I've worked with Chaz for nearly five years. He is in his twenties and is the type of person one may resent or unfairly judge at first glance, because he seems to have it all. A creative musician with a golden past, Chaz captures the hearts of giggly high school girls and the respect of his peers. He has the look of a celebrity and the loyalty of a soldier. If you get past the Justin Timberlake facade, you find him to be surprisingly empathetic and caring. Truly, Chaz is one of the "good guys" left on this planet.
That is why his hidden malady is so mind-boggling.
Chaz, you see, has something nefariously wrong with his digestive system.
Earlier in our respective careers, his uncomfortable facial expressions and jaunts to the restroom were taken as simple excuses to get out of whatever meeting we were in or social exchange we were having. His abrupt and rude exits left those remaining in the room shaking their heads. Slowly, however, as comfort levels rose and true personas were uncovered, it became common knowledge that Chaz suffered from the serious and embarrassing condition known as IBS. It is a shared disease among many of the male employees in our department, as it turns out.
To properly illustrate this horrifying problem, Chaz shared with me the following story. It left me reeling for days -- it couldn't be true, I thought -- but I have since seen photos to prove it.
It happened about three years ago. Chaz and his beautiful girlfriend attended a party in the city. Chaz drank from a seemingly unending supply of bottled beer, talked with friends, cuddled with the love of his life, Maura, laughed a lot, and achieved a healthy buzz. After sobering up, in the middle of the night, Chaz and Maura decided to start the drive home to the suburbs.
Just prior to leaving, however, Chaz had felt the familiar pangs of an arriving butt-purge. The party was still in full swing, even at three in the morning, and he felt that it would be a sort of social suicide to allow the soupy, foul-smelling, post-Chipotle-post-beer contents of his bowels to snake their way through the host's plumbing system and, more to the point, for the odor to make its way through the shared air in the house. To this end, Chaz was also cognizant of the party-goers' presence outside the door to the restroom; those near would surely hear the thunderclap of disaster as this horrific substance squeezed its way out. Hopeful that he could make it home, he put the cramping out of his mind, made his farewells, and the lovely couple left.
Inside the car, however, the pain became cruel and urgent. Chaz knew that he would have to find a restroom -- there was no way he would make it home! They drove erratically through empty, darkened streets. Everything was closed.
They made it back to the highway, and as the car sped across the silent road, a slightly tipsy Maura began taunting Chaz with anti-IBS epithets. "Aren't going to make it, hmmm?" She purred, giggling.
He knew this to be true. Able to contain himself no longer, his pants already undone to relieve some of the pressure, he cut across four lanes and took the first exit -- a well-known avenue in the heart of this Midwestern metropolis, a street punctuated by enormous stone cathedrals.
Chaz pulled into the first available parking lot. It happened to be the lot behind the Protestant church. The stone monstrosity sheltered Chaz's car from the glare of the highway and offered some holy respite in his time of woeful need. He angled his car into a perfectly-chosen spot next to an empty white van and near a friendly-looking old tree. He broke free from the car and squatted near the passenger's side door. Maura waited patiently inside the vehicle, snapping pictures of him with her camera phone and laughing hysterically.
Mid-shit, Chaz felt eyes on him that he intuitively knew weren't Maura's. For a moment he considered that God Himself might be approaching, angry at Chaz's disrespect, but after a quick glance around while gas and liquid jets of crap sprayed from within, he noticed that on the other side of the white van sat ANOTHER car, previously unseen. Inside the car sat a man whose delighted eyes were glued to the act that was before him. Chaz shook his head to clear his thoughts -- could someone really be there? He squinted, blinked -- yes, this man was really there, still watching. "What is he doing here?" Chaz wondered. He tried to finish quickly, now scared and even more embarrassed, and soon he was finally able to turn off the faucet that was his ass.
A pile of fresh poo, described to me as a "globule", was soon all that remained between Chaz's car and the white van.
As he pulled out of the lot, another car approached and quickly drove to the spot he had just vacated. Chaz and a now-serious Maura quickly drove the rest of the way home -- worried and confused.
After some research and investigation in the following days, it turned out that the precise location in which Chaz's unfortunate ass-capade occurred was a gay trysting spot -- unknown to the straight public until that fateful night.
Though one's mind could potentially spend hours working out scenarios in which a "globule of shit" would be left at a gay meeting place, my favorite is the thought that the men present to witness Chaz's medical aftermath would assume it was a direct act of aggression from the intolerant faith-based straight population: a tangible symbol of hate left there for any man "looking for a good time" to receive.
IBS: turning parties into hate crimes since the age of Jesus.