The Word

In the forefront of his mind Peyton knew it all so much mean-spirited bunk, one more in a line of petty abuses freakishly tall Sally had to endure, but at the same time the lizard contingent that kept squalid house in some far flung synaptic bunker at the back of it all whispered what ifs in a low guttural whisper, suggesting several visceral scenarios & variations on the theme that were all too plausible to hormone addled Peyt, just sprouting his first healthy crop lip hair & wielding his learners permit like it was King Arthur's Excalibur.

What if, the scaly section asked, timid Amazon Sally, with her low voice & perfect attendance record, was really at the throbbing red heart of it all a man eating tigress, a she monster of unequaled appetite, swinging from vine to vine in search of timid young boy meat?A world between her thighs, Me-Tarza-You-Jane kind of deal?

Peyton couldn't speak for anyone else who might have read the incriminating red scrawl on the stall door, but the very possibility ignited in him a storm of lewd imaginings unequaled in his tidy span of years on Earth.

Now when he clocked hours in the classroom, seeking some mental perch away from dull lectures on dead English writers & complex algebra he thought of young Sally Bellson.

Sally Bellson, resplendent in a sequin gown, joining him on the dance floor for a number, the band in the background as he spun her in his arms. Sally kicking up long white legs, letting out little grunts as he handled her in his strong arms. In his mind, it was like a 50's dance number, with all the requisite moves & colors, but with extra details Peyton added the longer he dwelled in his head. Sweaty details, details that would've never made it past the censors way back when in the square 50's. The smell of her body perhaps after a particularly long number, sans speed stick, armpits damp, a trickles of sweat dangling from her upper lip or maybe, just maybe, teasing glimpses up her too short gown while he held her up high in the strobe light, the shadow of cleft visible for only moments.... Peyton licked his lips, staring at dear Sally two rows down, gripping his pencil.

No wonder musicals were so boring, they never lived up to their unspoken promise of truly dirty dancing.

" And when Milton confronts the duality of Man he- Mr. Drawyer are you paying attention?"

It took several seconds for Ms. Salinger's reedy voice to register in his greasy mind, but when it did all pornographic daydreaming came to a screaming halt. There he was, back smack dab in the middle of his least favorite place

"Well Mr. Drawyer," she said. "What do you have to say?"

-Reality, warts & all.

Any other time Peyton would've rejoiced & sang hosannas at the prospect of Sally looking straight at him but right now

"Mr. Drawyer?"

At this moment in time

"Mr. Drawyer stop staring at Ms. Bellson & answer me please!"

Wasn't exactly a wet dream come true.

Sally's big eyes regarded Peyton, finally taking him in his entirety, but like he were the horned toad king, ancient & bearded instead of her one & only prince charming. That certainly brought him back, though not quite fast enough for old lady Salinger's liking.

"Mr. Drawyer, please see me after class." Ms. Salinger declared.

The other students giggled maliciously, including (oh cruel mistress fate have you no favorites?) young Sally, long red hair bouncing of her bountiful bosom.

So Peyton dutifully stayed after the 3 p.m. bell, listening to Ms. Salinger's condescending 'You're here to learn' spiel, all mind numbing 10 minutes of it, and this only after toiling away at some specially designated English homework courtesy of the block of deadwood herself, all the while playing & re-playing the blocky jagged scrawl of graffiti from the rusty john door, dwelling obsessively on each & every word like they were framed on billboards, mouthing it behind sealed lips, suckling on each & ever syllable hungrily, picking them dry of meaning until the words lost all context & he was just cycling a stale loop through his skull.

Distantly Peyton made sure to nod & look appropriately pensive at all the right places, hoping against hope Ms. Salinger could see just how truly torn up & regretful he was over the whole gosh darn matter, and yes, after she'd got all her polite licks in & Peyton had completed the pointless busy work did the rusty old hinge allow him to go, though not before one more parting shot:

"Now let's keep the ogling of Ms. Bellson out of the classroom, hmmmm?"

Peyton sauntered through the empty hallways after depositing his textbooks in his locker, not in any rush to get home, to get anywhere. Shepard High, lacking its student body, was eerily quiet, his lonely footsteps echoing off the walls; he almost expected a tumble weed to go blowing by as he closed in on the cafeteria. Empty too. Weird.

He headed back into the main foyer, looking at the seamless, row upon row of lockers. Peyton thought for a moment then opened his mouth, crying out:

"Heeeeello!?"

Nothing. Not even the faraway roar of a custodian vacuuming classrooms.

Just. Silence.

Peyton stood dab center of the hall, ears perched for any sound, any noise; it could be a whisper of wind or a truck driving by or damnit, even yes, yes those blasted blonde Barbie doll SS teases , cheerleading chain gang trying out one of their soft core routines in the yard.

Anything.

Just don't make me do it.

Please-

Don't.

Oh come on whispered reptile boy, clawing his way back to the light. You know you want to. You know it.

Peyton covered his ears, biting down hard on his tongue

Go ahead Peyt. Do it.

Curled up his toes in his sneakers

DO IT

And finally it came, shooting up like a blast of molten rock from the deepest mercury core, his fingers opening & closing, opening & closing, salvo striking home-

"SALLY BELLSON SUCKS COCK!!!!"

Face as red as the young lady whose honor he'd just infringed upon, ears roasting like crescent rolls, Peyton crashed into the washroom door, barreling headfirst into the boy's lavatory whilst covering his mouth with one moist palm, mind a swirl with all sorts of extremely practical questions like:

just what shade of lunatic had just possessed him? And why had it become more important than life itself to scream at the top of his lungs some choice obscenities? Why he wondered, beginning to take in the dull brown panels, the streaked windows, the pockmarked walls, was he back in the very same washroom where this whole rotten ball of wax had started rolling?

Peyton stood in front of the mirror, examining his head for any bumps, any scratches that might be responsible for sudden decompression of necessary brain flow. So far, poring over his scalp, so good, no signs of undue damages to the cockpit, which just proved all the more effective in bugging the hell out of him.

He ran some water from the leaky faucet & splashed it into his face, hoping the jolt of icy sensation would re-align addled senses, which, it was becoming increasingly clear, had taken their momentary leave of him.

He paused, taking a deep breath, running an internal inventory next, checking if everything inside was present & accounted for: No no, nothing felt afoot downtown either.

Peyton looked at his face, pale as a marshmallow & just as puffy, hair mussed spectacularly up, standing tall in brown spikes that could put an eye out. He ran shaking hands back under the water & flattening his untamed locks. There. No worse for ware he thought. Just take your things & calmly walk out. Calmly now-we don't want anyone to suspect anything....

"No" Peyton said to his reflection. "We most certainly do NOT."

Moving towards the door, he got as far as wrapping his wet fingers around the handle when it hit him, roiling tempest in his belly that had Peyton doubling over, clutching his sides while stamping his foot.

Oh god oh god oh god-

The acidic crunch migrated further south, taking up residence insufferably close to the exit hangar, banging insistent fists on the front door.

Peyton dove back towards the battered stall, missing the fact that it happened to be very same john he'd been in this morning, the pain in his nether lands was so bad. In a second his pants were down around his legs & he was forcefully evicting his unwanted visitor into the discolored bowl, or as it turned out, the whole pack of them. It was a dirty job but Peyton was fortunate that it was a relatively quick effort & in no time flat, a wide dopey grin was spreading across his face, the bundle of toilet paper in his grip quivering to the floor beside a foot.

He leaned back against the toilet seat, letting out a long sigh. Remaining like that for a few minutes, he scooped back up the paper & did the rest of his business. It was only after he lent down to flush the toilet that he realized he was back where he'd started.

Go on. Look for it, Lizard brain rasped. You know you want to.

Peyton swallowed. No, No I don't.

Sure you do. Just lean back and have a peak...

He wanted to ignore it; to open the stall door & calmly walk out of the building, get home & not think about public washrooms or stall graffiti or goddamn Sally Bellson as long as he lived. But he didn't. Peyton stayed right where he was. As much as he feared looking again, he couldn't quite resist...

The message was different.

No longer were Sally Bellson's sword swallowing skills championed; he almost wished they were, what was in its place seemed somehow far more terrible.

SOON it read in big blocky black letters.

Soon? Soon? Just what in the sam hell did that mean? What was soon? Another bowel movement? A piss perhaps? Maybe even the end of the school day, eagerly anticipated by some phantom scrawler?

Without really knowing it, Peyton's left hand grasped his right, keeping it from tremoring any worse than it was, the movement unconscious, completely divorced from his current focus, branding itself into his head.

SOON the stall door read, somber & implacable , glaringly defiantly there, SOON SOON SOON SOON-

Peyton whipped the door open, running out of the Boy's bathroom, not stopping until he was all the way home.

SOON

The next few weeks passed in a blur for Peyton, which wasn't to say the passed quickly. On the contrary, he'd seen slugs move quicker than the remaining days of that particular month.

And how did he pass the time?

By remaining stuck in his own mind of course, examining the queer bathroom ballyhoo from absolutely every angle he could concoct. Up down around, all in the service of one single pronouncement, one word so pregnant with import it infuriated him that he couldn't just see what it was.

What had been the point? What was it promising? Certainly nothing at all you could eat at the sizzler. If ever there'd been a more angular, unforgiving scribble of letters he hadn't yet seen it. This easily outdid the juvenile come-on's & dirty limericks that made up the usual Shepard high graffiti.

Peyton supposed most others would've found such a meager message meaningless, due in no small part to its almost cruel abruptness, the sheer levity; and he knew they'd be right as half of him knew, knew beyond a show of a doubt it was utter bunk; meaningless doodling, poetry to one, pabulum to all.

But the other half, that which felt more than thought, intuited more than guessed, knew that worlds of meaning was imparted in those four letters, felt so beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Sitting in class, eating lunch, walking home, Peyton did nothing but ponder, the world around going fuzzy, the volume turned down. All the lessons & conversations & minor details of his normal white picket routine falling completely to the wayside, tossed over in favor of this larger, juicier morsel. Everything became secondary in his mind, so many bits & bites. Even seeing nubile young Sally did nothing for him.

Running around the track for gym class one afternoon he decided that it had to be a puzzle, intricately designed no, but brilliant in its complete simplicity, waiting for just the right person to wield the key that would finally unlock it.

"Do you wanna take it down a notch there Peyt?" Wheezed Cliff, jogging up next to him like an Eskimo in the Gobi. "Your making the rest of us mere mortals look bad."

Peyton just stared, not knowing what his classmate was on about. Glancing over his shoulder he caught the rest of the guys trailing wearily behind, looking worse for wear as coach Dooley yelled over his electric bullhorn:

"Let's go ladies! We'll never beat Wellington this semester if you don't pick up the pace! C'mon, I've seen better legwork on my gramma!"

He started looking at people differently. Faces on the television seemed flatter, words long winded & cartoonishly bright. Music on the radio became pale, jarring in a way they hadn't seemed before, too loud & pronounced. He'd had to ask his father to turn the stereo down more than once, something so rare on his part that Pappa eyed him before twisting the knob. People at school were less prominent, the fog, a by product of his obsessing, taking a permanent foothold on those he'd known all his life, friends he'd thought he'd nailed down & safely dismissed.

Peyton had been sitting in the cafeteria with his pal Jimmy Durant & had suddenly known, not guessed not just supposed, but know, actually known he'd been lying.

"What did you end up doing for Halloween than Jim? Hope you laid off the trick or treating" he'd said between mouthfuls of ham sandwich. "At our age it's kinda sad." He'd said.

"What? No man," Jimmy had replied. "I just chilled at home & rented a few scary flicks. That's about it."

Then he went back to his meal, watching people enter the lunch hall over one shoulder.

It hadn't been anything Jimmy had said, anything he'd done, something had just clicked upstairs & Peyton had been sure that Jimmy was lying.

More & more it seemed he found himself questioning whether people were speaking the truth, how much of a relationship they're words shared with reality, how much they were coloring in themselves & maybe without even knowing it.

The lizard contingent had more to say than ever & it didn't always feel predatory or cold. Sometimes it sounded down right sensible. He began to wonder how he'd gotten along without such a large part of himself in the first place.

A month finally went by & Peyton's new found clarity only seemed to widen. He trusted his own instincts but also wondered what he was missing, what was now written on the wall of the 1st floor boy's washroom. After all, he hadn't been back since that fateful day.

He wasn't sure he quite wanted to know either; what if it was the answer to the first proclamation? Could his mind handle the upgrade? Could those fundamental presumptions stand another summary sacking?

He had trouble imagining beyond this initial widening of avenues. He already felt more awake than ever, certain while looking around at the bustling crowds of teenagers at Shepard High that he was in some way different from them now, not better, not like that; he was too critical these days, too painfully honest with himself to get stuck in such a small kind of mindset, but just-different. Apart somehow.

It really didn't make him sad or regretful though. What Peyton felt was closer to awe, awe that the people around him every day could do what they did; running around, worrying about college or university or dates & dances, proms,careers retirement- it was amazing they all had so much energy. Peyton got tired just watching the television. He found he didn't need a fix nearly as much and spent much less time driving around too. He could be alone with his thoughts in a way he never could have stood before, something that most everyone else seemed to go out of they're way to avoid. He read as much as possible, surfing the net in search of whatever he could learn, whatever fascinating tidbits withheld from him in the bubble wrapped confines of high school.

Peyton wanted to know everything. He was never satisfied now, he needed to have more, feeling like this was only the beginning, like he'd already peeled back one layer & looked behind but that much much more awaited.

He would sit in class, no longer staring at Sally (who he'd found after approaching in an uncommon burst of courage just wasn't very nice at all) but playing things over in his head, challenging himself to ideas he had trouble understanding in their entirety. There was more than just one puzzle to solve and as a result Peyton was no longer bored silly in class.

Still, the matter of the stall door (SOON) continued to haunt him. He had ideas now as to what its author had meant, but they were legion, he could do little but guess. Peyton had a deep feeling he'd been meant to see it, that it had been for him & him only.

But that was absurd wasn't it?

Anyone could have walked into the washroom & chosen that specific stall, not just him. There was absolutely no reason to think he'd been the sole beneficiary of that particular shred of stall wall scrawl. But still....

He should return. It felt like he was being called back somehow, back to that damned washroom. He didn't want to go, was afraid to even, walking calmly by on the way to English class every other day, not giving it a second glance.

But still- why did it feel so important?

That night in bed Peyton dreamed he was in a movie theater, walking down plushly carpeted hallways towards the show.

"Hurry up Peyt," said Peyton's grandpa, dead for the last 5 years, power walking ahead of his grandson. "It starts any minute now."

Promptly Peyton sped up, stopping when the concession counter came into sight.

A group of theater goers were crowding around the goods, intently listening to Jimmy Durant, standing on one counter while waving a hand. Peyton slowly detoured, a woman standing at the outskirts smiling brightly when she saw him.

It was Ms. Salinger, though now her eyes were missing, nothing but bottomless black pits staring out at him. Despite this, she welcomed him with open arms.

"Hello young fellow," she croaked merrily. "Here for the show? Its just getting started, your right on time."

Peyton shook his head but she handed him a pamphlet & pushed him forward into the crowd anyway. They were all as ocularly impaired as she, though some wore blatantly false eyes, magic marker irises taking him in from a distance. He looked down at his pamphlet, black save a familiar sentence.

SALLY BELLSON it read. SUCKS HUGE COCK

"I know" nodded one man, reaching up & plucking out a ping pong eye "It's a real eye opener." He chose another one from a box that freely cycled around the assembly.

"No thanks," said Peyton when the man offered him one. Up on the counter Jimmy started to shout:

"Brothers & sisters, brothers & sisters the time has come!

Instantly the crowd came alive, all the quiet murmurs between attendees stopping mid sentence; they all responded with a hearty chorus of amen's.

"Tell it brother! Tell it like it is!" They shouted back.

Beside Peyton the man who'd kindly offered him the eye went slightly overboard with his enthusiasm, an implant popping out when he jerked a fist into the air.

Jimmy, stoked by his flock went on even louder:

"In the beginning, we were imperfect, flawed. This I say: the shade of our ignorance was thick & it darkened our hearts with its cloud."

"Amen Brother!" They cried. "Amen! Tell it like it is!"

"We thrived in our ignorance & knew not the damage we inflicted... But then, in the hour of our greatest need"-

Behind Peyton, a red irised woman cried out: "The Word!"

Jimmy's face, so far scrunched up in an ugly grimace, lit up like the 4th of July, head bouncing up & down like on a string. He pointed at her.