot afternoon of a few beers and being 38 at your dentist friend's baby shower. The half dry morsel of lemon cake made by some Becky wasn't going to hold you, you knew that, that's why when you saw Senór Steven's Steamed Tacos on your way to the party you stopped and had a $15 platter of regret.

But you thought you could make it home

Dumb, dumb, dumb!!! You're 38 years old moron, you have spent your entire life with a diet curated by a 15 year old...Mountain Dew, Pizza Pops, Mc Dicks, Budweiser....you have no digestive system anymore, only a ulcerous bag of acid that MacGuyvers it's vitamin needs through a deal with the devil, Calvin, you piece of shit!!!

The door to the poop cubicle, the poo-bicle if you will, swings open as your inner monologue of berating admonisment is interupted by a make-believe harmonica and vulture crying overhead, as this epic showdown between man and porcelin is about to begin.

"IN THIS CORN-AH, THE AMERICAN STANDARD, CLOCKING IN AT 3.2 OR 5.1 GALLONS PER MINUTE FLUSHING CAPACITY!!

AND IN THIS CORN-AH, WEARING DENIM ON DENIM, WITH THE LOWER DENIM ALREADY AROUND HIS COWBOY BOOTS, NAKED ASS POINTING OUT INTO THE WORLD LIKE SHAME IS A CONCEPT SO ALIEN TO HIM, IT MAY AS WELL BE WRITTEN IN PURPLE, CAL-VIN"

He wasn't even sitting when he began the massacre...didn't even have to push, the whole thing was over before it began, it seems silly now, the buildup to get to the finish line, but here we are. Calvin then reaches for the brown bag he keeps in his glove box and extracts a wet-nap, currated from one of many visits to fried chicken restaurants. He calls them, his bidet-in-a-bag, a way to keep fresh even after an absolute daycare murder of a bathroom break.

Whistling a happy tune, Calvin washes his hands and walks back to his truck, knowing he can't come back here for a few months to let the heat die down, he's learned nothing, happily back on his path to nowhere, no fucks given, no fucks taken.