Man Camp (12 page)

On clear days, he tells them, there are vistas of astonishing beauty at the tops of each ridge, overlooking valleys with creeks running along the bottoms outlined in fingers of silver mist. But today it’s overcast and low ceilings of clouds hover at the ridges, enveloping the truck in thick fog. When they’re at the top of the third and final ridge, at an elevation of more than three thousand feet, Cooper tells them they are crossing the spot where the water stops flowing east toward the Atlantic and begins flowing west toward the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico. Suddenly, the road falls out from underneath the campers and they plunge out of the clouds and into the valley, ears popping as they lose a thousand feet of elevation in minutes.

FOLDED INTO THE BACKSEAT of the Saab and squashed alongside their suitcases, Martha wishes she could peg what she finds unnerving about the diminutive woman who’s driving the car. Instead, she and Lucy fill Beatrice in on everything about Man Camp, from the genesis of the idea at La Luna to what they hope to accomplish at Tuckington Farm.

“Our main goal is to masculinize pampered city boys,” Martha explains.

“To help them find their inner man,” Lucy adds.

“I have to admit, when Cooper first told me about this, I assumed he’d gotten it wrong,” Beatrice says, laughing. “In my day, it was the women’s job to take some of the manliness
out
of the men, not try to put any back
in.
I figured that the only reason you’d bring men down here was for refinement, to teach them something about how to become Southern gentlemen.”

Lucy can only imagine how crazy it must sound to a woman like Beatrice, who has spent her life around capable men who hunt and farm and work with their hands. “You’ll see what we’re up against soon enough,” she promises. “It’s not that they’re not great men; they really are. It’s just that you wouldn’t want to count on any of them in a crisis.”

“Yep,” Martha chimes in from the back, “there’s nary a dragon slayer among them.”

“What?” Beatrice says.

Martha repeats the joke and Beatrice says, “That’s what I thought you said.”

To change the subject, Lucy launches into the Man Camp training calendar for the week. “If Cooper’s on schedule,” she says, looking at her watch, “Man Camp training is officially about to begin.”

“Automotive 101,” Martha says. “Fixing a flat tire.”

Lucy smiles at the prospect of Adam having grease on his hands. “Per our plan, Cooper is going to handle all the rudimentary macho stuff like carpentry, engine repair, farming, hunting, and so on. Our job will be to teach them the subtler art of masculinity: how to behave around women.”

“And these men actually
know
why you’ve brought them here?” Beatrice asks.

“Every one of them signed up willingly!” Martha says.

Lucy looks back at Martha. “Well, not exactly
every
one,” she says haltingly. “My boyfriend and Martha’s brother are under the impression that they’re here to support us.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Beatrice assures her. “My philosophy has always been to give men information on a need-to-know basis.”

Instead of feeling relieved, Lucy feels more anxious.

“We were thinking it might be fun to throw a party at the end of the week to celebrate their accomplishments,” Martha says.

“And maybe invite lots of Southern belles so the campers could practice their courtship skills,” Lucy adds.

“That’s a terrific idea. How about making it a dance?” Beatrice suggests.

“Even better,” Martha says.

“The old barn is the perfect spot and Jolene can help organize.”

“Jolene?” Martha asks.

“Yes, Jolene. She’s such a dear and so talented!” Beatrice says. “She’s a close friend of Cooper’s from church.”

Martha swallows hard.

IN A TOWN CALLED New Penial, Cooper announces that he needs to take a leak, and pulls the truck off the road beside a colonial ruin from the time of Thomas Jefferson. He leaps out of the car and, before the men even have a chance to open their doors, surreptitiously drops a couple of jack rocks in front of the rear wheel on the driver’s side. Then he relieves himself in a ditch. “Just a short ways up the road, there’s a big-ass statue commemorating the Confederate dead. The town fathers erected it one hundred years ago, assuming the settlement would expand north, only it never did and the poor thing stands out there, all by its lonesome, with nothing but horses grazing around it.”

The men smile; it’s hard not to like an affable guy like Cooper even though they were prepared not to. They already feel more at ease about their trip.

Simon gives his warning cough and starts an impromptu lecture on the Civil War. “Perhaps not everyone here knows that in 1862, Lincoln signed a bill creating the state of West Virginia to enlist its citizens to help the Union side.”

Cooper starts the engine and carefully drives over the newly planted jack rocks. Within a few miles, the campers hear the unfamiliar
thunk-thunk
sound of deflated rubber.

“Looks like we got us a flat, boys,” Cooper says, pulling over onto the shoulder and waiting for all the men to pile out.

Kurt points to the mass of nails sticking out from the tire. “What the hell is that?”

“That, my friend, is called a jack rock,” Cooper tells him. “It’s made of bent nails welded together, so that however it lands, one of the nails is always pointing upward. Pretty insidious, huh? Miners used to use them in union disputes to wreck the tires of the scab workers’ vehicles and the coal trucks, but this one was probably some kid’s idea of a prank.”

“Speaking of union disputes, it would be great to talk to some of the locals about the labor struggles of the twenties and thirties,” Simon says. “Perhaps there are some establishments where I could—”

“First things first,” Cooper interrupts. “We’ve got a tire to fix.”

“I got us covered here, gentlemen,” Walter announces, whipping out his cell phone and Palm Pilot. “Triple A guarantees service in less than half an hour for its premier members.” He assumes his best premier-member stance, legs shoulder-width apart, and taps the tiny buttons on his various gadgets.

There’s a palpable sense of relief among the men.

A moment passes and Walter gives his phone a look of consternation. He shushes Cooper, who’s trying to get his attention, and punches more buttons.

“Sorry, friend,” Cooper says, pointing to the wall of mountains. “You’re not going to get a signal anywhere near here.”

Walter shuts the phone.

“Don’t feel bad,” Cooper says. “Even if there was a signal, there isn’t a service station for miles. The good news is you’ll get cell coverage on the farm.”

A pall is cast upon the group.

Kurt says, “What the hell are we going to do now?” The vein in his forehead pulses with rage.

“It’s a flat, for God’s sake,” Cooper says, genuinely surprised at their helplessness. He’d been thirteen the first time he’d fixed a flat alone and even then it came as naturally as milking cows; he knew what to do from years of observing his father. Didn’t these city guys have dads? Or was there just never anything to fix in the city? “We get flats all the time in this terrain,” Cooper says, snapping back to the business at hand. “It’s no big deal. Hell, even if we didn’t have everything we needed to fix it, there’re
seven
of us! We could carry the truck if we had to.” Cooper kneels down in the mud, looks under the vehicle, and assesses the damage.

Aghast, Bryce watches as stains spread across the knees of Cooper’s jeans, the exact-vintage classic Levi’s he’s been in search of for more than a year. “Where’d you get your jeans?” he asks, admiring the stitching. “I’ve looked for that pair in every vintage store in Manhattan!”

“They were my dad’s, Bryce,” Cooper says evenly. “Now, let’s focus on learning a thing or two about how to change a tire. Adam, will you grab me the gauge from the glove box?”

When Adam opens the box, the first thing he comes upon is a shiny pistol. “Holy shit,” he says, picking up the gun. “What’s this doing here? Is it loaded?”

“Of course it’s loaded,” Cooper says. “You don’t carry a gun because it’s pretty. Please put it down and grab the tire gauge, would you?”

Adam does as he’s told. “Why do you have it?”

“No particular reason,” Cooper answers. “Most people carry in these parts. It tends to keep trouble at bay. Maybe we’ll do some shooting at the farm later in the week. Or better yet, I’ll take y’all to the range.”

As shocked as they were by the gun, Cooper can tell the idea of shooting somehow intrigues the campers. Clearly, he’s tapped into the universal male desire to blow things up. “So when’s the last time any of you changed a tire?” he asks.

Silence.

Cooper can’t believe it—he owes Martha ten bucks! He didn’t think it was possible that six grown men had never changed a tire. “You mean to tell me none of you has
ever
done this?” He looks at Adam and Bryce, who happen to be standing closest. “What do you do when your girlfriend calls with a flat?”

“Tell her to hail another cab?” Bryce says.

Not amused, Cooper says, “We take caring for our women seriously in these parts.”

“It was just a joke,” Bryce says. “The point is, no one drives in New York.”

“And in our parts,” Adam adds, “we’d be in more trouble for referring to them as ‘our women.’ ”

Cooper likes that Adam has stood up to him, and imagines that he has a point to boot. Perhaps Cooper hasn’t given him enough credit.

“Well, I don’t think we’d want to hail anyone around here,” Jesse adds, having noticed a certain
Deliverance
-like physiognomy in the truck drivers who’ve been passing them, with rifles stacked high on racks in their rear windows.

“You’re right about that,” Cooper says, thinking a little hillbilly fear might help motivate the men to learn. “Shall I show you how this goes?”

The campers give Cooper their full attention and make a tight semicircle around him.

“First thing you do is get your tire iron,” he says, reaching under the driver’s seat. “Which, incidentally, doubles as a weapon in a pinch.” He slaps the tire iron against his hand to demonstrate its heft. “Then you loosen the lugs on the bum wheel. Now, a lot of guys will want to jack up the truck first, but you’ll know better,” Cooper says, lowering his voice. “You can’t get traction if the wheel spins, so leave it on the ground and take advantage of leverage.”

There are some ahhs and hmms.

“Anyone want to take a shot at loosening the lugs?”

Kurt volunteers, though instead of following Cooper’s suggestion to lean into it and use his body mass and legs for leverage, he puts his gym-toned biceps and shoulders to work, grunting from the strain.

“Good job,” Cooper says, slapping Kurt on the back for praise. He can respect a man who finds his own way. He places the handful of lugs into Jesse’s palm and tells him not to lose them.

One by one, Cooper gets each man involved and soon they are working as a team: Walter breaks out the jack; Bryce checks the pressure of the other tires; Adam goes under the truck to unchain the spare, which Cooper tells him is just past the rear differential. (He figures he’ll know what a rear differential looks like once he’s found the spare.)

Cooper shows them how to find the best spot on the frame for the jack, and using the lug wrench as a handle, Walter pumps the jack up and down until it lifts the truck, eventually bringing the tire off the ground. Of course, he can’t resist the opportunity to exaggerate the thrusting motion, grunting away like a frat boy getting lucky. Cooper considers reprimanding him for his juvenile behavior, but decides against it. Lucy and Martha are in charge of manners, and he needs to stay focused on his own job: teaching the campers trademark acts of masculinity.

“Remember: The spare will have more volume than the flat,” he tells them. “So make sure to lift the truck higher than you think you’ll have to.”

The men are getting into the lesson now, excited that Cooper is letting them in on tricks that would take years for them to figure out on their own.

Cooper pulls off the flat with a jerk and slides the spare expertly onto the hub. “You’ll want to finger-tighten the lug nuts in a star pattern to hold the tire in place,” he explains, “then you use the lug wrench to finish the job.” Once the lugs are secure, he has Jesse reinsert the wrench into the jack and turn it a quarter turn. The cylinder lets off and the truck settles back to the ground.

“Cool,” Jesse says.

“Now that it’s back on the ground, you want to tighten them one last time,” Cooper tells him.

At this very moment, Martha and Lucy and Beatrice drive by, slowing down to a stop about twenty feet in front of Cooper’s truck when they see the men stranded. Martha sticks her head out the passenger-side window. “Everything okay?” she shouts.

Jesse’s hand is still on the jack. “Everything’s fine,” he calls back,
No big deal
written all over his face. “Just changing a tire.”

Cooper smiles and gives Martha a thumbs-up. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Adam waves to Lucy and calls out, “See you at the farm.”

“Okey-dokey,” Lucy says. “Dinner will be waiting.”

As Beatrice accelerates, Lucy rolls up the window. She and Martha howl with laughter, thrilled that Man Camp is already working.

With the dirty work behind them, Bryce breaks out a handful of individually packaged sanitary wipes that he has stashed in his knapsack. “ ‘Be prepared’ is my motto,” he says, offering them to his new friends.

“One step forward, two steps back,” mutters Cooper, wiping his own hands on the dirty rag he keeps under his seat.

The light is green when they finally drive into Neola, the county seat of Manasseh Valley, and Cooper slows down along the main drag, a narrow road framed by hundred-year-old trees. They pass the Neola County Courthouse, built in 1837, the old post office, and the barbershop where Cooper has gotten his hair cut his whole life. The sun has settled behind the hills and it’s almost dark when they drive by the pond where Cooper skated as a child. Across from the pond is a Confederate cemetery and beyond that is Tuckington Drive, the long dirt road that leads to the eight-hundred-acre farm.