A Short History of Evacuation, or the King Was in His Countinghouse

The literary history of peeing & shitting is unheralded. I recently called attention to one volume that begins on the chamberpot; here are two more that invite readers into the House of Aromas, the first in the black of night, when “you’re sleepy and you may have a slight nonsexual stiffening and you’re clumsy. So you let some pee down into the darkness.”

And you wonder, Which way do I adjust the aim? It seems like I might be aiming a little too much to the left. So you correct by directing the stream a little to the right, and the sound changes, and now you’re in trouble, because it’s the sound, you’re pretty sure, of pee hitting rim and maybe even floor, so you quick jerk back to what you think is your original position. But it isn’t the original position. You’ve lost your bearings now, you’re wandering in an unknown forest, and you have a suspicion that maybe the stream has split into a V; when that happens, no amount of course correction will help. You clamp off the outflow and turn on the light to take stock. If you can’t see anything on the floor, you’re okay, but if there’s an obvious small pool, then you have to get the undersink sponge going or use bunched-up toilet paper to dab it up, and the bending with the bunched toiled paper sends blood to the head, further waking you up. Now you’re much more awake than you would have been had you turned on the light in the first place.  Not all of the pee will be cleaned, either, because it is the middle of the night, and nobody cleans things up that well in the middle of the night. Eventually over some weeks a faint smell will arise. That’s why I recommend sitting.

In this rather more well-known novel, the sun is up and a post-breakfast movement is in order.

He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him. —Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I’m ready.

Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the landing.

A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as I’m.

[. . .]

He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his countinghouse. Nobody.

Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over on his bared knees. [. . .]

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive.

IMAGE: Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls by Alex Itin, artist-in-residence at the Institute for the Future of the Book