9th Grade Stairwell
00:00:00
We’re not perfect. Some of us are not even close, like me, but if I can learn to accept myself errors, faults and all, for who I am I’m betting you can too. Even if you’ve done some really stupid stuff like the time I peed on the vice principal’s head.
00:00:19
I climbed over the hallway security gate into the closed-off section of the old high school, which was now actually a middle school. And the year was 1972. Our class of 900 students didn’t warrant an entire three-story wing being used. The section that was closed off was bigger than most high school’s. It was the place all of the losers like to hang out. Girls avoided this area. Girls also avoided me.
00:00:55
Unlike most days the Halls were totally deserted. I walked out on the third floor hall when I decided I had to take a piss. Felt the urge big-time. The bathroom doors to change shut. I opted for the back stairwell. Six doors connected the hallway to the expanse of concrete on concrete stairwell. A large bank of glass blocks you could not see out filled the stairs with natural light.
00:01:21
Metal hand railings line the stairs and disappeared out of you below. (THUNRDEROUS BELCH) The acoustics were awesome for belching contests. And I always won them.
00:01:32
I unzipped my jeans. I carefully uncoiled my johnson using two hands as I pointed it around trying to decide what to piss on. The walls and the handrails bored me. I sent out a silent, arching stream of yellow between the stairs, almost hitting the walkway between the stairs but it fell out of sight below.
00:2:03
I felt strong enough to accept my personal best sixty-seven seconds, but the last effort ended in me shitting my pants trying to set the personal record. (GRUNTING) Somewhere in the abandoned abyss below the first gallon struck the floor. (URINE SLOSHING SOUND EFFECTS) I could hear loud splashing echoes four floors below in the basement. (LOUD YELLING) “HEY” screamed the man’s voice. He hollered again: “Stop. What the hell are you doing?” Well, you dumbass this is called pissing, I said to myself.
00:02:35
It took a few seconds to register that I was in the process of being caught. I really, really had to go so I kept pissing away. The loud splashing sounds masked the slapping sounds of leather shoes racing up the stairwell towards me.
00:02:52
No doubt he was coming after me. I saw a small pink flash streak across the first floor stairs. I stopped looking at my watch. I could make out the white shirt, black tie and baldhead.
00:03:08
“Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.” Then I saw another flash of baldness racing up the stairs for the second floor. It was Mr. Pearl, the vice principal, and oddly enough my homeroom teacher since Mr. Culkin kicked me out of my homeroom for the year.
00:03:25
He was running cheetah fast up the stairs. My heart was racing. I was pissing like Secretariat. Something was going to have to give. When I saw him race across the bridge to climb the second floor stairs I started taking small figure 8 moves with both hands.
00:03:40
Rodeo loops of urine splashed the stairs and walls in an attempt to block his assent. He kept running. (LAUGHING) Well, at least until an errant loop stripped him across his baldhead. It stopped him dead in his tracks.
00:03:56
He shot violently backwards into the wall. (LOUD CRASH) He looked up but I leaned backwards. And all he could see his two hands and eleven fingers waving every which way. Impossible for him to recognize me in a lineup unless he made us climb ladders and he laid down looking up.
00:04:15
We both caught our breath but then another sloppy lariat
got away from me, knocking his glasses off his face. He slid sideways “I’m going to kill you, you little son of a bitch.” Now I’m going to go to jail if I get caught I thought to myself.
00:04:33
I changed my strategy. I began making microscopic spirals that drenched Mr. Pearl from head-to-toe. In effect, no more wasted piss. He crouched down into a ball and slid down the three steps on his butt. My aim was so dialed-in I kept him occupied defending himself.
00:04:50
Mr. Pearl must have set a world-record for adult crawling. He crawled through about and across the walkway. He slipped grabbing the wet handrail, as he tried pulling himself to his feet. He limped down the stairs groaning and gurgling every step of the way.
00:05:08
Once my view was obstructed I shut off the hose. He must have kept running because I heard a loud crash followed by the sounds of meat slapping wet concrete. Then total silence. I mean buried alive in a coffin suffocating hush. No splashing steps. No doors opening or closing. Not a single sound other than my heart beating through my chest.
00:05:35
Instant plan: the security gate I climbed over is not an option. I have three escape routes to choose from. The piss covered one I was in was ruled out on the spot. That left me the front stairwell or the middle stairwell.
00:05:50
As quietly as I could, I reached down and pulled off my noisy Chuck Taylors and my socks. I slowly opened the stairwell door and beat buns for the middle stairwell.
00:06:00
I opened the door a crack and stuck my ear in and listened for at least a minute. I was hyper vigilant. I could have heard a mouse piss on cotton. I heard nothing so I took a few careful steps with my back to the wall, glancing down the stairway looking for shadows. Any glimpse of me by any school official would get me kicked out of school forever.
00:06:25
My heart raced twenty beats for every step I slinked down. I was sweating head-to-toe. I kept my fingerprints off the handrails. I slithered down three flights of steps without seeing a soul. I slipped out the exit door onto Adams Street. I raced across the street between the garage and the shrub that ran with the length of it.
00:06:49
The next day in homeroom I studied Mr. Pearl’s face. Had my piss changed him? Was he now embarrassed, or angry or frightened or maybe delighted? As far as I could tell, he was still the same uptight authoritarian asshole who liked to make kids squirm. “Hey, if I catch you you’re mine.”
00:07:09
(SCHOOL BELL) I don’t know. Maybe my piss hadn’t changed him but it had changed me. Because for the rest of my days in that school I walked the halls with a little more confidence and a little more swagger.
00:07:21
Me. A four-foot ten-inch ninety-pound zit stain. Had taken down the second most powerful man in the school with nothing more than a hot stream of wee wee.
To this day, still full of piss and vinegar, I smile when I think about it.