Six wrong turns later I entered the upstairs bathroom. Spartan but hygienically tolerable. Toilet stall on the left. Two urinals to the right, separated by a flimsy wall divider. Wash basin. Piercing overhead fluorescent lights that would give a million-dollar fashionista model a quick social media death by jaundice makeover. A quick tug on the toilet stall door. Locked.
Fuck it. Temples pulsing. Fight the urge to dislodge this anti-matter in my gut. Staggering to a urinal, I unzip and read the scrawled pastiche of Visayan, Tagalog, and English graffiti lacing the wall tiles: New Hope for the Wretched. Butcher Baby. Masterplan. Pig is a Pig. Sex Junkie. Tomorrow will be a disaster for sure, but for now, please don't, please don't, please don't puke.
The graffiti spins round and round, faster and faster.
Shit. Time to cash the check. I clutch the back of the urinal like a PBR bull rider on the nastiest ride of his bucking life. It is what it is. Chunks of yellow bile mixed with that lovely lobster bisque I had at Obama's Grill. Or was it Hobbit House? Can't remember.
After five full minutes of unplanned bulemia, the Big Spit's over. Time to clean up for the walk of shame.
A ringtone. Recognizable, yet not mine. A Marimba version of The Plasmatics The Damned. Someone's pissing at the next urinal next to me. He answers the call in indecipherable, Asiatic bursts, then hangs up. "You okay there, buddy?"
It's when we zip up and shamble to the wash basin that I face off at an aged simulacrum of a youthful memory. He's wearing a surgeon's operating mask, but I'd recognize that Mohawk mullet anywhere. Dong-eun Kwon.
"Dong?"
"Butt Munch?"
"Butt Munch?"
"Uhhh ... Doug?" He nods and points to the side of his mask.
Uh, Oh! To the paper towel dispenser. Gaze in the mirror. Wipe away the last remnant of that lobster bisque.
"Dong, long time no--"
"You've gotta get outta here.."
"Hey, you're still hiring, right?"
"It's coming. I can feel it in my bones."
"What's coming? Holy moly of--"
A large, sickening crimson patch of blood welling underneath the plastic laminate toilet stall. "Shiznit!"
Rush to the door. Pry with both hands. No go. More oozing blood. Fuck. Jump up. It turns out I'm not very agile. After the second jump, my upper body dangles over the stall door while I reach for the lock. "Agghh!" A bonfire in my temples. Please don't puke. Please don't puke. Coughing phlegm. "Dong! Help!"
CLICK.
My body weight torques the stall door open, and I crash hard against the wall. After rubbing the kink from my neck I scan the room. The Donger's vanished like an invisible hummingbird passing gas in a monsoon. Blood's still pooling on the tile floor, marking rivulets in the groutlines. A deep breath. Cautiously, I poke my head through. Hurl's drooling bile and passed out, body twisted and splayed along the toilet with his head tilted back with a bright-red gash cleaving his forehead like he's a blood-drenched marionette posing for a SAW movie trailer.