The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [1]
Dickerson didn’t yell for help because it would have been embarrassing to be found by a student. So instead he waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually the janitor found him at five o’clock that evening. Even though at that point Dickerson was really hungry from missing lunch, at least he was able to use the bathroom. They had to call in plumbers to remove the entire toilet and ship both Dickerson and his new porcelain shorts to the hospital, where doctors were able to surgically separate the two.
Dickerson never ordered a new toilet because the process of doing so would just bring unwanted attention to the whole embarrassing ordeal. That, and the school had spent most of its money that year buying these cool Nike uniforms and tracksuits for all the sports teams. Then by the following year the kids and teachers probably just forgot all about the missing toilet, which was fine with Dickerson. So the fourth stall from the high window remained toilet-less and became the perfect place for my office. Mostly because it was in the farthest reaches of the school’s East Wing where there were no classrooms, except for a rarely used band room.
The bathroom was also secure and private due to an arrangement I had with the school janitor. In fact, he had even given me a key so I could lock up the bathroom during nonbusiness hours to keep kids from coming in and messing with my stuff. Maybe I’ll get into that arrangement more later on, but for now I should probably get back to the story at hand.
So where was I anyway? Oh yeah, Monday. It was lunchtime. I was sitting behind the desk my crew had installed in the fourth stall. Business had been a little slower than usual the past couple of days, but otherwise it had been just another normal day at the office up to that point. Joe, my strongman, stood outside the bathroom, forming lines and regulating the flow of kids. Only one customer was allowed inside the bathroom at any given time. Joe also kept out any unwanted company. He was an eighth grader, the biggest kid at our school; he towered over the other students like an NBA player at a midget convention. No one messed with Joe, not even me. But he was loyal, and I compensated him well.
Joe ushered in kid after kid, first come first serve. Vince was the only person other than me and the client allowed inside the bathroom when we were seeing customers. He usually stood outside my office, where he patted the kids down and checked for recording devices, stink bombs, or other undesirables.
The second-to-last client of that afternoon was a big football player named Robert Hoveskeland. He looked funny sitting in the small plastic chair in the cramped stall. His huge knees were almost level with his shoulders. I had a good feeling about the kid right away, probably because he was wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey.
“What can I do for you, Robert?” I asked. “Need more playing time? Less playing time? A girlfriend? Help breaking up with a girlfriend?”
“No, not exactly,” he said.
“It has to do with a girl, though, right?”
He nodded and I thought I saw him blush a little bit.
“I want to take a girl to that new movie Idiots Doing Stupid Stunts, but I don’t know how to get us in. It’s rated R. My dad’s a cop and he’s obsessed with the whole ‘the law is the law’ thing, so he won’t go for it. Anyways, I already told her I could get us in, so I’m just wondering if you could help me somehow. I don’t want her to think I’m a liar.”
“I think I can help you, Robert. When were you two planning on going?” I asked.
“Well, I invited her to go Saturday night.