I made the house out of garbage in the back yard for a couple (very good) reasons so don’t let your mom tear it down. I know she’s gonna try so don’t let her. One reason I made it is cause the deserts of France, people make houses out of cow dung. Don’t laugh, now. TV said it don’t stink too bad cause it gets all hot in the sun and dries out and next thing you know it don’t stink at all. Trust your daddy on this one. When that garbage gets good and hot this summer, it’ll do the same. Just you wait.

I made that little house for you and those kids I saw you playing with the other day. Y’all can have a party or something. Don’t you let them boss you round none, hear? It’s your Goddamn house and I made it for you. You tell them that. Tell them I’ll come back and kick all their Goddamn asses. Daddy’s only gonna be gone for a while, ok? See, he’s got some real good ideas that are gonna take off once he gets somewhere people don’t treat you like shit for trying.

Your mama’s gonna tell you a lot of stuff about me when I’m gone and I’ll tell you it’s all a bunch of goddamn bullshit. I never hurt nobody, least of all her. Any of the stuff that happened to me, the drinking and all that, wasn’t because I meant to hurt nobody or nothing. I tried to stop a bunch of times and I even quit once for 8 weeks. I would have kept quit too if it wasn’t for all those fellas down at Kelsey’s Corner getting me back into shit. Well, I can’t rightly say that my drinking was all those guys’ fault - your lying bitch of a mother had something to do with it too. And I’ll go ahead and say that yeah I do like drugs, ok? I don’t care. I admit it. I fucking love drugs and there’s nothing wrong with that if you can handle them. I would have had no problem at all but there’s always somebody trying to wreck shit for you. People got too much damn game in this town which is why I have to go now.  I don’t owe anybody shit, so don’t let your mama talk that kind of trash, ok? I don’t know who keeps calling her and talking about doing shit to your dad. I never done anybody wrong and I especially never ambushed no one. Ok? No one.

Daddy will be back for you as soon as he can, and he’s gonna take you off in his car and we’re gonna get ice cream and show you what the good life is all about, ok? Just you wait, son.

Remember that your daddy’s a good man. I love you.

Daddy

p.s. I’m pretty sure that Kevin Tyler is gonna be coming around to see your mom so tell him fuck you and he’s an asshole for me. Just kidding.

1. Who would you say has most shaped your life?

My first thought here was to list all the men who helped me define who I am. Who did I model myself after? Who allowed me to develop more distinct lines that define the various aspects of who I am, thus making me better equipped to respond to new situations with a psychotic lack of self-doubt. But as an aging prick once put it, the key to being creative is not to reveal your sources. So I said “fuggit” and went online looking for funny quotes from obscure people that would make you think I’m well-read.  I though of Lin Chi (Lin–Chee) who said “When you meet the Buddha on the road – kill him.” But That made me think of Carrot-Top and so I turned on the TV to get that out of my mind. Then I remembered Master Xiangming Zhang (See-Three-Pee-Oh) who said something about puddles. After that I got bored and tried to sleep. Then I thought that maybe I should tell the truth.

The truth is that I don’t remember who my original sources for myself were and it wouldn’t matter much anyway if I didn’t have very good friends and mostly-well-intentioned family who have helped me be in the position I am today – sober and relatively stable. In particular, Lady P has been the first and best support I’ve ever had in getting cleaned up and actually living my life as opposed to existing day-to-day, which is what I did for 22 years. So I’m actually happy now, and I owe her a lot. I owe a lot to my friends who have helped me out. And that’s more heartfelt than talking about Benjamin Franklin or Steve Albini.

2. What is the most emotionally draining/uplifting experience you’ve had?

I remember crying when I left Africa. Quietly. In a manly way, though. I cried not because of the bad things I’d seen there, or because I felt sorry for people, but because it generally hurt me to leave. Friendliness is a sort of African cultural trait and there was a warmth and a kindness there that, despite the poverty, disease and harshness I was going to miss very much. This was made worse because I was going back to England, where cuntiness is a cultural trait.

3. Choose which one turns you on most and tell why: butt, boobs or brains.

I like butts and I don’t know why.

4. If you could bring anyone back to life, who would it be?

My initial answer was “my own penis,” but I’ve lowered my SSRI dose, and he seems to be waking up all on his own. Say hi to the good people!

5. Do you have any interesting fetishes? And does Lady P indulge them?

See, now that’s an interesting question, because it depends on what your definition of ‘fetish’ is. There’s a whole subculture of pretty people who play dress-up in rubber goth clothes and call it ‘fetish.’ That’s not my schtick, and I don’t think of that as fetish, because hot people in skimpy clothes seem to have an arousing affect on most folks and isn’t far from the basic procreation urge of finding a good specimen of the opposite sex to breed with. Granted I’ve seen a few weird specialized versions of that culture (asphyxiation, etc.), but most of it seemed like a sexualized Tim Burton film. I’m convinced that goth is to our present decade what hippydom were to the 80s (a repository for otherwise completely lost, unsophisticated people).

Anyway, back to me, I do have fetishes, yes. I like ideas. I don’t play dress-up or tie-up or anything, I just like to talk about domination, control, butts and other common fuck-talk. Yes, Lady P does the dirty talk with me. She’s good at it too.

That’s not an easy question.  A lot depends on the circumstances of my becoming POTUS, and what type of congress I have. First I’d probably do something stupid, like get a hummer in the oval office. Then I’d start trying to push some legislation to push my domestic agenda, improving health benefits for the working poor and elderly, and trying to find ways of eliminating homelessness. I’d also look into improving the quality of education for kids in inner cities and rural areas.

Next up would be foreign policy work. I’d set an aggressive time line for withdrawal of US troops from the middle east, and set up talks with leaders of many of those nations. I’d look at ways of lessening our dependence on foreign oil as well as working on improving alternative energy sources and power distribution.

Once I’d made the US a true world leader again, I’d quietly pass have legislation passed that would allow me to remain in power indefinitely. (Chavez did it wrong, you don’t announce that kind of thing, you sneak it past them while the focus is on bigger issues.)

And all would be well.

2. If you could have a single superpower - but only one - what would it be and why?

Now this is one I’ve thought quite a bit about. I’ve considered all the basics, flight, invisibility, speed, but I’d probably go with the Wolverine/Cheerleader/Adam healing factor. Sure it hurts, but you get over it pretty quickly. And I can do anything. Jump off a building? Sure. Lose a limb? No worries, it’ll grow back. And I’ll never have to worry about my liver again.

3. What makes you laugh? An open-ended question to answer any way you please.

Just about anything my kids do or say. There’s nothing better. (Except maybe the Wayne Brady Training Day skit from Chappelle’s Show.)

4. Name your power animal. (see instructions on question above)

I’ve never really thought about a power animal.  I suppose I could be cliche and say a black panther. Or if I wanted to stick with something analogous to my super power it would be a salamander.

5. What is the most delicious meal you’ve ever eaten?

This is a hard one.  Was it the burger I had as soon as I landed in Houston after being in the boondocks of West Africa for 2 months? Or was it the time a girlfriend brought live lobsters to my house and cooked them for me. They were both great, but not really for the food. Food wise, I’d go with the Columbian Beef Medallion at Cafe Red Onion in Houston. It’s a filet mignon coated in fresh roasted ground coffee and seared served over a Mango BBQ sauce along side fresh grilled veggies, plantains and fried onions. For dessert, I had the Chocolate Tres Leches, A blend of three different types of milk and Dark Rum soaked in a delicious Chocolate cake topped with chocolate-whipped cream & garnished with berry & mango sauces. It was sooo decadent!

Nice try but there is no way I am going to talk about this over the open internets. Sorry, Duchess.

Seriously.

Oh…all right.

As you are very well aware, my favorite butt sex experience was with you in the Tijuana that time we were running from the Federales and the Cali cartel. We were on top of that industrial washing machine and I remarked that your ass-blush looked particularly becoming under the fluorescent lighting, remember?

Ah, memories.

2. Complete this sentence:

I wish my life were like a _____________ book, but it’s really like a ___________________ film.  (Order can be reversed)

I wish my life were like a Coen Brothers film, but it’s really like Ken Burns documentary. Nothing really happens and there should be more ninjas.

3. You get to spend the day living as a powerful despot/dictator, from any period of time, at any point during their reign.  Whom would you pick, and why?

This is a tough question and one worthy of careful consideration. After all, there as so many great options to chose from; Stalin during the purges; Mao during the Cultural Revolution; Maximilien Robespierre during the Great Terror; Kim Jong Il at any point of batshit craziness.

It’s not easy to pick just one, but I’m going to have to pick Julius Caesar on account of the way he handled the Gauls and the fact he had the best robes.

4. What are you wearing right now?

Jeans. Yello polo shirt. Shoes. CHUD-festooned underoos.

5. Looking back at the past year of my life makes you want to:
a) laugh
b) cry
c) hurl
d) all of the above

Explain your answer.

It may irk the miserable among you, but this past year really hasn’t been that bad. In fact, it’s been the opposite of bad. After many years stuck in a dead-end job, I quit, enrolled in (and have now mostly finished) a graduate degree related to public policy and security matters, and signed on as an associate editor for a book on cybercrime. With newly-minted free time (see aforementioned dead-end job), I’ve even found time for a social life for myself – one that includes actual women, even.

1. You’ve been married 31 years. Congratulations, that’s awesome! How did you propose to your wife?
It is not a simple story. On my 23rd birthday (I was a bartender) I purchased a 16 gallon keg, and opened the tap at 4 pm. Later that evening, many of the people who had beer on me, purchased drinks for me. At about midnight, I went to the cafe section ordered a bowl of chili and asked the pretty young waitress, who just started that day, if she would go to bed with me, and then passed out face first in the chili.

The next day, I went back to the cafe to apologize to the young lady for my poor behavior, and offered to walk her home after work. During the walk, I told her that if we did sleep together, and she didn’t cum first, I would never bother her about it again. So after a couple of hours of small talk, she agreed to take me up on my sleazy offer. We ended up breaking her bed. I proposed on the spot. We were married three months and a day later.

2. How many kids? What have you learned from being a father?
I have 3 kids, A daughter, 29 who lives in my basement as a college grad. A 26 year old, recently divorced son who works as Dorm Advisor in a major University. And a 16 year old daughter who is working hard to be a good student. I have learned that kids will never fail to surprise you, but if you give them a gentle nudge once in a while, most of the surprises will be good ones.

3. Do you still work as a pizza delivery driver? Didn’t you at one point? If you do, what’s your most interesting pizza delivery story? If I’m confusing you with somebody else, what was your most interesting job?
Yes I still jockey pizzas, but only on Fri.& Sat. dinner rushes. I’ve been doing it for about 8 years. I consider it a financially contributing recreational activity. September and October are the best times as kids going back to school have some wicked parties.  Probably the best was the JV Cheerleaders lingerie party. I kid you not, 6 young ladies in very sexy undies asked the dirty old Pizza guy to decide who which one he considered the hottest. I have also had men open the door in open robes with nothing else on, a women open the door topless, have been ‘flashed’ by several people of both sexes, & walked into a police stand-off.

4. You’re a very outspoken political guy. What influenced most your political opinion?
The injustice I have witnessed throughout my life, from state sanctioned child slavery (disguised as foster homes for troubled children) to the inhumanity that appeared on the TV every night during the Vietnam war, to the death of the American Dream on 9/11/01.

5. Boxers or briefs?
Briefs (when I’m not commando).

1.  Like me, you have writing aspirations.  Unlike me, you have actually written a book.  Is your book, in fact, finished?  Can you give us a teaser?  Have you made efforts at getting published?

I’ve made slim to nil efforts to get published on a book that is all but done. It can’t be done until an editor tells me what’s wrong with it. Which I hope isn’t “start over.” The few editors who’ve seen it said it’s great but difficult to market.

Teaser? I can’t publish it here, any of it, without losing the chance to get paid for it later (I think). But I’ll say this: it’s about sexual culpability at a nudist colony in 1983, as told by a fourteen-year-old girl being raised there. She’s basically had it with Dad, her creepy neighbor (fat Jerry--no kidding, more on that later), the mentally retarded girl that is her only friend at camp, and nudity in general. In the opening scene, set poolside with all neighbors in full view, she has rebelled by wearing everything she owns at once. A new guy in his mid-thirties pulls up in the drive. The new arrival sees her; she sees his tan line. In her search to find out more about this stranger (the colony makes a nice place to hide, she says, from the law, from the ex, from anything), she discovers the secret lives of her family and neighbors, and starts a secret life of her own.

If you want to read some I’ll mail it to you.

Regarding Fat Jerry: a prominent player at the colony is distinctly fat and named Jerry, which I forgot about when I was trying to name this site. I must have some weird mental image of this character FJ engraved on the inside of my skull.

As to why I haven’t published, or tried: you know, I sent out a few short stories, which were rejected but well received with handwritten requests for more material, but I’m not sure what to do with a novel. You need an agent, I don’t know how to find an agent, and I’m lazy and don’t know what to do with it. But I would love to see it in print. I fell in love when I was writing the book with everybody in it. It’s a bit like I’ve built Pinocchio, but can’t manage to animate him.

2.  Living alone in New York is a bold, completely life-altering choice to make.  If you hadn’t taken that step, how do you think your life would have unfolded to this point?

Ah, but I didn’t live alone when I moved here. I came with Parker, as you know (Parker being his online pseudonym, but you know who I mean). I wouldn’t have done it at all if Parker hadn’t piped up when I said, “I’m thinking of going to New York.” And then it was a done deal.

That’s not the question you asked but it brings me to the answer, which is that, obviously, I’d have been hanging with a different set of friends. And who knows what influence they might have been. Perhaps I’d have found love with a pirate, lost an eye in a shooting gallery, won the big trifecta, drowned in my tub. Impossible to say. If I’d moved back to Chicago, which I’d have done if Parker hadn’t had the brilliant idea to join me, I probably would be drinking a lot more and/or in AA. My friends there had heartier appetites for booze than even we have in NYC. Also, I would have had to grow an exoskeleton to survive another Chicago winter.

There’s at least one secret romantic rendezvous that wouldn’t have happened had I not moved to NYC, but you aren’t interested in that. Or did I tell you? I can’t remember who I blathered to about that. But maybe, if I’d moved to Chicago, gay Chef Ted from Top Chef would’ve realized he was straight and married me. You just never know.

3.  Do you think the two-party system is irrevocably entrenched in American politics, or do you think an evolutionary step is possible?  Can your ideals be adequately represented within the framework of the current system?

Yes it’s entrenched, but that doesn’t mean the parties won’t reverse themselves or morph or be replaced by a third party. Historically, you have one party that favors economic control and social freedom, one that favors social control and economic freedom: I don’t see that changing. Still, there comes a time when our political discourse is so divisive that it takes an independent character to accomplish anything.

I’d love to see Sam Waterston’s efforts to get Mike Bloomberg into the White House come to fruition. I’m not sure it’s in the Democrat’s best interest to inherit the shitstorm that Bush has created anyway, and I don’t want another Republican. How great would it be to have a third party empty history’s septic tank?

4.  I know you to be a superstitious person.  I also know that you prize logic.  How do you balance these seemingly contradictory impulses?  To what do you ascribe your superstitions?

Wow. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who prizes logic. I prize logic!  I’m sticking with that, and anybody who asks me is going to hear about it.

First off, I know that I’m insane. So that’s how I balance these seemingly contradictory impulses: I tell myself, “Christ, Penny, you’re a whack job.” And then I take my happy pill, make a mental note to mention this to my talking doctor, and move on.  It’s a weakness I try to mask, on account of all you have to do is make up a superstition and like that I’m buying into it. I attribute this to my Catholic upbringing. Catholics emphasize the cause and effect of seemingly disparate events: you ate meat on Friday; God got you canned from your job. It’s only a short jump from this logic to believing that picking up a heads-up penny can affect your next 24 hours.

So I have abandoned Catholicism in favor of lucky pennies. Less guilt, more fun.

5.  If you were to unleash your dark side and completely disengage from society’s rules, what would be your crime and who would be your victim? (The masochist in me kinda wants to be your answer to number five...!) Enjoy.

I would grab Spazmo, steal whatever car Tapestry-of-Passion is craving at the moment, then head across the country for a crime spree. We would steal whatever we wanted and live like pirates. Occasionally I’d have to kill blow-tard bigots and rich valley girls with a pretty silver gun I had custom-made for me. I would let them out of cages and shoot them in the ass as they ran. Hey, you asked. Anything I wanted at Sephora/Barnes and Noble, I would just take. I’d butter my toast with illegal Russian caviar. When in Stubby’s neighborhood, I would whip him good for not coming round lately and making me worry. Does he deserve it? Probably not, but I’d enjoy giving the whipping. And I’d totally feed the pigeons. And the squirrels and all the cute fuzzy creatures that I wish I could pay to be my friends.

I don’t think you’d want to get shot or anything, but if you’d like I could spank you while passing through Oregon. I would spank Spazmo silly everytime he did the “baby voice” so I’d be in good practice. 

My dad had a thing for blowing shit up. In those days, he would go to the local co-op or hardware store and buy dynamite and blasting caps on a fairly regular basis. He used it to remove stumps on our farm and the neighbors’ farms. He also was very adept at burying the huge glacial rocks that made plowing a field difficult. When he was drilling water wells, he could crack a bedrock shelf with a half stick, and hardly ever blew the casing 300 feet into the air (a totally awesome sight when it did happen).

In 1967, I was 14 and our neighbor Leo came over with his Farmall H tractor. We had two tractors, a Case VAC my dad used and a little Farmall A I puttered around on. It was the 3rd of July. My dad, convinced that indoor plumbing was here to stay, decided to rid the farm of the outhouse his father had built about twenty years earlier. Its important to point out that my grandfather was a somewhat whacko bricklayer/cement mason.

We used the 3 tractors, lots of chains and a great deal of ingenuity to pull the monstrous reinforced concrete footing Gramps had made to found the family shitter on. After we got its footing out, we dragged it out about a quarter mile to the middle of an unused field and washed it off with high pressure hoses hooked up to a pump mounted on one of the tractor’s PTO (power take off: a separate shaft providing a rotational power source for accessories and implements, in case you didn’t know) and a 500 gallon cattle tank. Then we dumped about 30 cubic yards of gravel into the old pit to fill it.

On the morning of the 4th, my dad kicked my ass out of bed about 5:30 am and we went to work. Using hammers and rock drills (old underground mining tools, from the 1870s), we punched eight holes deep into the four foot thick footing. Each hole was then loaded with a two pound stick of 85HiDrive Dynamite (an 85% nitroglycerin charge, used mainly for mining and heavy demolition) topped with a no-delay electrical blasting cap. The caps were wired in parallel to two separate reels of solid copper-core insulated wire. Old tires were stacked up against the footing, dirt was pushed up against the tires with the tractor. Then the wire was rolled back to the farmyard, and we went and had coffee, awaiting high noon.

At around a quarter of twelve, a blue Ford station wagon stopped on the county highway that ran past our farm. Across from the highway was a small clearing and pond. The family in the station wagon got out with a blanked, a picnic basket and four young children. They spread out the blanket and sat down for a holiday picnic.

As the noon hour approached, my dad and I went out to the yard. One wire was hooked up to the rear axle of the tractor, the other was to the magneto output. I had the honor of turning the crank.

The mushroom cloud that arose was amazing: all black and white, rising a few hundred feet straight up into the clear blue sky, without even a breeze to disperse it. The BOOM! was totally unreal, it made your head spin, the shockwave and earth tremors seemed like the end of the world had arrived.

Across the road, the family dropped their picnic lunch and ran for their car, taking off in their own cloud of smoke, tires burning on the asphalt. I don’t think the doors were even closed, and there might have been a kid or two dragging down the highway. The picnic blanket was left behind, replete with the food and drink that had been abandoned in the mad dash to flee for what they no doubt thought was their lives.

My mom gave my dad a halfhearted lecture afterwards; he just smiled and winked at me.

Greatest Fourth of July ever!

Feel free to add your own holiday/explosion tales.

Back at the information counter, there’s a line of seven people. I have fifteen minutes till my bus departs. In a panic, I turn to the person behind me. “Do you know any better than I know how to figure out your gate?” She does. She points to the clearly written, large red-lettered “74” on the front of my ticket sleeve. “You’re a genius,” I say, “and a life saver. Thank you.” And I go running off to Gate #74. She’s now one step closer to the front of the line.

At Gate #74, the woman smiles at my T-shirt, a boast for the local neighborhood association. “Hells Kitchen, all right. You’re a local. Don’t worry about the bag, I’ve looked enough. Don’t let him get your place in line. You’re set.” She doesn’t glance through my belongings at all, just blue stamps my ticket. 

I don’t know what to think about travelling Greyhound. Except that I really don’t want to share a seat with anybody. I’ve heard horror stories about men exposing themselves on Greyhounds. If anybody sits next to me, I think that there might not be enough Klonopin in this world for me to make it to my destination. Even if they’re a rich-looking person with nice pants on.

You want to sit on the right. If you sit on the left, you can’t read the road signs, and you have only your watch and a guesstimate of traffic density to tell you how far you’ve left to travel. You should also look for a seat that doesn’t have spit dried on the window. I can’t emphasize this enough. I take one behind a mother and child, even though they have their seatbacks tilted as far as they can take them. They are not likely to expose themselves. I can apparently deal with somebody’s head in my lap as long as I can see out the window and I get no shot of penis. Besides, nobody’s likely to pick the seat beside me if they’re going to have to ride with a five-year-old’s head in their lap. Minor inconvenience.

I set my bag down at my side and am rifling through it, clawing open klonopin packets. These wafers, they dissolve into sugar on your tongue, like those little rainbow-colored droplets they used to sell on tear sheets. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the makers have made it nearly impossible to open them: if an adult can barely do it, a child certainly can’t. Now, I can put the bag in my lap to look for Klonopin, but I’m hoping to buy some time as people file past me. I’m hoping that the image of somebody panicking over Klonopin packets will discourage them from taking the seat. I’m hoping that they don’t say “Excuse me,” and instead think, “crazy lady with big bag.” So I’m pathetically scraping at the foil when somebody says, “I’m not trying to save my seat with a bag, not like some people, is all I’m saying.” She totally has me. I am trying to save my seat with my bag. She’s a black woman and she doesn’t know the other black women seated around me on the bus but they all start shouting and agreeing. “Mmmm-hmmmm. No, you’re not doing that, not you. Not you.” I very sheepishly, whitely say, “Sorry” and put my bag on my lap. Swallow a Klonopin. It’s a useless gesture; everybody’s already boarded. The woman whose head is in my lap says, “Yeah, some people think they can save a seat, huh.”

I swallow more Klonopin. I am a cowardly ass.

After some time, two late arrivals show and I grit my teeth and hold my bag on my lap and hope that I don’t look very friendly. One is an old man, an old, old man, the shaky sort, the kind that just might expose himself mid-ride. He, thankfully, passes me. The second is a kid, and he takes a seat up front. Relief. I am a cowardly ass that has her own seat.

The lady in front of me turns on her little personal movie player. She’s watching a comedy. She goes to curl up against the window, but there’s spit dried on the window beside her.

The driver announces that we’re on our way. Warns us to turn off our cell ringers. Tells us if any of us talk too loud he will throw us off. Tells us if any of us brought an alcoholic beverage on board, he will throw us off. Tells us we might not make it on time, owing to traffic. Introduces himself. “My name is Ray. What’s yours?” Everybody says, “Hi Ray.” Ray says, “That wasn’t everybody.” Everybody, including me, says, “Hi Ray.” Ray says, “That’s more like it. Now the bus is going to jerk a lot. Don’t panic. The transmission fluid is low but we’ll make it.” Ray tries to reassure us. The bus is not going to make it, and I’m stuck on this bus. No spit and no seatmate, but no egress either.

The traffic we jerk through is not too bad. I have swallowed four klonopin, and I’m feeling settled. Well, not that settled. Every so often I’m thrown forward by the low transmission fluid, and the shrink prescribed the Klonopin in such a low dose that four doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to see outside highway windows really, but I do like to look at the truck drivers.  I don’t know why. I just never really got to see them before I started taking Greyhound all the time. I have heard that they were mostly Pakistani these days, but the ones I see look like what you think a truck driver would look like: hairy guys with missing teeth and a penchant for winking. One is dancing while driving, another reads a magazine. Reads a magazine, people, like while driving down a highway. Our bus jerks on past him. 

Meanwhile, the lady who yelled at me is on the cell phone. Ray says, “If I can hear you this loud, you must be bothering your other passengers. Shut up, I’m serious.” She ignores Ray, but truthfully, I’m right next to her and she’s not bothering me. Still, I’m glad he’s yelling at her. Revenge.

The jerking is only mildly annoying, but twenty minutes from our destination, Ray announces, “I can tell it’s getting to y’all, and it certainly is getting to me, so we’re going to stop by this Travel Plaza and get some more fluid.” GRRRRRRR!  Twenty minutes away. So we pull off the highway, just past the state line, and Ray locks us in and lumbers off in search of transmission fluid. Those who can’t hear or speak English try to follow Ray off: the old man, the Hasidic couple (Hasidic men seem fond of Greyhound travel, I’ve noticed), the Asian lady carrying an orchid. Everyone shouts at them that it’s locked but they try anyway before returning to their seats. Then we wait for Ray.

Did I mention that he weighs about 250 lbs? He’s a big guy, and it suddenly occurs to me that if he has a heart attack in the Travel Plaza bathroom, nobody will find us in this bus. I imagine us waiting here as the sky grows dark. I scratch out another Klonopin. At night, when we’re left here in this bus, we’ll use my vintage suitcase to break the glass. Sure there’s an emergency exit, but that is probably trickier than opening the Klonopin. Here is where I ask the mother who’s head is in my lap. “Say, do you know how long it takes to fix a transmission? Any more than I do?” She seems happy to be able to answer, “Oh don’t worry, it won’t be long. They just get the fluid, put it in.” All is well between us, which will come in handy when we have to break open a window together. Twenty minutes go by, I call the friend who’s waiting. I do not tell the friend that I’m certain our driver Ray is dead, instead I say, “We’ll just be a few minutes late.” By saying this, I can make it true.

And I do. I see fat Ray ambling up beside the bus. He doesn’t have any fluid. 

The three hour trip takes five hours.

I’m not sure how to feel about going Greyhound. I hate to think that I just don’t like poor people. But whereas driving on the highway yourself is freeing, leaving the driving to Greyhound is anti-freeing. You’re stuck there hoping you never have to pee until traffic and mechanics allow. Two days later, I return to the bus station. A line winds all the way through the plaza. Does my lip begin to quiver? Because my friend says, “You want to take the Amtrak don’t you?” Oh do I. I am a cowardly ass. But on the Amtrak, I don’t need the Klonopin.

I’ll agree. The sense of pure relief that a good long shit brings to a body is pure pleasure (unless of course of you have a bad case of the Emma’s (Emma Freud—hemorrhoids))—but just as clothes make the man, so to does the decor of the crapper influence the quality of the going. For your pleasure, I’d like to present my “Top 8” worst places I’ve taken / had to take a dump. My apologies to all the awful lavatories whose memory has been eroded or erased by time and denial—you know who you are, and that’s the important thing isn’t it?

Hoover Dam
A marvel of engineering, concrete, steel, water and in a 90 degree sun, chemical toilets. Sadly, I had overdone myself at the Vegas “all you can eat” buffets, and now all I could do was poop. The stench of a chemical toilet at best is nasty: in such heat, and well used, even the flies were keeping their distance. But needs must. I perched myself above the seat as best I could (no way was I sitting on that), held the lock-less door closed with a third hand and tried to get this over with as quickly as possible. For the first time in my life, my evacuation was the size of a cannonball and had speed to match. I prayed to whatever gods there were that I wouldn’t get my ass… SPLASH… too late.

To add insult to injury, the tour of the inside of the dam included a prolonged visit to the internal bathroom system: gold plated throughout, clean enough that you could lick them, hand basins, a mountain of toilet paper—all it needed was a little man standing ready, hands hygienic, to perform the wipe for you and a scantily clad Brownie to cheer lead your efforts. I almost cried.

Round Table Pizza
While they may be home to The Last Honest Pizza, per current advertising, the local Round Table has another claim to fame: honestly the worst possible facilities. While the Pizza Hut undergoes a makeover every six months, it seems no-one ever stops to think, “Do we need to do anything with the bathrooms?” like, for example, clean the fuckers? Two urinals (one for short men with small dicks, one for tall men with long dicks I presume) almost always overflowing with a mix of urine, spit, water, cigarette butts, and fluids unnamed. The single stall TP’d but in a special way: with both used and unused paper. The floor awash in piss, the taps of the hand basin creating their own ecosystem. Best to go in only to pee, and even then with eyes closed and breathing through the mouth. Try not to pee on your fingers either so you can avoid the need to use the wash “facilities”.

Scout Camp
Ah, the joys of camping: shit food, shit company and shit shitters. Of course, being in the middle of nowhere, there was no other place to go. The farmhouse (of the farmer whose land we had camped on) was strictly off-limits except for use of the outside faucet. Sixty boys with tummies upset from their inability to cook anything that didn’t cause runny bottoms, and a pair of back to back chemical toilets. I didn’t even need to open the door to tell that this was a bad idea.

On the third day, I had exhausted my abilities to clench, and nature had to take it’s course. I waited till most of the camp was busy playing soccer, and wandered off to the river where I squatted and released myself. Natures way, right? A perfect plan were it not for two things: the scoutmasters wife catching you pre-nip, and the turd which should have floated harmlessly downstream instead sat solid as a rock on the bad of the river, clear for all to see. Oh the humiliation! I covered the offending piece with rocks (taken from upstream) as best I could, the scoutmasters wife laughed it off. When the troop went swimming the next day, I forwent the pleasure knowing that my doing was upstream and basically these idiots were swimming in my shit.

Greenock--Intern House
We’d found a house to rent for our 16 month outplacement to IBM. We had two rooms left open. We decided we’d get a couple to move in: that way we’d have a girl to clean up after us, including the toilet. Smart thinking, huh? This plan would have been perfect, had we not chosen Andy and Marion to be our couple. Marion, it turns out, was a complete and utterly useless housewife. We placed articles of trash in obvious places and timed how long it took her to pick them up: days becoming weeks becoming months. Slovenly. The bathroom, servicing six assholes but otherwise left to it’s own devices soon became so fetid everyone was trying to keep movements in to let them escape in the finely maintained IBM facilities.

On leaving, we asked the landlord for our furniture deposit back: he just stared at us as if we were from another planet.

To add insult to injury, we had to spend the sixteen month period listening to them have (what Marion told me) was terribly bad sex, night after night. What’s worse than terribly bad sex? No sex at all.

Kirkmichael Arms
Built in a time when the public bar was split into two parts: the bar for the men, the lounge for the ladies, the men’s bathroom was conveniently placed at the end of the game room (where the strange wedge shape of the building required different-length pool cues depending upon where you were shooting from) the bathroom was purely functional, but really not much worse than that. The builder had though things out quite well: a shelf above the urinal allowed one to take their drinks in with them, and not stop imbibing just because one was pissing. The sit-down was located at the very back, where the wedge ended. Nothing wrong still. The problem was if you were entertaining a member of the opposite sex, she would have to go through the bar, outside, in the lounge door, and to the rear of that to find the female john. Clearly, this trip wasn’t worth the candle, so often we’d be asked to watch the door as a lady made her doing. We did as we were told, we watched the door. Intently. We didn’t stop anyone going in of course. Many a promising relationship ended with “You bastard, I saw his fucking penis!” and a punch in the head from a guy who had just lost control and pissed all over his “date trousers.”

Glasgow Public Lavatory, St. Vincent Square
Another example of a town planner thinking ahead: the public lavatories are located underneath the main cross streets, with quaint steps down (and fuck the wheelchair people). For some reason however they quickly became the space to be for the homeless and the people who, while they were in a city, were looking for a little “cottage.” Adonis-like, as myself and my 20-something friends were, the latter seemed to take a special interest in us. Which was by and large unwanted. The local council, having discovered the “problem” decided to fix it by removing the doors to the stalls. Sadly, this measure failed and instead of there being less sodomy going on, everyone who wanted to simply make use of the facilities as intended would have to walk past a display of what evangelist Christians would call unholy behaviour, and often would be interrupted mid-movement by a semi-erect penis being shoved through a glory hole with the query of “Do you want to suck it, I’ll give you a tenner.” from the adjacent stall.

For bonus points, whoever crafted the glory holes had been very precise: it was possible to see from one end of the stalls to the other (but not a recommended practice, for a penis in the eye smarts.)

Oddly enough, I never really saw many toilets in Scotland that resembled the “worst toilet in the world” as shown in Trainspotting. Perhaps I didn’t get out much.

Muir Woods
Just north of San Francisco is a beautiful parkland/woodland area—the Muir Woods of the title (d’uh). A wonderful place to walk, hike, stroll, jog, do whatever you want in except, that is, go to the lavatory. At first, I was impressed to see that the needs of the walker had been taken care of: atop a small rising next to the cliffs stood a nice little wooden hut, unmarked for sexual preference. From the outside, all seemed fine. One basked in the knowledge that even out here, the genius of American Plumbing had overtaken the seemingly impassable aspects of nature and provided a quiet, well lit place to take a shit.

Upon entering however, you realize this is not a a quaint little hut/cabin lavatory: it is, instead, quite possibly the eighth level of hell. The floor: an uneven layer of off-color cement, the walls pitch black (at least I hope it was pitch). The handbasin: missing. Toilet paper? Beside the bowl, on the floor, soggy. For the first time in my life I’d have used one of those ass-gaskets, provided by management for your convenience: needless to say those were not in supply either.

The solitary lavatory looked like it had been built in the 70’s, and from a mold that had been broken just before this one was made. The seat made of wood, the pedestal white--but there’s something missing: the back, the tank. Is this another chemical warfare experiment? No, a much more “efficient” method is used to clean here: the toilet base opening up to a 10 to 20 foot drop onto rocks below, cleaned by the tides. What will they do, I wondered, if Space:1999 comes true and the tides stop. From above it was possible to make out the vague shapes of those who had gone before you. The delightful odor of raw sewage wafted up and through the bottomless bowl to hit you full in the face. This was awfulness as spectacle. It’s only good aspect: upon viewing it, my sphincter clenched itself shut so fast and hard that I wouldn’t actually need to take a dump for at least three days.

Staggering out into the light, the beauty of trees, the smells of a different nature. I strongly advise if you visit: make like a bear.

Celine’s Toilets
Fictional as they may be, the toilets as described by L.F. Celine in Journey to the End of the Night are probably one of the hardest things to read: as a landlord, our hero, a doctor, is called upon when his tenants have a problem with a blockage. No big deal? Lets just say the tenants take leaving it to the last minute to the extreme and only call upon our dear doctor when their stools refuse to join the mountain of prior shits on the mini-mountain growing out of the bowl. To these mini-mountains we go, and in detail, we are informed of how it takes a stick, a brick and sometimes a hand to undo what these filthy creatures have done. Everyone has a book they struggle with, at least in parts: these passages took me weeks to navigate through.

So, feel free to share with us your worst lavatorial experiences. A small plaque will be offered to the lowest of the low: “Fat Jerry didn’t shit here.”