I’ve ruined hoodies before. Lost them to nosebleeds, candle wax, cum shots that turned to crust maps overnight. But this was a new kind of loss. A historical loss. A full sleeve of human shit, soaked up into vintage Champion cotton like a sponge made by Satan’s Etsy store.
The night started the way most of my nights do lately—swiping. Mindlessly, like I’m checking for weather. My thumb’s practically automated. Left, left, left, until someone’s profile stops me. Usually a face, sometimes a torso, sometimes just a blurry pic of someone’s living room with the word “hung” floating in the bio like a dare.
He started with a DM: “u into ff?” I said yes before I remembered what “ff” stood for. I was four Modelo deep and leaning against a meat freezer in a Bushwick bodega, wondering if I should buy a ham sandwich or kill myself.
He lived somewhere between Avenues B and C, in one of those tenement buildings where everything smells like expired Febreze and someone else’s dinner. The stairwell had graffiti that said eat my hole in silver Sharpie. I took the elevator anyway, even though it made a sound like a coffin being dragged across cement. I was already sweating. Already semi-hard. Already regretting it. Which is how I knew it was the right move.
The apartment was lit entirely by a string of LED Christmas lights and the glow of a flatscreen paused on a cam show. His walls were covered in yellowing posters: Boondock Saints, American Psycho, something with Vin Diesel holding a gun the size of a small toddler. There was a mason jar of lube by the couch. His bed had no frame. He didn’t offer me a drink, just pointed to the bathroom and said, “Clean up and let’s do this.” It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t supposed to be.
By the time I was lubed up to the elbow and halfway inside him, I was detached, like a dentist working on a stranger’s mouth. He was moaning like a ghost getting exorcised. I wasn’t even hard. But I was committed. I kept going, past the knuckles, past the wrist, all the way to the forearm, and that’s when it happened. There was a sound. A squelch. A shift. And then something let go. It hit me with warmth first. Then smell. Then the wet weight of something not just wrong but biblical.
He gasped. I stared at my hoodie sleeve. Ruined. Soaked. Shining.
“Oh,” he said, blinking up at me. “Yeah. Shit. My water’s off.”
There are moments in life that sharpen you. You could call them traumatic, but that’s not quite it. Trauma scars. This was more like a chemical peel. Layers of my dignity sloughed off in the hot haze of human waste and LED lighting. I stood there, arm-deep in someone else’s intestinal apology, and all I could think was: Do I say something?
He wasn’t embarrassed. That was the worst part. No gasp, no blush, not even a “my bad.” He just lay there with his legs still up, like a Thanksgiving turkey waiting to be basted again. I backed away like the room was on fire. My arm hung stiff at my side, glistening with the kind of sheen you only see in documentaries about environmental disasters. I looked around for paper towels, a sock, something. Nothing.
“Can I use your sink?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Told you. Water’s off. They’re doing plumbing on the whole line. Been like this since Tuesday.” It was Thursday.
The bathroom smelled like piss and dollar-store eucalyptus. The faucet gave a dry little cough when I turned it. There was no soap. The towel was damp and stained and suspiciously hard on one end. I considered using it anyway, then remembered I’m not completely dead inside.
Back in the main room, he was already scrolling his phone, legs crossed, acting like I was the rude one. Like I’d overreacted to his lower intestine exploding on me like a busted piñata.
“I’m gonna head out,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Cool. Later.”
That was it. No “you okay?” No “want a wet wipe?” Just cool, later.
I wrapped my arm in the hoodie sleeve like a war wound and walked out the door, careful not to touch anything. The elevator was broken, of course, so I took the stairs. Five flights, gagging the whole way. Outside, the night was damp and too warm for late October. Alphabet City smelled like wet garbage and broken dreams.
I checked my phone. No Ubers nearby. Subway was six blocks west. And I wasn’t getting on a train with a shit-slicked forearm wrapped in a Champion hoodie unless I wanted to end up on some poor MTA worker’s therapy bill. I needed a bathroom. A sink. A bottle of anything.
I passed a bar—hipster dive, $17 cocktails and ironic facial hair. I ducked in, headed straight for the restroom. Line of two guys, both drunk, both arguing about who slept with whose ex. I stood behind them, trying not to breathe.
One of them turned to me, sniffed, and recoiled. “Dude—what the fuck?”
I smiled like a hostage. “Dog poop. Stepped in some back there.”
He looked down at my shoes. Clean. Then at my hoodie sleeve. Dripping. They stepped aside like I was radioactive.
Inside the restroom, I went to work. One of those trough sinks made of concrete and attitude. The soap was the foamy kind that smells like grapefruit and capitalist guilt. I scrubbed for five minutes straight. The water turned brown, then red, then clear-ish. The smell clung like shame. And still, the hoodie was ruined.
Outside the bar, I considered burning the hoodie right there on the sidewalk. I imagined lighting a match and holding it to the cuff, watching it curl into black lace while someone on a CitiBike yelled “Defund the Fire Department!” in the background.
But instead, I pulled it back on. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe this was penance. A walk of shame, smeared in someone else’s biology, under the jaundiced glow of streetlights that flickered like dying neurons.
The L train was my only option. I trudged toward the First Avenue stop, arms locked at my sides like I was hiding a weapon—or had just used one. Every step stuck. Every breath carried notes of clove, bleach, and something earthy and unspeakable.
The platform was empty, except for a guy asleep across three seats with a Trader Joe’s bag for a pillow. The screen said the next train was in four minutes. Then it said eight. Then “delayed.” Then it blinked off entirely, like even the MTA couldn’t deal with me.
A woman appeared at the far end of the platform. Late 40s, gym bag, face tight with commuter trauma. She clocked me. Took one look at the brown streak trailing down my forearm like I’d reached into a clogged toilet to retrieve a ring and walked all the way to the other end of the platform without breaking eye contact.
The bench was metal and cold and maybe stained—who could tell in this light? I stayed standing and checked my phone. No service. No new messages. No apology from Ray-or-Roy. Not even a “good luck.”
A voice came over the intercom, staticky and wet: “Due to train traffic ahead of us, the next Brooklyn-bound L is delayed. We apologize for the inconvenience.” They always say that. We apologize for the inconvenience. Like someone farting and apologizing after shitting in your mouth.
A rat the size of a cat waddled along the tracks, dragging a slice of pizza behind it like a battle standard. I caught my reflection in the darkened screen above the tracks: wild-eyed, flushed, hoodie half-zipped and clinging to my frame like guilt. The smell was better now, but it was still there. Lingering. Permanent. A whisper that became a presence. Not a scream anymore, just a suggestion. A reminder of what I’d done. What I’d touched.
The train finally arrived, twenty-six minutes later. A digital ghost with flickering lights and doors that opened like jaws. I stepped inside, holding the metal pole with my clean hand, knowing full well it was probably worse than what I’d already been through.
Two girls in halter tops moved away from me like I was an open wound. One of them whispered, “Oh my God,” and the other didn’t whisper at all. Just said it: “Jesus, what is that smell?”
I smiled. “Essential oils,” I said. “Patchouli and shit.
They got off at the next stop.
The sleeve was dry now—texturally, if not spiritually—but the stench had metastasized. It had settled into the fibers like a curse, like I’d been hexed by some sex dungeon witch who lived inside a gimp mask and used douches as crystal balls.
I got off the train at Grand Street. I figured I’d find a corner store, beg for a sink, maybe even buy something to justify the ask. A bottle of water. A bag of Funyuns. Whatever counted as currency in the church of late-night survival.
The first place was a Duane Reade. Closed. Security gate halfway down like a limp shrug.
The second was a twenty-four-hour bodega run by a man who looked like he hadn’t blinked since 2003. I walked in and did the smile. You know the one. The sheepish, maybe-I-might-be-homeless smile. Friendly. Harmless. A little too eager.
He was already shaking his head. “Bathroom not for customer,” he said, no punctuation, like it was a single word.
“I am a customer,” I said, holding up a Gatorade I hadn’t paid for yet. “Blue. The good kind.”
“No bathroom.”
“Come on. I just need a sink. I’ll be two seconds.”
“No bathroom,” he repeated, like it was the name of a god he worshipped and feared in equal measure.
There was a guy at the back making a sandwich, watching us. He looked like he’d seen this exact interaction play out a thousand times and was silently betting on how long it would take for me to give up.
“Please,” I said. “I just had… a situation.”
That made him pause. Not because he cared. But because it made me sound dangerous. He glanced at my sleeve. His face didn’t change, but I saw the recoil flicker behind his eyes. He reached below the counter. I didn’t wait to find out if it was for a mop, a bat, or a Glock. I left the Gatorade on the shelf and backed out slow, like a raccoon caught in a pantry.
Back on the sidewalk, I laughed out loud. Not because anything was funny. But because there was nothing else to do. I’d fist-fucked my way into an urban odyssey, and all I had to show for it was a ruined hoodie, a war crime on my arm, and a growing suspicion that I might never be clean again.
By the time I made it to my block in Bushwick, I was hollowed out. It was past two a.m. The air had that early-morning sourness—beer, piss, and the ghost of daytime ambition. I passed a couple making out against a Citibike rack like they were trying to inhale each other’s sins. A dog barked at me. I barked back. No one noticed.
Home was three blocks away. Then I saw him. Eric. Of course it was Eric. Standing outside a 24-hour bakery like the benevolent ghost of gluten past, holding a paper bag full of croissants and looking aggressively moisturized. He hadn’t changed much—same cheekbones you could slice a lime on, same chunky glasses that made him look smarter than he was. The kind of ex who never really broke your heart, just kept it in a jar on his shelf so he could admire it when he was bored.
“Hey!” he said, all surprised and warm and completely unprepared for the version of me that stood before him now.
I stopped walking. Considered diving into traffic. Not as an escape—just as a punctuation mark.
“Eric,” I said, trying to keep my left arm hidden behind my back like a Civil War veteran with a secret.
He walked over, full of that breezy post-yoga confidence people only develop after a year of therapy and a weekend trip to Fire Island. He opened the bag. “They just pulled these out of the oven. You want one?”
I blinked. He blinked. We blinked at each other like characters in a short film about regret. And then it happened. A gust of wind. Just a little one. Enough to carry the bouquet of my shame up and around and directly into his nostrils.
He flinched. Not dramatically. Not even consciously. Just a tiny twitch of the nose, the way someone might react to a dead animal buried under roses.
His eyes flicked down to my hoodie sleeve. Saw the stains. The crust. The arc of it, like something had splashed. And then—he knew. There was a pause. He didn’t ask and I didn’t explain. “I should…” I started, then stopped. “I should.”
He nodded, offering me the bag like it was communion. “Take one. You look like you’ve had a night.”
I did. I took a croissant. It was warm and soft and smelled like mercy. I held it in my clean hand, trying to smile with only half my face.
“Good seeing you,” he said, like he meant it.
“You too.”
And then we parted—him with his pastries and his peace, me with my stink and my sins.
My building smelled like mildew and takeout. Home. I buzzed myself in, climbed the stairs two at a time to avoid the weird sticky patch on the third-floor landing, and fished my keys out with fingers still slightly pruned from sink water and fear.
Inside, the apartment was dark and still. My roommate was gone for the week—South Beach or Palm Springs or somewhere people go to pretend they’re not slowly decaying. I kicked off my shoes and headed for the bathroom, shedding the hoodie like a snakeskin I never wanted to grow into. I dropped it in the sink, careful to not let it touch anything on the surface.
There was a moment—brief, dangerous—where I considered rinsing it. Like I could undo the night with warm water and lemon-scented dish soap. But that would mean touching it again. Facing it. I left it there. Open. Deflated. Like a dead animal.
In the shower, I scrubbed until my skin was red. I used a bar of soap I’d been saving for a date that never happened—some artisanal thing that smelled like cedar and ambition. When I got out, I dried off with the clean towel. The good towel. The one I told myself I’d only use when I “felt like a person again.” I didn’t.
I sat on my bed with the towel wrapped around my waist and stared at my phone. No notifications. No messages. Just the empty little bubble at the top of Grindr, blinking like a cursor. Eventually, I lay back, still damp, still awake, and let the night roll over me. I didn’t feel disgusted anymore. Or violated. Or even amused. I just felt tired.
Somewhere downstairs, a pipe clanged. Someone flushed. Someone screamed at their cat. Life resumed its shape around me, indifferent and intact.
In the bathroom sink, the sleeve slowly stiffened.
