Shitting on stilts

It was cold, damp and moldy. I stood over the toilet, staring at it. It was one of those moments, pee-shy as always. A line snaked around the building outside. I knew I didn’t have long.

I looked at the walls. Anything to distract me from the mission that was becoming more impossible by the second. Six beers in, and I was ready to burst – 20 seconds ago. Right before I clicked the lock on this dirty bathroom in the back of a dirty bar. A bar that used to be a barn.

“Come on princess!” a voice yelled out from beyond the door.

It had started.

I strained and strained. Wiggled and wiggled. Stroked and stroked. Nothing.

Staring at the empty toilet paper roll I tried to imagine what it would be like if I had to take a crap. A nasty, watery one. And the toll that would take on my underwear.

“Listen up Nancy!” another voice yelled out.

“Piss or get off the pot.”

Well, they were right. If I wasn’t going to pee, I had to just leave. I zipped up my fly and unlatched the door.

“Finally!” the guy behind me in line said as he grabbed the door. His pee started before the door even closed. No latching for him.

I took three steps and had to pee again. I looked at the line. There was no way on earth I could get back in the line again. I looked at the crowd surrounding the barn and into it. Fuck.

I wandered over to the parking lot. No one seemed to be around. I got next to a giant F-150 and unzipped my fly. I barely got my dick out before the pee flowed. It felt like an orgasm. I peed and pissed and sighed.

“You ever shit on stilts?” a voice from behind me said.

I finished my business and zipped up my fly. I turned around and a cop was staring at me.

“No. Can’t say I have.” I replied.

“Well, kid, you don’t have the luxury of being shy about it,” he said. “I was in a traveling circus and ended up one night being the clown on those high 10-foot stilts. Well, let me tell ya, you don’t get to take them off to take a pee or a shit.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep, and I just watched you come out of the bathrooms over there. I’d come over because the crowd was getting a little unruly waiting for you to come out. I figured you’d passed out in there. It happens. I mean every so often a couple will be fucking, but usually, they don’t get started once they see how awful it is in there.”

“You can say that again.”

“It’s awful in there.”

He stared at me. I laughed a slight laugh. The cop spit.

“Well, kid, there are two things that can happen here,” he said, spitting again. “I can write you a ticket for public urination or I can haul your ass to jail for indecent exposure. The latter makes you sex offender in this state if you’re convicted, and well, I think my testimony will pretty much assure that.”

“Those are really the only options?” I asked with a shrug.

“Well, you can just run.”

I looked him in the eyes to see how serious he was. I was 50-50.

Right at that moment, a girl popped out of the F-150. She had long brown hair and was wearing a Vinnie Vincent Invasion shirt. The lights from the stage hit her just right as she stepped out of the cab of the truck, highlighting just how great her legs were. I think I fell in love right there.

“Johnny,” the girl said. “He’s with me. Leave him alone.”

“Monica,” the cop said. “You don’t even know this guy’s name.”

I looked at Monica. She had hazel eyes and too much eyeliner on. I looked down at my feet then back up again. She smiled.

“His name’s Randy,” she said confidently.

“Well, kid, what’s your name?” the cop asked. I felt kind of funny, being 41 years old and being called “kid” by a country cop who couldn’t be older than 28 himself.

“It’s Randy,” I said.

“Well, excuse me if I don’t take you on your word,” he said. “Can I see your driver’s license.”

Panic took over for a moment. I usually leave my wallet in my car at these kinds of events. I felt my back pocket and found nothing there. My eyes must have shown some kind of fear, because the cop started in again.

“Boy, you really are testing me,” he said. “Show me your damn license. You had to have it to get in here.”

Boom. The light bulb went off. Just like when someone spells out motherfucker, but uses two words. You know right then you have them.

I reached into my front pocket and pulled out my ID and handed it over to him.

“It says Henry Jones here,” the cop said. “Looks like you lose today.”

“Sir,” I said, “My middle name?”

“Randolph,” the cop read. “Well I’ll be damned.”

“Told ya, Johnny,” Monica said. “Now, can you leave me here with my boy Randy so we can do what we came out here to do.”

The cop smiled and laughed.

“Randy, you are a tropper, my boy. You really are.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I as happy as a clam at an oyster roast that she came to my rescue. The cop sauntered away and I just looked at Monica, my new savoir.

“So, Mr. Randy, what are we going to do now?” she said.

“I don’t know, how about we get in that truck of yours and go for a ride,” I said.

“Fuck, this ain’t my truck, I was stealing some money out of the dashboard,” she said. “It’s amazing how many of you fuckers who came to these things leave your wallets in the car.”

I laughed and pointed to the Toyota a few cars away.

“That’s mine,” I said.

“Really?” she said.

“Yep.”

“Well,” she said digging into her bag. “Here’s your wallet.” She tossed me my red Swiss Army Velcro wallet. Inside were three maxed out credit cards and a press pass from my last newspaper. Nothing I needed nor really wanted.

We went over to the Celica. The back window was busted out.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Eh,” I said. “We’re even now.”

“I like the way you think, Randy,” she said reaching in to give me a hug.

I didn’t let her. Instead, I kissed her. Deeply.

She stumbled back just a bit. I watched her eyes. They never left my gaze.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“I still have to file my story about this concert,” I said.

“Write it on the road,” she replied. “Where are your keys?”

I flung them at her and got in the passenger seat. The main act was just going on stage. I was supposed to interview them after the show. But, I knew that wouldn’t happen. Instead, I would have done some story about following a band around as they drank, did stupid things or just fell asleep. So, I wrote that anyway. Editors never noticed a thing.

Three weeks later, we were in Luckenbach, Texas. Hanging out at the general store and admiring the bust of Hondo out front.

A chicken fluttered by and we looked at the sun falling from the sky, Shiner Blondes in our hands. Not a word was said before we got in the back seat of my Celica and just passed out. Exhausted and dirty, but happier than we’d each ever been.

And the only reason I know that is the letter she wrote me 15 years later. After she’d left.

goblocker

Larry sits on his old footlocker. It’s been with him longer than the memories of her have. That, he takes solace in. It’s covered with stickers. He’s made a point of always grabbing a sticker when possible, adding it to the wallpaper of his life, as he calls it.

He once had another footlocker. But his Celica was too small that day he loaded as much of his stuff into it when he left her behind. It was the first thing he threw into the car, completely loaded down with stuff. But it just took up too much precious space. He knew he’d not make it back to get anything he left behind. It would be much too painful. He sighed when he had to leave it behind. It wasn’t the only thing he sighed about that day.

He was freezing cold sitting on the second footlocker of life. He wondered how many, if any of the old stickers still were visible on the old one. If the Moosehead Beer cutout was still on it. That was his favorite thing on it. That and the Luckenbach, Texas, sticker. He replaced the Texas one when he visited that town again. The Moosehead one? Not so much.

As he sat there, remembering things, Bono screamed out “We’re stealing it back!” from the shitty speakers he had jerry-rigged to his amplifier. He’d had those speakers since he was about 10 or 11 years old. They’d seen a lot, for sure. From his days of pretending to be Morris Day and dancing the “Oak Tree” in his old room in Virginia, to his fits of crying when the love of his life deemed him not important.

He knew that he’d done that to one person for sure, and probably two. So, he still had much to atone for. The shitty deeds always stuck with him. Way more than the average soul. Or at least it seemed that way.

The space heater was all that was keeping the frigid air at bay. He’d holed himself up in one room in his three bedroom “cottage” at the beach. His last paycheck paid his rent, with $30 to spare for the next two weeks.

He gobbed on it.

Spit…Tsssssssss.

Spit…Tsssssssss.

His reflection in the old cracked mirror above his dresser showed just how old he was getting. He looked a little like Paul Simonon now. Hair receding in a cool way, shaved way down. Crow’s feet slowly inching out from his eyes, more so from the left than the right. The gap between his front teeth solidified the look. If only he could afford a leather jacket and a cool fedora. Then, he’d be his own version of the coolest bass player in the world.

Spit…Tssssssssss.

Spit…Tssssssssss.

It amused him. It was gross, he admitted as much. But the sound of it was soothing for some reason.

It was noted by his lady friend of the moment that people tended to spit a lot more in New Orleans than they did in Biloxi. Or even Slidell.

“I had not noticed that,” Larry said when she mentioned that. It started him on a spitting kick. He used to spit a lot growing up in the Southern part of Virginia. A small down called Hopewell. Mostly redneck kids back then. Kids of factory workers for the most part. When his parents decided to move there, it had yet to achieve it’s moniker of “The Chemical Capital of the South.” But it wasn’t too many years after when it did.

Kepone was the talk of the town one summer. Dan Rather made an appearance, proclaiming to the huddle masses in front of the television that “People are dying in the streets of Hopewell!”

It wasn’t really true. Although, the people dying now due to those chemicals sure would make a nice story. But, those days are mostly gone for journalism. “It might make for a good book,” Larry thought, debating in his head if he could spend a couple of years in his old hometown again to work on this book. One that would probably be made into a movie one day, but not ever make him any money until some Hollywood player noticed it. Too bad his classmate who had a walk by part in “Evan Almighty” hadn’t made it bigger, he’d probably have a connection to get it made. He certainly was no Dick Ritchie. He decided that if his latest scheme to run off back to New Orleans and try to make a go of it in the town he never should have left in the first place didn’t pan out, he would do that. Hell, he knows the mayor now, she could get him a job.

Spit…Tssssssssss.

Spit…Tssssssssss.

He looked at his mini-fridge. He’d gotten so bad that he had that thing sitting outside, cooling his beer. It’s amazing that no one has either stolen it, or even worse, taken his beer. It’s right outside his window, on a stool beside his window. He opens the window. The 25-degree night air flows inside. He shivers. Grabs a couple of beers and closes the window.

“It’s been a long day, now I need to relax,” he says out loud like he has a habit of doing now.

Opening the beer with a nail in the wall, he smiles at his accomplishment of not spilling any of it.

“My brother-in-law would be proud,” he says, thinking of his sister’s husband. An almost famous keyboardist who could have been a lot bigger, but decided to be a family man instead. Larry used to think that his brother-in-law was bitter about it. The decision to give up the music to be a dad in Hopewell. Instead, now he knew better. As Ronnie Lane wrote, “I wish that, I knew what I know now. When I was younger.” Because my life would have gone in a lot of different directions if I’d just taken the time to look around and see that things in some places, really weren’t all that bad. Or, if I’d stepped out of a funk and met me, 20 years later, like Richard Hell described to me when I was 21 years old. If I’d met the me that was to be, I may have slapped myself. I certainly would not have had my way with myself, as Dickie Hell did, but I couldn’t be completely sure.

Fittingly, the gospel singers of “Rattle and Hum” belt out “but I still, haven’t found, what I’m looking for.”

Life is full of those moments. At least if you constantly look for them. Analyze them. And fuck your brain up with them.

Spit…Tssssssssss.

Spit…Tssssssssss.