John Funk, World’s Toughest

Men’s Room Attendant

in

THE BIG STINK

by Greg Mandel

     Johnny Funk stood amid the withering miasma of the Blue Parrot Gentlemen’s Club Men’s Room, wearing his white Men’s Room Attendant’s jacket with his first name, John, stitched in black cursive above his left breast. He was holding his tray filled with its orderly array of washcloths, mints, and toiletries, squinting at stall number 4, which housed the source of the eye-watering stench. Over the thumping bass of the club’s sound system, he listened to the last gurgles of the toilet’s flush mechanism, waiting and watching, practically daring the stink to make him flinch.

     Funk had been the men’s restroom attendant -- Toilet Ambassador, the fancy boys called it -- at the Blue Parrot ever since he landed in Portland eight years ago. And before that, he’d put in 12 years as a janitor at the Free Library in Philadelphia. In that time, he had withstood the fetid fumes of a million malodorous salvos. If this stench thought it could best him, it had best stink again. Over 20 long years, the smell had done its worst to drive Funk from his chosen profession, but all it managed to do was burn his corneas, irritate his nostril muscles, singe his lungs and esophageal tubes, and damage his central nervous system and brain structures. And yet he was still standing on the black-and-white checked tile of the Men’s Room, holding his tray of finely woven Turkish hand towels and exorbitantly-priced soaps, spritzes, and deodorizers.

     Funk stared at the door to Stall 4 and thought back to his time as a public library mop jockey, a job that had tested his resolve and taught him more than any one man should ever know about stench and the repugnant perps who produced it. Looking back at those years now, it seemed that most of his days and nights at the library had been a fight for survival. Too many times he’d had to defend himself in hand-to-hand combat with some stupefied space cadet strung out on speedballs, or pixilated on hand sanitizer guzzled from one of the library’s many dispensers. He’d learned how to use the tools of his filthy trade for self-defense, to wield his mop like a Japanese Bō stick and weaponize cleaning agents to incapacitate his rancid attackers. After twelve years, Funk had seen too much, experienced too much, and definitely smelled too much, so he’d quit the library and headed west in search of a more peaceful life. He thought he’d found it in the men’s room of the Blue Parrot, amongst the sweet-smelling soaps and ultra-plush, 100% Turkish cotton hand towels. But then, trouble had a way of finding Funk. It always did. And as it turned out, the clientele at a strip club men’s room was no better than that at a public library. 

     A noise like a Viking war horn blasted from Stall 4, jerking Funk back to the here and now. The Toilet Ambassador didn’t even twitch as the butt trumpet echoed off the bathroom walls, the pungent aroma of half-digested boiled cabbage settling over the restroom like an invisible cloud of poison gas. Goddamn vegans, Funk thought, just as the restroom door burst open behind him. Turning his head, Funk found himself staring into the dark brown eyes of Phelonie Rain, the Blue Parrot’s newest and, in Funk’s eyes, most entrancing dancer. Those brown orbs looked pleadingly up at the tall lavatory man, wide and sparkling as the golden tassels pasted to her areolae. Funk tried not to drop his gaze lower, no small feat considering that the young dancer was nude as a noodle, save for a g-string and those two strategically-placed pasties covering the upturned tips of her perky pink puddingcups. Funk placed her somewhere around 30, and lovely enough to make the Pope kick a hole in the windshield of his Popemobile just to get a better look at her.

     “Two men are coming to kill me,” said the dancer, her voice flat and low. “I need to hide.”

     Funk didn’t hesitate, pointing toward the row of stalls behind him. “There,” he said.

     Phelonie stepped quickly past him to Stall #3, closed the door and latched it behind her. Funk watched her delicate bare feet below the stall door turn, then heard the lid to the Fuxley Flushtastic clang down, and he knew that Phelonie was standing on top of the toilet. She was petite enough that she wouldn’t even have to crouch to keep her pretty brunette head from appearing over the top of the stall.

     Funk calmly set his toiletry tray down on the marbled countertop next to him, plucking from it a mini bottle of hand lotion. He stepped lightly toward the restroom door, unscrewing the cap to the lotion bottle. Squatting on his powerful haunches, he carefully drained the bottle onto the floor, pouring a pool of clear liquid the width of the door over the black-and-white tile. Backing up while still squatting, Funk continued to lather the floor in front of the door until he’d emptied the miniature bottle. Then, rising to his full 6-foot-3 inches, he tossed the empty into the garbage can in the corner. Pivoting so his body was at a side angle to the Men’s Room door, he reached inside his attendant’s coat and took what looked like a large switchblade from a shoulder holster he wore over his left side. Placing his thumb over the lever, he flicked the digit. Out popped Simone, Funk’s rubber orange-cupped toilet plunger with a modified 9-inch stainless steel handle. Lifting his right hand, Funk began twirling the plunger like a baton. The rubber cup made a rhythmic whooshing sound as it cut through the funkified air of the men’s room. Fixing his steely gaze on the door, Funk waited. It didn’t take long.

     The overwhelming aroma of Axe body spray (identified by Funk as crushed mint and rosemary) heralded their arrival. Two seconds after the overpowering scent of Axe made Funk’s nostrils twinge the door swung open and two swarthy, six-foot, hyper-macho alpha bros in their mid-30s appeared. One was chinless, bald as a cueball, with a jet-black goatee and beady black little eyes like malevolent marbles. The other could have been his twin brother, only he had a thick, black neckbeard and a healthy head of dark hair with plenty of product greasing it into a cute little Ed Grimley upflip. They looked like a couple of cosplay hitmen on a busman’s holiday. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the tall toilet squire casually twirling his Cleveland Q-Tip, and the twins pulled matching sleek, black Sig Sauer 9-millimeters from their back waistbands and pointed them sideways at Funk, like in the movies.

     “Who the fuck are you, old man?” said Cueball, jerking his Sig.

     Funk was tightlipped, his eyes narrowing to slits as he silently continued twirling Simone, seemingly in slow-motion in a spellbinding figure-eight. The plunger went whoop, whoop, whoop as it spun in his large hand like a toy.

     “What do you got there, bro?” said Neckbeard. “Looks like a turd wrench. What are you, some kinda janitor?”

     “Nah,” sneered Cueball. “He’s the plumber. You can tell from the smell. You smell like shit, old man!”

     Neckbeard twitched his pistol at the nametag across Funk’s breast. “What, you been unclogging the toilets … John? Is that your name, or to remind you where you work?"

     The two slimeballs snickered like middle school bullies at a science fair. When they stopped snickering, the smiles were gone. Cueball scratched at his swastika neck-tattoo and said, “Where’s the ho, bro? She hiding in one of them stalls behind you?”

     Funk stared silently at the nosegay nazis, his lean muscles coiled for action as the plunger twirled rhythmically in his hand like a rotor blade. Whoop, whoop, whoop.The twins inched forward, fingers tightening on the triggers of their pistols as they pointed them at Funk’s head.

     “Step aside and you won’t get hurt, old man,” said Neckbeard. “We only want the ho.”

     “Either way,” chimed Cueball, “bitch comes with us. You ain’t doin’ shit with that toilet stick, little plumber boy.”

     Funk beckoned them with two fingers of his empty hand. The perfumed punks were about to learn a very painful lesson. And that lesson was that Funk truly was the world’s toughest Men’s Room Attendant. He had honed his prowess with Simone, his deadly switch-plunger, and his countless other toilet weapons over many years of hand-to-hand combat with various men’s room miscreants, urinal poopers, and wall-pissers.

     “This beta bitch wants to play,” said Neckbeard. “Why don’t you bust a 9 up his ass, Mandrew.”

     Funk smiled through gritted teeth and said, “Why don’t I stick a feather up both your asses and we’ll all be tickled to death. Sir.”

     Cueball snarled and took a step toward Funk, but when the sole of his shoe hit the lotion his feet went out from under him and he went down hard on his coccyx, yowling like a eunuch, his pistol jerking upward as his trigger finger spasmed, stitching a jagged burst of bullets across the ceiling. Funk stopped the plunger mid-twirl and jabbed the orange cup into baldy’s face, pushing down hard. The back of Cueball’s skull hit the black-and-white tile with a loud crack, and he stopped yowling, gun-arm falling limply to the floor. He lay still as an unwound clock, blood pooling from the back of his head onto the checkerboard tile.

     “What the fuck?” yelped Neckbeard. Raising his Sig, he pointed it at Funk’s head while glancing down at his fallen brother. “Mandrew!” he yelled. “You alright, bro?”

     When Funk wheeled, the steel handle of the plunger caught Neckbeard’s wrist, snapping his trapezoid like a twig. The scumbag screamed as the Sig went flying out of his hand. Before the high-pitched squeal even reached his ears, Funk was already raising a mini spray bottle of lavatory mist – a novelty item called “Total Eclipse of the Fart” – trigger finger pressing down, spritzing Neckbeard’s little rat eyeballs with a spurt of lilac and patchouli scented air freshener.

     “Aaahh!” shrieked the blinded beardo, clawing at his burning orbs with his good hand. Funk jammed Simone into his face, the orange flange fitting neatly into Neckbeard’s open mouth and cutting him off mid-shriek. Funk pushed hard with the plunger, jabbing the goon back into the corner of the restroom and lifting him off his feet, pressing him up against the wall, feet kicking out futilely at the lavatory man. Neckbeard wheezed and gurgled, clutching at the orange rubber cup, trying to pry it from his face, but Funk just pushed harder, until the punk stopped making choking sounds and crumpled to the floor, out cold. Funk pulled the plunger from his face with a loud Plop! and stood over the fallen twins in quiet calm, until a quaking voice from Stall 4 broke the silence.

     “H-hello? What the hell’s going on out there?”

     Funk folded up his switch-plunger and returned Simone to her holster, then turned his gaze toward the row of Fuxleys. “No cause for alarm, sir. We’ll have this mess cleared up in a jiffy.”

     The latch to Stall #3 clicked, the door swung open and out stepped Phelonie Rain, the beautiful dancer, her eyes wide in amazement and locked on the two crumpled bodies sprawled on the restroom floor. She looked up at Funk, jaw hanging open. “Who are you?”

     “The name’s Funk,” said Funk, unbuttoning his jacket as he moved toward the nearly stark-naked stripper, wrapping her protectively in his white Restroom Attendant’s coat. “John Funk. Men’s Room Attendant.”

     Phelonie’s dark eyes widened, but before she could say anything, a weak groan came from the floor. Cueball, lying face-up on the checkerboard tile, was coming to, his face twinged in pain as he moaned. Phelonie’s beautiful features transformed into a dark scowl, and she took two quick steps, lifted her right leg at the knee and brought her heel down hard on Cueball’s groin. The bald-headed goon’s eyes popped open and he made a pathetic squeaking sound, like air being let out of a balloon. His face contorted in agony as his body lurched into a sitting position, hands cupping his pulverized privates. And then Phelonie assumed the passe position, twirled and performed a perfect fouetté to his chops, whipping Cueball’s head hard to the right and sending his first upper bicuspid sailing across the room. It pinged off the wall and ricocheted into the corner as his eyeballs fluttered white. He was out before his head hit the floor. Gazing down at the comatose punk, Funk noticed with consternation a small fleck of dust on the lapel of the goon’s jacket. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a small whisk broom, leaned down over Cueball, and carefully brushed his jacket clean.

****

     “So you gonna tell me about those two cologne salesmen, and why they tried to give you a lead necklace?” Funk asked through a billowing haze of cigarette smoke, as he raised a tall glass filled with brown liquid to his lips.

     They were sitting at a table in a dingy corner of the Shanghai Tunnel Bar, a grungy basement dive in Old Town, just across Ankeny Alley from the Blue Parrot. They’d gone there to take the edge off after Funk locked the men’s room with the two goon-bros still crumpled on the floor inside. He told the Parrot’s manager that a tweaker had been smoking meth in one of the stalls so he had to lock up the restroom for the night. Then he’d draped his overcoat around Phelonie and led her by the elbow out the back door of the Parrot, out onto the rain-glistened cobblestones of Ankeny Alley. When he saw the bright neon Shanghai Tunnel sign, he said, “Let’s grab a highball.”

     Phelonie, looking pale, vulnerable and tinier than ever wrapped in Funk’s big black overcoat, watched the lavatory man sip his tall drink through the fog of cigarette smoke, her dark eyes gleaming in the dim light of the darkened bar. With a trembling hand, she put a cigarette to her ruby lips and took a drag, then raised her gin and tonic and drained half the glass. Brushing a dark strand of hair from her eyes, she said, “The Smagma brothers. Andrew – sorry, Mandrew, and Manthony – they actually had their names changed. Influencers from the Manosphere.” She made air quotes around the word.

     Funk looked at her like she was speaking Swahili. “Manosphere?” he said. “What the hell’s that? Some kind of astronaut cult?”

     Phelonie gave a grim chuckle. “That’s exactly what it is. A cult.” She took another drag off her cigarette, her hand steadier now, and blew blue smoke across the table at Funk. “You’ve heard of Shel Shepard?”

     Funk nodded. “The billionaire pedophile? Who hasn’t?” He raised his glass for another gulp of whiskey and soda, but it never reached his lips. What Phelonie said next stopped the highball in its tracks.

     “Well, I’m a survivor. I was groomed by that fucker, taken to his private island, and passed on to his best buddy.” She looked at Funk with pure murder in her eyes.

     Funk felt his own hand begin to shake and he set the highball down on the table. “You mean…?”

     Phelonie smiled thinly, took another long drag and blew more smoke at Funk. She began nodding her head, small little movements, over and over. “Yup,” she said. “Damon G. Tinkle. President of the United States.” She raised the glass in salute and drained it, then set the empty down hard on the table. “I was 14!” she said, the words catching in her throat as she stared at Funk with hard eyes.

     Funk said nothing, just looked at the lovely, dark-haired young woman across the table and felt the bile rise in his throat. After a moment, she continued.

     “It took me a year to get away, but I did it. I snuck onto Shepard’s private jet and hid under a pile of dirty clothes. He didn’t have a dry cleaner on the island. About the only thing he didn’t have. That and a shred of common decency. We landed in Miami and I just ran. Disappeared. That was 20 years ago. I eventually made it to the west coast. L.A. Changed my name. I heard Shepard got arrested and I thought about contacting the FBI, but then I saw he got a sweetheart deal. Time served, work release?” She snorted. “A slap on the wrist for raping and trafficking young girls, so I said ‘fuck it,’ and just tried to forget.” Another long drag from her coffin nail, followed by another blue cloud of smoke puffed out over the table. “A few years ago, this guy brought his Yorkie into the doggy day-care where I worked. Turns out he was a director. Small-time, commercials mostly. Offered me a part in a no-budget thriller he’d written. I guess I let my guard down. Thought I was safe. Thought it’d been long enough that they wouldn’t recognize me. So I did it. Big mistake.” She reached for her glass but remembered it was empty, so she looked around nervously for the waiter. Funk pushed his highball at her and she smiled and took a drink. Funk signaled the waiter for another round while Phelonie continued.

     “Nothing happened with the movie. Went straight to video and dropped off the face of the Earth. Or so I thought. But then the whole thing with Shepard blew up. He got arrested again, and” -- she made with the air quotes again – “committed suicide in prison. Then Tinkle ran for President.” She shook her head, the grim smile slashing wider across her face. “And won. I couldn’t believe it, that people would be that stupid. The man’s a hideously spray-tanned monster. Anyone could see that. But still, I thought I was safe. Until the whole thing with the Shepard Files blew up, and then the Smagma brothers showed up in L.A., looking for me.” She took another pull from her cigarette, tapping ash into the ashtray as she blew smoke out into the bar. “Guess someone must have seen the movie,” she shrugged.

     Funk spoke with a quiet fury in his voice. “So you lammed it up I-5 to Portland.”

     Phelonie nodded. “Eventually. Few stops along the way. Las Vegas. Phoenix. Denver. But everywhere I went, before too long, they’d show up.”

     “What’s the Smagma’s connection to Tinkle?”

     “Oh, they’re right up his alley. Total dirtbags. Sex offenders. Fancy themselves kickboxers, only they suck and got their asses kicked, like, a hundred times. They’re big in this manosphere thing, though. They have a podcast, of course. Celebrating toxic masculinity and how to degrade women, and worse. Andrew – sorry, Mandrew -- even offered a rape class. Teaching other shitbirds how to drug and rape their girlfriends and wives, record it and put it on the internet for money.” She shook her head.

     “Bastards!” Funk hissed.

     “Mandrew finally got arrested for rape and trafficking women and girls. And Manthony for domestic violence. They were both convicted and sent to prison. But Tinkle pardoned them.”

     “Of course,” spat Funk. “Sons of bitches.”

     Phelonie shivered, digging her hands into the pockets of Funk’s overcoat. “Anyway, they found me again. A little ahead of schedule, so I guess I’m on the move again.”

     Funk frowned. “Why are they so afraid of you? I mean, there’s a whole group of Shepard survivors who’ve come forward. Hell, they were just on the news the other day, giving a press conference in D.C. So what makes you such a special threat?”

     Phelonie leaned back in her chair, holding her cigarette next to her cheek. “I’ve asked myself that question about 1,000 times. I think I might be the only one left – an actual eyewitness -- who can implicate Tinkle first-hand. The bastard raped me, beat me.”
The waiter brought them two more drinks and Phelonie downed half of hers in one gulp. Staring at the tabletop, she said, “One night at Shepard’s townhouse in Manhattan, Tinkle had another girl and I dress as maids and pretend to clean the room. I was 14. The other girl, Dolores, was 12. Tinkle ordered us to carry out a bunch of sex acts on each other, and on him. After we finished, he said we both could have done better, hit us both, over and over. A few months later, Dolores, fell onto the tracks at the 18th Street subway station. The cops called it a suicide. And she wasn’t the only one. There were stories of girls who just … disappeared. Buried on the 19th hole of one of Tinkle’s golf courses. Sleeping with the gophers.”

     “Jesus,” said Funk, tears of rage welling in his eyes as he stared at the beautiful, fierce young woman across from him, the veins in his neck and forearms popping and twitching with a fury he hadn’t felt in years. He longed to go to her and wrap his arms around her, tell her how sorry he was, apologize for his entire sickening, toxic gender. But he knew this was not a good idea. Any sane woman these days would prefer to be hugged by a grizzly bear or walking cactus than a human male of his gender. And Funk couldn’t blame them, not one bit. Alternatively, his second wish was to find the pathetic rapists who called themselves “men” and deliver them a fatal dose of Simone  – suction cup to the mouth hole. Or perhaps strangle them with one of his ultra-plush, 100% Turkish cotton hand towels.

     Phelonie drank the rest of her drink and sat back, eyeing Funk across the table. “What about you? You’re obviously not just some bathroom attendant. What are you, ex-military? Special forces?”

     “Sort of,” said Funk. “I was a custodian at a public library for twelve years.” He shuddered as a flashback of the experience flashed across the movie screen of his mind.

     “That’s rough,” said Phelonie as she stubbed out her cigarette. She stood up and gave Funk a crooked smile. “Well, thanks for the drinks, Funk. And for helping me out with the Smagmas. I owe you one. Guess I better go pack. I want to be on the road before those assholes wake up.”

     Funk drained his highball and looked up at the dancer. “Don’t you ever get tired of running?”

     Phelonie shrugged. “Got a better idea?”

     “Yeah,” said Funk, as he pulled his switch-plunger from his holster, flicked the switch and released Simone from her cage. “Fight back.”

****

     It was nearly four in the morning when they rumbled up to the back door of The Blue Parrot in Funk’s jet black 1970 Pontiac GTO. The gentlemen’s club was locked up tight as the Smagma brothers’ pants for the night. Funk, now wearing his overcoat, used his key to open the door, and stepped into the dark strip club, followed closely by Phelonie, who’d changed into a pair of old blue jeans with holey knees, black t-shirt and an oversized black hoodie with the letters, “FAFO” in large, white print across the front. Funk used the flashlight from his phone to shine a beam down the dark hallway to the door of the Men’s Room. When he reached the restroom, he pulled Simone from her holster and set her free with a flick of his thumb, holding her at the ready as he unlocked the door. Reaching inside, he flicked the light switch and three panels of life-draining fluorescent bulbs flickered on overhead. Funk heard Phelonie gasp behind him. The Smagmas were gone, leaving nothing but a large pool of blood, and two sets of bloody footprints that led across the restroom to the wall next to the long, mirrored counter. More blood was smeared on the wall and the edge of the counter, and above, on the metal frame of the window, where a cold breeze entered through a jagged hole in the pebbled glass, large enough for a couple of self-styled “alpha males” to slip through. Funk checked the Fuxleys to make sure they weren’t in one of the stalls, hiding, but they weren’t. The place was as empty as a Tinkle voter’s head.

     “Fuuuuuck,” said Phelonie, softly, a tinge of fear in her voice.

     “It’s okay,” said Funk, returning Simone to her holster. “They’re not going to hurt anyone for awhile. Not without these.” He pulled the Smagma twins’ pistols from his overcoat pockets and showed them to Phelonie. “Know how to use one of these?”

     Phelonie smiled. “Fuck yeah!” Funk gave her both Sigs. “Wait,” said Phelonie, looking confused. “Don’t you want one?”

     “Nope,” Funk replied as he walked past her and out of the restroom, turning left down the hallway toward the supply closet. “I’ve got my own arsenal.” He opened the closet door with a key. Switching on the light, he took out a mop and handed it to Phelonie. “Would you mind cleaning up the blood in there? I have a few things I need to grab.”

     Grumbling, Phelonie snatched the mop from his hands and headed for the mess in the Men’s Room, while Funk took out a small, black duffel bag and began filling it with various items from his Toilet Ambassador’s tray, including a folding barber’s razor, mouthwash, talcum powder, and other toiletries he could use as weapons in his war against the pedophiles. Then he opened a case of urinal cakes, stuffing the duffel with plastic-wrapped packs of round, cherry-scented, deodorizing whizcakes. He was just zipping up the duffel when Phelonie returned with the mop. They turned off the lights, and the two of them headed out into the alley to Funk’s black GTO.

     “Mind if I drive?” Phelonie asked. Funk tossed her the keys, and she snatched them out of the air with cat-like reflexes and the hand-eye coordination of a gold glove shortstop. Funk threw his duffel onto the floor on the passenger side and got in, then Phelonie started up the Goat and steered them out into the night, heading for the Morrison Bridge. They crossed the dark Willamette, then drove east on I-84, towards Florida.

     While Phelonie drove, Funk pulled a 12-pack of urinal cakes and a folding straight razor from his duffel, opened the pack of pisspucks and began whittling the edges of one of the pink plastic pee-ons down to a sharpened edge.

     Phelonie wrinkled her nose at the strong, cherry odor that filled the front seat of the car. “What’s that smell?” she said, glancing at Funk.

     “Paradichlorobenzene,” Funk replied, holding up one of the pink discs. “Deodorized urinal cakes.”

     “Oh, God!” Phelonie snorted. “Why did you bring urinal cakes? And … what are you doing to them?”

     “You’ll see,” said Funk cryptically. He turned the pee-on in a clockwise motion in his lap as he carved, until the edges were so sharp he could have used the pisscuit to shave with. Then he started on a second. By the time they crossed into Wyoming, Funk had put a razor’s edge on all 36 pisspucks in his bag.

****

     They were in Oklahoma, on the outskirts of Muskogee, when they came up with the concept of a plan.

     “So how much time did you spend at Mar-a-Lardo?” asked Funk.

     Phelonie, still behind the wheel, grabbed a Cheese Puff from a large bag on the seat between them, popped it in her mouth and shrugged. “Shepard took me there four or five times, I think,” she said, between munches. “Usually for a party or some big shindig. Twice for this thing they called The Gathering.”

     Funk’s eyebrows went up and he looked at her. “What was that?”

     “Every April 20th, for Hitler’s birthday, Tinkle would invite his rich friends -- Republican party bigwigs, tech bros, a couple of Supreme Court justices, neo-Nazis and Klan types -- to Mar-a-Lardo for a big to-do in the main ballroom. They’d bring in a bunch of young girls. That was Shepard’s department. Then, when it got dark, a bunch of them would move down to the private beach on the east end of the resort, build a big bonfire and …” Her voice trailed off and her jaw tightened.

     Funk stared at her, thinking. “How were they dressed?”

     “The girls? We were in underwear, or bathing suits. Bikinis.”

     “No, the preverts. The Nazis and KKK.”

     Phelonie squinted, thinking back. “Hmmm, the neo-Nazi dudes, some were in full Nazi uniforms. Most of them actually. Lot of Confederate flags, swastikas, of course. The Klan guys wore their white robes. Until the fun started. Then…” She shrugged again.

     “And this went into the night?”

     Phelonie nodded. “Mm-hmm. Most stayed the night in the guest rooms.”

     Funk grabbed the copy of the Billings Gazette they’d picked up at a gas station in Montana, and looked at the masthead. “Today’s April 16,” he said. He looked at Phelonie. “You think they still have this … Gathering?”

     Phelonie looked over at him. “I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”
Funk turned his gaze out the windshield, at the highway zipping by beneath their wheels. “Just thinking,” he said. “Might be a fun party to crash.”

****

     It was after 10 o’clock at night two days later and Funk was behind the wheel when they hit West Palm Beach. Funk took Okeechobee Boulevard into downtown West Palm, pulling up in front of the Shady Palms Motel, a two-story string of numbered orange doors in an avocado-colored slab on a concrete lot. The only palms to be found were on the neon yellow sign, a pair of them that blinked on-and-off on either side of the word “Vacancy.” The place did seem plenty shady, though, just not in the way the management probably intended. They got a room on the ground floor, and, after freshening up, sat down at the small dining table in the corner to go over the plan they’d formulated on the drive east.

     Funk spread the area map he’d grabbed from the motel’s lobby out on the table, and Phelonie planted a finger square in the center of President Tinkle’s exclusive resort, situated on the barrier island of Palm Beach, which was little more than a thin strip of sand about half a mile off the coast from West Palm, separated by the Intercoastal Waterway.

     “There it is,” she said. “Mar-a-Lardo.”

     Funk bared his teeth, squinting at the large green area on the sand-colored spit of land on the map. “And you’re sure you still know your way around the place?”

     “I think so,” said Phelonie. “I mean, it’s been more than 20 years, but…” She shrugged.

     Funk’s eyes traveled just to the right of the resort, to the strip of beach at the eastern end of the property, just across South Ocean Boulevard. The map named it: “Shepard’s Pleasure Beach.”

     Funk snorted. “Is that for real?”

     “Yup,” nodded Phelonie. “Shepard’s mansion was a couple miles up the beach, but Tinkle renamed the beach after his best friend.”

     Funk’s eyes blazed vengeance. “Lousy preverts,” he muttered.

     Phelonie looked at him, and her hand moved to his, squeezing it. Funk felt his cheeks redden, and he checked his watch. “It’s almost midnight. We’ve got one more day before it’s go-time. Let’s get some rest, then tomorrow we can go shopping for costumes.”

     The room had one queen-sized bed. Funk grabbed one of the pillows and threw it on the floor next to the bed.

     “What are you doing?” said Phelonie. “Bed’s big enough for both of us. I don’t bite. I promise.”

     “That’s okay,” said Funk, kicking off his shoes. “I like the floor.”

     Phelonie shrugged, showing no emotion. “Suit yourself.” But inside, a tornado of disappointment rampaged through her major organs, churning her kidneys, howling into her lungs, twisting her stomach, and finally touching down in her heart, flattening it. On the Fujita Scale of emotions, it only registered a 1. Moderate damage, roofs stripped, mobile homes overturned. But it uprooted her sense of equilibrium and left her mind a jumble, awhirl and confused. She had not trusted a man for more than 20 years, but she had come to trust Funk. She felt safe when the tall toilet man was near, and, she had to admit, he was the most handsome men’s room attendant she had ever seen. Biting her lip, she turned off the light and stormed into bed.

     Laying in the dark on the floor next to Phelonie Rain’s bed, Funk tried to focus on the plan for tomorrow. But all he could think about was her. Phelonie. The tiny dancer sleeping so close to him. He couldn’t deny that she was burrowed deep into his brain. If his heart was a toilet, he thought, it would be clogged with so much love for her it would take more than Simone and all the Drano in the world to unclog. But it was impossible, he knew. After what Shepard and Tinkle had done to her, she could never trust a man again. And he couldn’t blame her. It was just as well, he thought. He was too old for her. At 45, to her, he’d just be one of them. Another dirty old man. Besides, his was a lonely profession. One man, standing alone. In the men’s room. Fighting off the big stink, one spritz at a time.

     It took the lavatory man more than an hour to fall asleep. In his mixed-up dreams he was back at the Free Library, and it was all happening again. Just like it did almost every night for the past 15 years. The night Kowalski, the librarian on shift on the 2nd floor, got brained with the three-hole punch by a deranged junkie and bled out on the filthy carpet in front of the Reference Desk. Funk heard the screams from the Men’s Room, where he was busy cleaning up after one of the patrons had micturated all over the floor. But by the time he got to Kowalski, it was too late.

     The next morning, at the little corner table in the kitchenette portion of their room at the Shady Palms, with coffee and doughnuts, Phelonie cleared her throat. “So, uhh, who’s Kowalski?”

     Funk paused mid-bite on a maple bar. “What do you mean?” he said.

     “Last night, you talked in your sleep. You were tossing and turning like you were having some sort of nightmare. You kept yelling, ‘Kowalski! Kowalski!’ over and over.”

     Funk stared at his coffee, feeling his cheeks going beet-red. “Jesus,” he said. “Sorry.”

     “So who is he? Or she?”

     Funk took a bite of a Long John and spoke softly. “He was a Librarian in Philadelphia, back when I worked at the Free Library there.”

     “Yeah? Is he a friend of yours or something?”

     “Used to be,” said Funk.

     “Did something happen? You were, like, all sweaty and practically crying. You kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, Kowalski! I’m sorry!’”

     Funk took another bite of his Long John and chewed, staring hard at the tabletop.

     “What are you sorry for?” Phelonie asked.

     “He’s dead,” said Funk. “Got his brains splattered all over the Reference Desk while I was cleaning the Men’s Room. I didn’t hear him scream until it was too late. Couldn’t get to him in time.”

     Phelonie reached for his hand across the table. “Jesus, John, I’m so sorry.”

     “Skip it,” said Funk. “He’s not the only one who died face down in filth at the book factory.”

     They finished their breakfast in silence, then went outside into the bright Florida sunshine. They had to hit three costume stores, a guitar store, and a wig shop before they had everything they needed for their costumes. Then they drove out Southern Boulevard to the Expo Center for a gun show. It only took about 15 minutes of asking around before they hooked up with Harland, a grotesquely obese Texan in a red “Vote Tinkle” t-shirt. Harland took them out to the parking lot to his Ford F150 and his rust-colored teardrop trailer, where he sold them an AR-15 assault rifle and enough ammo to supply a small army, no background check needed. The rest of the afternoon was spent at a nearby gun range, where
Phelonie practiced firing the AR. As it turned out, she was a natural.

     The next morning, after breakfast, Phelonie went into the bathroom and spent half an hour putting on her costume. She came out wearing a long, stringy, dirty-blonde wig and matching fake goatee, big, black sunglasses, a gaudy silk jacket emblazoned with the Confederate flag over a black t-shirt and holey jeans, and topped off with a black porkpie hat with the brim turned up.

     “Not bad,” said Funk. “You look so much like Kid Dirt I’d ask you for an autograph, if I wanted Kid Dirt’s autograph. Which I don’t.”

     Phelonie laughed, then said in her slightly deeper Kid Dirt voice, “Thanks, I guess?” She removed the rented guitar from its case and replaced it with the AR-15, and she was ready to rock.

     Funk’s costume was much simpler – a red silk Klan robe complete with pointy hood and a bright green cape. The woman they’d rented it from said it was for an Exalted Cyclops, whatever that was. Funk put it into his duffel bag full of bathroom weaponry, and they walked out to the GTO, then drove to a luxury car rental and rented a silver Tesla Cybertruck that looked like a dumpster on wheels for $395 a day.

     Once inside the Tesla, Funk strapped on two custom-made leather bandoliers, criss-cross across his chest, and filled the loops with his many bathroom weapons. Lint roller. Whisk broom. Dental floss. Mints. Hand sanitizer. Mini soaps. Deodorizers. Mouthwash. Stain remover. Spray tan. If a gentleman could use it, Funk had it. Each had its place in its own specially-sized loop, designed for easy access and deployment. Then he looped a leather pouch over his neck and filled it with 20 of the pink urinal cakes. Finally, over the top of the bandoliers, he strapped his holster over his left shoulder and placed Simone in her cradle. He covered it all with the silk robe of the Exalted Cyclops.

     Funk put the Cybertruck in gear and they took Damon G. Tinkle Boulevard east through the heart of town to the Damon G. Tinkle Bridge, across the Intercoastal Waterway to the island of Palm Beach, and Tinkle’s private resort, Mar-a-Lardo. As they were nearing the North Gate, Funk pulled his hood up over his head. They pulled up in front of the large, gold-encrusted gate, which was shaped like a giant nipple facing skyward. The gate was manned by two of Tinkle’s ICE goons – masked Immigration agents dressed in camouflage, like militia nuts, with assault rifles belted to their coats. Tinkle preferred to use the fanatical ICE agents as his personal protection detail at Mar-a-Lardo, rather than the traditional Secret Service, because ICE’s camo-clad goons were loyal only to him, never questioning whether their orders were ethical, moral, or even legal. They were a noxious bunch of overfed and undertrained apes, thought Funk. Pimple-backed gorillas with no humanity. No empathy. No grooming or hygiene. No knowledge of bathroom etiquette. No class.

     One of the gorillas at the gate – an overstuffed ape with beady eyes and a face like a thumb -- stepped forward, finger on the trigger of his assault rifle, as if he were itching to shoot someone. Funk rolled the window of the Tesla all the way down. Peering inside, Thumbface glared at Funk, his face brightening when he saw the Klan outfit. A fellow white supremacist, Funk imagined him thinking. He pulled his mask down, and his smile got even wider when he looked at the passenger seat. “Oh, shit! Look who it is! What’s up, Mr. Dirt? Are you, uhh, performin’ at the shindig?”

     Phelonie gave the goon a half-assed salute, and said, speaking in her nasally Kid Dirt voice, “Call me Kid, please. And yes, son, I am.”

     “Aw, hot damn!” gushed the goon. “Maybe I can catch part of it on my lunch hour. Hey, uh, you gonna play Statutory Poon?”

     “Hell, yeah!” said Phelonie. “The President asked for that one special. Kinda help set the mood, know what I mean?” She let out a snort.

     Thumbface yowled. “Shee-it!” Suddenly his beady little eyes grew serious, and he reached into his back pocket for something. “Hey, uhh, you think I could get your autograph?”

     “Hell yes you can!” shouted Phelonie. She was really getting into her role.

     Thumbface pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and passed it through the window to Phelonie, who immediately began looking for something to write with. “Oh, uhh, here ya go,” said Thumbface, reaching a pen through the window to Phelonie.

     “Uhh, just make it out to Karl, with a K, if you would Mr., uhh, Kid,” said Thumbface.
Phelonie narrated as she wrote: “To Karl, keep chasin’ that underage ‘tang!” Then she signed Kid Dirt’s name with an exaggerated flourish. Phelonie reached past Funk, handing the autographed paper back to Thumbface, who took it, staring at it like it was some ancient, magical scroll. Phelonie patted her pockets, looking around frantically, as if searching for something.

     “Aw shit, Karl, I think I forgot my invite.” Looking at Funk, she said, “Hey, Leon, you got yours?”

     Thumbface’s eyes grew wide as saucers, staring at Funk. “Lee… Leon? Oh, sweet Jesus!” he hollered out, excitedly, never taking his eyes off Funk. “Hey, Jackson! You ain’t gonna believe who we got here!”

     As Funk pretended to look for the invitation to Tinkle’s pedo party, Thumbface put a fat, pink hand on Funk’s chest. “Don’t you worry about that invite, Mr. Must. Hey Jackson, let ‘em on through!”

     Funk nodded his pointy head at Thumbface, and Phelonie gave him a wave. “Thanks, Karl,” she said, sitting back into the leather seat. The gate buzzed to life, the automatic double doors swung open, and Funk drove the Cybertruck through.

     As they began winding their way down a long, pebbled, palm-lined driveway to the club’s entrance, Funk and Phelonie looked at each other and broke out laughing.
“Jesus, you’re a hell of an actress, you know that?” said Funk. “You should be in the movies.”

     “You forget,” said Phelonie, adjusting her goatee. “I am.”

     Funk shook his silky, pointed head as they pulled up in front of the Mar-a-Lardo mansion, a Mediterranean-style villa in white stone, with ornate arches, gold-encrusted entryway, and stairs leading to the imposing wrought iron front door, which was speckled with still more gold across its heavy iron grillwork. Funk looked at Phelonie, exhaling slowly. “You’re sure you want to go through with this? It’s not too late to back out.”

     “Fuck that,” said Phelonie, grabbing her guitar case from behind her seat as two red-coated valets approached the Cybertruck, one at each door. “These fuckers need to pay for what they did.” She reached over and grabbed Funk’s hand, squeezing as she smiled at him. Funk put his other hand over Phelonie’s and held it there, staring at her through the eyeholes of the Exalted Cyclops hood, his heart pounding beneath the robe. He wished he could kiss the beautiful dancer, but he was Funk, World’s Toughest Men’s Room Attendant, and kissing was for game show hosts and Frenchmen.

     The valets opened the doors, and Funk and Phelonie exited the rolling dumpster, then walked up the gold-slathered steps to the front door of Tinkle’s mansion.

     Two ICE gorillas with automatic weapons opened the doors, letting them walk into a grand foyer filled with Spanish lanterns, gold-leaf accents, opulent-looking art pieces and fancy fireplaces. It was all over-the-top tacky, like the mansion of a billionaire drug lord in a bad 1980s movie. Funk half expected to see tigers on leashes and tables piled high with cocaine. There was a metal detector with two more ICE agents set up near the door leading from the foyer to the rest of the mansion, and Phelonie set it off with her guitar case as she walked through. The goons, starstruck at the sight of Kid Dirt, waved them through into a spacious, grand ballroom, not much larger than your average airplane hangar. It was filled with even more gold: a gilded ceiling with intricate, detailed Venetian-style carvings, and golden, carved moldings and murals. In the center of the ballroom was a giant, gurgling fountain made of marble. On one wall was a portrait of Apollo, crossing the heavens in his chariot, on another a humongous portrait of Tinkle – a well-known draft dodger -- dressed up as some kind of generalissimo, in military uniform, with ribbons and medals everywhere, like some banana republic dictator.

     The room was crowded with men in white KKK hoods and robes, and World War 2-era Nazi uniforms. Waiters in white coats and gloves carried trays filled with champagne and caviar. Two more ICE gorillas were stationed inside the ballroom, one near the front entrance and one back along the wall near another door, both wearing the obligatory Oakley sunglasses, tattoos, and huge assault rifles.

     Funk sidled up to a large, pear-shaped man in a hooded white Klan robe and asked him where the girls were.

     “They’re in the next room,” said pear-shape, waving his champagne flute at a gold-outlined door with a gold covered cherub above the doorframe, adding: “You should go check ‘em out. There are some real cuties this year.” Revulsion shuddered through Funk’s marrow, and he nodded, moving toward Phelonie, who was standing awkwardly by herself holding the Kid Dirt guitar case.

     “The girls are in the next room,” Funk said.

     Phelonie nodded. “Let’s go,” she said, and the two of them walked through the crowd of Nazis and Klansmen. Opening the door to the next room, they stepped into another gilded monstrosity. A large living room with a nauseating amount of what looked like fake gold-leaf wall trimmings and figurines. In one corner stood a large, marble bar trimmed in, what else? Gold. There were four semi-circular ivory couches placed in the center of the room, forming a large square. Sitting on the couches were about two dozen very young girls in various stages of undress. Funk felt the bile rise in his throat when he looked at the girls. Some of them appeared to be no older than 11 or 12. The oldest, maybe 17. Grinding his teeth with suppressed rage, Funk searched the room looking for enemies to unleash his fury upon. His eyes landed on two more ICE agents, one near either door at the opposite ends of the room.

     Funk bent to Phelonie’s ear and whispered his plan. He needed her to divert the attention of the ICE agent at the far door while he took care of the other goon at the opposite end of the room. Phelonie nodded, ambling through the room toward her target.

     Funk reached beneath his Klan robe, searching his bandolier for the small dental floss dispenser. He knew exactly where on the bandolier to find each of his restroom weapons, and the travel-sized floss case was in his hands in seconds. It wasn’t standard issue. It was a modified, high tensile, polymer line that he ordered special, thin as a whisper and strong as the stink in a public library men’s room. Unspooling the floss beneath his robe, he made his way toward the agent. As he drew closer, a shiver went up Funk’s spine. He recognized the ape. It was the agent who’d shot and murdered a peaceful protester in Minneapolis, a mother of three named Renee Nice. The story had been all over the news when it happened. There’d been no investigation, no justice. The agent had simply been allowed to walk away and disappear. His name was Jonas Rossi. Funk’s grip on the floss tightened as he walked past Rossi to the door that led to the ballroom. This was a bonus, he thought. Making sure that Rossi wasn’t watching, Funk shut the door. Then, turning around, he located Phelonie at the opposite end of the room, waiting until she was in position. When she had her ICE thug distracted, Funk stepped quickly behind Rossi and slid the floss over his head, using it as a garotte across the agent’s throat. Rossi’s body jolted, unable to make a sound, a silent scream trapped in a suddenly constricted windpipe. Funk leaned into it, applying pressure around Rossi’s neck with a sharp, twisting pull.

     “This is for Renee!” Funk hissed into the goon’s ear.

     Rossi’s eyes bulged with recognition, wide and desperate, and Funk felt every muscle in the goon’s neck strain against the unyielding floss. Rossi’s hands clawed uselessly at the polymer line that dug into the skin of his throat, his legs kicking as Funk lifted him into the air, the muscles of the bathroom man’s forearms bulging. Rossi’s thrashing became weaker, more erratic. A wet, gurgling sound escaped his lips, the last attempt of his diaphragm.
Funk repeated the words Rossi had sneered after shooting Renee Nice three times in the face: “Fucking bitch.”

     Funk held him, locked in that final, fatal clinch until the convulsions ceased, until the body slumped, heavy and dead, against him. Funk released the tension slowly, letting the floss slacken. Rossi’s head dropped forward, like a puppet with severed strings, and Funk let him slump to the floor.

     Across the room, he could see Phelonie still had the other goon engaged, signing an autograph as Kid Dirt, but the girls in the room were the worry. They’d seen Funk dispatch Rossi and were huddled together on one of the couches, wide-eyed, watching him, making increasingly frightened noises. Funk knew he only had a couple of seconds before the other goon noticed. He quickly reached beneath his robe for one of the urinal cakes. Without pausing or taking aim, he flung it sideways with all his force, using a short, snapping motion of his elbow, like throwing a frisbee. The pink pisspuck sailed across the room. Its edge caught the gorilla exactly at the nape of his neck. Without a sound he fell backwards onto the floor, head angled like a broken doll. Dead as a poop.

     Phelonie and Funk both ran toward the gaggle of girls huddled in the center of the room. “Hey!” Phelonie snapped in her normal voice. “We’ve come to get you out of here. But I need you all to listen carefully. I need you to go over to that corner over there, behind the bar, and get down flat on the floor, as flat as you can, and stay there until we come back to get you, okay?”

     The girls all nodded, scurrying to the far corner of the room, ducking down beneath the marble bar. When they were all safely tucked away, Phelonie and Funk made their way back across the living room. Funk opened the door to the ballroom, and the two of them walked back into the roomful of Nazis and Klansmen, making sure to close the door behind them. Funk quickly clocked the two armed ICE gorillas. They were still at their posts, one at each end of the room, guarding the doors. And, Funk knew, there were more just outside the ballroom, in the foyer, and outside the front door of the mansion.

     Funk felt Phelonie’s elbow in his ribs, and he turned to find her staring straight at a flabby, spray-tanned man wearing the uniform of a high-ranking Nazi Shutzstaffel, holding court by the marble fountain in the center of the room. The man – a yam-faced gurgling boor -- had a ridiculous neon orange face and an even more ridiculous blonde pompadour on top of it, scooped and hair-sprayed into an impressive forward swoop atop his bulbous pumpkin.
“Tinkle!” hissed Phelonie, staring daggers at the President.

     Tinkle was surrounded by fawning toadies near the burbling fountain, his loud, grating voice blaring above the hubbub of the ballroom.

     “Now, gentlemen, cause we’re all gentlemen in here, I think, with the possible exception of Senator Lindsay, who I’m not quite sure what the hell he is, quite frankly, but in just a minute we’ll be bringing in this year’s crop of young girls, some of them very young, quite frankly, but I think you’ll agree, as many people have said they’re the most beautiful group we’ve had in many, many years. A big, beautiful group of tremendous young girls, some of them quite young, and all of them very, very stupid, just the way we like ‘em, isn’t that right, Kid? Where is he? Someone told me Kid Dirt was here. Where are you, Mr. Dirt? Oh, there he is, over there in the corner by the living room, where the girls are. I guess he just can’t wait, can you blame him? He’s got his guitar case, I see. Why don’t you play us a tune, Kid, and we’ll get this party started? You know I love to dance! Who wants to see me dance? Everybody? Okay!” And he began gyrating his bloated upper body in a strange jerking motion, hands up forming fists, as if he were pulling the teats of two invisible cows on either side of his bloated, orange face.

     Phelonie glanced at Funk and he gave her a quick nod, then began moving toward the ICE agent near the door to the living room.

     “Hell yeah, I’ll play you a tune!” Phelonie murmured to herself, her voice low and filled with malevolence as she set her guitar case on the floor.

     Funk slipped a miniature bottle of mouthwash from his bandolier. As Phelonie bent to her guitar case, Funk raised the mouthwash up under his hood to his lips, filling his mouth with the minty liquid, swishing it around, while simultaneously pulling two spray bottles of ethanol-based hand sanitizer from his bandolier. As Phelonie opened the guitar case, reaching inside, Funk looked directly at the ICE agent next to him. Tipping the hood back off his head, he spat the mouthwash straight into the goon’s eyes, blinding him. The gorilla let out a cry, his hands clawing at his burning orbs as Funk raised the two spray bottles of sanitizer in his hands like twin machine guns and squeezed the triggers, fanning the width of the room, dousing the ICE goon and nearby Klansmen and Nazis with highly flammable liquid sanitizer.

     As this was happening, Phelonie rose holding the AR-15, pointing it straight at Tinkle.
“Say hello to my little friend!” screamed Phelonie, pulling the trigger and spraying the room with bullets. As the ballroom erupted into bursts of spurting blood, screams and chaos, Funk dropped the hand sanitizer bottles to the floor, yanked the front of his Exalted Cyclops robe up and over his shoulder like Clint Eastwood lifting the front of his poncho in A Fistful of Dollars, revealing Simone, his infamous switch-plunger of death, and the bandolier of toilet weapons. Snatching a urinal cake from his leather pouch, Funk, in one fluid motion, hurled the pee-on like a frisbee across the room at the other ICE agent, who was desperately lifting his own rifle to shoot Phelonie. As the goon’s gun moved into position and he took aim at Phelonie, the piss disk sailed across the room, making a high-pitched whistling sound as it whirred through the air, the serrated edge of the disk hitting the gorilla in the neck just before his finger could squeeze the trigger, taking his head clean off. The goon’s gourd bounced to the floor and rolled, his neckhole spurting a geyser of blood as his headless body twitched and jerked like a marionette, machine gun belching bullets that raked the room, spattering indiscriminately across the crowd of racist rapists before finally collapsing to the floor beside his upturned head, face forever frozen in a look of stupefied shock.

     Funk felt a burning sensation in his shoulder. Glancing down, he saw a bullethole in the robe of the Exalted Cyclops, blood soaking through the silk.

     “Damn!” hissed Funk. “There goes my deposit from the costume shop.”

     He was not worried about the wound. It was in his left shoulder, so it would not affect his hurling of urinal cakes, and he had been shot, stabbed and otherwise punctured more times than he could count while working in the bathrooms of the public library. He could tell this was nothing more than a flesh wound, and nothing vital had been hit, the bullet most likely stopped by another bullet still lodged inside his shoulder from many years ago.

     Not missing a beat, Funk lifted his lighter and a can of Max Force Stain Remover in front of the blinded ICE goon. A flick of his thumb sparked a flame from the Zippo, and when he sprayed the highly flammable stain remover into it, the spray ignited into a plume of fire, transforming the can into a flamethrower that set the blinded thug on fire. The burning goon ran screaming straight into the crowd of racist pedophiles, turning them and their highly flammable robes into unwitting pointy-headed pyromaniacs who, in turn, ran screaming into other Klansmen and Nazis, spreading the fire and turning the room into an inferno of smoke and death.

     As the smell of blood and burning flesh filled the ballroom, Funk looked at Phelonie, whose face wore a beautiful snarl as she continued to shred the ballroom with bullets. “Die, Nazi pedo scum! Die!” she shouted.

     “Damn!” Funk marveled. “You’re beautiful when you rage.”

     The bodies of dead and burning pedophiles were piling up, and the fact that no more ICE agents had tried to enter the room puzzled Funk at first. After all, their pedo hero and boss, President Tinkle, was in the room, and it was their job to protect him. But then, Funk remembered, the agents of ICE weren’t exactly known for their courage. It was one thing to shoot unarmed women in the face, brutalize small children and bully the powerless, but when someone was shooting back? That was a very different story. Still, Funk was holding a urinal cake at the ready, just in case the craven creeps found their cojones and came through the door. He needn’t have worried. If Funk had been blessed with X-ray vision and could peep through walls, he would have seen the camouflaged cretins posted at the front doors and metal detectors fleeing the scene like the chicken-hearted poltroons they were. And yet, he knew that it wouldn’t be long before others came. Police and firemen. Men who were not as cowardly and out of shape as the quivering quakebuttocks from ICE.

     “We need to get the girls and get out of here!” Funk yelled at Phelonie.

     She looked at him, dark eyes flashing. “Where’s Tinkle?”

     Funk scanned the room, his eyes roaming over the piles of dead pedos. He saw movement, a couple of bullet-shredded bodies jerking oddly, as if being pulled by invisible strings. And then, from beneath them, a tiny hand burst up between the jerking corpses, followed by an arm. The uniform of a Shutzstaffel rising from underneath, a bloated orange face peering, emitting loud grunts and groans. Tinkle! The pigeon-livered pedophile had been hiding at the bottom of the pedo pile! As the cowardly autocrat struggled to an upright position, Phelonie calmly raised her rifle, putting Sweet Potato Hitler in her sights. Finally wobbling to his feet, Tinkle turned and began running for the exit. Phelonie tracked him with the AR, pulled the trigger. Nothing came out. Her clip was empty. “Damn!” she snapped, looking at the ammo clip. As she fumbled for a fresh clip, Funk saw Tinkle reach the closed door to the foyer. Without hesitating, he crouched low, flinging the urinal cake. As Tinkle opened the door, the whizcake struck him at his bloated cankles, sawing him off below the knees. Tinkle shrieked like a startled toucan, toppled over, his shin-stumps spurting blood. Phelonie looked at Funk, and the two of them made their way through the pile of smoldering pedos to where the President, clearly in shock, sat staring blankly at his feetless legs. Looking up at Phelonie, Tinkle raised a tiny hand toward her. “Kid Dirt! Thank God! Help me up,” he said. Slowly, Phelonie reached up, removing her disguise. The wig, the mustache, the stupid porkpie. Tinkle’s beady-little rat eyes widened in surprise.

     “Who the hell are you,” he said.

     “Does it matter?” asked Phelonie. “Just one of your many victims.”
Funk took a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his bandolier and gave it to Phelonie. She used it to douse Tinkle while he brayed. Then Funk handed her a can of Tangerine Dream Spray-Tan. Phelonie took it, shook it up. Funk held his Zippo at arm’s length, between Phelonie and Tinkle, gave it a flick. Phelonie pointed the Spray Tan nozzle at the flickering flame.

     “Looks like you need a little touch up, Mr. President.”

     Tinkle’s sphincter-shaped mouth-hole opened. “You’re a very nasty woman, you know that? You never smile. Why don’t you smi…”

     “Shut up, piggy,” said Phelonie, pressing the spray tan’s actuator. A stream of orange mist shot into the flame, igniting into a blaze that, with a whoosh, engulfed Tinkle, turning him into a human torch. As Tinkle writhed, screaming in unimaginable agony, Funk pushed him away from the door with his foot, rolling the flaming pedophile back toward the pile of smoking Klansmen and Nazi corpses.

     Funk looked at Phelonie. “I love the smell of smoked pedo in the afternoon.”

     Phelonie stared at the motionless body of her immolated molester, then she stripped out of the rest of her Kid Dirt costume, leaving her in nothing but a black bra and panties. Turning to the tall toilet man, she smiled and said: “Let’s go get the girls.”

     Funk grabbed Phelonie’s hand, and the two ran through the steaming carnage of the ballroom and into the living room, to the marble bar in the corner, where the underage girls huddled in a terrified heap of near nudeness. While Funk stood guard with his array of toilet weapons, Phelonie bent over, speaking softly to the frightened girls. “It’s okay. We’re going to take you out of here now. Come on!” They led the shivering girls through the smoldering, bullet-riddled ballroom and out of Tinkle’s douche palace, to the parking lot, where an array of luxury vehicles sat, waiting for their owners who would never come. Because they were dead and charbroiled to crispy cinders by John Funk, World’s Toughest Men’s Room Attendant, and Phelonie Rain, avenging angel of death to all pedophiles, pussy-grabbers, rapers, and defilers of women and little girls.

     Funk and Phelonie eyed the brightly colored assortment of Bugattis, Bentleys, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis. Turning to the girls, Phelonie called out, “How many of you can drive?”

****

     As they watched the last of the giggling girls take off down the palm-lined drive toward the North Gate and freedom, Funk took off his Exalted Cyclops robe and tenderly draped it over Phelonie’s nearly naked form.

     “You’re wounded,” said Phelonie when she saw Funk’s bloody shoulder.

     Funk looked at her, his heart nearly bursting as he gazed at her beautiful face. If love were a stench, there wasn't enough room deodorizer in all of Florida to dissipate his feelings for Phelonie. “It’s nothing,” he said.     

     Phelonie tore a strip from the Exalted Cyclops robe, and tied it tightly over Funk’s wound. Funk started to object, but then stopped. He liked having the beautiful Phelonie take care of him.

     Funk stared into Phelonie’s beautiful brown eyes, his voice a low, steady purr, like the engine of a finely-tuned muscle car. "Well, now that that's finished, how about I take you out on a real date? I was thinkin' ... dinner and a movie.”

     Phelonie looked up at him, smiling. “I thought you’d never ask.” The two heroes threw their arms around each other like two Greco-Roman wrestlers who were also lovers and kissed with all the pent-up passion their lips would hold. It was a deep kiss, full of romance and hot tongue action. When they finally broke apart, Phelonie looked up through hooded eyes at the tall lavatory man. “Bring on da Funk,” she said, pulling him down for another fiery kiss, with even more hot tongue action than the first one.

     “What now?” said Funk, when their tongues finally stopped doing the Mashed Potato.

          Phelonie gazed over her shoulder at the smoldering ruins of Mar-a-Lardo behind them. “Got anything in those belts that blows shit up?”

     Funk raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Plenty,” he said. “If you know how to use it right.” 

     “Come on,” said Phelonie, leading Funk up the steps and back inside Tinkle's mansion. 

     There were several white-coated Mar-a-Lardo staff huddled around the doorway to the ballroom, peeking inside at the carnage. They stiffened in fear when they saw Funk and Phelonie come up behind them. “Get out of here,” said Funk. “Get all the staff. Tell 'em they've got five minutes before the whole place goes boom.”

     As Funk and Phelonie entered the ballroom, the servers rushed off to spread the word to their compatriots working at various menial tasks inside the mansion.

     Once inside the ballroom, Funk took three bottles of Clorox Max Strength Toilet Bowl Cleaner from his bandolier and emptied the bottles onto the ballroom’s marble floor near the room’s entrance, making the classic peach marble shine with so much of the bleach-based cleaning product that the lavatory man could see his own face reflected back at him. Then he took out two 24-oz. cans of Lysol Antibacterial Bathroom Deodorizer Spray, the Fresh Island Breeze scent. Funk reached over to the headless ICE agent’s decapitated corpse and removed the gas mask from his pouch. Looking at Phelonie, he said, “You’d better wait outside. When the ammonia hits the bleach, it’s going to produce toxic gases called chloramines, which will kill you if you breathe it. Add enough ammonia – like this much – and you get liquid hydrazine, aka rocket fuel. Light it on fire and, if there’s enough of it, which there is, it’ll blow this place sky high.”

     “Fuck that!” said Phelonie. “I want to see this!” She ran through the steaming pedophile corpses to the other dead ICE agent across the room, and came back a moment later with her own gas mask. The two of them donned the rubber gas masks, complete with goggles, adjusting the headstraps so they fit snugly over nose and mouth. Phelonie gave Funk a quick nod, and the tall bathroom man, one Lysol spray can in each hand, began spraying the deodorizer into the pool of bleach on the marble floor. When the cans were empty, Funk took out a matchbook with the Blue Parrot logo and crushed the match heads into a fine powder, then opened a small pack of tissues and put the powder inside. He rolled the paper up tightly, and bundled a bunch of matches at either end of the rolled up tissue -- bound with duct tape -- to form igniters, and stretched out his homemade fuse from the pool of ammonia and bleach. 

     Funk pulled out his lighter, and his thumb flicked the wheel. A single spark met the gas as the Zippo produced a flame, which Funk lowered to his makeshift fuse. Phelonie’s eyes widened with anticipation as she watched the fuse ignite, and, beneath her gas mask, Funk could see the corners of her mouth turning upward, forming a huge smile. Funk had to grab her by the elbow and pull her out of the ballroom, striding quickly for the front door of Tinkle’s pedo palace. They walked through the mansion’s front doors and down the steps, and were several yards down the pebbled driveway when Mar-a-Lago blew up behind them. A giant red and yellow fireball appeared in the doorway, followed by a humongous billowing cloud of black smoke, pluming behind Funk and Phelonie as they strolled cinematically towards the Cybertruck. They did not look back. As the building collapsed and crumbled into rubble behind them, they removed their gas masks and dropped them onto the gravel driveway. 

     “So, a movie, huh?” Phelonie said, glancing slyly at Funk as they walked side-by-side down the driveway. “What kind of movie?”

     “I like old movies,” said Funk.

     Phelonie smiled wryly, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly. “Shocker,” she said, squeezing the hand of the lavatory man as they reached the Cybertruck. Funk opened the passenger door for her, which made Phelonie smile. Then he walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

     “Where to?” said Funk, as he started the big rolling dumpster.

     Phelonie shrugged, clapping her assault rifle. “World’s full of pedos, and I’m not out of bullets.”

THE END

 

     Note: Keep a nostril flared for the odoriferous recrudescence of John Funk, World’s Toughest Men’s Room Attendant, and his beautiful partner Phelonie Rain in their next exciting adventure: THE BIG STINK 2: A NEW STENCH RISES!