Since the old-fashioned porcelain toilet had no lid, I balanced a shoe on each side of the rim and rested my bottom on the bowl mounted to the wall. Perched atop the toilet, I took full advantage of my mother’s religious tutelage. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . . please don’t let them find me . . . please don’t let them find me . . . blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . . please don’t let them find me . . .”
I peeked out the gap between the stall door and jamb and saw the backsides of the three thugs standing shoulder to shoulder at the urinal trough. I had come to learn that Bateman’s henchmen were second graders, Patrick O’Reilly and Tommy Leftkowitz. Bateman pushed O’Reilly’s shoulder, trying to knock his stream off the mark. Then Bateman spun, rotating like a sprinkler, and peed all over the bathroom, much to his goons’ delight.
“My dad says Batman is a fag; that’s why he wears tights,” Bateman said, zipping himself up.
“What’s a fag?” Leftkowitz asked.
“They’re sissies,” O’Reilly said. “At least that’s what my dad said it meant.”
“What about Superman? He wears tights,” Leftkowitz said.
“My dad says he’s okay because he likes Lois Lane.”
Bateman cranked out what seemed like an excessively long sheet of paper towel from the dispenser, crumpled it in the sink under a stream of water, and mashed it into a giant dark-brown spitball, like the ones I’d seen stuck to the bathroom ceiling. As I watched through the crack, I realized that in my hurry to hide, I had failed to slide the latch to lock the door. I reached for it at the precise moment Bateman wheeled and hurled the wet mass directly at my stall, causing the unlatched door to spring open.
Bateman’s eyes widened, then the corners of his mouth slanted upward. “Well, well. What do we have here, Devil Boy?” He approached. “You taking a shit with your pants on?”
“No,” O’Reilly said. “I think maybe the devil boy pees sitting down, like a girl.”
In my haste, I had not only forgotten to latch the door; I had forgotten to tuck myself back into my trousers, and now the head of my penis protruded out my unzipped fly.
“Yeah, maybe we should call him Devil Girl,” Bateman said. He slapped Leftkowitz’s shoulder. “Watch the door. I think Devil Girl needs a drink of water.”
My fear at that moment caused every limb of my body to grow instantly rigid. If my pants had not remained unzipped, I would have been forced to endure a different form of humiliation the remainder of the day. Instead, given my position atop the seat, the height was such that my inadvertent stream hit Bateman directly in the face.
Bateman screamed, wiping at his eyes and face as if squirted with acid. “It’s burning my eyes. It’s burning my eyes.”
O’Reilly quickly tried to retreat, but his shoes slipped in the puddle of urine Bateman had shot on the floor. He skated unsteadily for a moment, then reached out and grabbed hold of Bateman’s shoulder, but Bateman’s feet were also dancing, as if on a sheet of ice. The two looked for a moment as if they might regain their balance, but O’Reilly’s feet came out from beneath him, and he toppled them both, Bateman cursing a blue streak and shouting threats when they hit the ground. “I’m going to kill you. You’re dead!”
The second bell rang.
Leftkowitz, who’d been standing guard, pushed open the door and yelled what I presume to have been “Bell!” though now I recall it as a silent scream. I shot from the stall, felt a hand grip my ankle, but shook it free and continued running past a surprised Tommy Leftkowitz, knocking him into one of the trash cans. I fully expected Bateman and O’Reilly to tackle me from behind as I scaled the steep steps, but I reached the summit untouched and raced across the quad to where Sister Kathleen stood sentry outside her classroom door waiting for us to line up in single file. Only when we were sufficiently “calm and orderly” would she allow us the privilege of reentering her classroom. Someone, I don’t know who, had broken that rule, giving me a reprieve. But I could not be bothered with the formality of a line, not with David Bateman threatening to kill me. I raced by my stunned fellow students, a serious breach in line protocol and etiquette, and did not stop until I had reached the front of the line.