The bus ride home from junior high was twenty-two miles long and took an hour because of frequent stops to let kids off. One particular day during eighth grade, in late March 1995, I was hanging out in the coveted back seats with five older high school boys when one of them produced a less-than-fresh can of the classic smokeless tobacco, Wintergreen Skoal. Silent grins spread across their faces as they took turns passing the can amongst them, ducking behind the seat to avoid the persistent glare of the bus driver in the passenger observing mirror as they inserted respectable dips into their lower gums. Eventually the can made its way to me, and one of the guys said, "You think you can handle some, bitch?"
"Hell yeah, I dip all the time," I lied in return. I had never tasted snuff before, though I had an idea from the smell that it wasn't exactly palatable. I had seen enough people dip to know the procedure. I ducked behind the seat myself, grabbed a sizable pinch, grimaced, and stuffed it in my mouth. A small chunk of it broke off between my fingers and spread itself liberally across my tongue. A cough began to roar up out of my diaphragm, but I fought it to avoid appearing weak. The taste was deplorable to say the least; my throat burned, my tongue retreated to the back of my mouth like a salted slug, and a muscular twitch made rounds across my face. Regardless, I gained composure, sat up and handed the can back.
A used sandwich baggie from my book bag made a sufficient spittoon. For the next five minutes, I sat pretending to read a magazine I had with me, the words little more than blurs as the Skoal ate away at my mandible and at my very thoughts. As the nicotine began to swirl through my brain, my head felt light and my heart pounded. I was almost at the point of mild euphoria when the bus driver shouted into his mirror, "YA BOYS ARE DIPPIN' AGAIN!"
Horrified, and with mouth clenched tight, I looked up and saw that the driver was not looking just at me, but also the older guys in the back. The bus slowed and I thought for sure that the driver was going to pull over and come back to inspect everyone's mouths for snuff.
I panicked. Being caught with tobacco on school grounds (including buses) could result in suspension and possibly a court fine for my parents. I dared not duck my head down to spit the snuff into the baggie, as that would have surely been an admission of guilt to the suspecting driver. With almost no deliberation on the matter and possible consequences, I swallowed all of the Skoal left in my jaw.
I have never been shot or stabbed before, but at that moment I think I understood the dawning horror that must come when you realize something intensely violent, evil, and wrong has just happened to your body. I sat there waiting to vomit, nearly certain that bile would explode out of a rapidly forming tobacco-tracheotomy in my throat. The Skoal slid down my esophagus like a feral cat sliding down curtains, shredding it as it descended. My eyes turned red and watered; my solar plexus felt like the trampoline at an obese children's camp. Much to both my dismay and delight, the driver did not pull over; he dropped the issue after his initial outburst and the subsequent denials by the other guys in the back. Meanwhile, I struggled to keep my stomach from bolting into my sinus cavities.
I had half a bottle of Pepsi (also illegal on the bus) in my bookbag. I slunk into the seat and drank the rest of it. I developed a jarring case of the hiccups, but after a few minutes the pain in my digestive system miraculously receded and I thought I was going to escape the incident unscathed. Looking back on it, though, vomiting would have been an act of mercy compared to the havoc that was to erupt from my intestines only a few hours later.
I arrived home and my cousin Josh, a 9th grader, came over to play Super Nintendo with me in my bedroom. Over the next two and a half hours, my bowels began to repent, and a steady, bloated sensation spread throughout my abdomen. I was setting on the floor with my knees pulled up; apparently this position kept me from realizing the true nature of the unholy digestion taking place in my body. I stood a few times and walked around, hoping to coax a fart to alleviate the pressure, but attained nothing more than a few toots. The final time, approximately three hours after that fateful swallow, my organs stretched upon standing and I felt immense pressure and a gas release coming on. I was about to unleash the flatulence willingly when the fart took the liberty itself, thundering unexpectedly out of my buttocks in two powerful waves.
Josh looked up at me, smiled and said, "Nice, dude." But before he could turn his attention back to the game, his eyes widened, rolled upwards at me and fluttered in their sockets. He tossed the controller to the floor, ripped his t-shirt over his nostrils and whispered in a tone low enough that my mother would not hear in the kitchen, "What in the name of fuck is that reek!?"
Josh was sitting and I was standing, thus the smell reached him first. Confused, I bent down and took a whiff. My senses were violently assaulted upon inhalation. I was baffled, or perhaps the fumes fogged my brain to the point that I could not rationally think. The fart smelled like a mass murder committed in a Peppermint Patty factory. My nose pleaded with my brain to shield it from this gastric catastrophe, but I did not cover up; the funk was so foreign that I didn't even believe it was actually my fart we were smelling. It was a most bizarre combination of feces and carcinogens, with a vaguely minty overtone. Still confused, my eyes searched the room, thinking for a moment that perhaps an unfortunate mouse had choked to death on a Junior Mint and died somewhere within the room. I gasped and the stench coated my tongue. Overpowered and gagging amongst the complex cornucopia of repugnant air, I recognized the faint flavoring from this flatulent fallacy: Wintergreen Skoal.
My bowels lurched again, painfully this time, and the Deity of Diarrhea hurled itself towards my sphincter opening. With the reflexes of a cheetah dropping the soap in a prison shower, I slammed my rectum shut, but just a fraction of a second too late. A sweltering gurgle of nicotine-laced load lava spit out of my anus, searing and splashing my buttocks. My face contorted and reddened while my torso writhed in agony. I squeezed my sphincter in desperation; the remaining fecal fluid ramming aggressively against the opening. After about twenty seconds, the tide subsided and I wasted no time explaining the situation to Josh , who no doubt understood what was about to happen from the fright on my face and the bubbling sounds from my butt. I sprinted out the door and down the hall to the bathroom, which was thankfully unoccupied.
I do not remember dropping my pants nor taking my place upon the throne, and thus cannot comment on those elements of the story. It could be because of the excitement of the situation, but most likely I just shit my short-term memory out of my ass along with everything else in my body at the time. The diarrhea detonated out of my rectum as though it had been fired from a Pilgrim's flared blunderbuss. As the wastewater gushed from my anus, I recall being terrified that my mother would recognize the smell of snuff among the fecal fog and I would be severely punished, even beyond the thrashing my teenage bowels was taking at the moment. The stench, powerful in my bedroom, quadrupled in intensity in the small confines of the bathroom. During a brief lull in the action, I hit the switch for the overhead exhaust fan, though it was mostly for psychological assurance -- the wintergreen smell of rotting flesh and digested tobacco permeated throughout the small room, largely ignoring the fan's efforts.
Once I felt that I had braved the worst of the attack, I stood and realized that toilet paper was entirely inadequate for this clean-up job, other than wiping off the seat and bowl. I also suspected that the stench had engulfed my hair and would remain there until washed. I stripped the rest of my clothes off and hopped in the shower. A few tardy squirts showed up moments later, but I was too exhausted to get out and reassume my throne. I let them free beneath the running water and wished them luck finding their fallen crapadres.
-- Commode-O Dragon