The Thing They Found In His Ass

Our bodies are vulnerable to a myriad of grotesque hazards. Of these innumerable potential calamities, two are particularly horrific in nature: when something that’s supposed to stay inside your body is exiting you, and when something that’s supposed to stay outside your body is entering you. When one of these incidents arise, it’s wise to consult medical treatment.

You’ll be pleased to know that emergency room doctors are surprisingly well prepared to deal with foreign rectal bodies. Some portion of their exhaustive coursework must be dedicated to people who stick things in their ass, as well as the extraction of said things. It’s necessary to use a vague term like “things” because of the astonishing variety of items routinely found up there: sex toys, car keys, light bulbs, drugs, live animals, dead animals. Even salad tongs.

It’s never just salad tongs, of course. If somebody has salad tongs in their ass, it’s because they were trying to get the other thing out.

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Doctors know the warning signs: complaining of rectal pain, difficulty walking, avoiding eye contact, vague explanations – a general sense that the patient is hiding something, both figuratively and literally. But sooner or later, they can get you to talk.

Gracefully, they cajoled the outline of a scenario involving: him, his boyfriend, an anus, concrete mix, a funnel, and the hardening of several of the aforementioned ingredients. The extraction was successfully performed under anesthetic. When it was all said and done, they recommended psychiatric treatment (denied) and asked him if he wanted to keep the thing (accepted). Motive never entered the discussion, although it was surely assumed to be sexual.

But sex is the motive to everything in life except sex. Sex is the reason you buy a new car, eat healthier, or choose a particular seat on the train. Then, you have sex to satisfy all of those other, less tangible desires: power, approval, connection, etc. So perhaps he did it out of sexual impulse – but then, strangely, it became something else.

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Although rarely discussed across the dinner tables of Middle America, casting a rubber mold of your own penis to make a dildo is a relatively common phenomenon. The goal is to create a simulacrum of your penis that could be enjoyed by others, even when you aren’t around. In other words, it is a utilitarian endeavor. You’re making a tool – pun unintentional.

But, to make a concrete cast of your own anus – that, my friends, is art. A concrete replica of your rectum has limited sexual appeal, even for the most open-minded of folks. It has no discernible purpose. It is inapplicable, non-functional, unemployable, a physical incarnation of an empty space, the embodiment of lacking – the manifestation of a hole into which we futilely stuff things like material goods or drugs or even salad tongs.

It is the emptiness inside all of us that we wish to fill.

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A stony orb, vaguely fecal in appearance, fitted with unexpected contours and demarcations. A moon rock brought back from inner space.

There is a shelf in the living room adorned with the standard items: a few books, a decorative bowl, a framed photo of the couple. It’s the kind of space you become so accustomed to that you can never tell if it looks nice, much as you can never objectively say whether or not you have an attractive face. There is an unassuming concrete mass in the corner, right next to the picture frame. It collects dust. Guests occasionally inquire about it, sometimes even picking it up and looking it over in an attempt to figure out what it is.

“Oh, that?” he’ll respond nonchalantly, wanting to tell them everything. “That’s the thing they found in my ass.”