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CHAPTER 5
I SHIT MY PANTS
I
shit in my pants once in second grade. I don’t know why I’m even telling you. It’s not something I’m
proud of. I’m not sure there’s ever been an instance when filling your shorts with poo is something to be proud
of, unless there’s some kind of bet involved. I’m not even really sure what happened. One minute I’m sitting at my desk, the next minute I’m sitting at my desk in britches full
of poo. I think I tried to fart and ended up shitting my pants. Either that or
I just didn’t want to raise my hand and ask for permission to use the bathroom. Was I ashamed that I had to poop? I
don’t know. Was I so embarrassed that I had to poop that I would rather shit in my own pants than ask permission to
go? I don’t know. What I do know is that I just shit in my pants. I didn’t
panic even though I distinctly heard someone mention something about the smell of poo, as in, “did someone just shit
their pants?”
I just sat there with undies full of poo and tried to play it cool. “Yeah, it stinks in here, who just
shit?” Playing it cool with britches full of poo sounds like a song. There’s nothing worse than having to sit
at your desk in a pile of your own crap. I stayed that way the rest of the day. Just sitting there with poo in my pants, and
it was only morning so I had to sit there all day. I did eventually get to the bathroom and did some perfunctory cleaning,
but it had to be done quickly and with a great deal of subterfuge. You don’t want to raise any suspicions. I’m
not sure what I did during recess, maybe feigned illness so I could just lie in the grass and watch the other children play.
“Are you going to play kick ball Mark?”
“No, I’m just
going to sit here in my poo-filled pants and try to get the smell to dissipate.”
I guess I could’ve gone to the nurse’s office and say I was
sick, but the smell of shit was around me like a shadow. There was no mistaking it. At the end of the day I waited until everyone
had left before I got up, you know, just in case the seat of my pants was stained by poo. I thought it had to be. After all, I just spent six hours sitting in my own waste. I walked home, couldn’t take the bus with
the poo stench wrapped around me. Somewhere on the way I stopped behind some bushes, took my underwear off and threw them
down the sewer. What a relief. My poo pants were gone. I was still a mess, but the poo pants were gone. I’ve never forgotten that moment of throwing my
poop-filled undies into that tunnel. To this day I can still see them lying in the bottom of that storm sewer. That wasn’t such good times. I never did shit in my pants again. From that day forward, if I had
to go, I raised my freakin’ hand.
CHAPTER 19
I JOIN
THE MARINES
Well,
the time has come. I’m off to the Marines. My dad has to drop me off at the recruiter’s at 5 a.m. The Marines
love 0500 - a lot of shit starts right at 0500. My mom was in tears as I left,
her oldest baby flying the coop. I somehow think that after she closed the front door, she immediately broke out into song,
“One down, five to go.” She must have been thinking, “now we’ve got extra room, more food for the
rest of us, and just a little more peace and quiet.” The rest of you kids
take note and hurry up and get the hell out of here. Let’s go people, grow up and go. My father didn’t have a
big speech prepared for me or anything before the Marines took me away, but he did tell me something I thought profound. All he said was, “just be a man.” Short and to the point, poignant in
its simplicity. “Just be a man.” Thanks, Dad, I will.
The recruiter takes me downtown to the government building to do our final paperwork. All the guys who are leaving
for the military that day are down there as well. The different branches are all represented in their respective areas of
a large meeting room. My recruiter sits me down to fill out my paperwork. As I’m doing it, I notice that the Army and
Navy each have at least 100 guys doing paperwork in preparation for their departure, the Air Force has about 80 in their group
and the Marines area has three of us sitting there. Hmm. When my recruiter comes
to check on us I inquire as to the whereabouts of the rest of the Marine guys are, he says,
“What other guys?”
“Um, the rest of
the guys going into the Marines?”
“There isn’t
anybody else; it’s just you three.”
Well, now that’s
interesting, three of us. The three musketeers, the three amigos, the three stooges.
“What do you mean there’s only three of us?” Does everybody else know something that I don’t?
How does a city the size of St. Louis have only three guys going into the Marines? Three? That right there should have told
us something. I’m no math expert, but that seems like an awful small percentage. Three? There must be some mistake.
I know there are more than three guys in St. Louis who want to be Marines. No, there weren’t. I guess “The Few, The Proud, The Marines” isn’t just a recruiting slogan; it’s
really taken to heart. One of the other three, who I had been chatting with earlier, had an older brother in the Marines,
and we were going over some of the tips his brother had given him about getting through boot camp. The number one tip? Remain
anonymous. The single most important thing to remember: do not stick out. Do
your shit, keep your head down and your mouth shut. OK, I’ll remember that. When he noticed that I was little concerned
about the lack of people joining us, he just kind of leaned in close.
“Do you know why
there are only three of us?”
“No, I don’t.”
Then he said something that changed everything.
“Because it only
takes three Marines.”
It gave me fucking goosebumps,
man; my whole attitude turned right there. I didn’t dread it after that, I looked forward to it. It made me excited.
Holy shit man, I’m going to be in an elite group. I was going to be a Marine. Now I was pumped, primed and ready. It was almost another epiphany, “it only
takes three Marines.” Wow, that blew me away. I’ve never...
Chapter 25
JOBS
...Hospitals
can be eerie places at night. The top floor of the hospital I worked at was vacant. Well, not exactly vacant. They used it
as storage. There were “things” up there. They just weren’t normal things. No. Not the things you and I
would put in a storage room. Hospital type of things. Lifeless things. Unsettling
things. The top floor was only five stories high, but it was still like an attic. Even the phrase “fifth floor”
had serious connotations. As in “you’re going up to the fifth floor? Godspeed, little one.”
They had disconnected the lights on the top floor, so the rooms were lit by the street lights shining up from below. The streets lights had a yellow glow to them so the effect was haunting. One of the things that were stored up there were body parts. Why? I don’t know. I’m sure they
were kept for scientific reasons and not just to freak me out. They had jars and jars of things suspended in fluid with tendrils
of horror reaching out through the murk to wrap around my neck. It was damn freaky.
Plus, the street lights would shine up from the ground and throw weird shadows up on the wall, and they would dance
and move and …aaaiiieeeee. I used to go up there all the time. Again, I
don’t know why, the place gave me the willies, but once a month, I’d go to the top floor and look at the mutants.
You’d think with all the depraved shit I read, I would stay away from creepy places where men with hideous deformities,
erections and sharp knives hide in the corner with puddles of urine at their feet just waiting for me to get closer.
I’d try to stay as
long as possible, but after ten minutes I’d be scurrying back to the elevator and go back down to the light. When those
doors open up on the ground floor, I’d walk out, grab a handful of the warm light and rub it all over me. “I’m
alive, I’m alive.” It was a huge relief. What a dipshit.
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