How my son Calvin smelled worse than a tiger with explosive bowels

Calvin in his tiger suit with sister Jennifer.

This is a simple story about the most explosive shit my son ever took. I was unprepared as usual. What did this kid eat? I asked at the time. How could anyone shit his pants so fully?

Here's how we get to that fateful day in the shadow of Seattle's Paramount Theater. I was a semi-young father, thinking I had an answer for things I didn't have a clue about.

It was Saturday, and Saturdays meant I had my son Calvin from about 5 a.m. until my wife finished delivering the mail in nearby Marysville, usually after 5 or 6 p.m. We lived on the west side of remote Camano Island near the beach. All the responsibilities she shouldered most of the previous week fell to me, and I wasn't all that great at dealing with them.

By responsibilities, I mean Calvin. He was a fussy kid. He needed a lot of distraction. I couldn't do anything else. No work, no projects. I once took him to my father's 5 acres on the south side of the island where we lived and did some maintenance. He was right next to me. The next thing I knew, he had wandered uphill to the highway and some older couple was escorting him back. The look the lady gave me was "what kind of inbred loser are you?"

Calvin was all or nothing. So those Saturdays, I kept him busy. I would bundle him up and head out running. I'd push him in the runner's stroller while Sajo, our black Lab, ran alongside. He loved it and would continue a running commentary of the trees, weeds, houses and the blasts of wind off Puget Sound. But that only took an hour. I ran just 5 miles.


What next? Well there was food. OK, now it's 7 a.m. I'd clean him, shower myself, stoke the fire in the wood stove. Then it's what? 7:30 a.m.? A whole day awaits? Walking along the beach and climbing over driftwood got old. Plus, in the winter, the coast is cold. Even the dog would rather be inside.

My brilliant compromise was heading to Seattle. The hour and a half drive put Calvin to sleep pretty quickly but not before insisting we play this battered Barney the Irritating Purple Dinosaur cassette tape. "I love you" blared from the blown speakers in the doors of my Alaska-beaten 1981 Toyota pickup. The floors were rusted through so the wind from Interstate 5 howled. We didn't care.

Seattle reminded me of my childhood, when my parents let me wander the city as long as I wanted. Times were different then. A kid of 4 or 5 wandering around by himself was OK. But only if you had parents like mine. There were never any other kids down there. Still I loved it. The Seattle Center, cool even when deserted. The Public Market, it smelled of old fish, automobile grease and rot in those days. I loved it. All sorts of places to hide.

That was my destination. Downtown. Sometimes we'd go see my dad. But he had his own agenda, and that usually meant us conforming to whatever he had in mind, like going to breakfast with his girlfriend of many years who loved to eat. Things don't change, I recall thinking.

So downtown we went. On this fateful day, Calvin fussed more than usual. Barney didn't placate the volatility in his system. Little did I know he had a real reason for complaining. His bowels must have been churning like a volcano ready to blow.

As we neared the James Street exit, heading south on I-5 in the heart of the towering high-rises, Calvin awoke from his troubled nap. I knew it was troubled because he yelled a couple of times in his sleep. His yells were angry. I knew something bad was coming. I just didn't know how foul it would manifest itself.

I navigated the off ramp, saying goodbye to the rest of the traffic. There had been glazed ice up around Everett. Everett was always a pain in the ass. Traffic bottleneck during rush hour and a weather convergence zone that attracted the worst of everything.

So driving had been white knuckle almost the entire way. I was pleased to see the semi dry roads of downtown Seattle. We'd had snow the previous week, and there were telltale signs of it everywhere, along roadsides, in muddy piles and still looking white across vacant lots. I found a spot to park free up by the Paramount.

At this point, I'd been ignoring Calvin. He'd been struggling to break free. His threats got louder. He didn't have a huge vocabulary, but I knew he wasn't happy with me. I think the words translated to something like, "Just wait until I can lock you down in the old folks home."

I had heard him squirt something evil in his diaper. But I wasn't worried. I can handle that, I thought. I had some wipes. Peggy had packed the diaper bag like she did every Friday, telling me carefully to plan ahead. I nodded and paid scant attention as always. It appears she had said, "Get more wipes. We're almost out." Nod, nod. Sure. Whatever.

Little did I know.

As I parked in basically bum-fuck Egypt, an eight-block walk down to the market, Calvin ripped something inhuman. It sounded like a best-of from some fart machine. And it ripped through the small cab of the truck, the explosivity filling the small space with instant stench. At first I was impressed. My son after all. Then I got scared.

He quieted down. He obviously felt better. Calvin even smiled.

I had fathered the Son of Satan.

We had gone with cloth diapers for Calvin's babyhood. They were cheaper, and we were broke. I made terrifically low wages at the small daily newspaper in Skagit County, and we barely got by. Disposables were for rich people.

A cloth diaper is held in place by a pair of plastic pants, think shower cap with holes for little legs.

I got Calvin out of the car seat. I had to try and wedge him onto the driver's seat in the tiny cab of the mini truck. He was cool, relaxed even. He didn't cry, just looked at me expectantly.

I knew it was bad. Brown had stained the car seat, through his clothes. However, I hadn't seen that yet. All I knew was the stink, that sharp stench of baby shit hurt my nostrils. Baby shit, or in this case, toddler shit, which is mixed with far more foreign elements that enhance the rotting quality of the stench, expands faster stink-wise than cat shit or dog shit. The only animal that apparently has a more foul shit is the tiger. I heard that from a guy who owned a traveling circus. You don't want to get it on your clothes, he said. "You'd have to burn them."

I soon began to feel Calvin had tiger in him. Strangely, he was wearing his tiger costume. Maybe that was it. The boy stunk. Like tiger shit. Something had died, rotted and then flew in a brown mass from his butt. Incredibly evil smelling.

I got his coat off. Then his tiger suit. It was full of shit. I shook most of it out onto the vacant lot I parked alongside. Shit splatted unceremoniously onto the ground in front of a sign that said a high-rise would be built there later that year. He had blown out his diaper. The plastic over-diaper's elastic had failed to stop the cascading flow of crap down his legs and up his back. But there was something about this shit. The volume was amazing. It must have been liquid upon eruption but became sticky and gooey as it cooled. The shit went up his back, into his hair (which thankfully was somewhat short) and down his arms.

I used up the wipes just cleaning his arms and head. I threw the soiled wipes into the bed of the truck. I looked around. I saw an old mattress that homeless guys had likely been using. I could rip off strips of cloth. Not optimal. I spotted an old paper bag. It was mushy but could work. Then I realized my entire truck bed was full of clean, white snow. And some shit-covered wipes. But I ignored those.

Calvin started to get impatient. He wanted to get moving. And he was cold. I knew I had very little time. I pulled off the rest of his clothes, threw them in the far back of the bed and stood Calvin up naked in the snow closer to the cab. He gave me a questioning look, asking without words, "Are you finally trying to kill me?"

The temperature was around 34 degrees, not too cold but colder than a little boy could handle.

Then I started seriously on the baby torture. I took handfuls of snow and used them to scrape the shit off his body. His ass crack, his legs, his feet, even his ball sack. Then I melted more clean snow in my hands and used the resulting water to rinse off the still shitty boy.

When finally finished rinsing every last shit particle from the boy, I couldn't marvel at my work because it was cold. The stench no longer bothered me. I had done this in maybe two minutes. I put him in the clean outfit Peggy had packed the previous night and put him in the car next to the heater. I'd left it running playing the damn Barney tape.

I looked at the bed, wondering what to do with the soiled wipes and the shit-covered tiger suit, socks, shoes and jacket. I found a plastic bag and stuffed them inside. I think Peggy packed the plastic bag. She even had spare shoes and a coat. His hat was shit caked too. But there was no spare.

The once clean snow in the back of the truck was now tainted mostly shit brown near where I'd done my work. He had an amazing amount of crap all over him and now it congealed in the back of the truck. I didn't care. Calvin didn't either. He was listening to Barney again, driving the truck while sitting in my spot and he was cool. For the moment. I didn't notice the group of homeless people that had gathered, watching my performance.

"He's clean now," I said, when I spotted them. They laughed. The woman, who looked as if she hadn't had a shower in a week, nodded knowingly. They departed. Had I been driving a nicer car, I would've worried about leaving it there. But nobody messed with my truck. It looked abandoned wherever I parked.

Now clean, Calvin and I headed for the market. I had a spring in my step and the smell and taste of his shit in my mouth and nostrils. But life was good. The sun busted through the clouds for the first time in a week, and we got to see Spoon Man play. Calvin was transfixed. He gave the man a dollar I handed him. Spoon Man, immortalized by Soundgarden's song of the same name, smiled tenderly when Calvin handed him the less-than-stellar tip.