Johnny 'Cakes' Auville was simply trying to get a quick run in after work at Teddy Roosevelt Park when he realized he was about to spring a leak. Making a pit stop in the public bathroom, Cakes discovered a "SHOCKING" scene.
"About a half mile into the park is a bathroom, a men's and women's room together," Cakes explained. "And I approach it, and as I'm walking to the door, I hear water running in the men's room. And I'm like, 'Ugh. This is suboptimal.' That means somebody's actually in the bathroom. And I like this bathroom to use it by myself. I don't like other people to be in there because it's kind of dark. It's not the most well-maintained bathroom on the planet. I'll leave it at that."
"So, as I'm rounding the corner, I equate the running water to either somebody's using the sit-down toilet or somebody's using the sink," he went on. "One of those two things happened. I round the corner and the first sink — there are two sinks — the first sink is open. At the second sink is a fully naked man. And I don't mean like he's wearing a towel or he's wearing gym shorts and slides. Naked!"
Jason Bishop: No shoes on?
Cakes: No nothing on. And this floor is butt dirty, like humans have... there's urine on the floor, clearly. There could be animal droppings on the floor, because the door is wide open in the bathroom. Any sort of snake, badger, beaver, squirrel, wild turkey — whatever else is running around that park could come and do their business on the floor.
John-Paul Flaim: Does he look like a homeless guy?
Cakes: He's older. He's like 65 to 70.
JP: Are there clothes on the sink? Like was he changing?
Cakes: No, no. Here's what he was doing: He was washing his dirty black socks in the sink.
JP: So he had socks in the sink, but where are his pants and his shirt?
Cakes: JP, I don't know. I didn't know what to do. I was frozen at the entranceway. I'm like this just doesn't compute. Because I could expect a naked guy, like if I went to a gym. That's expected. In a public bathroom that looks like the bathroom that Cary Elwes was locked up in in Saw?!
Bish: It's the last thing you expected to see.
Cakes: It was SO JARRING and SHOCKING, I didn't know what to do.
The next part of this story is almost as confounding as the nude undomiciled man. One might even argue that man suffered the greater trauma.
JP: Did you say hi?
Cakes: Say hi?! I went immediately to the urinal and I was looking over my shoulder because...
Drab: You went in?!
Cakes: I had to go!
Bish: He had to go bad.
Valdez: That guy's probably like, 'Who's this weirdo?'
Cakes: I didn't want to like...
JP: Hold up. You only had to pee. You couldn't use outside the park, you couldn't use the trees and the bushes? Everything out there?
Cakes: I think I made the wrong decision! I used the urinal.
JP: You're in such a box that you don't ever go outside?
Cakes: JP, it was so stunning and shocking, I think I was in a minor state of shock. I didn't know what to do! I didn't know whether to just run away or use the facilities.
JP: When you were done, was he still there washing his socks?
Cakes: Still there. Still just in the corner.
At this point in the story, JP gets distracted with all the wrong details (something about if Cakes was ever able to ID if the man had clothes piled up in the corner).
Cakes: JP, you're missing the point. Stark naked guy.
JP: I'm trying to figure out why he's stark naked with just socks.
Cakes: I'm trying to avert my eyes from looking at him. Like the last thing I want to do is keep looking at this naked guy that's four feet away from me in the world's worst bathroom!
Cakes went on to explain his bizarre, life-threatening logic: "I just feel weird doing it out in public like that. But trust me, it crossed my mind when I saw a guy who looked like a naked scarecrow with his pubes everywhere in the corner of the world's scariest bathroom."
I would contend it did not cross his mind.
Drab countered appropriately: "Cakes, for a guy that doesn't like crowds because he thinks there's gonna be a terrorist attack and your life could end in a moment, you made a HORRIBLE decision."
"I agree," Cakes agreed.
"That guy could have just chopped you up in there," Drab said. "I mean he's clearly a crazy person. There's something wrong with him. If I had a wave of doody I would have ran out and gone on in the woods."
"Look, I know in hindsight I made a terrible decision," Cakes acknowledged. "I should have seen the naked guy and immediately just pivoted. But I didn't. I made a split decision, did my business, didn't wash my hands of course and then immediately bolted out of the bathroom."
One truly has to wonder which man is crazier in this scenario.
It might be most shocking that, after all this, Cakes (almost certainly in the throes of a fugue state) had the wherewithal not to stop and wash his hands.
"I might never use that bathroom ever again after that incident," Cakes said, shockingly. HOW IS THAT EVEN UP FOR DEBATE.
"It's now burned in my brain. I can never un-see what I saw."
