Last Updated on 6 months ago by Joel Samuel McQueen
Part1
As a boy I was a bed wetter. I was good too. Five out seven nights of the week, I awoke soaked in my own pee. This lasted for about four years until I was thirteen. Now, to tell you the truth, I don’t know how I stopped. But the reason I started was a cry for help, on account of the fact that my father and mother were quarreling and cussing bad word day and night.
Back in those days, of course, no one understood much less had a name for the impact of divorce on a child. Mental health was only for mad people. Generally, islanders avoided doctors and hospitals altogether unless it was a matter of life and death.
Take the incident that happened to my friend Curt. Well one day Curt took his father’s cutlass and was chopping a young coconut when by mistake he nearly cut off clean one of his fingers. Curt then runs home, bawling down the place for his mother, who packs his finger in ice before wrapping it with aloes and white bandage. After two weeks, Curt slips off the bandage and allows his dog to lick the cut, which– along with regular sea bath– heals his finger without him ever setting foot inside a hospital.
Like Curt, I never went to a doctor to fix my incontinence. In the end this was a good thing, considering the embarrassment I lived with for years was the source of my love for books and knowledge, which is the point of this memoir.
Every Saturday morning, my mother would sort the family clothes as well as the bedding on her way to wash by the ravine. On this particular morning, I could hear her talking to herself as I lay on the top bunk of the double decker bed I shared with my brother Peter. I knew she was upset and so I pretended to be asleep when she called me.
“Nigel” she called three times.
When I finally answered, it was too little too late. Peter had already assaulted me with cuffs and donkey kicks to my legs and backside that forced me to jump ship unto the cold bedroom floor.
“Boy you doh here mammy calling yah,” he snorted.“
“Yes mammy,” I cried with feign innocence as I walked into yard where she knelt by the concrete washing board.
In her hand, she held the jockey shorts and t- shirt I had buried at the bottom dirty clothes basket the night before.
“Son,” you doh feel the pee pee running down yuh leg,” asked my mother pity?
“No mammy, I doh feel nothing” I cried.
“Son yuh must still try to get up when the night come. And don’t drink no set ah tea before yuh go to bed,”
“Yes mammy,” I replied with resolve.
As she returned to her task sorting the laundry, Peter appeared in the yard.
“A big boy like you still pissing the bed,” he said with scorn.
“Hush yuh mouth,” cried my mother in my defense.
“But mommy, how yuh go take he side,” cried Peter. “That boy bladder don’t have no aim. He does let go piss when the night come and everything soak on my side of the bed. And then I have to walk around whole day smelling ah piss.”
My mother ordered Peter out of his wet close and chucked it with the rest of the pile which had grown quite large, considering my nightly accident involved two pairs of jockey shorts and t-shirts—mine and my brother’s.
The clothes packed, my mother descended the hill to the ravine followed by her helper Peter.
“I go tell all yuh friends and them yuh does piss the bed,” he shouted from the road.
His threat stung like a venomous snake that left me breathless and unable to walk. For among the fellas on the hill, it could be said that a bed wetter suffered the same disgrace and embarrassment as the clumsy boy who dropped the final catch in a close game of cricket or the one who missed a penalty kick during football.
My fear of embarrassment, however, would be used against me not only by Peter but my older sister by two years, Laverne. Together they had worked a scheme of sibling blackmail in which I had become something of a child slave. Any number of household chores assigned to them by my mother including —washing dishes, sweeping the yard, cleaning the fowl coup, toting water and even emptying the posy from the night before—I was forced to do. In exchange, I was promised their continued silence in regards to my nighty leakage
Despite my siblings’ threats, there were many close calls of my own. One time, the fellas and I were playing hopscotch on the strip concrete located on the side of the house when one of the boys pointed out the large amount of white underwear hanging on the clothes line like a flock of headless chickens. Then too were the white sheets and pillow cases that were put out to dry in the middle of the week. All of this evidence, I was able to explain away.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” I said in a nervous laughter.
The day would come when my secret was finally exposed. During a game of pan cup, one of the fellas had ran up the hill behind the house only to discover the old and moldy mattress I had placed on the roof to dry.
Part2
Although I am no expert, I would have you know, dear reader, not all bedwetters are alike. For some the problem is purely physical such as old people and those with bladder abnormalities. In such cases medications and or adult diapers might be of help. But for others, like myself, the condition was really a disturbance of the soul’s tranquility.
My parents’ constant argument– which led to my mother leaving the house and her eight children behind– was one such disturbance.
“Francis, I can’t take it anymore,” said my mother.
“But Joyce, how yuh go do meh so” asked my father?
“Oh Gosh, Francis, just leave meh alone nah. Yuh go send meh mad,” replied my mother.
“Leave yuh, leave yuh, I better tell yuh children and the people in church what kind of women yuh does be. Yuh need to repent.”
“Ohgodoh, ohgodoh, ohgodoh,” my mother screams loud enough that the neighbors can hear her.
Seeking to silence her, my father then grabs my mother from behind and forces her into their bedroom. My sister and hold on to her arms and legs in a tug of war with my father, which we lose.
“Daddy, daddy, duh kill mammy,” we cried, as the door slams in our faces.
From behind the door, we listen for signs of life. Eventually the torrent of screams and cussing subsides, as I fall asleep on the cold concrete floor. In a day dream, I relive the time I saw my father and mother holding hands as he led her into the sea. They walk until water reaches past their waist. When my father begins to float on his back, my mother returns to the shore. Suddenly, I am awakened by the sounds of deeps moans, heavy thumps along with the climatic squeaks of bed springs. Then she is gone again.
As a bed wetter, I live in two worlds. There is this world that I am writing to you, dear reader. And then there is the second world, which seems just as real but isn’t. Most nights when I fall asleep I enter into this world. I see the houses and landmarks clear as day including the bamboo patch where the fellas lime, the neighbor’s cashew tree and the crooked, gray lamppost that marks the boundary of the upper road. Here and now I have the urge to pee against this familiar lamppost. But before I do, a friendly male voice warns me.
“Wait boy. Duh do that.”
“Do what,” I ask?
“Don’t pee against that lamppost.”
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“Why not” I ask?
“Yuh dreaming boy. That lamppost is not a lamppost. That lamppost is yuh mattress.”
“Yuh feel so,” I ask?
“I done talk.” the voice says, before leaving.
Unable to hold it, I empty my bladder with complete satisfaction. The pee runs down the dreamy lamppost unto my leg and finally unto the poor mattress.
Part3
It’s 4 am. I am standing naked in the dark as my brothers sleep. I bury my pajamas at the bottom of the dirty basket then change into a pair of clean jockeys and t-shirt. Disappointed in myself, I walk quietly through my sisters’ adjacent bedroom, then pass the kitchen and into the living room. The big white moon shines its silvery light through the fancy bricks and sheer white curtains unto the bookshelf filled with encyclopedias, which I sit and read. At first, I read out of boredom. But slowly I came to realize the superpower I had unleased, in that I was no longer learning to read, but reading to learn.
I read everything about man’s inventions including: the workings of planes, trains, cars, rockets, ships, guns, tanks, submarines. I read about how a television worked, how a radio worked, how an internal combustion engine worked, how gears and pulleys worked and how dams worked. I read about the creation of planets, rivers, oceans, mountains, continents. I read about the aerodynamics of flight including thrust and lift and about pistons and camshaft; I read about great civilizations such as Egypt, China with its billion people , Russia and the USA, Great Britan, Africa, South America, Antarctica and the Amazon; I read about great leaders such as Napoleon, Alexander the Great, the kings and Queens of England, the Czars of Russian a, the Pharos of Egypt and the Presidents of America; I read about man’s classification of the animal kingdom—warm blooded, cold blooded, mammals, fishes, birds, snakes and my a my favorite of them amphibians like the turtle and crocodile; In the field of science, I learned that the atom was so small that one million, million atoms lined up end to end would fit on the head of pin. Finally, I read that our sun was a star and that there were more stars in the heaven than all the grains of sand on earth.
Part4
The travelling sales woman went from house to house through our village, accompanied by nosy hounds. Her uniform— navy blue slack along with a well ironed button up shirt—resembled that of a flight attendant.
“Good afternoon, little boy, is your mother or father home,” she asked in a not to heavy accent.
“Yes miss ,” I replied curiously, before entering the house.
From the road the sales women pitched to my father, who finally agreed to hear more. I was sent to tie the dog under the house before escorting our guest to the living room. There she presented several binders each with oversized print and glossy pictures of the encyclopedia set she was selling. As she spoke, my sister and I looked over my father’s shoulder with awe at the series of colored diagrams of the human body and the different systems –the nervous system, the circulatory system, the digestive system and the reproductive system, which was my favorite.
“How much so for all this,” asked my father with mild skepticism?
The sales woman paused then looked over at my mother, my sister, me then my father as if to say—can one place a price on knowledge.
“Besides,” she added, “your family will be the first on the hill to own a set.”
And there the deal was made.
The end
The fact that neither of my parents completed their formal education beyond standard five made their decision to purchase a set of encyclopedias all the more interesting. I believe, however, that such a monetary sacrifice was due to their Christians faith. Growing up, we were expected to do well in school, which included completing all our homework before going outside to play. My mother, being more lenient, would allow my sister and I free time as long as we were back in the house long before 6 pm when our father came from work. More often than not, however, we ignored our curfew and continued to play until the human alarm was struck.
“Daddy coming, daddy coming,” cried my sister.
From our position up the hill, we could not only see our father’s old blue four door sedan but also hear the old and tired engine that strained to ascend the steep dirt road to its final destination at the lower hill.
We knew by heart the time it took our father to reach the upper road. And so, we prepared ourselves for his routine inspection of our homework as we as our legs and feet for evidence of playing in the dirt. At the time I hated my father for being so strict, especially when most my friends were allowed to play until dark. But my father refused to bend.
‘In the sweat of thy face, thou shall eat bread,” he often said.
And just as well, my bread were my books.
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