As flies to wanton boys and all that shit...and pee

What the man didn’t know.

After posting his new chapter at around 2am on Monday 22nd the man was feeling pretty pleased. He’d created a god, heaved himself into the third person and written (he thought) a sharp story out of his catheter trauma….Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three.

What he didn’t know poor sap was that the Pa-rkin-son’s demonic crotch gremlins¹ the Pa-rki-es had decided (as children often do) the elder god was losing their grip and this Camden thing had to be proper shat upon.

As requested, the man, in conformist mode (a side to him he despised but failed to discard), had been keeping his pee diary. Up to the morning after he’d published all was well - but then…

08.45 get up 

08.50 drink 600 ml water

09.05 Very urgent need, very slow flow + painful burning 80 ml pee

10.00 drink 250ml coffee

10.25 Very urgent, vv painful+have to push pee out 75ml

11.04 drink 600ml water

11.20 Very very urgent, vv painful+push to get out 80ml

The Pa-rki-es watching grinned at each other and chanted ‘lol now little cunt’ - but quietly so their parent couldn’t hear.

By evening the pain of peeing was intense to the point of tears…sitting on the loo clenching his teeth holding his hernia with one hand while trying to push pee out of his bladder - who was the fucking clever arsehole dick now? Mr shit happens chill a couple of days before now a twitchy mess.

Reading up on post catheterisation burning pee it seemed it was supposed only to happen to people who’d been catheterised for ages - not just for 2 minutes. Fucking hell - that bloody women - he should have just fucked off instead of being such a docile slut. He’d have something to say to her about not warning him about this (he wouldn’t of course - he to medico being like snake to mongoose).

Then a bad bad memory - he’d had this before. After a bowel cancer op 8-9 years ago - days and days of the worst pain and fear in his life when he couldn’t pee and he couldn’t shit. Those had been the worse days of his life - the pain so horrible the distress so total. There were moments when (he wished these images away but they stayed) he’d become a snivelling pile of shit, rocking and moaning on his bed please can’t you help me?

At midnight on Monday shaking with normal PD shakes plus exhaustion plus waggling his legs back and forward and breathing very fast to try and stop the need to pee, he messaged his GP “Help - very very bad burning pee plus not peeing post catheterisation - please prescribe medication - Phenazopyridine?”

Then what to do - what prop could the poor bastard reach for now. He’d read and re-read the positive comments on his post but their ego boost had worn off - even the Phone had begun to irritate him. He needed some way out of this body shit. Whisky hadn’t helped (he hadn’t of course checked if there might be negative indications for alcohol - screw that). He’d been out on the doorstep and smoked a cigarette but had to scramble back through the door when another extreme wave of needing to pee hit him.

Get stoned - when in doubt go for oblivion. He ground some grass, packed his vape - and zonked.

The Pa-rki-es went off to make an old lady fall down - totes boring old git sitting in a chair with his head on his chest.

Some hours later after nodding out, seeing lots of rather vulgar pastel coloured patterns and reading with intense comprehension an extremely dense LRB article the man crawled into bed fully clothed. At least he hadn’t once wanted to pee - maybe dope was the cure.

But in the morning as soon as he sat up the Need gripped him - no time to go anywhere, he managed to stand, dragged down his pyjamas and stuck his dick into his pee measuring jug on the desk. Jesus wept - he hoped his venetian blinds really worked - this was not cool, not funny, just a huge fuck off fucking drag for fffucks sake.

The Pa-rki-es all tittered.

The day passed. He missed the GP’s call while he was dozing and got a text that Phenazopyridine was no longer available and to buy cystitis treatment. He spent a couple of hours painting doors. The decorating was because he’d been feeling anxious about P, the guy whose front room he stayed in when his flat downstairs was booked out to Airbnb guests. He was worried that P was finding his disabilities too much of a trial to live with. He went to bed so late, went to the loo so many times, got up so early, was incomprehensible much of the time, lost his keys, smoked in his room. He liked P a lot, he was an eccentric revolutionary Leninist Irishman - very opinionated very generous - and very kind. He’d pop his head round the door at least once or twice a day - the man assumed it was to check that his elderly flatmate wasn’t dead or doing something dangerous in his room.

The deal agreed almost a year ago had been in return for decorating P’s flat he could stay in the front room - rent free. (He’d offered to pay rent but that had been declined. His current anxiety was because he’d written a text saying how important a friend P had become and could he help at all unpack the many boxes of books that lay around the flat. P’s reply had been a terse ‘I’ll sort the books when I’m ready’.

After painting he dozed but woke feeling vile and after another desk pee decided he must go for a walk. Apart from the fact that walking was always supposed to be good he’d read somewhere that it was helpful to work up to as long a gap as possible between pees and walking could help this.

Wearing whatever he’d picked up off the floor that morning he stepped gingerly into the street. Too many bastard tourists, too many shitfaced smiling people who could walk and talk and take a pee. He made it to the park (without being knocked down by a car) and walked, but so slowly. This was desperate - he’d become a frail old man overnight. If this were to go on… (NB the tendency to drama queen in the oh fuck off independent male of three days ago).

He walked round the park staying in the sun to keep warm, the only thing he could remember afterwards was wondering at how ferocious cricket had become - how the fuck did anyone stand there and let someone else throw a ball at them with such force…insane.

On the way home the urgent waves of the Need became fiercer and fiercer and more and more frequent. At each hit he’d walk faster, clench his entire lower belly and breathe furiously through his nose. This was going to be touch and go.

The Pa-rki-es watching intently were taking bets on him wetting himself before he got home.

Waiting at the pedestrian crossing was agony but he held it. He made it to his front door - fucking shite where were his keys - fuck fuck fuck. His dapper little Fjallraven bum bag with too many zips too many pockets was his downfall…standing on the doorstep he recreated the scene in A Star is Born that he’d always (perhaps presciently) found particularly painful to watch².

The Pa-rki-es cheered, jeered and high fived - that old motherfucker fart face was well and truly shat on.

But he felt no shame…only a tremendous relief…as urine poured down his leg soaking his trousers there was no pain - just a full on old fashioned pain free slash. This was the best pee he’d had in his entire life. So at least his dick still worked sometimes.

PS And the name of the man’s favourite band was… Wet Leg

COMING NEXT…NO IDEA…HOPEFULLY ANTIBIOTICS WILL SAVE THE OLD FOOL.

Random lyric #33

It's hard to imagine that nothing at all
Could be so exciting, could be this much fun

Heaven, David Byrne, Jerry Harrison 1984

1. Have to break the fourth wall and acknowledge the superb Emma Stubbs of

Who Stole My Dopamine?

as the originator of this term.

2. When drunken rock star Jack Maine (Bradley Cooper) wets himself in front of the Grammy awards.