Chapter One

This is a story about Jack Gas, a boy who grew into his name. Jack grew up as a normal boy who did normal things and everything about him screamed normal except for his name which was an easy target for the bullies at school and at the playground. He was teased mercilessly because his name sounded a bit like “jackass”.

In 6th grade, as “the puberty” visited, Jack developed quite a nervous stomach. He quite literally grew into his name. Jack became chronically flatulent. His body began producing methane at an enormous rate. Jack needed to expel this gas very frequently to avoid debilitating cramps and severe discomfort. At first, his “outbursts” arrived every five minutes or so, which Jackie tried to disguise by lifting a cheek off his chair and manually lifting and separating his buttocks to minimize the noise. Unfortunately this had the effect of making his gas “SBD” which we all know is “Silent, but deadly!”.

For some reason the farts smelled worse if there was no noise. The snap and pop of his noisier farts dispersed with a lesser olfactory effect. It was impossible for Jack to “sneak one by”. Anonymity was not an option. Everyone knew that all smells and all rude noises came from Jack Gas. This was actually convenient for some his classmates who could fart with impunity and never be blamed. A whole new perspective on “passing” gas. Jack Gas was given credit for other people’s twinkies. 

The toll on Jack Gas’s school/social life was extreme. He became ostracized No one wanted to be seated near Jack at school, the girls all thought he was gross and the boys, although some were secretly jealous of Jack’s ability to expel air at will, played along with the girls in calling out Jack Gas for being gross. Jack was reprimanded so often by the teacher for his classroom clearers that eventually Jack Gas was given permission to leave the class discretely without raising his hand first if he felt an eruption coming on (which was frequently). 

Jack Gas’s home life also had become quite different. The constant flatulence meant that Jack ate in the kitchen at dinner time rather than around the dining room table with his family. Road trips together were also a thing of the past as Travel with Jack was quite unpleasant. Jack Gas’s only road trips were to see any one of a plethora of medical specialists who tried to get to the bottom of Jack Gas’s condition. Dieticians, internalists, allergists, just about every medical specialty ending in “ist”. Then the were the non medical “ists” and “paths”, herbalists, naturalists, mycologists, osteopaths, naturopaths, pathists, istopaths, none of whom could offer any relief. The only thing relieved was Jack Gas’s dad who was relieved of hundreds of dollars with each futile attempt to fix the problem.

Isolation began to take it’s toll on Jack Gas. He never got hugs from his parents, never horsed around with his brothers anymore. Jack Gas no longer played any team sports, didn’t go on field trips, in fact all extra curricular school activities had to be stopped. No scouts, no choir, no summer camp.

The family dog, “Pizza” didn’t mind most of Jack Gas’s smells, and only left the room for the most vile smelling ones. You knew a bad one was in the air if Pizza left the room.

Jack Gas was still afflicted by the time he had to start Junior High School. He had hoped to be better, but to no avail. His hormones were full on raging and Jack Gas started to notice girls. Girls noticed him as well, but only in order to avoid him. There was a girl he saw from time to time in the library who didn’t move if he sat down near her, and who treated Jack Gas normally. Her name was Lorna. She was what you might call “bookish”. She spent all of her spare time in the library. Jack Gas started to spend more time in the library as well now in hopes that he would somehow encounter Lorna. Even when he did encounter Lorna he had to wait until the engrossed Lorna surfaced from her reading. Jack felt like a polar bear waiting near a seal’s breathing hole in the ice for the seal to arrive. 

One day, as Lorna closed her book, she took off her eyeglasses and was cleaning the lenses when she looked up and there was an awkward moment when she and Jack Gas made eye contact. Jack nervously spoke first. They discussed the book she had just read and had similar observations about the plot and the characters. The small talk was good, but Jack had a question he was dying to ask her. He finally just blurted out “How come you don’t avoid me like everybody else?”

Lorna replied that she has no sense of smell, and furthermore, likes to be left alone to read, so  she didn’t find Jack Gas’s smells offensive, and as a bonus, no one bothered her if she sat near him. She continued by saying that she liked that Jack was respectful of her space and didn’t interrupt her reading. They started to hang out together and even walked home together as Lorna’s home was a mere block and a half away from his. 

One day, Lorna invited Jack Gas to come inside for a snack and to play backgammon. Jack balked, but Lorna reassured him that it was OK, her mum was deaf, so couldn’t hear his farts, and Lorna had inherited her poor sense of smell from her dad, Ernie “Hot Rod” Morris. Ernie got his nickname from a local hoodlum named Gary, whose only apparent skill was in giving nicknames as slurs to his neighbours. Gary had observed that Ernie was a very timid driver who drove at a snail’s pace through the neighbourhood. Ernie was not, in fact, timid, but drove slowly in the neighbourhood because of the dozens of children and pets that lived there. Jack’s nickname from Gary was: “Pepe” short for the Looney Tunes skunk Pepe Le Pew. Lorna was soon to become “Pepe Adjacent”

Hot Rod invited Jack to stay for supper. Cabbage rolls….. 

Jack Gas and Lorna became inseparable. Their friendship blossomed and seemed to be headed towards becoming a romance as well, but fate intervened. Maybe not fate insomuch as the inevitable cruelty and unfairness of life in the pitiless substrata of high school cliques. Lorna soon discovered that being Pepe Adjacent meant that she was soon unable to follow her other interests (choir, weaving, debating and puppetry) because of the gossip and cruel innuendos of her peers in these clubs. She had to decide if it was worth it to remain Jack’s friend. 

Lorna was in tears one night after she had gone to bed. Her dad had noticed she was not herself at dinner and when he heard the sniffles through her closed door, he knocked and entered. Lorna spelled out her dilemma to her father and he set himself to thinking about how to solve her problem. 

Her dad remembered years ago how out of place he had felt due to his lack of scent. His peers would put salt on his cornflakes and serve him actual dog biscuits. Could have been worse. Ernie told his dad about it and his dad suggested visiting a “word-of-mouth” man named “Ruby” who had a semi-hidden kiosk in a lane off a cul-de-sac in Chinatown. Ruby had various cures for sundry human conditions that actually worked. His ointment to destroy warts was his biggest seller, but he also had a balm for shingles, he had a pill that could give a man a 24 hour erection, and on a related note, an oil for any number of venereal diseases. Ruby had many other concoctions as well. When Young Ernie went with his dad to visit Ruby, he recalled the dimly lit, smoky hovel with deadly accuracy. When told of the problem, Ruby stroked his tiny grey beard and started to pull out several drawers and gather some ingredients together. Each ingredient was in a tiny box or vial that had icons on them that Ernie assumed were words in Mandarin. Ruby mixed seven dry ingredients that may have been herbs, or dried mushrooms or powdered bones, etc. Only Ruby knew exactly what the ingredients were, and he almost never spoke, hence these were secret recipes. When he had mixed his concoction for Young Ernie, he separated the powder into 8 piles with a razor blade and placed each pile into the centre of small brightly coloured origami papers (I know, Origami is Japanese and Ruby is Chinese). He then folded each little paper into neat envelopes that easily opened only one way and provided a natural spout to pour the powder either directly into the throat, or into a receptacle to mix with liquid. Ruby said “Good for 8 days” and “twenty dollars” and ended with “one small side effect, nothing free”. He never divulged what the side effect was, but it became clear after Young Ernie took his first dose and began smelling smells much more vividly than we ever could. It was like he got smell and taste on a level with a dog’s hearing. Ultra smell and ultra taste akin to having an operation on your eyes and going from blindness to fully sighted when the bandages were unravelled. Words like “lush”, “opulent”, “savoury” come to mind. The drawback was that each smell was like an overdose. Each taste was overwhelming and all together made for unpleasant eating. Young Ernie learned that day that living without scent and taste was not so bad as being overwhelmed by it to the point of paralysis. He flushed the seven remaining packets down the glugger.

Lorna said to her dad “I’m not asking for me…..It’s Jack’s problem.” Hot Rod said that maybe Ruby (if he’s still alive) has a cure for flatulence. Let’s go check it out. Lorna called Jack and they drove to Chinatown and parked on the outskirts. Hot Rod and Lorna walked along oblivious to all the wonderful aroma encounters available in Chinatown, but Jack was familiar with all the fried smells, the sugary smells, even the not so great stench of the trash bins behind each establishment. He bought some Sesame balls with the red plum paste inside to have later. 

Hot Rod’s memory navigated to the last lane before the cul-de-sac and he almost missed Ruby’s kiosk as it looked even more decrepit and over run than it had twenty years previous. He opened the door gingerly and squinted into the dark. Sure enough, on a stool behind the counter sat a wizened old gnome with a scraggly beard who bowed to him without speaking. Hot Rod started “you may not remember….” And the old man said: “no taste, I remember, want more?” Hot Rod  responded in the negative, the old man laughed…”side effect too much, huh?” And Hot Rod nodded.

Jack Gas didn’t need to describe his problem to Ruby. Ruby said “too many fart, yeah?” Jack shrugged. Ruby said “one minute” Ruby went about the same ritual he had done with Hot Rod twenty years earlier. Drawers flung open and shut, boxes and vials extracted, only the ingredients were different or maybe not, only Ruby knew. Ruby pulled out his mortar and pestle and began grinding ingredients in the mortar. He was humming lightly a melody that was all at once universal and unfamiliar. No words, just sounds, although to our ears a foreign language seems to be just sounds…. We don’t know if it was an incantation or just happy unrelated music. When Ruby was done, he separated the powder evenly and placed eight piles each on their paper origami paper and folded each one meticulously. He turned to Jack and said “good for eight days, no charge this time, next time forty dollar.” Ruby added: “not so small side effect, nothing free…!”

Hot Rod, Lorna and Jack returned to the car and started for home. Hot Rod suggested that Jack take the first envelope right away. Jack poured the powder down his throat and chased it with some iced bubble tea. Almost immediately Jack’s gas stopped. The relief was short lived, though as they discovered the “side effect”. Twenty minutes after ingesting the powder Jack sensed a humongous explosion building up inside of him and he knew it was going to be a ripper.

FRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR………………appppppppppppppp

I am not exaggerating when I say that from the time it started until it’s last murmur Hot Rod’s car logged 2 kilometres in city traffic. The volume and force of this particular fart might have even registered on the Richter scale. Aside from the force of it, both Hot Rod and Lorna who supposedly had no sense of smell, rolled down their windows and leaned towards the fresh air gasping. Some side effect. 

After the Guinness worthy fart, however, Jack experienced a relief that was to continue until the next day. Twenty four hours fart free. The potion worked.