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I’m trippin’ on the word, hearing its layered meaning, the play. I’m trippin’ on them, my peers with their protruding toes, hearing their footsteps outside my stall, their muted grumblings about the meeting. The break is nearly over. The clatter of paper and soap dispensers, the water from a fawcett, the violence of a flush, are all sounding out, signaling an end to the break. My peers are filing out, ready to reconvene the meeting. I can’t move. I can’t make anything happen. I’m stuck in my porcelain seat, waiting to evacuate, but then find something within that will gird me for the next round of work. All work. No play.

              I hear one or two peers circling about. I feel their eyes upon my stall door. Do they know it’s me in here, collecting my thoughts? He can’t do it—that’s what they’re thinking. He’s stuck. They glance at one another, sharing their suspicions, but they’re not supposed to say. In here, you’re not supposed to say anything. It’s private time, pre-verbal time, in a private space, and no one is at their best in such moments, we’re all inclined to think. That’s our big boy voice, saying pull up your big boy pants. Just do what’s necessary, wash your hands, then leave and start talking, doing your thing. Back to work. He’s gotta come out, thinks the peer who seems to linger at the basin, washing his hands. He’s the last one there. Otherwise, the place is silent. Everyone’s break is over, except mine. I feel his eyes upon the outside door, his voice poised to speak, say what everyone else was thinking a minute or two ago: two minutes, Ray. It’s nearly ten. You comin’?

It wasn’t like this back in the day. Back when we were kids. These guys: they won’t remember. They don’t know anything from before the age of nine, when games were fun. Yeah, they liked to win. I liked to win, but winning wasn’t everything. Fun was the thing. Funny—funnee—was the thing. Silly was a thing, ridiculous was a thing. We could be ridiculous, look ridiculous, before we were nine. Was it nine? Maybe ten. I can’t remember myself. I remember laughing, and wanting to be the one that made the others laugh. It made ‘em laugh, shaking my thing outside the stalls, flanking the showers. “Keep the noise down”. That was the only complaint: a gruff, peace-seeking rebuke from beyond an eyewitness (but not earshot) threshold by a locker room attendant—a truly miserable man who wasn’t winning at anything and didn’t like to play games or even hear evidence of them. A buddy of mine and I: we did a dance opposite each other, taking turns, like the display was a preening competition. We were showing off, but feeling silly, ridiculous. Nothing serious. Then it changed. After the noise complaint, the game broke up, but only for a moment, like it was the receding of a stream that would return via another channel in moments. Let’s do something else, someone said. They gestured to a pair of urinals, then stood in front of them like they were targets. His beckoned a peer to his side, held his hand to his mouth like he was telling a secret, excluding anyone who wasn’t up for a duel.

Maybe he was telling a joke, a play on words. That’s what comes to mind now, still seated in my stall, not playing the game, not returning to the meeting that will happen without me, even though I am in charge, sort of. I don’t want to play their game, take part in their name-dropping but not naming game—their nounless attack upon substance, and my word-drooling response: it’s a leaking, or a falling out of words, this civilly symbolization; a mouth bowel movement, disguised. They know it. I feel it, the primitivism, and the inhibition of later games. I didn’t play that game that replaced mine when I was nine, or nearly ten. I didn’t want to play the peeing game, seeing who could pee the farthest and still hit targets. I don’t want that kind of comparison; to win or to lose, those cul de sac dichotomies. Don’t want to step on toes or have anyone step on mine. I don’t want to stick my neck out. I don’t want to leave my stall anymore, deal with my peers. Yeah, that’s right: my peers, my fellow pee-ers.