The Incident

Midwestern Michigan University never had a worse teacher than Dr. Eugene Caffern. The history department was under the impression they hired a young, idealistic, promising historian out of Harvard 30 years ago. However, Dr. Caffern worked hard to keep his idealistic, joyful persona intact until he received tenure from the University 20 years ago. These last 20 years the school was "forced" to endure the alcoholism, racism, hints of sexual harassment and overall cruelness that is Dr. Caffern.

One of the few people who actually works under Dr. Caffern is a young History graduate, Gregg Hewert. The research opportunity to work with Dr. Caffern was too good to pass up and Gregg assumed he could last the summer working for the professor. One aspect to Dr. Caffern that kept his job was his uncanny history knowledge and influence. He was published in all of the prominent, scholarly journals. He was well respected in the history community as a brilliant academic, but no one wanted to work close to him, that was until the research position opened.

Gregg Hewert primarily focused on American Imperialism and even got his senior thesis published that discussed the relationship of Cuba and the United States with the beginnings of the Platt Amendment, which evolved into the occupation of Guantanamo Bay. Gregg's analysis proved he had the potential for an outstanding future as a young historian. His first task was to secure a solid internship, and the the best opportunity was to work under Dr. Caffern before he started his PhD program at Brown University in the fall.

For the past two months Gregg has been researching for Dr. Caffern's new book on American Foreign Policy primarily focusing on Middle East from the 1970's to the present. Gregg spends roughly ten hours a day reading and taking notes and doing some general writing. Gregg doesn't know how much or any the professor has been working. At the rate the book is coming along it seems Gregg has written more than half of it. An in depth analysis of Lebanon and U.S. relations for the past thirty years wasn't on Gregg's summer plans.

He hasn't had any fun with his friends, and hasn't been on a date in over a year. The stress of the job has been building and building for these past two months. July just started and Gregg decides he needs to talk to the professor about the progress of the book and discuss his compensation and whether or not he will be credited for the work he's been providing. Gregg always hated walking to the professor's office, it's on the fourth floor in the attic, which means in the summer its blistering hot.

Gregg knocked on the door and spoke, "Dr. Caffern, may I speak with you?"

"Ah yes, Jeffery. Um, come in if you must." Clearly he's been drinking because Jeffery was the janitor who cleans the building.

"I've been thinking about the work I've been doing for you. These last two months have been long and tiresome and I was wondering what you're planning on paying me when we're done and whether or not I would get some credit for  helping you?" Gregg was nervous, lucky for him his nervous sweat could be confused with heat sweat.

Dr. Caffern pour himself a hefty serving of scotch, took a large gulp and stared at Gregg. What seemed to be an agonizing, awkward long pause he said, "Why would I pay you for anything Jeffery? Aren't you the dirty little cunt who cleans my office? I have some know-it-all brat who is doing all the work for me on the book. I'm not paying that little shit anything and I plan on taking all the credit." He finished his scotch and sat in his chair. He didn't notice the stunned face on Gregg or his tightly clenched fists shaking next to his legs.

Gregg quietly spoke, "Haha, yes sir. It sounds like you have a good system, I'll come back later when you're gone and finish cleaning your office." Dr. Caffern merely grunted and shifted himself.

A week has passed and Gregg was sitting at his desk drinking his fourth instant coffee, eating leftover popcorn, a cold can of baked beans, and three hard boiled eggs. If any of Gregg's friends saw what his breakfast consisted of they would confuse him for someone else because normally Gregg counts his calories, eats organic, and doesn't touch anything that comes from an animal. This past week he has been changing his diet, eating the most garbage he can, and two days ago he popped some anti-diarrhea tablets. After the infuriating conversation with Dr. Caffern he was done with the professor's shit. The plan immediately clicked in Gregg's huge, revenge filled brain. It was shit. He was going to take the biggest, most disgusting shit imaginable on Dr. Caffern's beloved antique desk in approximately one hour.

Gregg wanted to get back on the professor, and at this point he couldn't go to the Dean because many have tried and all failed. He had to get personal. He wanted Dr. Caffern to feel what it's like to get shit on, Gregg did consider actually taking a shit on the professor, but decided to just do it on the desk. The plan was perfect, every morning around 11 a.m. Dr. Caffern walked to the café and ordered an Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar. This gave Gregg roughly twenty minutes to do his deed and escape unnoticed. Gregg's desk is located in the basement, and since today was his day off the professor wasn't expecting until tomorrow, which was quite convenient. Dr. Caffern has created many enemies over the years, so it would be hard to figure out who committed the crime.

Gregg had one more instant coffee to really liquify the shit, and also added a little ex lax, which according to the box should take affect in 15 minutes. The time is 10:51 and the professor should be leaving soon to get his morning tea. He decided to take the long way up and use the back staircase, no one ever uses it anyways. After the first floor he heard no one, a good sign. He got to the third floor and and he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. FUCK! Gregg, immediately opened the door to the floor and turned the corner but not quickly enough because Dr. Caffern saw him. He thought he might has passed him, but he opened the door turned to Gregg and said:

"Jeffery, when you get the chance, empty my fucking trash." Gregg could only nod, mainly because he thought he might shit his pants. Dr. Caffern then turned and walked down the stairs. Gregg whipped his sweaty brow and breathed away his shit holding exhaustion and walked upstairs. Should he feel bad that Dr. Caffern would assume this Jeffery guy was the culprit behind the disgusting mess that the professor will find in a half hour on his desk? Gregg didn't care at this point, besides he was more concerned about the leaking poop out of his butt.

He reached the attic level just in time because he had maybe 30 seconds until the junk food induced explosion would occur. He clenched his cheeks together as hard has he could and waddled to the office door, turned the handle and opened the door. He always thought the office was a disgrace to all academia because it was cluttered with torn paper, decade old news clipping, food wrappers and smelled horrible. The thought that Jeffery really sucked at his cleaning job was on Gregg's mind and he no longer cared if he was fired from his job. Gregg, still clenching really hard, carefully climbed on the desk, moved the computer and unzipped his pants. For a second Gregg almost stopped, but once he started to drop his pants it happened. Before he had time to pull his underwear down the poop exploded out of him, the nonstop flow of dark green and brown shit rushed out like a flash flood in a canyon ecosystem. He fumbled with his underwear and as he was pulling his boxers down he got shit all over his hands. Gregg then got in a comfy squat and just let nature flow out of him.  After days of not shitting Gregg was surprised that the whole situation only lasted around 15 minutes.

Once the last squirt came out Gregg took off his shit dripped boxers and tossed them in the full trash bin. He was buttoning up his pants when he heard footsteps. He fumbled with the button and as he reached for the door knob it opened. It was a younger man, probably college age or later, and he just looked past Gregg in horror. Gregg turned around and briefly looked at the horror, there was shit waterfalling off the front of the desk. Gregg could only make an apologetic face and as he was turning his head away from making anymore eye contact he noticed the name on the guy's shirt. He read Jeffery, and Gregg walked past him and ran down the hallway, down the stairs and out of the building. On his entire way back he didn't even think about Jeffery's repercussions, he was the one one running down the street with shit on his hands and dripping out of his pants, not Jeffery.

Gregg got a call from Dr. Caffern the next saying he didn't need to come in because the professor was too busy and couldn't make it to the office today. Gregg didn't want to know what happened to the Jeffery, he felt disgusted with himself. Gregg figured he should be in a better mood, he knew why Dr. Caffern didn't make it into the office, he knew the horror the professor embarked upon after his morning tea. Yet now he felt guilty about poor Jeffery. The only logical thing Gregg could do was drown his sorrow in a bottle of scotch, so he headed to the closest bar to his house. As he was sitting at the bar staring down to his near empty glass, the young man he recently saw for the first time yesterday sat next to him. Gregg will never forget what he said:

"It's cool, I've been pissing in his scotch all year."