“Today we’re asking the question: what does it mean to be a delinquent?” rang out a lady of about 30 before her class.

In the back of the classroom sat a student with brown and white blotches on his face, his neck, even his hands. The spots were fairly large and evenly spread.

“Well, to be blunt, a delinquent is somebody who is in the gutter...”

He stared down the lady as she babbled. He was studying the legs, mostly. She wore a dark-blue pencil skirt half-way down the thighs, violet-purple tights, and those goddamn black-white Vans that make people look really cool and nonchalant.

“Are you paying attention, Pebbles?” she seduced.

“Very close.”

She grinned. “Good. You wouldn’t wanna miss why you’re in the gutter.”

“We’re all in the gutter, ma’am … some of us are just covered in more shit than the rest.” The class burst out in snickers and rumbles of agreement. Even she laughed with her eyes closed.

“Listen, I need to get to the bathroom,” he continued.

She sighed. “But no smoking, all right?”

“I quit about an hour ago,” he said while heading out.

“No pulling bitches either, all right?” one guy chimed in. The class erupted again.

“I’m saving it for marriage.”

He walked out and shut the door behind him.

It had been a week ago that the teacher lady and Pebbles met.

They were sitting across from each other in her office, by the window overlooking the schoolyard. Pebbles kicked back his chair and rocked back and forth. He stared out the window and saw the roof from there. Then he stared at the roof and stopped rocking.

“Pebbles,” she began with a smile, “I see that this is your, erm, fourth school now? High school, I mean?”

“Yeah. Different is my fourth.”

“What happened with the first three?”

“They went up in flames.”

“God, Pebbles! I almost believed you for a second. Don’t scare me like that.”

“Just fucking with you. Schools don’t do me any good, that’s all. All I ever wanna do is lay down and do nothing.”

“From your files, it seems to me that you’re somebody very much concerned with your freedom. Could we say that?”

“I’d prefer if we didn’t say anything, but—”

“But the schools trampled on your freedom! The staff would tell you what to do, and that never sat right with you. Why can’t I just do what I want? But it wasn’t just the staff: it was also your classmates, right? Because they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t even try. You were alone. You were lone—”

“Listen, you don’t need to bust my balls … what’s your name, Jane?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said stop kneeing my balls. I said stop taking my balls and hanging them on your Christmas tree, sweetheart. I know. I know already, alright?”

She blinked a while. “H-honey, I’m so sorry if I ticked you off. I just—”

“It’s fine! Don’t even worry about it. We’re square, lady.”

“But say, when you said you know already, what d’you mean?”

“I mean I know that I’m a fuckup, a lunatic. That’s why I’m here, right? I mean, that’s what this school is about, right? It collects fuckups and lunatics like me.”

“Oh, no, honey, it’s not like that! It’s just—”

“You know! It’s tough … being constipated all the time.”

“What? Constipated? Why—”

“They didn’t tell you? It’s not in the files?”

“Tell me what? What’s not in the files?”

“Well, silly me. Of course not. I haven’t told anybody. My secret.”

“Your secret?”

“I have a rare disease. One where you’re constipated all the time. But then, with no warning … it erupts.”

“I-it … e-erupts?”

“Yeah. It’s called exploding anus disease. EAD, the doctors call it. I know it sounds like a joke, but I assure you, it’s anything but. And it’s not connected to my skin, either. That’s just vitiligo. The old ligo doesn’t make me shit or anything. But this one does, big-time. Like I said, very rare. Only 8 people in the world have it, me included.” He paused for a second, looked down, softened his voice. “One day, I wanna meet with the other 7, and together we will spread awareness of this terrible disease until they find a cure. I won’t live to see it though, the docs said there won’t be a cure for about a 100 years, but it’s worth fighting for anyway.”

Poor Jane must’ve blinked for about 5 seconds before answering. “Pebbles, I … don’t know what to say! If there is anything—”

“You can’t help me, Jane. You can’t help me. I’m shitting myself to the grave. It’s okay though, don’t worry about it. You’re a nice woman, Jane. The best.”

“T-thanks. Ahm, listen, I feel rotten bringing this up, but do you think it could … erupt, n-now? I mean, right now, for example?”

“See, it’s like the ebb and flow, my anus. That means you can time it out. For example, I know it’s not coming now, because I’ve noticed a pattern: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it comes. Around 1 pm. But now it’s 1 pm on a Tuesday, so we should be fi—”

“Pebbles…”

“Hm?”

“Today, it’s … Monday, Pebbles … It’s Monday!”

“HEH?” He pulled out his phone and looked at it. “JESUS! YOU’RE RIGHT!”

“OH GOD, OH GOD! IS IT COMING? IS IT?”

“YEAH, AS A MATTER OF FACT!” He sort of shifted around on the chair, and soon there was a huge fart noise.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“JESUS! Okay, okay, don’t panic! D’you know where the bathroom is?”

“Do I know where the bathroom is? Do I know where the bathroom is? Well, considering I just GOT to the fucking place, I maybe don’t have the slightest clue, Jane!”

“Right, right, I’m sorry!” She was nearly crying.

“WHERE IS IT?”

“Okay, okay, i-it’s just up ahead, a few doors up! You can’t miss it! There is a cucumber on the goddamn door!”

“What’s on the other one?”

“Two broken eggs. Now go!”

“You’re a life-saver, Jane! I’m sorry I went off on you! God, why am I always so mean? I hate myself!” They were both nearly crying.

“It’s okay, just go!”

“I’ll meet you when I’m done? Might take 4 hours!”

“Okay, okay, just go! Get the hell outta here!”

“I’ll think about you, Jane!”

“JUST GO!”

Soon he was in the stall by the outer wall, sitting on the toilet with the cover down. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The pack showed an iron lung, the machine they used to treat polio, cracked in half down the middle. Below it said, “Iron-Lung Killer!”

Pebbles had a brown mop for hair with blotches of white locks, complimented with an undercut. Even his brows were mixed in with white streaks of vitiligo. He was in school uniform, which was just a button-down bright-green cardigan. Other than that, he wore slightly baggy ripped gray Denims and Air Jordan 1 Yellow Toes. He was handsome, really. He was a dirty, distant kind of hot. If you were into guys, you could die.

He put a cigarette in his mouth and spun the lighter wheel. As he took the lighter to the cigarette, there were two bangs on the stall door.

“Occupied!” he mumbled.

Two bangs again.

“I said, OCCUPIED!” asshole.

He lit the cigarette and inhaled. He cocked his head back against the wall and saw the face of a woman peering in over the stall.

“BWAAH!”

He unhooked the latch, opened the door, and saw Jane standing there. Jane had this deep-purple hair, braided into a crown, like she was royalty. She was also forced to wear the green cardigan. Only she got to wear it in a v-neck, a special exemption, so her breasts were out and about. The guy in charge of dress code wouldn’t complain much about that. He had given her the old stamp before he could count his toes. Other than the skirt, tights, and shoes, she also had on a black waist belt and a choker in the design of a crown. Her lips were a darker shade of purple, almost crimson. She had beautiful sapphire eyes, like Fuchsia sapphire, if you know what that is. Boy, was she pretty, and terribly hot. If you were into women, you could die.

“How did you know I was setting you up?” He sounded like his car had just been towed or something.

“You left your fart pillow on the chair.” She held up a whoopee cushion and squished it. I don’t have to tell you it farted, but it did.

Pebbles grinned. “Rookie mistake, huh?”

“You’re so full of shit!” She began pulling at Pebbles.

“H-hey! Let me go! They exchanged slaps and tugs until Pebbles was on the floor. He kicked Jane in the stomach and she staggered away out of the stall, then he turned over on his stomach and hugged the toilet bowl as if that would save him somehow.

“You’re not gonna fuck with me!” grunted Jane. Pebbles looked over his shoulder and saw her lumbering toward him like a mummy. She was going to murder him, no doubt. “Look! I’m sorry I made up that story about exploding anus disease! But if I had it, I really would spread the word, I swear!”

She wrestled Pebbles’ kicking legs into a grip and began to pull. “Help! I’m being molested! I’m just a poor boy on the up-and-up! I have vitiligo! Please!” He was like a bad guy in a horror movie who has a change of heart in the end but dies anyway. Jane kept pulling a while, and finally the toilet came off and sewage began to spurt up.

They screamed and staggered away from the stall and separated. “You fuckin duplicitous bitch!” Pebbles held up his fists. He was not duplicitous at all. Suddenly that famous song came to him, the one that went like this: It’s the final countdown, tu-tu-tuu-tuuu… He thought it had something to do with Rocky Balboa, even though it didn’t. “Come at me, swine! Come at m—” Right then Jane caught him with a right hook. He whimpered and gritted his teeth. “I … I wasn’t ready! Come agai—” She caught him again. He whimpered and gritted his teeth again. He held his palms over the damaged area, the right jaw and cheek. It was all red. Tears welled up in his eyes. The sewage spurted.

Jane stared at him a while with her mouth open, then she grinned. “What’s a’matter, Rocky? You’re not so much a blue-chipper.” She strutted over to him like she had just won the lottery. She stood close by his face, opposite the affected side. “Heeh? You’re crying?” They were about the same height, maybe 5’9. He was not much bulkier, either.

“N-no! You just picked my eye!”

“You are crying!” She grinned at him. “Hyeh. And here I thought you were a tough guy.”

He kept gritting his teeth and making weird throat and mouth sounds. The toilet water now coated the floor. The drain swallowed some of it, but the pipe kept vomiting out more. It was like a fountain. It sounded like one. Meanwhile the school radio came on with a little mellow tune. A female student with a gentle voice would then act out a fairy tale.

There was once a beaver with red spots who would build dams with red wood.

All the other beavers, who had no spots, would build their dams with white wood,

And they would laugh at him:

“Your dam will break, delinquent, because you don’t use the right wood!”

“I can’t help it,” he responded,

“I like the red one better!”

“Then, have it your way, idiot!

You’re not special: just different!"

Indeed, at every swelling of the river, his dam would break,

And theirs would stand...

One day, a bear swam down the river, and reached the part where the beavers lived.

“I have come to break your dams and eat you!” he said.

Cliffs rose high by the river, so the one way to the beavers was through their dams.

The river split in two: the right side was the spotty beaver’s,

And the left one was for all the others.

The bear swam to the left side first.

“I’m going to break your dam and eat you!” he said.

He attacked the dam with his big claws and fiery jaw,

but it wouldn’t budge.

Huffing and puffing, he gave up and swam over to the other side.

“I’m going to break your dam and eat you!” he said.

He attacked the dam with his big claws and fiery jaw,

And soon the red wood scattered everywhere, and the dam was gone…

The spotty beaver felt unbearably lonely just then, and he cried.

But it was too late now to join the others.

The bear seized him in his jaw, and ripped him to pieces.

Then he laughed and said, “I guess it’s true, what the wise old bears taught me when I was just a cub:

Difference does break a dam.”

The two had listened to the fairy tale in silence, against the noise of the sewage fountain. Pebbles had turned to Jane and rested his head on her breasts in the shady room. A copy of The Last Supper hung on the wall opposite the 3 stalls, where 4 pissers stood without dividers. The deflated whoopee cushion had floated away to the curb that separated the crappers and pissers and the slightly raised area for washing up.

Pebbles’ tall sneakers had flooded. The soles were hanging on by a thread. You could poke a finger through.

“Why do people think delinquents are all tough? If I was tough, then maybe I wouldn’t be one.”

“Then how come so many delinquents are tough?”

“They’re not tough. They’re just afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Losing.”

“Are you not afraid of losing?”

“No. I’m afraid of winning.”

“Damn, you’re really fucked up. Lay down on the floor, on your stomach.”

“Why?”

“You will be my throne, my meat throne. Come on, it’s not like you have any dignity.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He got down on his stomach, put his right cheek on the floor so that he saw the legs of the stalls and the toilet bowls. The drain lay just by his face, and water streamed in. The water cooled his injury. It wasn’t high enough to break into his mouth. Jane plopped down on his back like he was a sofa or something. She crossed her legs.

It would be nice to drown. But I like Jane.

“Nice taste in smokes. These are very strong.” She took out the lighter and the pack of Iron-Lungs from his pants, pulled out one, stuck it in her mouth and gave it the old flame. She took one hit, then brought it down to Pebbles’ mouth, and he would take a few hits while she talked.

“You know, ever since I was a little Brussel sprout, I’ve worn my hair in a crown just like this, so the running gag in my family was that I would be a queen when I grew up. One day, we’re at my 18th birthday party, and my dad makes a lousy-ass speech and then announces, honey, now that you’re a woman, you need to find a yourself a king! I told him, no, I need to find myself a throne. I will not be queen to a man; I will be empress to the goddamn world! Then he laughed, and everyone laughed. They were laughing, but on the inside they hated me because they knew I was crazy. Normal people hate it when you’re crazy. Even crazy people hate it when you’re crazy.”

“Funny. I thought something similar.”

“Really? How so?”

“I crank it on the roof.”

“What?”

“I crank it on the roof. Every school I’ve gone to, I’d steal the keys off the janitor, copy them, then I’d go up the roof with the key and crank it up there.”

“To feel powerful?”

“Yeah. To feel powerful.”

“But we’re not. We’re just crazy. And they hate us.”

“Yeah. By the way, back in your office, why’d you pretend to be somebody else? I mean, why did you pretend to be normal?”

“I have to. It’s my work.”

“Why do you even work here? I mean, no offense, but you’re just as fucked up as I am.”

“I was kicked out of the other school. Forget it. Let’s go on the roof before they find us.”

“Alright … Empress Jane.”

“Sovereign of the turds.”