I had never before encountered it on a linoleum floor, so it took me several dumbfounded seconds to accept that what I was looking at was human feces. A pile of it, in the center of a large classroom. In a church.

It was a simple building -- a one story, L-shaped block structure. The short arm of the L was the chapel; the long arm was a classroom that could be divided into three with sliding partitions. In the elbow of the L was a kitchen. Like many of the buildings in Darwin, Australia, the exterior walls were mostly louvered windows, which were kept open to the cooling breezes. When the rains would come blowing sideways -- and they could come with only minutes' warning -- someone best be there to shut the windows.

Terry and I were living in a small trailer on an adjacent lot. We'd gotten to know the pastor, and he offered us the job of checking on the building during the weekdays, when it was seldom used. Mostly our job was to make sure the louvers were closed during storms. As part of the deal, he allowed us to keep food in the kitchen, which had a real fridge and stove. We'd eat there on the few occasions we didn't eat out. Not a bad deal, we thought.

The tropical humors of Darwin can turn a fresh loaf of bread into a kaleidoscope of mold in just two or three days. And that was about how long we judged the turd had been stewing on the floor until we discovered it on a day we'd gone there for lunch. After gaining access to the church, this guy had made himself quite at home. Not only had he relaxed onto the classroom floor, he'd made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and sliced himself some cheese to have with our crackers. It makes perfect sense that if you feel comfortable shitting on the floor, you don't worry yourself about leaving crumbs on a kitchen counter or screwing the lid back on a peanut butter jar.

We cleaned up the kitchen first. We got a big box and scooped everything out of the fridge and cupboards right into it, including unopened canned goods. We were dirt poor, but we didn't need to discuss this. The whole building was, for the moment anyway, a toilet.

The kitchen cleaned, we turned our attention to the body rotting in the classroom, which we hadn't wanted to look at again. It is impossible to look at a turd dropped in the middle of a large room without conjuring up an image of a squatting form, the turd oozing out of the ass and curling onto the floor below. Or without hearing the sound of it -- a wet rubber glove peeling slowly back off the fingers.

The initial assault on the shit mound was launched with a long-handled flathead shovel. We had been seduced into thinking the shit had given up most of its odor. But when the shovel's steel broke the crust that had formed, it jumped to life and quickly had us by the throats. We retreated outside to fill our lungs with fresh air, and continued like this for the remainder of the operation, working as if underwater.

Nearly as bad as the stench, however, was the feel of the turd in the shovel. Afterwards, I thought that I'd hysterically imagined the vividness of these sensations, until years later I read the work of Michael Polanyi. He describes how, with experience, tools become extensions of the body. A metal probe pressed against an organ, for example, transfers sensations to the surgeon's hand that makes it seem as if the hand itself is contacting the organ. By this time, I'd apparently had enough experience with shovels that the shovelhead had become one with my hands. I could feel the turd's subtle grip on the floor as I chased it around, trying to coax it on to the shovel; I could feel its inconsistent texture as I eased the shovelhead further under it. And then there was the simple heft of the thing as I lifted it off the floor and carried it, arms fully extended, out into the yard, where I shook it loose into the hole we'd dug.

We phoned the pastor that night with the news and suggested he double-check the doors when leaving the building Sunday afternoon. Our best guess was that a drifter had found a door unlocked and come in for a brief respite. He'd found the food and afterwards relieved himself, but had meant no real harm by it. The building's restroom, after all, was entered through an exterior door with its own lock. Once in the building, perhaps he assumed that a toilet was available whenever he'd need it. When he discovered too late that he couldn't access it, he had to do an emergency landing on the floor.

There were clues that didn't fit this benign story. Why, for example, did he defecate in the middle of the floor? But the drifter story was still a lot easier to fathom than what turned out to be the case.

The following Monday, when we happened to stop by the church, we found a new deposit in nearly the exact location. It was so fresh that we did a building check. We had wondered on the first occasion what the guy had used to wipe himself, because there was nothing but the dung pile. This time he had ripped from the wall a crayon drawing of a Bible scene done by a four-year-old, wiped his ass on it, and leaned it against the shit heap like it was garnish.

So we dug and filled another hole in the churchyard, right beside the first. This time I didn't tap the soil back in place; I pounded it with the back of the shovel.

A thorough investigation of the building turned up a broken louver right next to the exterior door leading into the classroom. Bending it out of the way, you could reach your arm through the gap and open the locked door from the inside. The guy had cleverly put the louver back in place, which meant he intended future deposits. If he kept to his pattern, it would probably be between Sunday night and Monday afternoon. This gave us a week to plan a surprise party.

The next Sunday, following the service, we locked ourselves in the church building with two days of supplies: food, flashlights, bed rolls, rope, poker cards and chips, pissing jars, a cricket bat, and the flathead shovel. Then we waited.

It was Monday, late morning, when we heard someone gently testing the door to the chapel. We were sitting right behind it, dealing out poker hands. The person knocked lightly and called out, "Anybody there?" After another few seconds we heard footsteps moving away from the door, and we crawled over to peek out the nearby windows. We saw a guy in his mid thirties, slight build, sandy hair. He walked over to the classroom door, bent down on one knee, and began working on the broken louver, checking repeatedly over his shoulder. He looked nothing like I'd imagined -- certainly not like a drifter. He could have walked right into a bank and opened an account or applied for a job, no problem.

Careful to make no noise, we collected our gear and moved into position. We'd rehearsed many times what would happen now. Five seconds after The Shitman entered through the classroom door, Terry quietly exited out the chapel and went to the same door. If he had found it locked, we'd have gone to plan B. But the door was unlocked. Armed with his cricket bat, he burst through the door, yelling obscenities.

One rational for closing in on him so quickly was that we didn't want to clean up a third pile of shit. But more strategically, we thought we could predict his reaction if he was just a few feet from the door when Terry came charging through it. Because he knew the floor plan, he'd run in the other direction away from Terry, through the interior door leading to the kitchen, out the other kitchen doorway into a narrow hallway, into the chapel, and out the chapel door. But between the hallway's end and the chapel door were me and -- cocked and ready to swing -- the flathead shovel.

We had considered several options before settling on this one. We thought of just tackling him, but rejected this because we had no idea how big he might be, how filthy, or whether he might have a knife. Had we known he was about our size, decently dressed and bathed, we'd have probably just jumped him. But it was impossible to alter the plan now.

As soon as I heard Terry's yell, I started a five count. This would be about how long we judged it would take for The Shitman to emerge from the hallway. But just as I started the count, I noticed that Terry had forgotten to close the chapel door as planned. This would mean that the intruder would not need to slow up as he approached the door, which was the only way I expected I could land a full swing on him.

I quickly changed the plan, stepping out a little so I could see down the hallway. As I did, I saw The Shitman just starting down; and he saw me. When he tried to put on the brakes, his feet slid from under him, and he came to rest sitting on his butt, right within my range.

There was a brief moment when everything froze. He stared wide-eyed at me, and me at him. In imagining the scene beforehand, I saw myself taking a shovel to an ogre. What I was staring down at was human, and scared.

A moment later, he had sprung to his feet and started back down the hallway, running right over Terry, who was just then coming through the kitchen doorway. Both of them went sprawling onto the floor. Rather than going the other way -- back out the chapel door -- I stupidly pursued him, which meant that I first had to climb over Terry, who was still on his back and blocking the doorway. I never got closer than ten feet to The Shitman, and had to watch helplessly as he sprinted out of the building and down the street.

He never returned, but it was an unsatisfying conclusion. I couldn't admit to Terry that I'd had a clear shot at him but hadn't taken it. Later it would dawn on me that the swing I had intended to land could have killed. The persona I had imagined beforehand was of mythic proportion, so potent that a blow from a shovel would be a mere swat. Clearly, his shit had gotten to me, and perhaps in just the way he had intended.

I hope that, in the end, I got to him -- that he sometimes sees me standing over him with that flathead shovel.

-- Logjam