What Goes On In The Walls At Night: Thirteen tales of disgust and delight

by Andrew Schrader

  “You’ve got me,” the shit monster confessed, eyes pointed downwards, holding his brown brim hat low like a beggar. “There is something I’d like.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed Edgar triumphantly, through yellowed teeth.

  “As you can see,” continued the monster, “My body has survived for a very long time on the things you’ve thrown away. I’m grateful for your help. Without you, I’d be little more than a sack of poo. But I want nothing more than to be human.”

  He glanced up, his eyes barely meeting Edgar’s.

  “Lowly as I am,” he continued, “I propose a partnership. I will gladly help you become the greatest flusher in the history of man. In return, all I ask is that you send down bits of flesh now and then—maybe an arm or a head or a leg, when you have the time, of course—and I will reconstitute myself in your image, in the form of my creator. And, in doing this, you will have become the world’s number one flusher—for who else has sent whole parts of a human being down the shitter?”

  The shit monster had a point. Edgar knew it. He mulled it over. No one had, to his knowledge, flushed a human being before. It was such a complex organism, what with the skin and bones and blood and fat; something could easily become unhinged and stick in the pipes or the sewer, then flow back out into this world.

  Within seconds, Edgar had his plan. He would start small, maybe flushing only fingers, hands, ears. Then he’d work his way up to larger pieces, until finally—one day—he would flush an entire human body. This would surely make him the best in the world. It must!

  “You’ve got a deal.” Edgar purred, his thin tongue running along a thin smile. “By the way, what’s your name? What should I call you?”

  The shit monster replied, “I only know of your world from what has been flushed to me. But once I was sent a lovely movie about a woman captured by Indians, and a relentless racist who went to find her. I love it. I’ve seen in a million times. Call me John Wayne.”

  Thus began their partnership.

  The next day, Edgar began looking for prospects. He watched his fellow students—their arms, their legs, their hair, the way they moved—and for the first time he noticed how delicate and individual each of them truly was. Suzie Margopolis moved with the grace of a butterfly. Elizabeth McClane’s full-bodied, delicate lips quivered like gelatinous lemon meringue pie slices when she knew an answer in class. And Joey Small with the fast legs, his thighs like tree stumps, exuded the spirit of a true Olympian.

  Yes, Edgar noticed everything. Fingers, eyebrows, painted toenails. He kept a journal, detailing which parts to take from which person—which hands and heads and breasts and neck would best fit on John Wayne. And from here, Edgar Thorpe drew his own personal, anatomically correct Frankenstein’s monster, with arrows and diagrams detailing what would go where, all the while giddy with joy over his inevitable flushing championship medal.

  Later that day, Edgar waited outside the school for the young Tom Barcelona, a Spaniard with a needle-thin moustache and mousy countenance. After clubbing young Tom over the head with the school’s fire extinguisher, Edgar dragged the unconscious frame around the corner, removed the sharp Ginsu knife from its plastic sheath, and sloppily separated all the fingers and toes from the boy’s body.

  An hour later, Edgar stood over his toilet bowl, quivering with excitement. No one had ever flushed human parts before—at least, not in the public records you’ll find at your local library. So when he saw poor Tom’s fingers and toes plunge into the deep unknown, a great calm came over him. He was on his way to greatness. He’d soon be paddling his canoe on Serenity Lake. And everyone would know the name of Edgar Thorpe.

  For the next several months he dedicated himself to his craft. A hefty sledgehammer over the head usually did the trick for most of his victims; then, he would remove whatever parts were needed. Ears and eyeballs and tongues and cheeks—all went down the drain. Edgar graduated to more complex parts of the body, like the liver, stomach, spleen and gallbladder, so John Wayne could start digesting solid food.

  As for John Wayne, he began to look and feel like a real human being. He lifted weights, down there in the sewer, made from the old scrap metal that Edgar had flushed over the years. His broomstick arms gave way to bona fide human arms. He popped off the wheelchair seat he used for an ass, replacing it with a real human ass. He even gained some vision, and when he received the nose of a teacher-turned-oenophile, he marveled at his newfound sense of smell.

  “Phew, what a stench there is down here!” he exclaimed. “I’d better clean this shit up!”

  And he did. Years of hoarding Edgar’s trash had taken its toll on his little home. Stacks of newspapers and televisions and old picture frames had to be cast out, so John Wayne dropped everything off at the local recycling center. With the money he received from the scrap metal and soda cans, he was able to furnish a little living room with a couch, just below the main sewer line that delivered him body parts every few days. He bought himself a suit—a nice suit—even had it fitted. A top hat. And with the replacement arms, legs, lungs, and intestines both large and small, John Wayne fashioned himself a new life.

  Existence took on a new meaning for Edgar Thorpe, too. Dedication can make men obsessive, but for him there was an added benefit: a deep and abiding respect for all of creation. Flowers bloomed brighter. Wind delighted him. He found grace in falling leaves. His ugly red apple face soon disappeared, replaced by a green pear. He stood straight. He looked people in the eye. He was reborn.

  Still, something indefinable needled, bothered Edgar. He wasn’t concerned with getting caught, for he had been caught after his second victim, Eduardo Sanchez, was found with his tongue and eyeballs gouged out with a grapefruit spoon. The police had shown up at Edgar’s house, flashing bright badges of institutional metal and looking rather upset. However, when people around the town learned of Edgar’s true reason for killing Eduardo, coupled with the fact that Edgar might win awards and bring much-needed notoriety to their city, they were overjoyed. Money flowed in from state and federal government grants to support the flushing effort, and citizens set up the local sports stadium in Edgar’s honor. “Everyone needs to see this artist’s work,” they gushed.

  Edgar, the instant celebrity, had no problem getting candidates after that. Dozens, a hundred people, argued and fought with each other day and night to get their knees, elbows, and pelvises chopped off—all so Edgar could flush them down the crapper. “Please, please, pick me!” the teenage girls would yell, plucking out their eyeballs, swinging them around their heads by their optic nerves, just for the chance to be used by Edgar. The federal government even set aside money so Edgar could compete internationally, and soon the events were televised with multinational corporate sponsors. Edgar was catapulted into such a whirlwind of glory and money that billboards bearing his face appeared in Times Square, cutouts of him were printed on cereal boxes, and there was mention of him on every talk show across America.

  Then came the big day, the day the world had been waiting for. The day of the big flush. The one for all the marbles. The big kahuna.

  Edgar would flush an entire human.

  Down below, John Wayne beamed with pride at his new body, flexing at himself in the mirror. Striated patterns of muscle ripped his biceps, tore his calves in half, stretched and puffed out over his pectorals. But he wrested himself from the mirror and hoisted himself up into the sewer to help drag down the body if it got stuck. This, of course, was a clear violation of the rules—ssssh!—and if the officials above found out, Edgar would be disgraced and disqualified.

  In fact, Edgar was already ashamed of himself. His newfound stardom, his “amazing talents,” were becoming increasingly harder to square with how he felt. These last few months he’d been cheating, depending more and more on John Wayne to pull his pucks through to the sewer. The truth was, Edgar had grown lazy. His heart just wasn’t in it. When Edgar had flushed that cat, John Wayne had been the one to climb up and pull it down by its
tail. When that truck axle had lodged itself at the cross section in the sewage line, the shit monster had to drag it the rest of the way, to the exit point three hundred yards down the chute where the officials were waiting, clocking the time of the object’s voyage through Shit City.

  The truth was, Edgar Thorpe no longer cared if he flushed or didn’t flush.

  While John Wayne spit on his hands and readied himself in the sewer, on the metal beam overlooking his shitty little home, Edgar sighed and trudged up the stairs to the melon-shaped platform made just for him.

  Onlookers looked on by the thousands. Fans screamed. Little girls cheered. Old people waved tiny American flags. Boys shook their fists in war cry celebrations. People of all colors united. Vegans and meat eaters embraced. Thieves robbed those who weren’t paying attention.

  Edgar stepped onto the platform. He looked out over the crowd and wiped his snotty nose all over his shirt. The show must go on, he told himself. The show must go on.

  In true American style, Edgar squinted and scrutinized his toilet for any tampering. It had been brought to this outdoor amphitheater by city officials and had remained guarded by no fewer than a dozen federal agents with nothing better to do.

  While scanning his throne, Edgar was reminded of his original love of flushing. A tear rolled down his cheek. He thought about the good old days, when he’d flushed for sport, not for fans—when he’d had a real connection to his toilet bowl. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he blubbered at his inanimate best friend, the toilet. “I’ve forgotten all about you. I’ve flushed everything under the sun down you without ever asking you how you felt about it. Oh toilet, my toilet—please forgive me.”

  The toilet forgave him. “One last flush,” it told him. “One last flush.”

  Edgar agreed, patted his tank on the head, then turned to the crowd. His hand rocketed up into the air, and he pointed straight up at the sky, screaming into the heavens: “I’m number one!”

  The crowd cheered! This was it. The big flush.

  Who was to be flushed down the porcelain vortex? None other than Edgar Thorpe’s handsome father, Ben Thorpe, had volunteered for the job. Would he make it out alive? Would he get stuck and drown? This and many other questions were on the lips and minds of every person in the world.

  Ben Thorpe wiped the tears from under his eyes and placed a loving hand on Edgar’s shoulder. He told him how proud he was, how this was the happiest moment of all the moments of his super happy life. Then he strapped on his football helmet, tightened his knee pads, and hunched into position, readying his stance for the big dive down below.

  Meanwhile, John Wayne’s curiosity had gotten the best of him. He’d snuck up the pipe, just under the toilet hole, to hear the crowd, to hear the roar, when he’d heard Ben pronounce his fatherly love for Edgar. John Wayne was so touched by the man’s words that he accidentally drifted too far north—and he popped his head out of the toilet.

  This surprised Ben so much that he screamed and fell backwards. In his terror he turned and clawed at Edgar’s shoulder, trying to put distance between himself and the toilet. But this pitched Edgar forward, straight into the bowl. Edgar tried to catch himself but caught the handle by accident on his way down and went screaming headfirst down the big hole into Shit City.

  Because the big flush had happened sooner than expected, the proper pipes hadn’t been turned off just yet, and a huge backflow of water came rushing out from the main sewer line, past John Wayne’s humble abode, shooting hundreds of gallons of water back up the pipes. Edgar, propelled by the flow of water taking him down, passed by John Wayne, downwards, and landed in the shit monster’s home.

  The ceiling door slammed shut above him.

  John Wayne, however, felt the full wrath of the vomiting stream and was forced up and out of the shithole. He flew thirty feet in the air above the platform, the gushing water cradling him like a god, then slammed down onto his head in front of the thousands of attendees and millions of others worldwide.

  The ensuing crash shattered windows in a ten-block radius. Buildings lost pieces of brick. The platform crumpled to the ground.

  Silence.

  John Wayne wiped the water from his fear-filled eyes, lying there, his legs folded underneath him. Ashamed, he tried to hide the last bits of him that were still brown and shitty, for he didn’t want anyone to see who he truly was. He knew that the crowd had been expecting Ben Thorpe to go down the tubes, not Edgar, and that they especially hadn’t been expecting some half-breed to shoot up. Yet here he was, with his big blue eyes, wavy auburn hair, and masculine form, with tiny rivulets of shit running up and down along the veins and muscles lines of his body, not yet filled in with spare skin. He peeked through sun-choked eyes, holding one hand up to block the harsh glare of the sun. And as the mob of fuzzy outlined people came into focus and he saw the ferocious faces and hands holding tiny American flags, such an intense feeling of separation and homesickness shot through him that he leapt back into the toilet, pulled the handle, and flushed himself down the tubes.

  He soon arrived at the chamber door of his humble abode. He knocked once, twice, but there was no answer. After much deliberation, John Wayne realized that his place in this world had to be up top; that he could no longer be a part of the sewer system. He’d changed bodies. He’d changed perceptions. It was over.

  With a half-hearted wave and dull brown shitty tears running down his face, John Wayne turned and left forever.

  As for Edgar Thorpe, he lived out the rest of his days down below, reading philosophy and watching an old VHS copy of The Searchers. Peaceful living suited him well, and although sitting and lying and standing in shit all day shortened his life considerably, he did achieve a measure of happiness of which men like us only dream.

  Shit slid down the pipes each day, sticking to him as it had to John Wayne. Slowly, it replaced his body: toes first, hands second. Then, his stomach and spleen and gall bladder, and soon he could no longer digest solid food. Initially he resisted, using the old bike parts and metal pieces that he’d inherited from the shit monster to prop up his failing body. Deciding to practice true nonattachment, he let go of the replacement body parts and let nature take its course. His intestines and brains melted into goo, and when the rest of him went, the ensuing puddle fanned out into a happy face that permanently stained the concrete floor.

  Like all great American celebrities, John Wayne had a hard fall. With no role models, he fell in with a bad crowd, and after years of drug abuse and prison sentences, he was spit out the bottom of the porn industry. However, he too learned something about nonattachment and was able to let go of the shitty past that so shamed him.

  He came back swinging just three years later, reinvigorated, writing two bestselling books before running for mayor in a small town in Nevada. Voters related to his conservative views, and he was elected to the Senate after promising to ignore climate change. After he served three consecutive terms and pushed through massive tax cuts for corporations, the powers-that-be decided John Wayne should be the next face of American politics.

  You can now reach John Wayne in Washington, D.C., out on Pennsylvania Avenue. The number’s 1600. Let him entertain you with tales of the old days. He knows what it’s like to be down and out. You’ll relate. You’ll see yourself in him.

  After all, Americans love electing total shitheads.

  The Night of Running Children

  The first one had been sitting, cradling his tablet, seeing the mouths move on the screen without really hearing them speak, numb to the house and the family and the world around him. He’d been engrossed in the nothingness of the digital, his thoughts blurred by snippets of video that slid across his mind like an ice skater on her knees.

  First, there was nothing. Then there was the feeling. The feeling of running, of movement. A pressure cooker in his chest began rumbling. It started first as a centralized ball of energy and diffused through his body.

  Setting his tablet down on the
couch next to the other members of his home, Jacob glanced around, like an animal being stalked. His hairs went up; he drew down close to the floor and listened for—something.

  The door opened on its own and an icy burst of winter hit his face. His parents looked up, bleary-eyed—shut the door! Jacob regarded them for a moment, felt the air, felt the wind, smelled the smell of near-frozen oak and redwood trees. The cold felt good. There was something in the air, something in the . . .

  Jacob burst upstairs, grabbed his athletic shoes, shoved them over his feet—not thinking, not questioning what he was about to do—and raced back downstairs, whipping the door shut behind him. His parents yelled for him as he left—he was sure of that—but he shoved them out of his mind. Frozen-faced, ears cocked like a deer, sensing a hurricane of invisible movement down Virginia Hills Drive, he took off, inexplicably, body commanding itself, after whatever waited for him . . . out there.

  His legs ached from misuse. The weak, disintegrated muscles tore open on each footfall. His whole body jarred and jostled, the vibrations sending instant waves of nausea and headache to his upper half.

  Still, he ran.

  The energy of a thousand pent-up days, ten thousand hours, a million seconds, roared through his body. He passed the last oak trees on his street—the giant ones, forty feet tall, whose branches and leaves waved him on—and rounded the corner like a runner around third base heading for home.

  In fact, he was going home. He was up and moving, and there was no mom or dad or teacher to stop him.

  Just then another boy, Carlos, with eyes like frightened headlights—also baffled by what was happening to him—burst from his house and ran beside Jacob. His parents screamed after him, lurching out from their home and stilled by the frozen air. His hair streamed in ocean waves.