The Men's Room

One chalupa is all it ever takes for me to short-circuit. The moment I wedge that warm quilt of fry bread between my lips, that soft blanket of beefy something slathered in melted cheddar and avocado, I’m on cloud nine.

Those suckers, they clean me right out lickety-split. By the time they do, I’m about ready for another one.

All comes down to the kid behind the grill who makes it in the end. Too often, it’s some pimple-faced freak you sat next to in high school who would just as soon spit in your food as sprinkle ex-lax all over it like someone hurt them.

The summer I’m living Más on Cannon Beach, I’m cruising the 101. This was back when I joined the unhoused. Wild and rent-free without a care in the world. No landlord breaking down my door. No shits to give. Just me and my yen for Tex-Mex raw dogging it through life in a Volvo.

Back then, I was doing web design and vlogging to the van life faithful. Bought me gas and red hot chalupas by the dozen. Anymore, I can’t stomach those things without flashing back to that day.

The sun sliced like an orange peel over the horizon, the wind whipping my hair, I’m polishing off another fat girl to Queen. She spills into my lap, drowning my legs in a bubbling hot spring of avocado and jalapeño.

There I am, 20 miles out from a pit stop when an air raid siren sounds in my head. Like someone’s about to drop The Big One.

That someone being me.

I’m burning rubber like a maniac watching for the flashing lights in my mirror. White guys get to say one of three things when they get pulled over. You can remind the nice officer that you, the taxpayer, pay their salary, so they ought to be careful about how they talk to the boss. Then you deny everything. Tell ‘em their speed guns, their cameras, they were all on the fritz. Mistakes were made here.

You the governed can always tell 'em you’re a sovereign citizen, that you're a private person traveling in private property. Read the social contract, officer.

Only thing you can’t say is you were doing 120 to take a Mount Shasta-sized dump to feed your taco truck habit.

The last three or four of them fat girls are dancing the mamba in me when I pull up to the rest stop. I tumble out in a fast food stupor, my ass-hole clenched, barreling towards my brick and mortar Xanadu. Waving my arms like I’m landing a jumbo jet.

Bolting for the bathroom door, I burst into the first open stall. The john’s sweating bullets as I pull my pants down and plop onto the seat, dropping my jewels in the drink. Letting out this baritone roar like a howitzer.

From outside, it must have sounded like someone machine-gunned me on the crapper. I would’ve called the cops to have them remove what was left of the body. I mean, it sure smelled like someone died in there.

For a moment, everything is right with the world. I just sit there, my keister smiling a Mona Lisa smile, savoring that tiny hit of dopamine you get after a successful evacuation. God went and made it so we get a rush from opening our Suez Canals to keep the mail moving. Voiding your bowels tickles that bundle of super-nerves around your bung hole. Tickles your prostate silly. Why baby boys get hard-ons taking a shit.

I take in the Big Nothing. Just for a second. Silence is golden in the men’s room. Eyes forward. Mouth shut. None of us hang in the restroom to shoot the shit. Hold your peace while you hold your piece. Someone chit-chats in the can, they’re a psycho, far as I’m concerned.

As I go to reel in some toilet paper, I notice a small metallic box next to the toilet dispenser. Curiosity gets the best of me and I crack open the lid.

Oh shit.

Tampons. Used.

The bathroom door creaks open as I hear a bunch of click-clacks against the linoleum. I drop my head down to my ankles and watch a pair of high heels and yoga pants walk over to the neighboring stall.

Fuck me dead.

I'm behind enemy lines.

I can’t just leave. Not now. I don't know how many witnesses are beyond that door. Imagine. A bunch of middle-aged moms catch some scruffy-look’n beach bum sniffing around the lady’s room. Just the thing some femme-nazi looking for something to femme-nazi about is dying for.

I sit there weighing my options when I do what the blue-black graffiti art tells me. Look up.

I spot a long cashmere scarf hanging over the side of the stall door, beckoning like a bedsheet rope dangling from out a prison window. My means of escape wrapped in lamb’s wool and dandruff.

The thing reeks of wet dog as I loop it around and around my head into a makeshift hijab. For good measure, I pull out wads and wads of teepee, stuffing it all down my shirt for a nice pair of man-tits.

Best case scenario, someone thinks I’m in a Muslim drag show. Worst case scenario, I make the 11 o’clock news. French-kissing a taser.

I roll the dice and power walk out of toward the open exit, head down, hands clasped in prayer to the Big Guy Upstairs. My years of Sunday school rushing back.

This little ankle-biter waltzes in, pants down and willie out, shouting, “Bafoom! Bafoom!” Kid smacks into me on his way to God knows where with one fat finger pointed yonder to the facilities.

See, I’m already bolting for the exit when this guy wraps himself around my leg. I try and shake him off as I’m poking around the corner, head on a swivel, looking for Mom. It’s dark out now. Place is quiet as a tomb.

Goddamn it. I ain’t no one’s baby daddy. At least, I don’t think so.

It takes a nano-second to run through the possibilities. One of them has Mom walking in on us as he tells her, “This man helped me with my wee wee!” All the others have him crapping all over my Levis.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shiiiiiiiiiit.

Meanwhile, this kid is about to go Fukushima on my Levis.

So I go and airlift the squirt by his armpits and haul ass to a stall where I hover him over the bowl. I don’t know if he’s doing his business out the front or the back. Turns out it’s both. Little guy’s got a power washer on him. Like, there should be some college scholarship in his lifetime for pissing matches.

I shake Mr. Flomax off and pat him dry, zip him up, set him back down and turn him loose when mom wanders in wearing some starry purple mu-mu.

This blonde lady, she squats down and scoops him up, nestling him in the crook of her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she goes. “This little mister can’t read the signs yet.”

I just smile and nod.

Neither of us can.

She waves her hand, batting away some thought, flashing me a sheepish look.

“I know it must be so hard for you people,” she says. “We need bathrooms for everyone.”

Ten points to Gryffindor.

This kid, he’s going ballistic now. Pounding his little fist against her chest. She pats his back, shushing him with her best I Just Can’t Today sing-song voice.

“He’s just a little excited,” she says. “We just stopped breast feeding.”

“I’d freak out too,” I say.

There you have it.

My chalupa-addled brain firing on all cylinders.

Perfect time for my scarf-jab to fall clean off my face, flashing my nine-o-clock shadow to the world.

I should’ve listened to my ex when she told me to go vegan.

Mu-mu Mom barely had time to scream by the time I’m hightailing it back to Georgina. If you never saw someone do a burnout in a Volvo, there's a reason for that.

Most men couldn't give you even give you a passing description of anyone they pissed with seconds after they leave a restroom. Call it part of the men’s room omertà. Miss Mu-mu and I had enough face time for her to paint the Pope a fresco of me.

I’m flooring it down the 101 before I see him again in big bold letters above me. Kyle Whitehead. Age two. White Dodge Caravan 2013. Call so-and-so if you see me. Next to him is Mother Mu-mu, a shade younger now, posing for the DMV or some shit. I just about run Georgina off the road and kiss the butt end of a guard rail. That’s when I see the flashing lights in my rearview mirror.