The Cloud Maker
By Adam Ferguson
My fiancé comes from the whitest family I’ve ever met. They are members of two country clubs. They have a certificate indicating their direct ancestors arrived in America on the boat that came just after the Mayflower. Do you realize how white you have to be to do that? They were like, “Fuck that. You poor people go over first, plant some corn and kill some turkeys. Here, take these blankets covered with smallpox and give them to the brown people living in the woods. We’ll come over in the spring when it’s warmer and there are less of those people hanging around.”
Because of their extreme caucasionality, they need to have things regimented. Such is the case whenever I go on vacation with them. The time between 10am - 12pm is reserved for “physical activity.” This includes tennis, “cycling,” berating the vaguely-Hispanic man who they hire to water their driveway, and slicing limes for the gin & tonics we’ll be enjoying later on. (Served promptly at 6. Wear a collared shirt.)
By comparison, I’m not as white. So much so, in fact, that each time I leave their house I’m required to use a railroad built underground to shuttle “untouchables” in and out of the grounds. My family came to this country about a 100 years ago after, I’m assuming, they could no longer render alcohol from the various plants in their impoverished countryside. So it is my singular goal in life, outside of creating cherry-flavored dental floss and reading to completion and understanding a Thomas Pynchon novel, that I impress these people.
At 10am each morning, I talk about my favorite fed chairman while trying to keep my tennis ball in the lines. I quote obscure Shakespearean plays (my go to: Richard III, or The Winter’s Tale), while tossing my golf ball onto the green while I’m hidden in a bunker. And so far, I’ve managed to convince these people that I’m not a complete fucktard. (They don’t read this site.)
This all came to a crashing halt when we were visiting them a few weeks ago. Still in my shorts (length: just to the knee) from that morning’s physical activity, I was served a salad with onions. It should be stated that while I love onions, they turn my gastrointestinal tract into a fecal-tinged hot air balloon of gas pressure. I can fart the entirety of Freebird - including the guitar solo - and still have enough fuel left over to power a lawn mower after a fair amount of onions.
This afternoon was going to be trouble.
Luckily, the schedule involved ruminating on various works of art and six hours of Risk should the weather turn foul. I’d be in close approximation of a bathroom should I need to excuse myself and decompress.
Like clockwork, the rumblings began. Had my stomach been an Indian Ocean fault line, residents of the Maldives would have been given warnings to attach themselves to utility poles and face the oncoming tsunami head-on. This shit, literally, was about to get intense.
As most anyone who has suffered through a bout of gas and/or the shits will attest, it feels as if your lower intestine is trying to escape from your body via your colon. Your sphincter muscle becomes so over-used that it gets the sweats. Couple that with the volcanic crater-like burning sensation from all the wiping and gas releases and your entire ass becomes akin to a central Pennsylvania underground mine fire. Your only source of relief is lotion. But, as I found out recently during my first prostate exam, and despite what my drama teacher in high school insisted was my “true inner self,” I do not enjoy things going into my asshole. Even wiping in general is done delicately and with limited force. So I wasn’t about to grab hand lotion and massage it into my butt crack.
Looking around the bathroom, I sought out a solution. Something that was soothing, but required an easy and contact-free application. And like a monolith amidst a sea of lunar pill bottles, there stood a container of baby powder.
That would work. I’d simply pour some onto my backside and let gravity take care of the proper dispersement. Add a little snow to the Grand Canyon if you will. Satisfied with my solution, I came downstairs and was met - face to face - with a rather famous national political figure who may or may not be a senator who may or may not hail from a large East Coast state.
Let’s stop a moment to paint the scene.
- I’m still rather gassy.
- I’m wearing shorts with boxer shorts underneath. (When you have genitalia my size, you can’t keep that piece locked up behind briefs. It’d be like shoving a lion into a shoebox.
- Playing Risk with a senator was sort of like running a race with a Kenyan.
We do, indeed, decide to play Risk. My stomach has settled, though I (rightly) assume it’s just saving up power for “The Big One.” Everyone is gathered around the living room table, mouths drooling in anticipation as to which continent they’ll invade next. Me? I’m just trying to keep the air in.
But this fails.
I let it out slow. I position my ass on the chair so that my butt cheeks offer the least resistance possible for the escaping gas. My assumption is this method will produce the least amount of sound as possible.
This succeeds.
What doesn’t succeed is the blizzard-like white cloud that emerges from my shorts, floats into the air, and settles on the furniture, the floor, and part of the politician’s shoes. No one notices at first. Not only was it silent, but it was stink-free. The only proof of my expelled flatus are the fine particles of white scattered around me. But this was only the beginning.
The gastrointestinal earthquakes began, and I knew I’d have to excuse myself. Standing with my fists clenched, I tried to hold it in while excusing myself to the bathroom. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead. Walking away, it ripped. Thunderclouds descended upon the house. The noise startled the cat. And the punctuation note was the boiling cloud of white falling out of my shorts. I closed my eyes to shut out the world, but it wasn’t enough to hear “Oh dear God…” erupt from the Senator’s mouth.
With my head hung low, I sulked into the bathroom. From the other room, murmurs of disgust made their rounds. I heard my fiancé’s mother say something to the affect of, “We think he’s marrying her just to get his green card.”
