The Mortified Man

THE MORTIFIED MAN / David OhIe —A Nightmare RecoUected in TranquiUty— PRIVY PREDICAMENT: MAN GETS INTO MESS A rural Lawrence man literally found himself in a mess overnight when he got caught in the pit of an outdoor privy at Clinton Lake for nearly eight hours. Douglas County Sheriff Loren Anderson reported that the 26-year-old man entered the restroom shortly before 11 p.m. While he was in the outhouse, more than $200 in cash fell out of his pocket and through the hole in the concrete commode. Anderson said the man took off his shoes and socks and tried to reach the money with his toes, but lost his grip and fell in. Anderson said the man struggled throughout the hot, muggy night to get out of the pit. Dave Rhoades, park manager for the U.S. Corps of Engineers at the lake, said the concrete pit is six to seven feet deep and is designed to hold 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of refuse. Currently, he said, the pit is three-fourths full___ —Lawrence (Kansas) Daily Journal World, August 4, 1989 AFTER LEARNING THE MAN'S identity, I caUed him. He was upset that the paper had gotten it aU wrong. He wanted to set the record straight. "You want to talk about what happened? Is that right? You're willing to teU me everything?" "Yes." "AU the detaUs?" "Yes. I want to teU the right story. I didn't go in feet first, for one thing. I went in head first." "Did you say you went in head first?" "Yes." By then, speculation about the man's identity and purpose was the hottest social game in town: "A junkie or a crackhead. Those are the only people who'd risk falling in for that much money." "Obviously deahng coke. Makes the sale, goes in, is counting the money whüe peeing, and plop, he drops it. It's much more than $200." 128 - The Missouri Review "Nah, we've got a classic coprophihac, a privy dipper. There's been cases of this near San Francisco, finding perverts in raincoats down in the outdoor Johns. This guy was dipping his toes in there for kicks." "A friend of mine said the story made the national news. And we don't even know who the guy is. Maybe it was somebody important, the governor's brother or something." I agreed to meet the man a few days later at Bogart's, a private club. "How wül I know you?" I said. I assumed he was of slim buüd. Td already measured the toUet's diameter in my own bathroom—it was 27.3 inches. It would take a sum cat to get through that hole. "Oh, Tm five-eight, a hundred and fifty." "Check." I told him to sit in the booth by the dartboards, the one farthest from the bar. "You got it. I'll be there." On the drive over, I made up Sherlockian scenarios: "We know so precious Uttle about the unfortunate chap, Holmes. Only that he is 26, 5' 8" taU and has been referred to in the papers as a 'rural' man. He chose not to disclose his identity, Tm afraid." "Out of a proper sense of shame and embarrassment, no doubt, Watson. We can surely forgive him for that." "But, Holmes, it wül merely serve to hide the truth and invite speculation." "Ah, my dear Watson, what is truth and what is speculation? Surely, all human communication is a bit of both, is it not?" I saw him immediately as I entered, sitting in a bright cone of smoky, afternoon Ught. I didn't expect blond, shoulder-length hair. I don't know why that surprised me. The mind plays tricks. I envisioned someone a Uttle bit seedy, a messy, goofy sort, with greasy black hair. But if anything, this guy was scrubbed with pummice-soap, and you could smeU the cheap cologne six feet off. David OhIe The Missouri Review · 129 I introduced myself and he presented a hand that wasn't right. Fatter than it should have been, swollen hard and filled with healed-over surgical...