Goodman at an Outhouse, fiction by Brian Tucker

Out­side a dilap­i­dat­ed out­house a man by the name of Good­man wait­ed impa­tient­ly for his turn. He stood on his right toe with his left boot heel, try­ing to not think about the deep burn that was welling up from his loins. His fore­head burst into a frothy sweat. He knocked on the door’s drift­wood tex­ture and leaned against the wall for sup­port. Good­man regret­ted hav­ing that fourth cup of robust cof­fee at the greasy spoon.

“Be out in a minute,” a husky voice shout­ed through the door’s cracks.

“Hur­ry up,” Good­man whined.

“Don’t rush art,” the voice replied.

He always did this. Always sat him­self up for fail­ure. Today, it was too much java. Last week it had been stay­ing up to until 2 am to catch the end of Mon­day Night Foot­ball. A month ago Good­man had even tried to run to the gro­cery for a quick dia­per fix, and he had for­got to take his baby with him. His neigh­bor, Mar­jorie, had been kind enough to call child pro­tec­tive ser­vices on him. It was the bad end of the stick each time. He blamed his trou­bles on bad par­ent­ing. It didn’t make the out­house open up but at least he could sleep through the late night house calls from col­lec­tion agen­cies hell-bent on mak­ing him pay up.

Good­man owed just under fifty grand to Wells Far­go and oth­ers. He remem­bered pur­chas­ing a fifty inch T.V. once, and it just cat­a­pult­ed from there. Glanc­ing over at his new GMC Sier­ra pick-up, he remem­bered that he had left his cig­a­rettes in the seat. Good­man light-stepped to the cab door and pried it open gen­tly. He fig­ured sit­ting down on the bench seat might ease his bladder’s pres­sure and so he scoot­ed up and in. It did take a lit­tle off. He unbut­toned the top but­ton of his blue jeans just to help out. Goodman’s rearview mir­ror showed yel­low­ish eyes glar­ing back at him. He leaned for­ward for clos­er inspec­tion. In doing this, he spot­ted blood shot red eyes to accom­pa­ny the over­whelm­ing yel­low. Just great. I’ve got con­junc­tivi­tis, too. The out­house door rocked slight­ly, and Good­man for­got about his bladder.

“It’s about time,” he heard him­self say to the drift­wood door.

“I’m not done yet,” the brusque voice retorted.

“But, you’re close. I know you are. You just shift­ed. You’re close.”

“Nope. Not even bud­dy. It might be best if you just go piss in the sticks.”

And Good­man kicked his new truck’s door. This fel­la is shit­ting bricks if he thinks I’m going out in those woods to take a leak. Good­man admit­ted that any dis­tance away from his truck could result in an agency track­ing him down and claim­ing it and oth­er things. He didn’t want to lose his Sier­ra; he didn’t want the cops to catch him piss­ing out in the open. His balls did hurt though. Five more min­utes and he would be just like he was on his family’s trip to St. Augus­tine. His fam­i­ly had only been five min­utes from their exit when a traf­fic jam appeared. The yel­low eyes had been present that day as well. Shiv­ers and a warm sweat. Good­man hat­ed the shiv­ers. Think­ing about them made beads of water drib­ble down his back. He turned on his car radio for moral support.

This week­end be sure to vis­it Ken­tucky Lake for all of your sum­mer mem­o­ries. The Army Corp of Engi­neers is giv­ing away fish­ing sup­plies to any fam­i­ly that wants to cast down at Spoon­bill Dam. Now is your chance angler. Have at it today!

And the annoy­ing mechan­i­cal voice went away and Ste­vie Nick’s Land­slide came on and Good­man shut off the radio, her raspy voice made him even more agi­tat­ed. Ste­vie Nicks. She was bet­ter with Fleet­wood Mac, Good­man thought. Then, he won­dered if the per­son in the out­house was a woman. Maybe he was a she. His mom had told him to nev­er just a book by its cov­er. Good­man nev­er fol­lowed one word of his mother’s advice. She was good at giv­ing him lec­tures and then par­ty­ing all week­end on the lake. Good­man was sure his nosy neigh­bor Mar­jorie had called the cops on his mom just as often as she had him. Maybe that was one of the few things he had in com­mon with his folks – Marjorie.

The wood­ed area and a cou­ple of adja­cent cow fields sur­round­ing the old out­house were very invit­ing. The sug­ar maples were show­ing off their col­ors for fall, and the cows were moo­ing in an open pond. All that water. Good­man dis­tract­ed him­self and looked at the leaves falling from poplars as a swift wind came through the grav­el road where his truck sat. The only oth­er vehi­cle around was a trac­tor that had steam radi­at­ing from the engine and a strong oil odor. Good­man couldn’t fig­ure it belonged to any­one oth­er than the per­son still squat­ting behind the door.

“Been cut­ting some fes­cue today?” Good­man asked, hop­ing the ques­tion would bring about con­ver­sa­tion. He need­ed to keep his mind at bay.

“Beg your par­don,” the voice answered, straining.

“The Massey Fer­gu­son trac­tor with the bush hog. I couldn’t help but notice it was still steam­ing. You been cut­ting a field? It doesn’t look like that field below needs cut­ting yet,” Good­man added with a smile, proud of his farm­ing knowledge.

“I can’t hear you in here,” the voice strained again. It sound­ed like some­thing rough, but Good­man couldn’t smell any­thing from inside his truck cab. The mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion prompt­ed him to take his full-to-burst­ing blad­der over to the door.

“There’s a trac­tor out here, and I want­ed to know if you’d been cut­ting grass this morn­ing. It’s a great day for it but your field hard­ly needs it,” Good­man encouraged.

“Lis­ten. Don’t you touch my trac­tor,” the voice snapped.

“I wasn’t going to,” Good­man replied, shocked.

“Good. It’s mine. I don’t need you pil­fer­ing around it. Stay away. It’s my tick­et out of here.”

“Fine,” Good­man huffed. He was unsure of what the per­son had meant.

The irres­olute voice made Good­man ask again. “You almost fin­ished? I real­ly need in there.”

“You still haven’t peed out there?”

“I can’t.”
“Can’t why? Just unzip your pants and drain your lizard. Easy as pie. You’re a man aren’t you?”

The men­tion­ing of a lizard made Good­man think of a pet igua­na he had once. Iggy had been his name. Iggy had had no prob­lem going to the bath­room at will. He would pee all over his cage and com­pa­ny. Plus, he could also lose his tail when he want­ed to. Both were things that Good­man envied. Those damned col­lec­tion agen­cies would be sure to find him in such a small town as Seton, KY. It was best if he stayed close to cover.

“Did you hear me? Not a man I know that can’t uri­nate in pub­lic. Or, ruin somebody’s life. So go on,” the voice urged.

Good­man built up his last bit of resolve and marched towards the trac­tor. He want­ed the androg­y­nous voice to reveal itself. When he was right up beside the tractor’s fend­er he said, “This sure is a nice tractor.”

Shuf­fling was heard in the out­house. Fol­lowed by a kick­ing sound against the door.

“Keys are still in it. I’m going to take it for a spin,” and Good­man bit his fist wait­ing for the per­son to emerge.

“I will stab the ever-lov­ing snot out of you, if you touch my daddy’s Massey,” the voice blis­tered, as a boot wal­loped the door open into the crisp fall air.

Out marched a teenage girl in hik­ing boots and a night­gown she had out­grew wield­ing a bowie knife with a brown leather han­dle. She twist­ed the knife in mid-air, mak­ing a stab­bing motion at Good­man. Her eyes pos­sessed a red tint reveal­ing the lack of sleep and the rea­son for her fury. Her cloth­ing hint­ed at her urgency and rea­son for leav­ing home. The too small night­gown was tat­tered at the edges. The shoes she had on were fluffy house shoes with mud caked on them.

“Just a joke,” said Good­man, his hands shak­ing from the bewil­dered look on the young girl’s face.

“Don’t joke about my trac­tor,” and she lunged out­ward with the knife, just miss­ing Goodman’s stomach.

“Where’d you get a knife girl?” Good­man asked as he danced, and the urine raced down his pant leg. His eyes turned from yel­low to white and his blad­der emp­tied itself com­plete­ly onto his blue jeans.

“You nev­er can trust a fel­low. Not a one. Espe­cial­ly in this for­sak­en town,” and she spat.

“Lis­ten. I was only jok­ing about the knife. And now I’ve wet myself.”

“Get out of here. The last thing I need is more atten­tion from men like you. My whole fam­i­ly already hates me. So scram chump,” and she stabbed at Good­man again.

“I didn’t mean to scare you so,” he said. He noticed the fresh streaks of blood on her pale white legs; he was afraid to stare too long.

“You like what you see creep?” she barked.

“I didn’t mean to stare.”

“Get out of here or I’ll cut you up. Cut your whole head off,” she said.

The girl marched back towards the out­house, red-drenched night­gown fol­low­ing, and slammed the door. She began to cry; her sob­bing star­tled Good­man more than the knife had.

Before his legs caught grav­el and pro­pelled him for­ward, he could’ve sworn he heard scream­ing. Scream­ing that came through the drift­wood boards and wasn’t the girl’s. High­er pitched than the girl’s and much more like a baby’s. Fol­lowed by a mud­dy thud and more sob­bing. Good­man ran with wet pants all the way to the dam where anglers were cast­ing their emp­ty nets onto tran­quil lake water.

Bri­an Tuck­er enjoys spend­ing sum­mers on Lake Cum­ber­land and writ­ing fic­tion about the ever-chang­ing South. He is a cur­rent stu­dent in EKU’s MFA Cre­ative Writ­ing pro­gram. Bri­an has been pub­lished in (or soon to be pub­lished in): South­ern Grit, Dew on the Kudzu, Tra­jec­to­ry Jour­nal, The Dead Mule, Gloom Cup­board, Burnt Bridge Press, and The Camel Saloon.