Art by Mike McHone

Someone had literally shit up the wall. 

The brown stream started just over top of the toilet’s flushing handle and proceeded upward until it was halfway to the drop ceiling.

This took place in the last stall of the Office Castle men’s room, just after the store had closed for the day at nine pm, Wednesday, June 25, 1997. 

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In 1950, Jackson Pollock created his most popular drip painting One: Number 31, 1950.

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Carla, eighteen, the store cashier, stood just outside the stall with Dale, twenty-six, the floor supervisor, Frank, twenty, the copy center associate, and Marlene, twenty-eight, the assistant manager.

Carla asked no one in particular, “How the fuck did that happen?”

“Impossible,” Dale mumbled. “Isn’t it?”

Frank said, “Gotta give ‘em props at least. That’s—what?—like, four feet up?” 

“I mean… how?” Carla said. “Just… How?”

“Wonder what they ate?” Frank mentioned.

Marlene asked, “Did anyone see anyone come back here?”

They said no.

“Was it one of you?”

“No,” Carla spat.

Frank pointed at the stain. “That ain’t me.” 

“Sure as fuck wasn’t me,” Dale said.

“Well, somebody did it,” Marlene said.

“Clearly,” Dale said. “How about you?”

Marlene squared herself to him. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “You think I would do something like that, in my own store?”

“Why not?” Dale replied. “Like you said, somebody did it.”

“Why would I do that?” Marlene screamed.

“I don’t know,” Dale said. “Why don’t you tell us why.”

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Andy Warhol created thirty-two canvases depicting Campbell’s Soup cans between November 1961 and June 1962.

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“Somebody’s got to clean this up,” Marlene told the crew.

“Not it,” Frank declared.

“I am not doing that,” Carla said. She wrapped her arms around herself. “No way. I’d rather die.”

“Well, somebody has to,” Marlene shouted.

“Then hire a cleaning crew,” Dale said.

“You think we have the money to do that?” she asked. “If I hire some outside cleaning service, corporate will have my head.”

“Then you clean it,” Dale told her.

“What if I tell you to clean it?” she shot back.

“Then I’ll refuse.”

“Then you’re fired.”

“Go ahead. Fire me. I’ll sue. I’ll sue you, I’ll sue corporate.”

“Taking care of the store is your job, and I’m telling you to do your job.”

“It’s also your job, so why don’t you lead by example?”

This had been the gist of most of their interactions ever since they stopped fucking two months prior. Marlene’s new boyfriend and Dale’s wife had snuffed out any remaining embers of their four-year on-again-off-again secret relationship. From that point, neither knew how to communicate to each other without yelling.

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Roy Lichtenstein utilized a page from the comic book Secret Hearts number 83, originally drawn by artist Tony Abruzzo, as the basis for his piece entitled Drowning Girl.

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Just after nine-thirty pm, Wednesday, June 25, 1997.

Marlene sent everyone home (after promising to write them up in the morning) and took a mop to the wall. With each swipe against the line, she envisioned Dale’s stupid face, his brown eyes, brown hair, and all those goddamn moles on his back. She pulled the collar of her corporate-issued polo shirt up over her mouth and nose and watched the shit streak down the wall to the floor, until she couldn’t see anything at all because of the tears.

Dale got home at a quarter till ten and cracked the first of many beers. He sat on the couch and daydreamed in the night about Marlene as his wife slept down the hall mere feet away from the crib that contained the little piece of a future he never wanted.

Frank made it to his apartment at five-till-ten. He watched some TV, went to bed, and didn’t dream.

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In 1907 and 1908, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria rejected Adolf Hitler back-to-back deeming his work unsatisfactory.

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Carla got home around ten.

Her stomach hurt.

From laughing.

Mostly.

Mike McHone is a Derringer Award-winning, Anthony Award-nominated writer whose work has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Dark Yonder, Playboy, The AV Club, and numerous other outlets. He is the recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Hugh Holton Award, has ranked twice on Ellery Queen’s Annual Readers List, and was cited on the Distinguished List in 2024’s Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. He currently lives in Detroit.