When I was twelve years old, I had a friend named Elmer. Elmer looked a lot like the cartoon character, Elmer Fudd. He was a year older than me, and had a younger sister named Sissie. Sissie was ten years old going on thirteen.
I came from a poor family, but Elmer and Sissie were even worse off. Their parents were from Oklahoma; the kids in the neighborhood made fun of them, and called them Hillbillys, but I never liked that word, and neither did they. Elmer had holes in his pants, and Sissie looked like Raggedy-Anne, only better developed.
Their parents lived in what is now called the Bayview district in San Francisco, but in those days was known as Butcher Town. Elmer's father was of German stock, and worked at one of the slaughter houses. I remember seeing him once in a blood stained white apron. For weeks I had trouble eating meat.
One summer day Elmer's mother came down ill. I think she had cancer, but no one wanted to talk about it. Her illness was serious enough that she was confined to bed for long periods of time. I remember visiting Elmer and Sissie one Indian summer when their father was working overtime. I was glad that he was not home because his blood red apron often was as red as the German sausages he brought home to his family for dinner. He would invite me to stay for supper and I always had to find an excuse for saying no.
I didn't see Elmer and Sissie that often. We lived on the other side of town and my folks didn't like me traveling to Butcher Town, but on this particular day, I hopped a cross-town bus, hoping they wouldn't find out. When I arrived, Elmer said that he had something special to show me, and I was curious to see what it was. Elmer's mother was in bed sleeping. She didn't see us silently creep past her bedroom on our way to the basement.
"Did you bring the nickel?" Elmer asked.
"I couldn't," I said. "What do you mean, you couldn't?"
"Dad wouldn't give it to me," I said. I felt like bowing my head in shame.
"I told you it would cost a nickel," Elmer said, pounding his right fist into his left hand.
"I know," I said.
"What else can you give me?" Elmer asked.
I reached into my pants pocket and took out a small tube of model airplane glue.
"What am I supposed to do with that?" Elmer bellowed.
"Sniff it," I said. "If I wanted to get high, it wouldn't be on some stupid old airplane glue," Elmer said,
"It's all I have," I said.
"Okey," Elmer relented. "Give it to me."
I handed Elmer the tube of glue and watched him stuff it inside his pants pocket. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."
I followed Elmer outside, through the back yard, past a heavily weeded area, to a place where he had built a tree house that he and Sissie used whenever they wanted to escape from the real world. In a clump of bushes, twenty-five feet from the tree house, a flock of sparrows were pecking away at the ground. The birds scattered as we approached, all except for one bird who appeared to have a crippled wing, and was only able to hop-skip-and jump. Elmer tried to do the bird in with a slingshot he had tucked away in his back jeans, but even crippled, the young bird was faster than Elmer. When we reached the tree house, we climbed up the makeshift rope ladder, and crawled inside on our hands and knees. Sissie was there waiting for us. She had a smile on her face, and was standing with her legs spread apart. At first, I was afraid that maybe she was not there of her own free will, but the smile on her face told me that I had nothing to worry about. I knew that something big was going to happen. Standing up, I noticed that the tree house was littered with comic books and candy wrappers. In one corner, standing alone, was an open copy of Playboy Magazine. Playboy wasn't allowed in our house. The only magazines my father and mother kept around the house were National Geographic and Popular Mechanics.
I watched Elmer walk over and pick the forbidden magazine up. He stood facing me, turning the pages until he came to the centerfold, which contained a glossy print of a naked woman with the largest breasts I could have imagined. Bigger even than my mother's.
"That's how Sissie is going to look when she grows up," Elmer said, laughing and punching me on the arm.
"Am not," Sissie said.
"Am so," Elmer replied.
"Am not," Sissie repeated, taking a fighter's stance.
"And what the hell do you think you're doing?" Elmer asked. Sissie did not respond.
"Go ahead and show it to him," Elmer told Sissie.
"You said that he would bring a nickel," Sissie said.
"Well, he doesn't have it, and besides one doesn't charge their friends. Go ahead and show it to him."
Sissie pouted as she fidgeted with her dress. Then without warning, she suddenly lifted it high over her head. She wasn't wearing any underpants. I tried moving in for a closer look, but just as quickly she pulled her dress down, closing her legs tightly.
"That's not fair," I complained. "I hardly had a chance to see it."
"That's too bad," Sissie said. "If you had brought a nickel, you could have looked longer."
"You want to see mine?" Elmer asked. "You'll have to show Sissie yours first."
"Okey," I agreed. I removed my belt, allowing my pants to fall at my feet, kicking them free. I was wearing boxer shorts, and without taking them off, my penis sprang free from the opening in the shorts.
"It's got a purple head," Sissie giggled. "It looks like a mushroom."
I blushed in embarrassment. I had never showed anyone my penis before, not even my sister. Sissie saw me blushing and walked closer for a better look.
"It's bigger than yours, Elmer." "Much bigger," Sissie said.
"Is not," he shouted.
"Is so," she insisted.
Elmer wasted no time in dropping his pants and taking off his jockey shorts. He looked down at his dick and began slowly playing with it.
"Let's measure them," Elmer said to Sissie. We stood close together as Sissie took both of our cocks in her hands, lining them up against each other.
"See," she said, "I told you that his is bigger than yours."
"Not by much," he pouted.
"Oh yes it is," she persisted.
"Not if I yank on it," Elmer said. Elmer's hand began pumping up and down on his shaft, and sure enough it grew bigger and bigger.
"Now who has the bigger one?" Elmer boasted.
"You do," Sissie Giggled. She took it in her hand and began massaging it.
"You want to kiss her?" Elmer asked me. I hesitated as I began putting my pants back on. Elmer looked at me with amusement, pulling Sissie into his arms.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "She likes it." I watched them embrace, moving their tongues inside each other's mouth in a kiss that seemed to last forever.
"That's called swapping spit," Elmer said. "That's getting to first base." I didn't know what he was talking about.
"That's how you make a baby," Sissie said.
"No it isn't," I said.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Blackie told me. He knows about things like that. He's stuck it inside a girl before." Blackie was a teenager who lived downstairs from my parents, and who had shown me pictures to prove that the stork didn't deliver babies as my parents had lied to me.
Elmer changed the subject. "Does yours shoot juice yet?" he asked me.
"No", I said, embarrassed by his frank talk.
"Mine does," he boasted. "Want to see me do it?" he asked.
"I do," Sissie said, moving closer for a better look. I watched Elmer massage his penis. It got bigger and redder and bigger and redder, and then sure enough, great gobs of white stuff came shooting out of the head of his penis. It was truly an unbelievable sight. As the flow diminished to a small trickle, I noticed that Elmer was short of breath.
Sissie looked at me and said, "Sometimes I think that he's going to die when he does that. Sometimes he sounds like an old steam engine."
"You shut your mouth," said Elmer, putting his clothes back on. "Don't worry," he told me, "it won't be long before it happens to you. Then maybe we can find a rubber and stick it inside Sissy."
"You're not putting that big thing in me," Sissie said. "And I'm not going to show myself to anymore of your friends. If they don't have a nickel, they'll just have to look at one of those magazines to see what it looks like."
"Who cares?" Elmer laughed. "You don't even have any hair on it."
I told them that I had to get home before it got dark, leaving the tree house and making my way back home in time for dinner. All through supper my thoughts were on getting a nickel and seeing Sissie alone. Maybe I could get a dime, I told myself, and see what this would buy me.
That night, I fell quickly to sleep, and had a dream of Sissie and me alone in the tree house. In the morning, when I woke, and got up for school, I discovered a sticky substance on the sheets. I had experienced my first wet dream. I was now the equal of Elmer.
It was several weeks later before I had the opportunity to sneak back across town and see Elmer and Sissie again, only to find that their family had moved away. The tree house had been torn down. I had only my memories to fall back on.
For years, I kept thinking about them, wondering where Elmer and Sissie were, and what they were doing. I knew deep down that Sissie would never hurt for money. Elmer either. They had been an enterprising pair. All that I knew for certain, that day, as I trudged my way back home, was that somehow things would never again be quite the same.
AD Winans: Native San Francisco poet and writer. Member of PEN. former editor and publisher of Second Coming. Poetry, prose, and photography have appeared world-wide. He is the author of over 45 books of poetry and two prose books.