The Scatomancer

The lighthouse bathroom was the only one available for miles at Cheney Park. Not a good night to have overstuffed intestines…and an even worse night to be trapped in the men’s room with Johnny Lockwood. The black hoodie-wearing youngster sat in the middle stall with his knees to his chest and amber-colored magic swirling in his hands. His wide grin counted as a bold attempt to stifle his laughter, a low bar to clear for a man with an immature mind. “This is going to be good…this is going to be so good…” A tiny chuckle escaped his throat, but he quickly suppressed it when he heard the steel door burst open and business loafers tapping across the tile floor.

Judging from what Johnny could see underneath his stall door, the thick legs filling out business slacks suggested that whoever burst into the bathroom had a lot of…ammunition to work with. He put his non-magic-wielding hand over his mouth to keep his giggles in check. The corpulent corporate rushed into the stall next to Johnny and pulled his pants around his ankles long before the door could lock. Johnny’s giggles were laced with spitting noises as he saw a yellow stain in the front of the man’s white briefs.

The scatomancer went to work right away, forming symbols and gestures with his hands to cast his first spell. On cue, the stranger’s bowl movements sounded like a bomb going off, the splatter of toilet water suggesting the same. The man’s moaning didn’t deter Johnny from casting another spell, this time shooting feces from his pudgy cheeks like a fire hose. The poor bastard’s grunts and groans sounded more like a dying opera singer performing his magnum opus. Johnny held his aching ribs while struggling to keep his laughs under control.

For his final trick, Johnny pointed his fingers upwards and trembled as the amber magic did its work. The man screamed and hollered as he tried to give birth to a rock-hard wrecking ball, causing little droplets of blood to tap the floor. “Get out of my ass!” he shouted, causing Johnny’s laughter to make him lose control of the spell. The intestinal boulder collapsed into the toilet and completely destroyed it, spreading muddy water all over the floor and moistening its sticky surface. The man wiped his ass with toilet paper, but not without crying out like a torture rack victim. He didn’t even stop to wash his hands. He got out of there as fast as his hulking body could take him.

Johnny howled and hooted with laughter as he exited his own stall, holding his spine the entire time. “Ouch! Ouch! Oh my god, that was gold! Holy shit!” Even after seeing his scatomancy teacher standing across the bathroom with his arms folded in disgust, the hee-haws never stopped. They slowed down, but without making a complete stop. “Owen, did you see that? I got him good! Come on, man, laugh!”

Owen Murphy, a dark-haired middle-aged gentleman with a cloak covering his body (but thankfully not touching the floor) spat back at his protégé. “Multiple generations of potent magic has all come to this, it seems. The lost art of scatomancy has been reduced to a goddamn JOKE!”

Johnny’s laughter abated and his smile sagged into disappointment. “Joke? You mean it wasn’t a joke before? I’m literally a shit wizard! Most wizards like to shoot lightning bolts and fireballs from their fingertips. I control shit!”

Owen slapped Johnny across the face and killed the last remnants of laughter remaining. “You do more than just control shit. You have the power of life and death in your hands. Your little middle school prank could have killed him! Losing that much weight within seconds could have dehydrated him to death!”

Johnny waved him off. “Don’t worry, Master Murphy, he’ll gain all the weight back after he stuffs down a couple more chocolate-covered pork roasts.”

“So not only is lethal diarrhea funny to you, but also obesity. You truly have the mind of a toddler, Johnny. If your father didn’t have so many goddamn connections, you would have been fucked off a long time ago!”

With wide eyes and a hunched spine, Johnny said, “Dude! I’m a shit wizard! You taught me how to manipulate shit! Those jokes pretty much write themselves! So an army of dragons comes breathing down our necks. So what are we supposed to do about it with all of this cosmic knowledge we have? Do we make the dragons shit themselves to death? Oh, that’ll go over like a fart in church! See what I did there?”

Owen death gripped Johnny’s shoulders and made him hiss in pain. The master’s face oozed with anger, seriousness, and a little bit of psychopathy. In a gravelly whisper that could force giants to quiver in fear, he said, “I don’t have time to re-teach you the applications of scatomancy. You’ve had years to process it in your head. It’s more than just shit magic, Johnny. It’s biology. It’s pathology. It’s a pathway to information we wouldn’t otherwise have. So excuse me if I don’t share your immature sense of humor over magic that shouldn’t be toyed with!” Owen gave an extra tight squeeze and Johnny yelped.

He swatted his master’s hands away. “Alright, jeez, you don’t have to bite my head off! I’m sorry, okay! I won’t do it again! Like you said, I’ve had years to process this.” Owen’s mask of rage softened. “But then again…Fudge Tunnel McGee had years to process his string cheese and hotdogs and look how that turned out. Phew! Smells like chemical warfare in here!” Owen face-palmed. “Hey, there’s another useful application for shit magic, I mean, scatomancy: chemical weaponry! More powerful than a nuclear bomb and more radiation cancer! Huh? Yeah!”

Still with his face in his hands, Owen said, “I have lost all respect for you, Johnny. You could have been the chosen one of our sacred order. You could have lived up to your potential as the greatest wizard of your generation. All that time teaching you…it went to waste.”

“You’re damn right it went to waste! It’s all over the goddamn floor!”

“Goodbye, Johnny. I never want to see you again. If your father gets nepotistic on me, I’ll be sure to tell him that you’re a bigger piece of shit than what came out of…no, I’m not giving you comic fodder. You don’t deserve to laugh. I’d tell you to give up magic and get a job making pizzas at a gas station, but…”

“But my hands are too dirty for the job?”

Owen sighed, tucked his chin in disillusionment, and trudged out of the bathroom, dragging his wizard’s slippers across the murky floor. Johnny shrugged his shoulders before Owen poked his head in again. “Oh, and by the way…that gentleman you just pranked? He’s on the Board of Magic Education. His name is Bill Grass. If you want to laugh about how his last name rhymes with a certain expletive, be sure to tell him that to his face.” Owen slammed the door behind him.

“What does he mean by that?”

Somebody behind Johnny cleared his throat and the magician got a lump in his as he slowly turned around to face him. There he was: Chairman Bill Grass, complete with hands on his wide hips and a gorgon death stare on his bearded face. Needless to say, he wasn’t in the mood for comedy.

“Hey, Chairman…” Johnny looked down as he twiddled his fingers and thumbs. “How’s it going?” Bill tapped his foot with impatience. “Eh, I already know how it’s going, if you know what I mean.” Johnny placed his hands over his own mouth, as if trying to put the joke back where he got it from.

“You like jokes, Mr. Lockwood? You like making people laugh? Here, let me help you out with that.” Bill scooped Johnny off the ground, the young wizard begging and pleading to be put down. And so Bill did as he body slammed his attacker onto the scatomantic sludge. Johnny’s back and ribs pulsated with pain as he struggled to take even the simplest of breaths. He wouldn’t have wanted those breaths anyways since they all tasted and smelled like an intestinal plutonium rod.

“Go ahead, Johnny. Get up! Leave the bathroom! I dare you! You’ve got an entire student body gathered outside. You want people to not be so sensitive and have a sense of humor? Well, they’ll be laughing at you for years to come, my friend. Enjoy the attention! You’ll never shake it off again. Oops! I said shake it off in a men’s bathroom. Silly me!” Bill horse-laughed as he exited the bathroom, leaving Johnny in a painful heap on the ground.

Johnny had the choice to punch up with his sense of humor rather than punch down. He could have made something of himself. After that body slam by Chairman Grass, he’ll be the stuff of legend for as long as he lives, but not in the way that Owen Murphy had envisioned for him. Johnny rolled over onto his knees and pounded the ground in frustration, shouting a few curses for good measure. The splash of the toilet water got into his mouth and he immediately puked his guts out all over the floor, becoming an even bigger legend in the process. The best he could have done was laugh with his contemporaries, but his ribs and spine were too sore for that. In a way, his bones were one in the same with his spirit: broken down and never to be fixed again. The only question of the evening was…who’s laughing now?