CRAP-ON

        Saturday I work till noon.  I got a call from heinz at about 11:30, he was talking about going to the big book store. We talk for a bit, I'd like to go but we were having some trouble with the furnace. I need a thermal-couple I  think. The pilot goes out at night.

 I call Deb and get back with Heinz.

The pipes ain’t froze the furnace will wait.

To cut to the point I took a crap on the side of I-94

Me and heinz, we go back a ways. when he crawled up on the roof of my gremlin. I was doing 65 down I-75 and heinz rolls down the window and crawls out up on the roof. there was a car behind me. It backed way off  and started flashing the brights.  I had a factory installed roof rack on the car but I remember reading that  it was only rated for 150 POUNDS of luggage and heinz had to go 250 (read as 280). I didn't slow down  I kept it right at 65. Maybe he will start pounding on the roof wanting off. But instead he leans his head over the roof and gives me the face  upside down  through the wind shield.

         The face had stated back in high school. It was the late seventies, I think it was just before  disco. The world was pure. I met heinz in the tenth grade. We weren't sportys, burn outs, or band fags. I guess you had to be something so we were woodsmen. (the few, the proud, the flannel clad and Vibram soled) There were maybe five or seven of us. Some-times on the fringe of the burn out  crowd,[i] sometimes a guy went sporty  but never came close to turnin' band fag.

        I don't know who did the first one time. The first face. One time I got Heinz at Backus Flowers. There were a few customer in there. Heinz was standing in line. I knock on the glass, every body looks out the window. I push my face up against the window and blow my cheeks out. Then  I am so embarrassed  I got to go hide in his old Mercury Murauder. Car are time pieces to me, kind of how I mark the years. It had a 390 in it, some off green color. It also had a cracked exhaust manifold and no parking brake and thankfully allot of holes rotted in the trunk. Once when we launched a boat two of these factor played a major part in a near disaster boat launching. Generally it was low on gas

except for those three months of bliss when the gas flowed like water

         They had just put a big addition on the high school and what use to be the library  became the LRC, Learning Resource Center, see it was books and so much more, I think they had micro fish[ii] and some dumb cassette tapes that you had to listen to with headphones and sit in this cubical and stare at the beige burlap fabric, really the kind of thing that will broaden your horizons. Little did I know that it was training for the office of  tomorrow. I'd go there on my lunch hour, you had to sign in, and sign out when you left. My next class was on the second floor, so were the emergency exits. I would sign in under a pseudonym(Jerry Jepta, Mort Neff, Bob Seger) and as I made my illegal exit I would bang on the door release bar so that the Librarian would hear me leaving. I made the mistake of telling Heinz about this. Some advice; when you are running a scam, keep your mouth shut.

        I enter the LRC, sign in as Dick Beninya, and find me an atlas of Michigan Rail lines(circa 1900).[iii]  I head up the stairs and settle into a  beautiful sea of beige burlap. It is time to go, I hit the door with a loud bang. I am shocked, it won't budge. The noise has alerted my nemesis, the library. I have no time. I push again with all my might. Suddenly a face appears through the narrow, wire reinforced glass window. Its heinz, he has barred the door. He gives me the face through the window. I turn around, my escape thwarted, I will retreat to the safety of the beige burlap cube. The Liberian was laying for me. She stands on the steps. She beckons me. Shackled in defeat I am lead to the sign in sheet.

        "where is your name" she poses the rhetorical question

        "I singed in as  Dick Beninya" I reply

        "why?" If I had a nickel for every time some one has asked me why I do stupid things.

        "because I thought it was funny" the rest of the interrogation becomes a blur.

        to cut to the point it was a an credibly bright snow covered January Saturday. Heinz was there in the parking lot at 12:00 when I got out of work. He had a universal furnace thermal-couple. It was an extra that he had acquired during a stint in the bld. maint. trades.

                It had been decided that a coworker and new friend, Steve[iv], would accompany them to the Big Book Store. The Big Book Store is on Cass Avenue across I-94from Wayne State University. They claim they don't have a bathroom. They have a  $1.00 to enter and read used perve books and magazines room, but they have no bathroom. I feel my gut start to churn and think this ain’t gonna be pretty.

        After the very audible lack of bathroom conversation with the argumentative manger of the big book store I say to heinz and Steve "lets get going."

        Heinz anti in no hurry he is looking through some boxes of old National Lampoon. I about got to shake him "lets go". the three of us crawl into the garden city lighting truck.

A Chevy I call the Garden City Lightin Truck; with the air cleaner flipped over so she can breath through a 4 barrel carb, hand fabbed headers dumpin into hypo-billy mufflers and them meat tenderizing Goodyear snows all the way around,

Oh man, oh man I'm leaning over the wheel driving and looking for an abandoned house to crap in. I know its hard to believe but I can't find one. I'm about to get on the  freeway. possible evacuation scenarios race through my mind. Oh man, Oh mannn. I turn down the entrance ramp trying to tell myself  I will make it to the suburbs. I picture a sanitary public restroom, warm, sparkling, with a large soft roll of fresh toilet paper. Reality punches me in the gut and doubles me over. I ain’t never gonna make the suburbs. I pull'er up on the shoulder and park it in the foot deep snow. I ain’t gonna shit my pants. No trees for cover, nothing. I drop my draws, squat down next to  the truck and let loose. 

Steve’s yelling something about a HUGE PILE UP ON I-94. Heinz is trying to get him to take off in the truck. cars are going buy honking  the look of horror on one ladies face is frozen in my mind. No toilet paper I grab a hand full of snow and do the best job I can. I wipe off my hand best I can and get back in the truck.

        It hits me again but this time I take a book with me. Jail House Sluts, I still got it but its missing more than a few pages. I hear a Knock on the back window there is heinz given me the face.[v]