Camp Pleasant (13 page)

He closed his eyes and lay there breathing heavily, mouth open. He rubbed an awkward hand across his brow, breath hissing slowly through gritted teeth.

“Get outta here,” he said hoarsely.

“Mack, come on,” I told him. “Get up. You’ve got to—”

“Who’s ‘at?” he asked, eyes open again, staring up at me.

“It’s Matt,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Matt,” he said, as if he were tasting the name, “Matt.” He winced and groaned a little, then whimpered with pain. “My hand,” he muttered. “Oh, Jesus God, my
hand.”

“Mack, come on. Miss Leiber will fix you up.”

He writhed his heavy-muscled shoulders on the mattress and then, with mindlessly irritated fingers, he fumbled and jerked down the zipper of his sleeping bag. I could see that his skin of his chest was flushed and covered with a dew of sweat.

“Hot,” he mumbled. “Goddam hot.”

“Mack, come on.” I put my hand on his arm. “Let’s go to—”

His left hand clamped, vise-like, on my wrist and he stared up at me. “Who th’hell
are
ya,” he asked.

“Matt Harper,” I said.

“Harper,” he said, letting go. He made a sound which, I guess, was laughter.
“Harper,”
he said. “We’ll ge’ rid o’ you too.” Another gasping, mirthless laugh. “Ge’ you the hell out same way we got Merv.” He grimaced. “Damn queer,” he muttered between his teeth, his head stirring fitfully on the pillow again.

I stood looking down at him blankly, listening to him mumble to himself.

“Ge’ you too,” he said. “You too. All fairies, all ya. We’ll get ya.” He drew in rasping, phlegmy breath and moaned, “Oh Jesus, Jesus, my

hand
!
“

“Mack, come on, let me—”

He knocked my hand off again and I straightened up.

“Took ‘is bathrobe,” Mack said, chuckling hollowly. “Stubid bastid, never even—”

He shuddered and, suddenly, opened his mouth wide. A long, loud groan filled the cabin.

“Hey, what’s that?” asked a boy’s thin, frightened voice across the way.

“Nothing,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

“Who’re
you?”

“The Werewolf of London,” I snapped. “Go to sleep, will you?”

I waited a few minutes, then left the cabin and went to the dispensary. Ten minutes of knocking managed to rouse a heavily dormant Miss Leiber who came to the door in her woolly wrapper. I told her Mack was feverish. She asked me why I didn’t bring him to the dispensary, and I told her. Clucking disgustedly to herself, she got dressed and went back with me.

When we reached Mack’s cabin, we found the lights on and Mack was propped on one elbow, cursing at kids. Miss Leiber shut him up. Then, between the two of us, we got him on his feet and down to the dispensary where she took over.

I walked back to the cabin, thinking of what Mack had mumbled unaware. How nicely, how sickeningly, it all fit together: Merv caught without his robe or towel, the damning evidence Big Ed had sought so long.

I lay awake quite a while, feeling as cold as the moon, thinking of a man named Edward Nolan and how his immediate removal from this world would make so many people so happy.

Madame La Toure ended it.

While we were eating lunch, Jack Stauffer got up at the leader’s table and raised his arms for quiet. He was holding a piece of yellow paper in his right hand and he stood there posed like that until talk had ceased. Then he lowered his arms while, seated beside him, Ed Nolan kept on eating.

“We just received a telegram this morning,” Jack announced, “in answer to a message we sent to Marie La Toure who, you all know, is the great French high-dive artist.”

A buzz of excited talk. “All right, all right, hold it down,” said Jack, amiably demanding, his arms raised again. When the boys had quieted down, he read, “
I am delighted to be asked to perform at Camp Pleasant stop Will be happy to do so stop I will be at the camp the morning of August 5th stop Sincerely Madame Marie La Toure.”

“Yay!” some boys began cheering and it caught on. I sat there thinking about Doc and Ed arguing.

“Now what this means,” Jack went on when quiet had more or less ensued, “is that the Madame will be here the day after tomorrow.”

He armed down a rising flurry of yays and hand clappings.

“Hold it,” he said. “And
that
means we’ve got a lot of work to do this afternoon and tomorrow to get the camp all cleaned up for the Madame’s arrival. We’ve got to erect an extension to the diving platform and the dock’s going to have to be really scrubbed down good, then decorated.”

A look of tender recollection came into Jack’s eyes.

“I don’t know whether any of you have ever seen Madame La Toure perform,” he said. “If you have, you know what a treat we’re in for. If you haven’t well, take it from me, you’re going to see one of the
greats
in high-dive artistry. Marie La Toure, although not too well known in this country, is a continental favorite in Europe where she’s performed before the crowned heads of England, Norway, Sweden and lots of other nations too numerous to mention.”

During rest period, the boys discussed the impending event with enthusiasm; except for Charlie Barnet who seemed more amused than excited. I remembered that this was his sixth year at Camp Pleasant and I asked him if he’d seen Madame La Toure before.

“Huh?”

I repeated.

“Yeah,” he said, “I seen her.”

“She good?”

He had obvious trouble repressing a smile. “Yeah,” he said, “she’s pretty good.”

Whereupon he was deluged with questions from the boys which he answered carefully, slowly and, I was sure, falsely.

After rest period, we were sent down to the dock to help slick it up and I asked Jack Stauffer about it. He and I were on top of the diving platform, nailing on the beginnings of an extension.

“What’s the deal with this Madame La Toure?” I asked.

“Deal?” he asked back, looking surprised.

I nodded, “Yeah. Is there really such a person?”

He looked still more surprised.

“You heard the telegram,” he said sincerely. “You don’t think I made it up, do you?”

I looked at him carefully. “You pulling my leg?” I asked. He laughed pleasantly. “You’ll see,” he said. “She’s a magnificent performer.”

“Then there really
is
a Madame La Toure?” “Of course,” he said.

That evening, Ed Nolan got around to informing me that I was fired. It was after supper and Sid told me that Ed wanted me in the office.

As I went in through the dining hall door, Ed was sitting at his desk, his back to me, thumbing through some papers—the employees’ contracts, I noticed as I came closer. I stood beside the desk and he kept thumbing through them. He found mine and, without even glancing up at me, tossed it on the desk.

“You’re out,” he said. “Sign the bottom line. You’ll get ya check in September.”

I stood there, motionless, until he looked up.

“I said
sign
it,” he told me in that same tone of voice I’d heard when he’d demanded an apology of Merv.

“When am I supposed to leave?” I asked.

“I want ya out o’ camp by tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be out,” I said and, leaning over the desk, I signed the dismissal clause at the bottom of the contract, feeling a little sick as I did because I knew that, after the next night, I’d never see Ellen again.

I tossed the pen on the desk and straightened up.

“Now get out o’ this office,” he said, sounding less imperious than sullen and disgruntled.

“Good night,” I said, and left the office. There was no violence left in me. I was just tired of the whole damn business.

It was a Wednesday night and there were movies down in the lodge so I sent my boys there and stayed in the cabin, packing my trunk.

I was folding up some shirts and putting them away when the screen door squeaked open and, looking over my shoulder, I saw Tony standing there.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, Matt,” he said. He came in and walked over to where I was. “What’re ya doin’?”

“Nothing. Why aren’t you down at the movies?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“Oh.” I knew what he really meant was he didn’t like to sit among boys who did not welcome him.

“What’re ya packin’ your trunk for?” he asked.

I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to lie. “I’m leaving,” I said.

I didn’t see his face but his voice was very surprised.
“Leavin’?”
he said. “Why?”

Again, I saw no reason for lying and I told him I’d been fired by Nolan.

“What for?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of my bunk, looking at me curiously.

I shrugged. “We just don’t get along,” I said.

“Was it because ya got me outta cleanin’ the garbage cans?”

“Oh … I don’t think so, Tony. It’s more than that.”

“Jesus,” he said. “That dirty son-of-a—” “All right, Tony,” I cut him off. “Let it go.” He watched in silence a while as I packed. “How are you getting along?” I asked him. “What d’ya mean?”

“Are you getting used to being in Mack’s cabin?”

He shrugged. “I dunno,” he said carelessly.

“You washing your clothes?”

Another shrug. “I s’pose.”

“Not having any fights, I hope.”

“Not unless I feel like it,” said Tony.

I closed my trunk and sat on the top so the lock would catch. I pushed in the catch, then looked up at him. “I’ll miss you, Tony,” I said.

He didn’t seem to understand. He looked at me blankly. “What d’ya mean?” he asked.

“I mean I like you. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“I … guess so.”

“Well, I’ll be sorry not to see you any more.” “Why?”

“Because we’re friends,” I said, “and I don’t like to leave my friends.”

“Oh.” He looked at the floor.

“Tony,” I said, “will you promise me something?”

He looked up suspiciously. “What?”

“Will you be a good boy the rest of the season? Wash your clothes, don’t fight, try to make friends with the other boys?” “Aaaah, they don’t want no friends,” he said. “How do you know?” He shrugged. “I know,” he said.

“What about David Lewis?” I asked. “Why don’t you make friends with him?”

“ That
pansy?”

“He’s a good kid, Tony, don’t fool yourself,” I said. “He’s quiet, that’s all.”

He stood up. “Well, I gotta go,” he said.

I put out my hand. “I may not see you tomorrow to say good-bye, Tony,” I said. “So shall we shake hands now?”

He stared at me, not the trace of a smile on his face. Then he came over and shook my hand solemnly. “You got the dirty end o’ the stick,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it, Tony,” I said, pushing a friendly fist against his jaw. “Just be good.”

“Sure, Matt,” he said, and turned away.

I sat on the trunk a long time after he was gone, staring at the screen door. Sure, Matt. Sure, Matt. His last words kept repeating in my mind. Sure, Matt. Sure—and he was damned. His future lay in the hands of a misunderstanding father and in the city streets where he’d play and grow like a weed that breaks through concrete, surviving, not because it’s beautiful or good but because it’s hardy enough to exist despite every condition which seeks to kill it.

I felt pretty low down that night, thinking of Tony, of Ellen. So low down that I didn’t even bother telling the boys that I was leaving. I had them get ready for bed and I went to bed too and lay there awake, feeling lousy.

The next morning, all the boys got dressed in their Sunday clothes for the performance of Madame Marie La Toure, France’s contribution to the art of the high dive. I hadn’t had much chance to ponder over the existence or non-existence of the woman but it sort of bothered me that morning, despite the growing tension I felt as I approached the moment when I’d have to leave Ellen forever. If the Madame La Toure business were a gag, what in hell was the punch line? For a whole day the boys had knocked themselves out sweeping, mopping, painting, scrubbing, hanging bunting and streamers and a huge painted banner—
WELCOME TO CAMP PLEASANT, MADAME LA TOURE!
Now they were getting dressed in their best clothes, all chattering excitedly—except for Charlie Barnett.