Leopold Bloom Takes A Crap

This is an excerpt from Ulysses by James Joyce.

The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper, nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with her back to the fire too.
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.
In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits. He folded it under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.
Listening, he heard her voice:
—Come, come, pussy. Come.
He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The maid was in the garden. Fine morning.
He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday.
He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox there got away James Stephens, they say. O'Brien.
Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss. Enthusiast.
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. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit. Our prize titbit: Matcham's Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds, thirteen and six.
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. One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.
Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.l5. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot.
Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the hours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still, true to life also. Day: then the night.
He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the air.

Humble Squatters

From the newspaper box I took an old copy of the Cape Times and went outside, closing the door behind me. I didn’t want the dog following and making a nuisance of herself. It was going to be a warm day, the sun was already high, and I was glad to be wearing a hat.

The indigenous bush has grown up on the adjoining plot to form an unkempt fynbos garden. A path snakes through the low but dense vegetation to a clearing near the centre of the property. I passed a tortoise coming my way, and then disturbed a family of francolin trying to take a dust bath.

In the clearing I set the business supplement to one side, then opened the main section in the middle and spread it on the ground. Stepping out of my Crocs, I removed shorts and underpants and draped them over a bastard olive. Then I moved onto the newspaper and squatted down.

I didn’t have more than a few moments to wait. A single fart heralded the immanent arrival, my sphincter relaxed, and the faecal serpent slithered from my colon, where it had been waiting with growing impatience. Beyond my dangling genitals I could see it settling itself on the newspaper in a rich brown coil of potter’s clay. The familiar odour of my excrement filled my nostrils in a way that I found extravagantly offensive.

Well, I thought as I tore a strip of paper off the Business Report, that was easy enough. But, directing a stream of yellow urine away from the Cape Times and enjoying the feeling of relief as my bladder emptied, I accepted that it was time to deal with the consequences.

Wiping a hairy arse can at times prove to be a messy affair, even when using good quality two-ply. Newsprint is nowhere near as absorbent as toilet paper and tends to smear rather than clean. I would hate having to contend with this mess every time I had a bowel movement.

Fully clothed once more, I was obliged to deal with the next essential stage of the ritual, which was to dispose of the repugnant product lying there on the ground. I lifted the nearest edge of the Ccape Times, which was a little soggy, and folded it over in order to cover the heap. Then the back edge forward and the two sides in. I picked up the parcel, weighing it and feeling its warmth, and realised with annoyance that I should have first spread the Business Report, ready to receive the wrapped waste matter. Now I had to set it to one side, spread the supplement, and fold the Times in on itself once more before bundling it in the additional sheets.

Back at the house I dropped the bundle into the black bag lining the dustbin and replaced the lid. Washing my hands in the bathroom, I congratulated myself on having accomplished exactly what I had set out to do. Now it was time for quiet reflection.

Why had I chosen to relieve myself in this manner, when there was a working flush toilet in a hygienic condition at my disposal? Why go outside, crouch down so close to my own dung, wipe myself with rough newspaper, and then be obliged to wrap the stuff up and dispose of it? What had prompted this unusual behaviour?

It had been the reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. That is what had got me thinking about defecation. Every now and then, over the years, I pick up my copy of ‘the most influential novel of the 20^th century’, and dip into it. This time I had found myself shoving open the door of a Dublin outbuilding to discover Leopold Bloom at stool and reading the paper. Excerpt here.

So this is what they called obscene back then in the middle of the 1900s. After two World Wars and the Holocaust, they considered the description of a man taking a crap out the back too distasteful and subversive to be offered to the reading public for their entertainment and appreciation. Maybe, I mused, there is something threatening to authority about such a description. Could it be that those in power resist any suggestion that they belong to the same species as the brutish creatures they lord it over? Maybe they don’t like to be reminded that when it comes to the basic bodily functions the gulf between them and us disappears. Whether we are black or white, rich or poor, a CEO or a labourer, a man or woman, we are all subjected to the same ignominy every day of our lives. This is what serves to remind us that we are not a cut above the rest of humanity.

Of course there is no doubt that a clean toilet makes it so much easier to delude ourselves. To an extent, the seat cuts us off from the reality beneath us, and washing our hands helps to cleanse our memory of the stench. The experience is reduced to a minor private ordeal that we have no desire to dwell on. Some of us can even pretend it doesn’t happen at all!

Before long my train of thought was chugging through squatter country with me spotting any number of well-known people huddling bare bummed over their little piles of stinking muck. There was Barak Obama taking up position on the stars and stripes, and the Pope a little way off, desperately searching for his ass amongst all those whites. An old girl with her dress about her waist and fleshy pink bum just inches above the ground was identifiable as the Queen of England by the huge hat she was wearing. And who was this coming into view? Our very own State President! Crouched low, he was ringed about by several large women, and behind them were a couple of dozen youngsters, all engaged in the same smelly activity.

This scatological vision left me chuckling but I soon began to examine it in a more serious light. Could it be that by requiring every middle class citizen, along with the captains of industry, the politicians, the church leaders, the academics and the artists to regularly squat, it might be possible to improve this dysfunctional society we live in? By getting them to defecate on a sheet of newspaper, and then making them dispose of it, would surely take some of the arrogance out of their swagger and induce a little empathy for the millions of poor buggers who are denied decent sanitation.

The idea struck me as nothing less than inspired, and that is why I went out there and performed the ritual as a kind of experiment. And do I now feel more humble for having shat on the ground like an animal? Well, yes, most certainly. That is why I am making an appeal to all those who read this to set aside half an hour every third Sunday of the month in order to do likewise. I sincerely believe that by squatting together we can make a difference.

(If no garden space is available, I suggest the garage as an alternative. Failing that, it will have to be in the house, preferably on a tiled floor.)

Please look out for Humble Squatters on Facebook, and don’t forget to tweet about your bowel movement on the special day.