the Piss Intro

A tentative prologue for a novel that I've been working on. The novel is a detective story (part Dashiell Hammett, part Hunter S. Thompson) about a man trying to avoid being killed by businessmen, corrupt state officials, bikers and Native American milita

Of my many obsessions (and there are many) none is so great as my need to use the bathroom the second I feel any sort of movement occuring in either bowel or bladder.

 

This is a poor way to start my story, but I ask that you bear with me.

It started when my Uncle Victor crashed his pickup truck into a telephone pole on Lookout Mountain Road. He was drinking in town that night and had, in his own words “mixed up my headlights with my radio”. In trying to change the station, he’d turned off the lights of his Ford F-350.

 

Due to the intervention of a merciful god (we’re not sure which one) Vic had walked away only slightly harmed with a broken nose and some bruised ribs. The sheriff, an old friend of his, had brought Vic home that night and despite my young age (10 years old) I was able to figure what had happened the second the police cruiser had pulled up to our front door.

 

I was sitting in the living room reading “Riders of the Purple Sage” when I saw the spinning red lights and putting down the book, I rushed out to see what had happened.

 

My cousin Stev was, as always, two steps ahead of me and had shouted for me to stay inside.

 

I ignored him, and stepped out onto the porch. I remember the lights of the police cruiser and the bright red retina of Vic’s left eye, crimson from the capillaries that had broken when his nose met the steering wheel

 

Uncle Vic was always a placid man, and I can’t remember him raising his voice to me either before or after that day, but when he saw me walk outside, he’d raised himself up to his full height and bellowed. 

 

“Goddamit Squirrel, get your a*s inside now.”

 

I complied, but before I did I noticed the dark stain on the front of his trousers. The impact with the telephone had caused him to lose control of his bladder, and even though he seemed oblivious to me, it struck me as being one of the most undignified, shaming things that could ever happen to a man.

 

Now, when I’m driving in a car and I feel an urge to piss, I can only think about that moment of impact, about the loss of control and the attendant mess that goes along with it. I spend hours pondering the certainty that when I’m involved in an accident (auto-related or not), or when a bar fight breaks out, or that I have to run from the police – that is when I am going to find myself needing to go to the bathroom the most.

 

I say this because my story begins with me handcuffed to the bumper of an old jeep. There’s a young man, a Lakota Indian I suppose, lazily pointing a shotgun at my head. Not a hundred yards away thirty more indians are in various stages of preparation for battle, something straight out of a sphaghetti western. Braves preparing for battle - not a  buckskin and bows sort of battle, however. These are modern day braves; they’re wearing denim and camoflague and carrying the sort of guns that Soldier of Fortune aficionados think about when they’re touching themselves inappropriately. They’re mean and pissed, and they’re talking about killing white people.

 

I happen to be a white person.

 

This of course is when I have to piss.

Author's Note

In this prologue I'm looking mainly looking to engage the reader's attention, and to also introduce the sense of absurdity the pervades the rest of the manuscript. It's only a rough draft, so the prose will be polished, and as while this is my first time posting on Writer's Cafe, there's no real need to be gentle. Thanks,
j.