A Fistful of Fig Newtons (7 page)

There was a penciled note at the bottom: “See me. Mr. Gordon.”

Mr. Gordon was our scoutmaster. He drove a truck for the Silvercup Bread Company, the official bread of all us kids, because they sponsored “The Lone Ranger.” Somehow, because Mr. Gordon worked for Silvercup, he seemed to have a direct connection with the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and he never denied it. We clumped over to Mr. Gordon, who was instructing two kids in artificial respiration. One lay flat on the concrete with his tongue hanging out, pretending he had drowned, while the other kid, Scut Farkas, sat on his back–Scut’s favorite position–gouging away rhythmically at his rib cage.

“You count to yourself: ‘One first-aid, two first-aid, three first-aid …’ ”
Mr. Gordon stood over them calling strokes, while the kid underneath turned purple trying not to laugh.

“Mr. Gordon, what about Camp Nobba-whatever-it-is?” Flick asked.

“Oh yes.” Mr. Gordon peered at us blandly through his thick glasses. “Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee is a truly splendid experience. I went there as a boy. You’ll gain much from Colonel Bullard. Since I am an old Chipmunk myself, they have offered to give special rates to any boys in Troop 41.”

I thought, What’s a Chipmunk? I should have asked. It would have saved a lot of trouble later.

That night half the troop went home with brochures extolling the glories of Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee on the shores of Lake Paddachungacong. All over the neighborhood, skirmishes broke out as members of Troop 41 hurled themselves onto the floor and threw tantrums to be sent to camp. Ours was not a summer-camp neighborhood. In fact, summer was considered a time of glorious freedom, when we eddied up and down alleys, through vacant lots, and over infields with no more sense of purpose than a school of minnows. Now, in our innocence, we were clamoring to be enlisted in Colonel Bullard’s legions, where we would learn indelibly that there are other kinds of summers.

Camp began on the tenth of June, which was a week after school let out, and you could sign up for a four-week or an eight-week period.

“You’ll have to talk to your father about it.” My mother sounded a bit uncertain as I tore around the house waving the brochure, already–in my mind’s eye–paddling a birchbarck canoe down the rapids in classic Indian fashion. It was bowling night and there was no telling how the old man would be when he got home. It all depended on how he rolled. Some nights, when his hook wasn’t breaking and he wasn’t picking up any wood, he’d come home sullen and smelling ripely of beer. He’d slam his bowling ball into the closet along with his shoes, and go
stomping around the kitchen, muttering. On those nights, nobody said a word.

My kid brother Randy, upon hearing about Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee, had run cheering around the dining-room table about five times, until he found out that kids under ten weren’t allowed, after which he threw a fit, falling onto the floor, kicking off his shoes, and crawling under the daybed, where he lay sobbing and punching the wall.

While I was throwing stuff all around my room, digging in my closet among the socks and baseball cards for my boy-scout ax, there was a roar in the driveway that meant the old man was home from bowling. Our Oldsmobile made a distinctive, loose-limbed, gurgling racket that came from 120,000 hard miles and gallons of cheap oil.

“YER LOOKIN’ AT A GUY THAT JUST ROLLED A SIX-HUNDRED SERIES! My God, was I pickin’ off them spares! You never saw nothin’ like it!” He strode across the kitchen ten feet tall, smelling of Pabst Blue Ribbon and success. “You wouldn’t believe it. I picked up a seven-ten split tonight that was like somethin’ outa this world!”

He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of cans of beer. “On the second game, I had six strikes in a row before I spared. Wound up with a two forty-eight. Even Zudock had to admit I was really layin’ em in.”

“Dad,” I said, “I—”

“Ya know, kid, I’m gonna start givin’ ya bowlin’ lessons. If I’d a started at your age, lemme tell ya, I’d have a two-twenty average at least and—”

“He has something he wants to ask you,” my mother broke in, setting a clean glass down in front of the old man. She was always trying to break him of the habit of sucking up his beer out of the can. He opened the Pabst, took a long swig from the can, and wiped his mouth.

“Hey, what the hell’s this?” He was looking at the Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee folder on the table.

“That’s what he was going to ask you about,” said my mother nervously. I could tell she was on my side. “You see, he wants to go to camp this summer.”

“CAMP!” The old man set his beer down hard. “Camp!”

“Yes!” I leaped into the breach. “Mr. Gordon, our scoutmaster, told us all about Camp Nobba-whatever-its-name-is and Schwartz and Flick and Kissel are going and a lot of other kids from the troop and …”

My father peered at the brochure intently, looking at a picture of a bunch of kids sitting around the campfire.

“Camp? Well, I’ll be damned. I never went to no camp when I was a kid.” Then he read aloud: “Indian lore and leathercraft with … hey, how the hell much is this gonna cost?”

I knew it was time for me to be quiet.

“It’s on the back.” My mother sounded cheerful as she poured the rest of the beer into the glass.

My father scanned the figures on the back. “Holy Christ!”

“They give boy scouts special rates,” my mother said hopefully.

“They’d better, at those prices.” He started flipping the pages. “Hey, what’s this?” He looked closer at the brochure. “What’s this archery stuff?”

“That’s bows and arrows,” I squeaked.

“Bows and arrows!” The old man chortled. “Boy, you could’na paid me to shoot bows and arrows in the summertime when I was a kid.”

“And they have birchbark canoes, and they have this lifesaving badge with—”

The old man drained his beer. “Listen,” he said, “you shoulda seen what I did on the third game. I started out with an open frame and it looked like I was gonna blow it, but then the old hook started to work and—”

“Don’t you think just this once we might be able—” My mother hung in there.

“Camp? Sure, why the hell not? If the kid wants to mess around with bows and arrows, I guess you gotta get that kinda stuff out of your system.”

At this, there was a sudden hysterical bleat from under the daybed.

“What the hell’s eatin’ him?” asked the old man.

“Kids under ten can’t go to camp,” I stated with deep-felt satisfaction. There were more muffled sobs and thumpings as Randy kicked the wall.

“KNOCK IT OFF!” the old man hollered. “You’ll get your turn. You’re too little to be messin’ around with bows and arrows.”

There was another shriek from under the daybed, but you could tell he didn’t have his heart in it. I guess he knew it wouldn’t do him any good to yell and holler any more, and he might even wind up getting a swat on the behind if he kept it up.

I lay in bed that night stiff with excitement, even then aware that a new era had begun. Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee–with its dancing waters, its zestful program of outdoor sports and recreational activities under the personal supervision of Colonel D. G. Bullard, U. S. Army (Ret.)–lay just ahead, glittering in the golden sunlight like the Emerald City at the end of the Yellow Brick Road of springtime.

The next night, at the kitchen table, my mother filled out the application–signing me up for a month–stuck it in an envelope, slapped a stamp on it, and handed it to me.

“Here. Take this down to the mailbox before your father changes his mind.”

I tore out of the house and flew down the street to the mailbox. It clanged shut. The die was cast! Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to enter the sacred rolls of Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee, my name for all time inscribed on the birchbark scroll that was kept under glass in the Longlodge, the camp’s main wigwam.

A week later, a message arrived for my mother on camp stationery, which featured a bright yellow arrowhead and the silhouette of an Indian paddling a canoe in the moonlight.

She read it over a couple of times and passed it to my father, who was studying the sports page–in vain–for the merest hint of good news about the White Sox. He read it and turned to me.

“Well, Chipmunk, you all set for a big summer?”

“Yeah.” It was about all I could think of to say. For some reason, I was beginning to feel a little scared.

The next couple of weeks were nothing but running around
buying new shorts, T-shirts, and underwear without holes. My mother toiled night after night with the name tapes, attaching them to every sock and handkerchief. My brother had become permanently sullen and spent a lot of time in the bathroom with the door locked, or under the porch.

Now that we were Chipmunks, Schwartz, Flick, Kissel, and I drifted off from the kids who weren’t going to camp. Already we were becoming part of the special world of Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. On the way to the store at night, I would practice walking like an Indian, so that I could sneak up silently in the woods when I was hunting deer. I had read about it in Uncle Dan Beard’s column in
Boy’s Life
. I began to feel lean and sinewy as I moved like a shadow past the poolroom, a lone hunter in search of game.

The days crawled by with maddening slowness. The close of school, which usually ranked second only to Christmas in sheer ecstasy, passed almost without my noticing. Even bigger things were in store. Little did I suspect how big.

On the night before the big day, it took forever for me to go to sleep, and it seemed like five minutes later I was awake again. It was already four-fifteen. The alarm was set to go off in an hour. I lay there in the dark, listening to the old man snore. Outside, the rain was pouring down in sheets.

By five forty-five we were in the Olds, my huge suitcase piled in the back seat between me and my kid brother, who appeared to be glad that it was raining for my first day in camp.

“Jesus,” said the old man, “I haven’t been up this early since the Bumpus mob’s white-lightning still blew up.”

My mother, who was huddled in the front seat, bundled against the chill, with her hair all done up in aluminum rheostats, kept saying, “Now, you write. And you be careful, you hear? I don’t want you getting drowned.” Like all mothers, she had a thing about drowning.

We pulled up at the bus terminal at precisely six-fifty. Already a milling mob of kids, with associated parents and sisters and a
raggle-taggle crowd of kid brothers, all of whom looked mad, had formed in the main lobby under a canvas banner that read CAMP NOBBA-WAWA-NOCKEE. A short, round-faced man wearing a khaki uniform with a yellow arrowhead on the sleeve stood on a folding chair amid the mob.

“I’m Captain Crabtree,” he shrilled. “Now, all you campers, listen carefully.”

The excitement was electric. I spotted Schwartz in the crowd, lugging a steamer trunk. Flick and Kissel were over on the other side. Mrs. Kissel was sniffling.

“HEY, SCHWARTZ!” I hollered.

“I said LISTEN!” Captain Crabtree stared balefully through his glasses at me. I had made my first false move.

“Say all of your good-bys and make it snappy. We move out at 0700. Convey all your baggage over there to that platform. All Chipmunks raise your hands.”

I stuck my hand proudly in the air along with about a third of the rest of the kids.

“This is your first year, and you are not aware of the tradition of the Chipmunk cap. My assistant, Lieutenant Hubert Kneecamp, will pass them out. You will wear your Chipmunk cap at all times, so that you can be readily identified as a Chipmunk.”

Oh boy! A Chipmunk cap! It has often been noted that lambs go eagerly to the slaughter. So it was with Chipmunks. Lieutenant Hubert Kneecamp, who doubled as the bus driver, stumbled out onto the platform carrying a huge cardboard box. He was tall, very thin, and had a sad expression that reminded me of Pluto in the Mickey Mouse cartoons.

The lieutenant opened the box and began to pass out bright green beanies with a yellow arrowhead on the front. I pressed forward, so as not to miss my cap. Lieutenant Kneecamp shoved one into my waiting mitt. I quickly jammed it onto my head. It came down over my ears and I could barely see out from under the brim.