Full of Sh*t

 

     The pain resulted from constipation. Massive, horrendous constipation. On the X-ray it looked like cotton batting lumped together and filling all the space from the bottom of my pelvis to the middle of my rib cage. As if I’d eaten nothing but gym socks and wash cloths for weeks on end; As if I’d been cursed by a gypsy and was slowly turning into a stuffed animal from the inside out -some kind of fucked up reverse Pinocchio situation.

      In reality my stuffing was built of plain peanut butter sandwiches and dry, bagged cereal from the bottom shelf of the grocery store’s cereal aisle. That shit people say is just like cheerios and all you can do is pity them. I was ten, with limited dietary ambitions.

 

      I’m pretty sure my dad thought I was faking when I first presented with symptoms. Constipation symptoms. I used to pull that ‘stomach ache’ line all the time, and my father, thinking he was seeing through my lies, wasn’t going to fall for it again.

 

      It really hurt though. Bad. Because of all the poop.

 

      So I ended up at the doctor. Who I remember as being white, middle aged, and very gentle when sticking his finger up my ass.

 

      “I can feel some stool,” he said. “Some firm stool.”

 

      “Well,” I probably thought, “That doesn’t sound so bad. Some nice, firm stool.” Or not. I probably just laid there, terrified, fetal and facing the wall. And my father! He was there, standing like a pillar. Looming over me. Over us. Me and the doctor with his finger in my ass. I’m sure he was mostly just concerned, but I bet dad also found some humor in the situation. Especially after the doctor showed us the X-ray and explained about the poop.

 

      The next part I remember pretty well. There was a nurse, a big lady. She was black, and since I’d had little exposure to black people in the homogenized suburb of my youth, I immediately applied to her every stereotype my ten year old brain could muster. She was Aunt Jemima, Aunt Viv, and the mom from Family Matters all rolled into one. A kind, wise, black woman with a big ass. In my memory she talks like that racist caricature who was always pissed off at Tom and Jerry, although I’m sure she didn’t speak like that in reality. Anyway, her job was to give me an enema.

 

      “Now the doctor says two of these but I’ve been doing this a long time and I think one’ll be just fine,” she said. Or something like that. I’m afraid to write her speech as I actually remember it because I’m not Mark Twain and people might think it’s a hate crime. Also I’m sure my memory is completely wrong on the matter. She held up a plastic bottle of clear liquid with a straw on one end. Once more I was instructed to drop my pants, go fetal and face the wall -just a leather jump suit and box away from being a gimp.

 

      I remember the straw going in, and the sensation of inflation as she squeezed the bottle, filling me up with all that salty water. I guess. I suppose it could have been anything. She could have pumped me full of KY and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

 

      “Now,” she said, as I lay before her with my bowels full of lube, “in a couple of minutes your gonna feel like you have to go. And your gonna feel it heavy. So you just let me know when you feel it and there’s a bathroom right next door.” So I stayed put, curled up and staring at the wall with strange goings on all up in my guts. There was burbling, squelching…….movement.

 

      Then I had to go. I’m not sure if it was a result of the enema, or if the poop had simply been shamed out of me by confusing anal penetration, but the situation required my immediate attention. I looked up at the nurse, sitting in a chair in the corner flipping through a magazine.

 

      “You ready?” She stood up and I nodded. The ten or so steps between me and the toilet were nearly my undoing, but I made it. I sat down and it came like a rush, like a torrent. It was painful and horrifying and glorious all at once, like meeting God and finding out he has a mullet. I had to flush mid way through and then twice at the end as massive lumps of half-chewed, barely digested peanut butter sandwich swirled towards oblivion. And then I felt so much better.