Camp Pleasant (18 page)

“That’s not too soon for
me,”
said Marty Gingold.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Come on. Each of you take a screen. Let’s get them cleaned.”

This took about an hour, what with releasing the rust-stuck catches, lugging the screens up to Paradise where the hoses were, waiting our turn, then returning to the cabin with the washed screens and reinstalling them. At eleven-thirty came swimming time. The dock buzzer sounded and the sweaty boys rushed down the hill to splash in the lake.

Tony and I were alone in the cabin. He half-lay, half-sat on his bunk staring at a comic book. I could hear his heavy breathing in the silence as I lay there staring at the overhead bunk.

“Why
should
, we leave?” he suddenly said.

I lifted my head a little and looked over at his hard, resentful face.

“You know exactly why,” I said.

“Just because the fat guy’s dead?”

“Forget it,” I said, turning on my side.

He cursed to himself.

“If you want to curse, get out of here,” I said.

I heard him fling his comic book on the floor. Then his sneakers hit the floor and I heard the scrape of his baseball bat as he dragged it away from its leaning place against the wall.

“Ain’t
none
o’ ya care!” he said, and his toughness cracked right down the middle for a moment. “None o’ ya care about nothin’!”

The screen door slapped shut behind him and I heard his footsteps as he moved away. I shouldn’t have done that, I thought. He was hurting enough. I lay there staring at the wall, feeling my heart thud slowly in my chest like the fist of a dying man on the wall of his prison.

Lunchtime; a rehash of breakfast. After it was over, our cabin stayed in the dining hall and, with the aid of Mack’s cabin, scrubbed the floor. I looked through the
Lost and Found
box and found three of Tony’s teeshirts, one of his sport shirts, two of his towels and his rain hat. I sent him back to the cabin with them.

As the afternoon progressed, I kept getting more and more tense, thinking about Merv. What if he hadn’t done it? Then there could be no hope at all. I went to the office to see Sid.

“Is he back yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not till five or after, Matt,” he said. Doc was in Emmetsville to see Ellen and find out about Merv. “Oh. All right.”

“Matt, you’re not getting up too much hope on this?”

I swallowed. “I was the one who didn’t think we should even
tell
the sheriff about it, remember?”

“I know that,” he said. “But you want to believe it. Don’t you?”

“Don’t you?”

“Sure I do,” he said. “But I’m not going to until we know for sure.”

“All right.” I left the office without another word.

Time passing. Minutes spinning past, hours ticking by. The last day of camp. Merv in town being questioned. Ellen waiting to know if she was innocent or not. All of us in camp waiting, waiting. The last day of camp.

The four-thirty buzzer went off. The boys raced for their bathing suits while Mack and I finished pushing the tables back into place.

“Don’t hurt your wrist,” I told him.

“It’s okay,” he said in the tone of voice which indicated nothing of his feelings.

When I left the dining hall, Mack walked beside me. I didn’t know why but I held back a little so as not to move ahead. Our relationship since the fight and, especially, since Ed’s death had been virtually nonexistent. We nodded to one another in passing but that was about the extent of it. I had no idea how he felt toward me.

“Well,” he said, as we started across the bridge, “I guess this winds it up.”

“Guess,” I said. “A pity too. Most of these kids want to stay.”

He nodded. “‘Specially that little wop of yours,” he said.

I forced down the tightening. He’d used the term without guile. I realized abruptly that he was one of those who could call a colored man a nigger without realizing it was an insult.

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Sid told me about him,” Mack said. “I didn’t know before.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“You comin’ back next year?” he asked.

I glanced over to see if he was smiling. But there wasn’t a trace of mockery on his face and there hadn’t been any in his voice.

“I doubt it,” I said.

He nodded once. “Well,” he said, “I … hope ya don’t hold no grudge against me.”

I stared at him. “I—”

“Take it easy, Matt,” he said, heading for his cabin.

I watched him until he’d gone in. Then, almost dazedly, I went into my cabin. We’d been enemies. I’d hated his guts, he’d hated mine; we’d fought. Now this.

It’s guys like Arthur MacNeil that make life confusing.

Doc returned near the end of supper. I saw the truck pull in off the road and, through the screen door, I watched him walk slowly toward the office.

I couldn’t eat. I tried to wait a while and not rush in on him. But I couldn’t hold myself. After a few minutes of rising tension, I got up and crossed the floor quickly, my legs feeling numb, my heart beating in slow, gigantic thuds.

He was sitting slumped at his desk, staring at the blotter. When the door shut behind me, he turned and looked at me without a word. He didn’t even have to say it.

“Why
?” I asked, not even conscious of the frail shaking sound my voice was.

“His friend says they were eating breakfast when it happened,” Doc told me. He shook his head once, eyes lowering. “There’s no evidence, son. The sheriff had to let him go.”

“Oh
… Christ.”
I put my left hand over my eyes and sank down on a chair. I hadn’t realized it till then but I was staking everything on Merv’s being guilty. It was the one prop I had left. Now it was kicked out from under me and I was falling.

At eight o’clock that night the entire camp assembled in the Fire Circle, which was a rough circle of log benches arranged in tiers around a smaller brick circle in which the fires were lit.

It was just beginning to get dark. The bonfire crackled loudly, its fluttering orange-yellow arms reaching high above the logs, filling the air with darting sparks which disappeared like short-lived fireflies. I remember that scene vividly—night edging in around us until only the fire kept it out. All of us sitting in that blackness, boys and counselors all huddled together in a circle of glowing, fiery light.

Doc said a few words, so did Sid and Jack and Barney. It’s been a nice summer, we’re glad you came, sorry it had to end this way. We sang a few songs. I directed, watching the faces of the boys flicker with the light and shadow; hearing the sputtering crackle of the fire behind me, feeling its buffeting head; hearing the joined voices sing as only boys can sing when they’re around a campfire and feeling different.

“Should aulde acquaintance be forgot and the days of aulde lang syne.”

When the meeting was over, flashlights were unsheathed and the night was flayed open by slashing white beams. The dark paths became passages of criss-crossed white ribbons dancing up and down and sideways as, talking in mysterious night voices, the boys returned to the cabins for their last night’s sleep in Camp Pleasant.

The overhead bulb of Cabin Thirteen seemed particularly bare and sterile after the warm glow of the fire. It ended the momentary feeling of nostalgia the singing had brought about and seemed to point up the harshness of farewell.

It being the last night, Charlie Barnett and Marty Gingold decided a general roughhouse was in order. To this Chester and the Moody boys were more than amicable. I didn’t stop them since all the cabins were exploding at the seams. I left the cabin when the horseplay started and headed for Paradise with my toothbrush and paste.

Paradise had a few customers in it preparing for bed; the boys who, one day, would doubtlessly brush their teeth under enemy fire, the oblivious neat who move concisely through life, unruffled and dispassionate.

When I returned to the cabin, I found my mattress and bedclothes lying across one of the rafters and a mottle-faced Jim Moody yelling for succor where he’d been bound to the center post of the cabin. From the trembling conspirators under their blankets came ill-muffled giggles.

I released Jim Moody who pounced on his brother with a vengeful curse. I ignored the battle while I replaced my mattress and made up the bunk.

Then I made the rolling Moodys get in bed and checked each undercover man. Tony was the only one not there. I put Chester in charge of the cabin and told him his head would roll if there were any more disturbances before I came back. Then I turned out the light and went looking for Tony. All along the rows of cabins, lights were going out and imperfect stillness settling.

I walked around the Senior Division a while but Tony wasn’t there. I went down the hill and looked in the dark lodge but he wasn’t there. I looked on the dock and in the dining hall but he wasn’t there either.

On the verge of getting alarmed, I found him sitting on the visiting team bench of the ball field. He was leaning on his
Louisville Slugger
as an old man sitting on a sunlit bench will lean upon his cane.

“Bedtime, Tony,” I said.

He didn’t speak or budge. He kept staring out at the moon-gleaming diamond with listless eyes.

“Come on, Tony.”

“Yeah.” He sighed heavily and got up without another word.

We started back to the cabin. I tried to put my arm around his shoulders but he twisted away and I let my arm drop, feeling as if he were a tightly wound spring ready to leap at the slightest touch.

Back in the cabin, I waited while he got out of his clothes and slipped between his grimy sheets.

“All packed?” I asked, and he shrugged carelessly. I checked his foot locker and found his clothes all there—what was left of them anyway. It looked like a pile of soiled laundry. Closing the top of the locker, I straightened up and flicked off the light.

“Goodnight, Tony,” I said. He didn’t answer.

Silence in my cabin. I lay on the bunk staring up at the overhead mattress sagging with the not inconsequential weight of Chester Wickerly. I tried to think about them all going home tomorrow—Chester, Charlie, Marty, the Moody brothers. I tried to think about David and his mother. I tried to concentrate on Tony and his problems; but all I could think about was Ellen.

I don’t know when I fell asleep; the transition between consciousness and unconsciousness was too subtle to be noticed. I remember dreaming though. Ellen and I were in a long, dark hallway and there were black figures coming toward us from both directions. Ellen clung to me, terrified. I remember how she clutched at my arm. The black figures had flashlights and they kept shining them into our eyes. Ellen began to scream. She was screaming and screaming and—

Screaming!

I jolted up in bed with a gasp, my head snapping around.

Tony was screaming as if he’d lost his mind. His screams rang out shrilly in the dark cabin, pouring endlessly from his throat. I heard one of the boys call out, “Jesus, what’s
wrong
!
“

Heart pounding, I flung off the blankets and jumped over to Tony’s bunk. I saw the dark outline of him sitting bolt upright in his bunk, screaming.

“Tony!” I said.

He kept screaming.

“Tony!”
I sat down quickly beside him and grabbed his arms.

“No!” he cried in a horror-stricken voice.

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him as he screamed again in my face.

“Tony, wake up!”

The light flashed on and, glancing aside, I saw Marty Gingold standing by the switch in his pajamas, mouth and eyes round with shock.

“What’s up?” he asked breathlessly.

“Turn it out!” I ordered.

The cabin was plunged into darkness again and I turned back to Tony who was sobbing now, trying to talk in a guttural, jerky voice.

“Didn’t,” he gasped, “I tell ya I
didn’t
. Le’ me alone, ya bastid, le’ me alone!”

“Tony, be quiet.”

“I didn’t,” he sobbed, “I didn’t do nothin’. It ain’t m-my fault. It ain’t. I didn’t—”

I clapped my hand over his mouth, suddenly understanding. I don’t know why I knew; I just did. It came as more of a physical reaction than anything. A prickling sensation along my spine, a sudden numbing of my hands and feet.

He began struggling wildly in my grip. I felt his teeth dig into my hand and, with a dull cry, I jerked it away.

“Le’ me alone!” he screamed. “You’re dead! You’re
dead!”

I clapped my hand over his mouth again, glancing aside in panic as the light in Mack’s cabin came on. I pushed Tony back on the pillow, feeling the pounding rush of blood in my temples and wrists.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Mack call out.

“Nothin!”‘ I yelled back. “A bad dream.” “Oh.”

I bent over Tony and put my lips close to his ear as he writhed insanely in my grip.

“Tony, it’s Matt, it’s Matt,” I whispered, hardly able to breathe. “It’s all right, Tony, all right. Go to sleep. Go to sleep, baby, it’s all right. It’s all right, Tony, it’s all
right.”
I felt hot tears running down my cheeks. “It’s all right, Tony,” I whispered, “It’s all right.”