Peppertree Park part 1

Eric stood six feet tall, skinny and towheaded, and some of his classmates had already noted something dandy about him. At thirteen, Eric was at that age where every day seemed to herald some new feeling or even some new physical attribute. Neither child nor man, he lived in some kind of in between stage like the cocooned caterpillar. Although he had tested the functioning of his procreational plumbing (much to his satisfaction I might add) he had never confirmed visually with others what he had come to know about his own equipment. He was curious about that, to be sure, but also ashamed, knowing somehow the societal taboo of expressing such an interest.

But the universe has a way of delivering where the furtive thoughts of a teenage boy cannot.

When he started 8th grade that year, he found himself with a new kind of eye in the locker room. This new eye served well his fantasies bred in the dark safety of the night and his bed, but this tale is not about the ordinary discoveries of a teenage boy, it's about something so exciting, even his most extravagant ideas could not have prepared him for that October.

Eric's mother had recently taken a new husband and to celebrate, had gone off for a month abroad. This meant that he would stay with his father and use an hour of public transportation each way to attend school. One day after making the long bus ride home after school, he felt the need to relieve his bowels. His dad's house was a 15 minute walk from the bus stop and he hustled along in the butt-clenching walk typical of someone about to have an excreplosion. He was only half way home when he began to consider that he might not be able to make it. As you can imagine, the thought of shitting one's pants was especially terrible for a boy of that age. But then he remembered the park. Peppertree Park was just ahead and wasn't there a public restroom there? The possibility only made his bowels press more fervently, and his gait become more hurried.

A small brick building lay at the other side of the park and Eric shuffled and shimmied across that grass as fast as he could. He did not notice the half dozen cars parked nearby with a single man in each one. He dashed into the bathroom (Thank GOD it was really a bathroom!!!) and with only a moment to spare, managed to get his pants down before the swift shitting of water took place. And then something caught his eye to the right of his head. He turned to see a hole that had been carved through the stall wall. What he saw through that hole, he would remember forever.