Jam Sandwiches

by Greg Fowler

‘I…I…I promise?’

  ‘You just gotta pass a test to see whether you’re good enough to be in our Club,’ explained Bert.

  ‘Test?’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Ernie. ‘You gotta prove to us that you’re our friend, our secret friend.’

  ‘Eddy’s your friend,’ spurted Eddy. ‘Eddy’s really, really your friend. I p…promise.’

  ‘Okay, here’s your test then,’ decided Bert. ‘I want you to stand up on a chair or something so we can see you properly. Have you got a chair up there?’

  Eddy glanced across at his desk on the other side of the bedroom. Tucked in underneath it was the wooden chair he used when he was reading.

  ‘Yep, yep. Eddy has a chair.’

  ‘Cool. Now go and bring it over to the window and stand on it.’

  Reining in his fit to burst nerves, Eddy tip toed across to the desk and carefully dragged the chair over to the window. He didn’t want to give Grandma Daisy the slightest reason to pay a visit. Pushing the chair up against the wall beneath the window he did exactly as he was told and stood up on it, making sure not to lose his balance. Once he was certain he had it all under control he looked back down at the two boys as if to say ‘See, Dumb ain’t so bad after all’.

  ‘Now, this next bit makes sure you’re part of our Club,’ Bert instructed. ‘You need to wet your pants so we can see it, and then throw your pants and undies out the window.’

  ‘Eddy can’t do that!’

  ‘Don’t be our friend then.’ Bert made as if he was bending down to pick up the soccer ball.

  ‘Yeah, don’t be our friend then…Freak,’ added Ernie.

  ‘But…but, Eddy can’t. Eddy will get into trouble.’ And it was true. Eddy knew that all too well. His bed wetting phase was a memory that would forever haunt him. Grandma Daisy got angry a lot but when it had come to his bed wetting, she’d been scary, really scary. Once he’d been convinced she was going to kill him. That she was going to send him to where Grandpa Nevil was. He had tried so hard to stop it. He hadn’t done it on purpose, it was the dreams. He kept wetting himself in his dreams and when he woke up it had happened for real. Grandma Daisy didn’t believe him though. She said he’d done it on purpose and that he was doing it to drive her mad. But that wasn’t true. He could vividly remember those early mornings, before the sun had even dared show its face, when he would wake up, feel the wetness in the bed and know that his fate was sealed. Those wee, small hours before Grandma Daisy sprang through his door like a booby trap were some of the most terrifying hours of his nine year old life.

  So Eddy stood there on the chair, not knowing what to do. He was jammed between his very first friendship and the memories of a wrath that still made him feel sick to his stomach.

  Bert and Ernie started walking, Bert with the ball dribbling at his feet.

  ‘Wait,’ called Eddy as loud as he dared. ‘I want to be friends. One, two, three, just you and me. But, but….I will be in trouble.’

  Bert and Ernie stopped and looked back up at the window.

  ‘Hey, we’re your friends now Freak,’ Bert explained. ‘We wouldn’t let a friend get into trouble.’ He peeked across at his little brother with a sly grin. ‘That’s exactly why we asked you to throw the pants and undies out the window.’

  ‘W…W…Why?’

  ‘So we can take them straight back to our place and get them clean before you get caught. We just live up there,’ Bert pointed back the way they’d come. ‘We can get them clean and throw them back up to you like nothing ever happened.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah, we promise…..Freak.’ Ernie wasn’t as nice as Bert, but when they were friends Eddy was sure he would be nice too.

  ‘Will you be my friend forever? Longer than dinosaurs?’

  ‘Of course,’ assured Bert. ‘Longer than from here to the moon and back.’

  Friends for longer than the moon and back. Wasn’t that incredible. The moon was an awful long way away. Eddy had seen that in one of his books. And if someone was your friend for that long they surely wouldn’t let you get hurt. No way. Friends didn’t hurt friends.

  Eddy swallowed big. This was a huge decision. A huge and very, very important decision.

  ‘Will you be back quick time?’ he asked. ‘I need my pants back quick time.’

  ‘Real quick. Not even five minutes.’

  Wow, five minutes. That wasn’t long and Grandma Daisy hardly ever came up between meals if she didn’t have to. Yeah…friends didn’t hurt friends.

  ‘O…okay. I’ll do it.’

  ‘It’s a secret remember,’ checked Bert. ‘You can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Yep…just you and me.’

  Eddy stood tall in the chair, both so he could steel himself for the very risky task ahead and so Bert and Ernie could see he was indeed keeping up his end of the bargain. At least the timing was good. Breakfast always came with a large glass of water and it was about this time every morning that his bladder called for relief. Today was no different. While he wasn’t busting, he could feel that the reservoir was ready and he wanted to get this ‘test’ out the way as quick as he possibly could. Hell would crash upon him if Grandma Daisy walked in on this.

  Taking one last look across at the only other door in his bedroom, the one that Grandma Daisy had put in there to attach his room to the toilet next door, Eddy took a deep breath and pushed. At first his bladder refused to give in. It held fast to the discipline which had been hammered home day after day, a couple of years ago.

  Bert and Ernie were still staring up at him, expressions of amusement and high expectation written across their youthful faces.

  Come on Eddy. This is for friends.

  Eddy relaxed and the rush came. He felt the warm wetness stream down his legs and soak his corduroy trousers to his skin. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable feeling and when he looked down to see long dark stains down the inside of each leg, his pulse moved into overdrive. He’d actually done it. There was no going back now.

  He returned his attention to the two boys outside, making certain they could see exactly what was going on. There was a smile on Eddy’s face now. Yes, this was very, very bad but somehow that made it good. He had friends, he had a secret and, for once in his life, he’d gone against Grandma Daisy on purpose. This was exciting, E, A, B, C…exciting.

  His spectators on the footpath were wide eyed in disbelief and that only made Eddy push that much harder, emptying his bladder to the last drop. When there was absolutely nothing left Eddy just stood there with a smirk and waved out to them. He’d passed the test.

  ‘Now take ‘em off and slip them out the window,’ instructed Bert.

  He’d gone this far, the rest was easy. Still standing on the chair but resting one hand at a time against the window frame for balance, he dragged his trousers down each slippery leg. Then, taking a moment to stand on them so they soaked up the puddle on the seat of the chair, he followed up with his underwear.

  So there he was, naked from the waist down, standing in the front window on the second storey of his Grandma Daisy’s house, his urine sodden pants in his hands and his two very first friends staring up at him. Had there ever been a Saturday morning more exciting than this, more wonderful than this.

  Bert raised both hands and gestured for Eddy to hurry things up.

  Slipping the soiled clothes through the thin gap in the window, Eddy let his forearm go out as far as the space allowed and let go. Signed, sealed and delivered. He watched them somersault down to the short front lawn. His undies made it the whole way but his trousers landed on one of Grandma Daisy’s bushes so that the big dark stain sat up tall for all to see.

  ‘See. I did it. See.’

  ‘You’re a fucking Freak, kid.’ Bert said the ‘f’ word as little more than a whisper, taking extra caution to look up and down the street as he said it.

  ‘Yeah,’ echoed Ernie. ‘You’re a fucking Freak kid.’ Not bothering to whisper the naughty word, he earned an elbow i
n the shoulder and a glare from his big brother.

  ‘But I did it…see.’ Eddy reached back through the window again and pointed down at the evidence with a look of growing consternation on his face. ‘Just there.’

  ‘Come on,’ stated Bert, directing it at Ernie but not taking his eyes of the dumb kid in the window. ‘Let’s go play soccer and leave pissy pants alone.’

  ‘Pissy pants, pissy pants,’ taunted the younger boy. ‘You gotta be the dumbest kid I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘But LOOK!’ Eddy was now poking his finger manically down at his pants. ‘’member, just you an’ me, one, two, three. It’s a sepit.’

  ‘You mean secret pissy pants,’ corrected Bert. ‘And the only secret going around here is your dick. It’s so small I can hardly see it.’

  Eddy looked down at himself with a quizzical expression.

  Ernie cracked up laughing so hard that Bert figured it was time to make haste. Picking up the soccer ball, he grabbed his little brother by the scruff of the shirt and pulled him towards the empty section at the end of the cul de sac.

  ‘No, Eddy’s your friend.’ Eddy scrambled across to the left hand window, where he could get a better view of the boys as they departed the scene. Neither Bert nor Ernie so much as looked back. ‘Please. Please be my friend. Please clean my pants quick. Friends be good…pleeeeeeeease.’

  Bert brought a hand up behind his back and extended his middle finger as a parting wave. Eddy had no idea what it meant but that was the least of his worries. It all came crashing in on him. His friends weren’t going to wash his clothes and he was in a whole mountain of trouble. No, forget mountains…this was a volcano of trouble because Grandma Daisy was surely going to blow her top.

  As if cued by the Devil himself, Grandma Daisy flashed open his bedroom door.

  ‘What the heck is all that noi…..’ She stopped dead in her tracks and stared bewildered at her simple grandson who was standing on a chair in front of the window, naked from the waist down in a room reeking of fresh urine. Eddy had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. He was a wounded animal in the crosshairs and such was the terror that engulfed him he found his bladder hadn’t quite been empty after all.

  ‘You little shit!’ Grandma Daisy charged toward him, a sudden fury burning in her eyes.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry Grandma.’ Eddy forgot he was on the chair and all he managed in his effort to retreat was an unceremonious tumble to the floor and a nasty crack to his head. Not that he felt much of either, for he knew the worst was yet to come.

  4. NAPPIES AND NO FRIENDS

  It had been a week since that horrible day and Eddy was sure that when a breeze came through the side window just right, he could still smell a whiff of pee. Or maybe it was because there was still some up his nose. Grandma Daisy had been awfully, awfully mad. Probably the worst he’d ever seen her. She’d rubbed his face so hard into the puddle on the seat of the chair that his nose still hurt if he sniffed and he had a graze on his right cheek.

  When she’d finished taking her anger out on him she’d dragged him into the shower and never even bothered to turn on the hot tap. He didn’t deserve hot water, she’d yelled at him. People deserved hot water, not filthy animals. So while she took an age to scrub and disinfect his bedroom he’d curled up in the basin of the shower and cried silently while the frigid water rained down on him. Maybe friends weren’t all they were cut out to be.

  When Grandma Daisy had returned to the shower he was pale and shivering, but he daren’t move from under the water. That’d be asking for more trouble. She’d had a floor mop with her and she’d used it to mop him from head to toe in a series of rough sweeps across his body. His skin was red raw by the end of it but he was in no condition to complain.

  There’d been no fresh pile of clothes waiting in his room either. Not even underwear. Instead she’d shoved him into his room, closed the door behind him and the next thing Eddy’d heard was the car reversing out the driveway. He hadn’t dared check things out the window, instead choosing to tuck himself into bed where it was warm. From there he could at least daydream that she’d be gone for a long, long time.

  Upon her return he’d listened intently to every sound. The car door closing, the back door screeching as it rubbed against the kitchen floor, shopping bags being placed on the dining table and, the stuff of nightmares, Grandma Daisy’s footfalls as she climbed the stairs.

  When the bedroom door opened Eddy had fully expected round two. He’d sat up in his bed wishing that life could be different, or at the very least, that today could be different. Instead, to his great relief and startled confusion, she’d tossed a plastic bag on the floor and left with some parting words that he couldn’t quite understand as she’d slammed the door behind her.

  That plastic bag had contained a packet of adult diapers and, since that Saturday to this, they’d been all he’d worn. It’d taken him a while just to get the packet open let alone work out exactly what they were. But as the days progressed he’d gotten used to placing each one out on the floor in the morning, then laying down on it, he’d pull the front flap up between his legs and secure the sticky tabs on each side. Not that he went to the toilet in them. Good gracious no. He still used the ensuite for that but Grandma Daisy insisted on lecturing him about them each time she delivered his meals. Babies wore nappies she said, and if he was going to be a baby, then she would treat him like a baby.

  A couple of times during the week he’d heard some of the kids outside his window. On at least one occasion he’d been certain it was Bert and Ernie. They’d been calling him names. Names like pissy pants and dumb ass. Those were the ones he could understand anyway. Eddy’d just sat in the far corner of his bed, the furthest he could get from the window and wrestled with the emotions within. Part of him so wanted to get up and go over to the window. Maybe he’d misunderstood the ‘test’ and they might still be his friends. Another part of him insisted that was just him being his dumb old self again. Not only that but even he knew being seen in nothing but a nappy was just asking to be laughed at. He’d have to wait until he was allowed to wear clothes again.

  The last time the kids outside yelled at him Grandma Daisy had charged out the front door and had really let them have it. They’d all scattered like startled sparrows and Eddy hadn’t known whether to be happy or sad.

  One good thing had come out of it though, it seemed that Grandma Daisy was joining some of the dots and from that point on she hadn’t been so angry. In fact, he’d even had some sugar on his weetbix this morning.

  Making friends was really, really, really hard work. Maybe Grandma Daisy was going to be his only friend in the whole wide world. One, two, three, just you and me.

  5. A TREE ON THE MOVE

  By the end of that next Saturday Eddy was proud to be back in real clothes again. He was so happy that he’d given Grandma Daisy a great big hug and a heart in hand promise that he’d never even so much as drip a drop of pee anywhere but the toilet again. Grandma Daisy seemed to have liked that because she’d hugged him right back and she wasn’t the type to do that very often.

  For Eddy, the world was full of roses again. When Grandma Daisy was happy even the sun was brighter.

  Dressed properly now, he could also feel comfortable looking out the front window again. So as the evening sun sunk towards the horizon of wrinkled hill tops and the shadows spread across the street below, Eddy shoved himself hard against the left hand window and watched the neighbourhood kids careen around the empty lot. There must’ve been about twenty of them at least and from somewhere close by came the mouth watering aroma of meat sizzling on a barbeque. Yes, it was a marvellous summer’s night indeed.

  Soon enough the parents’ calls came echoing through the twilight. It was dinner time here, bath time there and slowly but surely the herd of children thinned until the last couple of stragglers decided enough was enough and headed home of their own accord. After all, a kid can only stand so much fun.

  Bert and Ernie were one
of the last to wander by but this time Eddy played things cautiously. He pulled back from the window, just far enough so he was out of line of sight, and waited for them to pass on by. They didn’t holler out at him this time and that brought about a pang. Had they not called out because they hadn’t seen him, or maybe they really weren’t as mean as Grandma Daisy had told him they were. Was there still a chance to make friends with them. Racing back up to the right hand window he watched their backs as they dawdled along the footpath and eventually turned in towards their house. He wanted to call out to them. In fact, more than once, he’d felt the words charging up his throat like a runaway train but at the last moment he’d held them back. After a nightmare week things were finally good with Grandma Daisy again and he didn’t want to rock that boat right now.

  For another five minutes or so he looked down upon his street. Dogs barked, somewhere kids still scuffled and ruffled in a backyard and, one by one, lights turned on and curtains closed. Such was the wind down towards night.

  When Eddy was certain that the days drama had truly wound down he got up and drew his own curtains, officially closing down the show for another day. Then, standing in the centre of his room, he surveyed his options. He could read some of his books, do a jigsaw or draw some pictures.

  Books it was.

  He never quite got to the bookcase though because something caught his eye. Stepping over to the side window he placed his hand on the unstoppable tree and two things immediately occurred to him. Firstly, if he stayed really still, the bark seemed to vibrate beneath his fingers. Not an all out shake or anything but a very fine vibration, like a hum without noise. Secondly, a surprising surge of growth had taken place. At the point of the gnarly elbow, where the branch popped in and then turned back out again, the shoot of a fresh new branch was birthing into his bedroom. How he hadn’t noticed this earlier Eddy had no idea. It wasn’t that big, maybe the width of his middle finger, but it was a good six or seven inches long.

  Eddy touched the smooth surface of the virgin bark and noted that the vibration he’d felt on the older part of the tree was much more focused here. It almost seemed to sing inside his head.