How to Piss in Public

by McInnes, Gavin

  Yet Another Asian Threesome (2003)

  As I let on earlier, Blobs had no faith in our relationship and every time she succumbed to my advances, she’d kick herself and tell me to get lost.

  These “breaks” were often lonely places to be, but then the phone would ring. This time it was my partner in sex crimes, Sally Woo. It’s not considered very cool to be into Asian chicks. It’s usually a pursuit reserved for weak nerds with tiny dicks, but my dick is so big, it makes “my person is so small” jokes. Pair me up with an Oriental, and it’s like a happy person popping Prozac.

  I had been in a particularly long dry spell so I got right to business. “I’m so horny, I got a boner you could tie a bow on,” I told her. She said she’d love to oblige and I upped the ante with, “I got a boner you could tie into a bow if it ever got soft, which it won’t, so fuck your bow and fuck you.” She seemed confused so I added, “And fuck me while you’re at it because, like I said, I’m horny.” Sally giggled and told me she was going to be in New York in a few days for her “requisite spanking.” I told Sally I’d be happy to hang out and said it in a very standoffish way, because chicks like that. I sat down on the couch and hatched a plan. I was going to set up a threesome with Sally and Yoo-jin.

  Yoo-jin was a shy Korean girl who didn’t like me as much as I liked her. Luckily she was also an alcoholic so if I could pour five beers down her little yellow bird beak and convince her to come home, I was in for some of the best fucking this side of the Pacific Ocean.

  When Sally arrived, I told her my genius idea. She was going to find a bar near her hotel. Then she was going to text me the location and I was going to show up there with Yoo-jin. “After a few hours you’re going to walk in,” I told Sally, “and I’m going to shit my pants. ‘Sally!?’ I’ll ask incredulously. ‘I haven’t seen you since high school. What the fuck are you doing here?’ Then we’ll have some more drinks and a few shots and eventually you’ll convince Yoo-jin and me to come up to your hotel room because it simply has to be seen to be believed.” Sally liked the plan as usual but she was worried about her lackluster hotel room. “Of course, your room isn’t going to be that impressive,” I assured her, “but once we get Yoo-jin into the hotel, all questions will be flushed down the toilet.” The plan was multifaceted but I was at the point where I needed something that interesting to keep it interesting.

  It was colder than a dead slave’s eyes that night so I made sure I met Yoo-jin at a bar that was a quick walk to where I had planned to meet Sally. Yoo-jin’s a tiny girl who looks like a movie star but dresses like an old lady right down to her beige orthopedic shoes. She had on green socks, a knee-length denim skirt, a librarian’s blouse, and a wooly cardigan that matched her socks. After carefully monitoring the time, I headed to the secret spot and Sally walked in after about another hour of boozing just like she was supposed to. Sally was dressed like she was going to a senior prom with strappy heels and a long gown. Her hair was like Yoo-jin’s, long and black, but she had lopped off her bangs so ridiculously short, it made her look almost comical.

  I fake-freaked-out when Sally walked in and she seamlessly continued the gag by not recognizing me due to the mustache (nice touch). We all got along great because booze’ll do that, but I must have looked idiotic pretending I couldn’t believe she was there. “How long has it been?” I asked like we were on a Canadian after-school special.

  “Oh, shit, fifteen years?” she replied without doing the math. Eventually, I’d be able to drop the charade and talk to them like human beings. A few drinks after that, Sally said, “You guys absolutely must see the hotel my company booked. It must be a thousand bucks a night.” I said we could check it out if it was nearby and Yoo-jin shrugged before passively following us out.

  As predicted, the room was a very small suite that was nothing to write home about. Yoo-jin was unimpressed. I could see my dick staring up at me, pissed off. I imagined him with a face like a very zitty Steve Buscemi saying, “You betta not blow dis!” Closing this part of the deal is like juggling on top of a moving car. You need to maneuver quickly and can’t show any fear. With my stomach in my chest, I “confidently” told Sally to take off her dress. Yoo-jin was not so easy to manipulate. She seemed bored by Sally’s perky tits and it was clear this juggler’s vehicle was about to slam on its brakes so hard, my balls would be wrenched from my hands for good.

  In a last-ditch attempt to rescue this dying scene, I grabbed Yoo-jin and started making out with her. Yoo-jin was FOB (fresh off the boat) so she was used to having curveballs thrown at her. She had only recently discovered the Rolling Stones, so my hope was that all these weird sexual opportunities would incubate long enough in her decision chamber for her to say, “Why the fuck not? Everything about this country is just as weird.”

  Sally could see we were losing her. I gave her a look that said, “Get out of here, NOW,” which she did. Then I pulled out my defibrillator: pussy eating. As I munched on Yoo-jin’s cunt, it felt like her pussy lips were the edge of a cliff and I would plummet to my death if I made one false move. After about a minute of Olympic-grade tongue figure-skating, I looked up and saw a Korean cadaver staring back at me. She was about as amused as Queen Victoria and it was throwing me off my game. I was getting bitter and her vagina was starting to taste like pinworm medicine. Buscemi gave me an evil eye that burned straight into my soul.

  So, I stopped and threw up my hands. Sally walked back in all smiles with a bottle of white wine and three glasses. But I had totally given up. Fuck this shit. Fuck me. Fuck her. It’s not like I’m here to rape anybody. I’m offering two women nothing short of an internal massage.

  My main man in the sky decided it was time to intervene. Like Zeus entering our atmosphere as a swan, God floated down into Yoo-jin’s body and took over. “You don’t think I’m horny!?” she suddenly squawked like a child possessed. Sally and I both looked at each other in shock. Yoo-jin then did a strange dance where she tugged at her skirt like someone who had to pee bad and was ashamed of it. (This is giving me a boner right now.) I felt an enormous bucket of joy wash over me and I attacked those bitches like white on rice.

  I grabbed Yoo-jin and we all started kissing and feeling and tugging on things. I fucked them one at a time and took pictures of them tangled together. At one point I had Yoo-jin stacked on top of Sally in missionary and pumped Yoo-jin until Sally made a guttural moan and her paraurethral ducts squirted out an enormous puddle of vagina juice. Even in the heat of mad passionate primal lust Yoo-jin and I sort of turned to each other like, “What was that?”

  I came all over their faces and collapsed into a ball of “there I did that.” They shot some more photographs and giggled as I sat there like a used condom. When it was time to go Yoo-jin asked what I was doing and I answered her by passing out. I asked her later what she thought of that night and she said I ruined the whole thing by not leaving with her. I tried to give a shit but it just wasn’t there.

  Funnest Blackout Ever, You Guys! (2003)

  On August 14, 2003, fashion photographer Terry Richardson turned thirty-eight and the entire Northeast sank into darkness. Forty-five million Americans and half the Canadian population were without power for two days.

  I was at Terry’s on that fateful day. Blobs and I had reunited after our longest breakup ever but she had to work so she couldn’t join me. I love Terry and I respect the way he revolutionized fashion photography by replacing airbrushed fakeness with punk rock irreverence. I’ve had a lot of great nights doing drugs at his place one-on-one and talking about life but I gotta say, his parties kinda suck.

  I used to think it was because he’s sober and you’re not allowed to bring booze, but even when he was a heroin addict his parties blew chunks. At his bachelor party, everyone was so strung out on smack, the strippers thought they had been invited to a morgue. The girls just sat there, nude and bored, watching TV and eating popcorn in a room full of sleeping men until a sober Iranian named Omid arrived and fucked their br
ains out. I was pining for something like that, at least, at Terry’s birthday party in 2003. I had smuggled in an Evian bottle full of lukewarm vodka and tried not to contort my face after every swig because I didn’t want to tempt any of the Anonymous Alcoholics staring at my drink. I don’t care about teasing junkies, but messing with alcoholics is simply NOT cool.

  Terry lived in his photo studio, which was a huge loft that opened out to a large backyard that was really the roof of the building below him. It was one of the hottest days of an already sweltering summer. Terry was cooking hot dogs next to a picnic table full of pretty girls while old punks played Ping-Pong and made fart jokes. Dash Snow was drawing his tag all over a Dunkin’ Donuts box and despite liking everyone there, I considered hara-kiri. How can you have a party without booze? It’s like wearing a bike helmet. Only retards and kids do it.

  Just when I was trying to think of an excuse to leave, the music cut out. I walked into the kitchen and heard the fridge shudder to a halt. The clock radio over his bed was dark, too. “Your whole place lost power!” I yelled out to the backyard.

  I called Blobs, who was doing fashion publicity for the notorious Kelly Cutrone at the time. Kelly, who later got her own reality show called Kell on Earth, was refusing to let anyone leave. “I don’t know what kind of work she expects us to do,” Blobs whispered to me with dwindling reception. “Everything is dead.” I told her to leave and she said, “Doy.” After September 11 happened we made the plan to meet at Tompkins Square Park if there was ever another state of emergency. We had no idea it would happen in less than two years. We both agreed to head to the spot.

  I made my way up Bowery and was thrilled to see people out on the street already figuring shit out. Car batteries were used to power TVs that sat on the sidewalk. Kids played next to open fire hydrants as parents strained to hear the news. New York’s last blackout had been in 1977 when crime was at its peak. The entire city was looted and thousands of fires raged throughout the night. This was a different New York. Giuliani’s zero-tolerance laws got rid of all the criminals and the Twin Tower attacks turned the remaining residents into the Get Along Gang. Walking through the new, newer New York without power felt as safe as walking through your mother’s house.

  As I walked along Houston Street the sun sank behind the buildings and things started to get dark fast. For the next forty-eight hours the world was left wondering: Now that New York’s gone black, will it ever go back?

  Most New Yorkers seemed to be walking to the bridges and tunnels to be with their families, but a lot of people wanted to stay for the party.

  About five blocks from the park, the street became totally devoid of light and I felt my way into a bodega to get beer. Inside it was the kind of pitch-black usually reserved for the forest. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The bodega wasn’t empty and there was someone at the register, but they couldn’t open it. The conditions were perfect for looting. Instead of taking advantage of our fellow New Yorkers, we all did the right thing. Everyone there formed a blind line that involved bumping our way to the fridges, grabbing a six-pack or two, and then making our way to the register, where we felt out what was probably about $20 for the cashier, who then stuffed the money in her pocket. The mood was cheery and people made jokes like, “Hey, that’s not my hand!”

  I made my way to the park. Soon after, Blobs showed up with Ben Cho and a bunch of other fashion fags. My eyes were getting used to the darkness and I could finally see this motley crew. Blobs’s gay coworkers were dressed in ridiculous parachute pants with huge SpongeBob prints and wrestling boots. The girls looked like groupies from a Van Halen concert in the eighties and I was dressed like a homeless businessman in skintight white pants and a vest with no shirt. We all made rape jokes about the darkness while strangers hollered “yahoos” from the void. I discovered later that David Cross was having a horrible time with fellow comedian Todd Barry about ten yards from us. We never found each other. Hearing his version of the night is a great example of how one shitty attitude (Todd’s) can drastically change the course of events.

  After finishing our warm beers, we decided it was time to check out the city. We might have been killed or we might have died laughing, but it’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t. The terrifying Avenue A of 1977 was now more like Sesame Street. Instead of hiding indoors with their rotting groceries, people were out on the street grilling steaks and hot dogs and handing them to random strangers. Puerto Ricans blared salsa music out of their cars and kids had their beds made right there on the sidewalk.

  We walked south and west through the Lower East Side, across the Bowery, and into SoHo, where bartenders were out on the street handing out free beer. If you saw this in a movie you’d say it was corny bullshit that didn’t seem real and you’d be right. It was a scene from Fame but it was real. The only thing that could have made it better would have been some testosterone to balance out all this gayness. Just then an old punk named Eric appeared. He owned a bar called 6’s and 8’s that New York magazine described as, “Picture Blondie in bed with the Strokes,” and he’s about as balls-out as bros get. I met him through Terry Richardson and we bonded over Montreal because he and his buddies used to drive up there just to fuck French chicks.

  Eric and I screamed at each other like excited frat boys and he handed me one of the three beers in his hands. Car headlights lit the streets and one or two generators provided the rest of the lights. It was like a post-nuclear New York where everyone had taken MDMA and we were all going to die soon from radiation anyway. Guys were double-fisting beers and the street was packed with scantily clad women dancing and making out with strangers. Bar owners seemed to think alcohol was milk and were furiously giving out free booze so it wouldn’t curdle in the heat.

  We left Spring Street and headed up Mercer, where a fire hydrant was shooting a ten-foot torrent of water across the street. People were competing for outrageous water dances and after a guy did the robot right through the blast, everybody cheered. He was followed by a guy carrying a busted boom box on his shoulder, which was ripped away from him when he hit the water. Again, cheers. I turned to Eric like a World War II soldier on D-day: “You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

  Eric closed his eyes knowingly and said, “Get naked.”

  I nodded my head. We went over to a less populated part of the street and undressed. I told Blobs to guard our clothes and she laughed in my face. Eric and I emerged from the crowd and put our hands in the air as everyone sort of cheered reluctantly. My adrenaline was pumping too hard to notice Eric and instead of dancing I got into the center of the jet and started a mime shower act. The crowd was now chanting, “No more nude guys! No more nude guys!” I washed my armpits and pretended to shampoo my hair and then, nothing. The water stopped. I was left there totally nude, dripping and wondering what happened as maybe a hundred eyeballs frowned at my heavily tattooed Grover body. I looked over at the fire hydrant and Eric was mooning it but unable to move. His face was devoid of color and had a grave expression. He looked like someone was taking a huge shit inside him. Then he wrenched himself up and moved out of the way as the water shot back at me so hard, I was catapulted into the screaming crowd. As a cacophony of laughter continued behind us, Eric and I walked back to our clothes to get dressed. I was giddy but he looked morose. “Are you OK?” I asked, rolling underwear up my wet legs.

  “No, man, I’m not,” he said, crouching down naked. “I thought it would be funny to put my ass on it,” he groaned, “but the water hit me in the nuts like a fist.” I started laughing so hard I couldn’t get my pants on. “It was like being punched by a boxer,” he said without smiling. “I’m not kidding.” I was still having one of those silent laughs that drains your body of oxygen and incapacitates you. It took a while but I was eventually able to explain that his bagging denied me any water and left me standing there like a naked fool. He hadn’t noticed and this got a bit of a smile but being punched in t
he nuts by sixty pounds per square inch is no laughing matter.

  As I pulled on my T-shirt and headed back to our friends, I was blinded by a spotlight. I was worried it was the police coming to bust up the place but noticed a peacock logo after sheltering my eyes with my hand. “We’re with NBC News,” a silhouette with a microphone yelled out over the commotion. “What made you guys get naked in the street like that?”

  In a bid to amuse my friends back home I yelled, “Because if we didn’t, THE TERRORISTS WIN!” This was way too esoteric of a joke and ended up on the cutting-room floor. What I should have done is flexed my right arm for the camera and said, “‘New York Muscle,’ baby!” It was a great song by A.R.E. Weapons that we all loved and it surely would have become the motto for the whole blackout. To this day I lie in bed and kick myself for not saying “New York Muscle.” It would have been on T-shirts and bumper stickers and giant banners at tailgate parties. I could have summed up post-9/11 New York in a life-changing phrase that may have even ended the war in Afghanistan, but I went for some sarcastic quip. Shit!

  As I started to regret my NBC quote, we all heard the Bwoop! Bwooop! of real police sirens. The police drove past the fire-hydrant blast, which soaked their car, and stopped just in front of it. “Stand back,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. Everyone got off the street and the music was cut dead.

  The car just sat there with the loudspeaker pointed at us. Everyone stood motionless and dripping wet in the summer heat. It seemed the party was over. We were doing about a hundred illegal things and knew it was only a matter of time before it was all shut down. Then, just when we were all about to go home with our tails between our legs, the silence was broken by the cop’s loudspeaker. “Sta-a-a-a-a-rt sprea-a-a-a-ading the n-ee-e-e-e-ews,” he sang, building up to, “I’m leavin’ today,” and then an earsplitting, “I want to be a part of it, New York, NEW YO-O-O-RK!”