Basement Scholastic - Willie Smith

April 1998
T H E RaVEN C H R O N I C L E S

`Pacific Northwest Urban Writing`

Basement Scholastic

Willie Smith

I T WASN'T POLITICALLY correct to over-use the toilet. Because, that summer, water was short. It wasn't politically correct to drink beer out of quart bottles, because it always isn't. So I stayed awake down in the basement all night drinking beer, writing poetry, reading the Greeks and pissing into empty quart bottles.

My basement room had its own entrance. This violated my housemates' sense of community, but I wasn't complaining. Especially since the cans were right outside my door. So I'd just go up two steps, outside, and dump my trash, which was mostly quart bottles of lukewarm piss.

The poetry wasn't good, either. This was before I learned to write stories. The Greeks were great. Night after night, I put away four quarts of cheap beer. But one night, when I became mired in "The Metamorphoses," a Roman work stolen whole cloth from Greek myth, I accidentally drank seven - necessitating six and a half quarts of urine. Urine is apparently denser than beer. I don't know - I try never to get overly scientific.

And naturally, the next day was pickup. Both cans crammed to the brim - containing already a good nineteen quarts of my personal shame, plus a week's worth of politically correct trash.

I had grown adept at hiding the quarts under empty sacks of brown rice, granola wrappers, old copies of "Mother Earth News," pocket-bread packages and the tops of skins of organic rutabagas, jicamas, bulgarian beets, turnip squashes, other oddities recommended for rectitude to the body politic --food that failed to step on anybody's toes. Unlike what creeps like me did when I scarfed burgers and fried, after a night of Hesiod, Anacreon, Sappho, Heidelberg, Blitz, Edith Hamilton, and Bohemia Club.

So there I sat in an armchair - surrounded by six and half quarts of piss. The sun an hour from rising, and me too dizzy to fathom any further the word. Especially as the sprightly buggers from the City States laid it down. I made a practice of holding over the three or four quarts from Trashday Eve. Put them out first thing after the gorillas came and chewed the week's refuse into their truck.

I'd cover the bottles carefully with mashed-down milk cartons and wadded newspaper I collected from the roadside for the purpose. Also tossed on any socks that needed throwing out. I bought socks at Goodwill, so there were one or two every week that plead for the garbage.

But six and a half (seven - because I didn't want to spend all day sleeping in my small, close room with the half-filled quart, having been drunk for that one, dribbled a lot down the label, and been unable to screw the top back on straight), SEVEN quarts was just a few too many to disguise at the bottoms of two freshly-emptied Average Ordinary American trashcans. There was nothing for it but hike up to the elementary school and leave them in the bushes. A four block stroll. No other park or vacant lot close. I bagged the heavy, warm quarts. Laid three sideways, so they all fit. Walked up two steps, out into the night.

Warm. Still Stars... the bottles clunked, as I craned my head to spot the moon in Pisces. Now beginning to set. Because it was late summer, and very early morning.

Had Actaeon deserved death? I thought. What did that story mean? Was it fair he was turned into a staff and trashed by his own hounds, just because he'd surprised Diana nude in the bushes? Was it a reference to the waning moon? And I saw her - worming out of her girdle - through a kitchen window I passed on the way uphill to the elementary school. She was flabby, in her late forties, cigarette dead in lips, hairy underarms. But the yellow light... in the insects dithered against the glass in the quiet of a harvest night... I rode heavy. Hurried past on three legs, clutching the bagged bottles of piss to my chest. Serendipity. A magical benefit. However cheap... I like being erect. Feels good. I left the quarts in the hedge around the playfield. How could my thinking of Ovid's Actaeon have anything to do with those chance tits?

Too early to go up to Winchell's and cop a donut, so... staggered around; wondering at the luck. Giggled back home. Two dogs barking. But they were chained. This was the Twentieth Century. And coincidences never come that close - do they? On the way, checking my head for antlers, pausing to verify Diana no longer stood at her toilet in the kitchen of the bungalow near the resting place of the night's pee.

But probably not the final, I realized, falling into bed. Kids would discover my stash during recess.

"Bobbie! Look! Beer!"

"It's warm..."

"We'll drink it... that's how they drink it in England."
"Yuhk! It tastes horrible!"

"Of course, Bobbie, it's warm! Here, let's finish it. Multiplication will come easier drunk... funny, I don't feel dizzy..."

And so I slept through the hot day. Bladder empty. Dreams alive.

© The Raven Chronicles 1998

	April 1998		T H E RaVEN C H R O N I C L E S

	`Pacific Northwest Urban Writing`		Basement Scholastic Willie Smith I T WASN'T POLITICALLY correct to over-use the toilet. Because, that summer, water was short. It wasn't politically correct to drink beer out of quart bottles, because it always isn't. So I stayed awake down in the basement all night drinking beer, writing poetry, reading the Greeks and pissing into empty quart bottles. My basement room had its own entrance. This violated my housemates' sense of community, but I wasn't complaining. Especially since the cans were right outside my door. So I'd just go up two steps, outside, and dump my trash, which was mostly quart bottles of lukewarm piss. The poetry wasn't good, either. This was before I learned to write stories. The Greeks were great. Night after night, I put away four quarts of cheap beer. But one night, when I became mired in "The Metamorphoses," a Roman work stolen whole cloth from Greek myth, I accidentally drank seven - necessitating six and a half quarts of urine. Urine is apparently denser than beer. I don't know - I try never to get overly scientific. And naturally, the next day was pickup. Both cans crammed to the brim - containing already a good nineteen quarts of my personal shame, plus a week's worth of politically correct trash. I had grown adept at hiding the quarts under empty sacks of brown rice, granola wrappers, old copies of "Mother Earth News," pocket-bread packages and the tops of skins of organic rutabagas, jicamas, bulgarian beets, turnip squashes, other oddities recommended for rectitude to the body politic --food that failed to step on anybody's toes. Unlike what creeps like me did when I scarfed burgers and fried, after a night of Hesiod, Anacreon, Sappho, Heidelberg, Blitz, Edith Hamilton, and Bohemia Club. So there I sat in an armchair - surrounded by six and half quarts of piss. The sun an hour from rising, and me too dizzy to fathom any further the word. Especially as the sprightly buggers from the City States laid it down. I made a practice of holding over the three or four quarts from Trashday Eve. Put them out first thing after the gorillas came and chewed the week's refuse into their truck. I'd cover the bottles carefully with mashed-down milk cartons and wadded newspaper I collected from the roadside for the purpose. Also tossed on any socks that needed throwing out. I bought socks at Goodwill, so there were one or two every week that plead for the garbage. But six and a half (seven - because I didn't want to spend all day sleeping in my small, close room with the half-filled quart, having been drunk for that one, dribbled a lot down the label, and been unable to screw the top back on straight), SEVEN quarts was just a few too many to disguise at the bottoms of two freshly-emptied Average Ordinary American trashcans. There was nothing for it but hike up to the elementary school and leave them in the bushes. A four block stroll. No other park or vacant lot close. I bagged the heavy, warm quarts. Laid three sideways, so they all fit. Walked up two steps, out into the night. Warm. Still Stars... the bottles clunked, as I craned my head to spot the moon in Pisces. Now beginning to set. Because it was late summer, and very early morning. Had Actaeon deserved death? I thought. What did that story mean? Was it fair he was turned into a staff and trashed by his own hounds, just because he'd surprised Diana nude in the bushes? Was it a reference to the waning moon? And I saw her - worming out of her girdle - through a kitchen window I passed on the way uphill to the elementary school. She was flabby, in her late forties, cigarette dead in lips, hairy underarms. But the yellow light... in the insects dithered against the glass in the quiet of a harvest night... I rode heavy. Hurried past on three legs, clutching the bagged bottles of piss to my chest. Serendipity. A magical benefit. However cheap... I like being erect. Feels good. I left the quarts in the hedge around the playfield. How could my thinking of Ovid's Actaeon have anything to do with those chance tits? Too early to go up to Winchell's and cop a donut, so... staggered around; wondering at the luck. Giggled back home. Two dogs barking. But they were chained. This was the Twentieth Century. And coincidences never come that close - do they? On the way, checking my head for antlers, pausing to verify Diana no longer stood at her toilet in the kitchen of the bungalow near the resting place of the night's pee. But probably not the final, I realized, falling into bed. Kids would discover my stash during recess. "Bobbie! Look! Beer!" "It's warm..." "We'll drink it... that's how they drink it in England." "Yuhk! It tastes horrible!" "Of course, Bobbie, it's warm! Here, let's finish it. Multiplication will come easier drunk... funny, I don't feel dizzy..." And so I slept through the hot day. Bladder empty. Dreams alive.
			© The Raven Chronicles 1998