WARM FUZZY
I hate you, Tad. You don’t just introduce yourself to a girl on the dock and chat her up about the little podunks you’re both from, discover how much you’ve got in common, sit real close, get the crazy idea you and her ought to run off the dock in all your clothes, jump hand in hand in the lake, together invent new swim-stokes, laugh lots, thank the girl for the swim, and then go ask some slut like Helena Johnson on the Midnight Hike. As if you didn’t feel that once-in-a-campweek connection with the girl on the dock! As if you had a realer talk with Helena Johnson! Did you know that until last month she had a boyfriend three years older than her and that they did about everything you can do together that isn’t technically sex? She told me the first night here. So it’s not just that you’re picking her over me, it’s that you’re willing to risk contracting some sexually nasty infections by just kissing her. And yet what kills me is I know you won’t. You’re untouchable. You’re Tad Gunnick. As I write this, you and a semi-circle of hangers-on are headed for the pool with Bee Gees on repeat in all your heads, so sure you’re God’s gift to strutting. And she’s Helena Johnson, spilling out of cups two letters down the alphabet from mine. And then there’s me, scrawling notes in a hot craft hut, sure to be rewarded for my abstinence with opportunities for more abstinence. Watch as it starts to look less like a choice.
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*
Dear Mom,
Forget me. When the time comes, I will send for Johannes.
Billy Matthews, Cabin 3
PEAKED AT FOURTEEN
We hit dinner in a daze, you and I, after a lively session of getting told what. Some girls cried, and we almost did too. We’d chased and caught the ecstatic moment, mistook it for a house to live in. It felt like shivers and coffee and God’s favor. The meal tasted good, pork chops and peas with rolls and red punch. And when you were made to sing a song for having elbows up on the table, you laughed and you sang — something mockable, Journey or Styx. On the verge of some big thing, we asked Dave himself if we could skip campfire so we could work out the terms of our new selves, and he said that he respected that but still felt campfire was where we needed to be. We understood and poured gravy on Doreen, who was a sport and later got us back big. At the fire, we knew Dave had been right and sang “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” and “Brown Eyed Girl” and my only earnest “Kumbaya” to date. After most had scattered, we huddled and squirted water to sizzle on the embers, too beat to talk. That was my best night, my best self, and that was three whole camps ago. What have we been doing wrong, Amber? What broke in us?
FROM A FIELD ON A MOUNTAIN
Look, everybody: We rolled out the stars for you tonight. We softened the grass. We briskened the air just enough that you’d need each other. I want so much for you as a gaggle of campers, but as individuals I can barely keep your faces in focus. As I look out on the field of you now, huddling up in your sleeping bags, I see selves feeding selves feeding selves. I see, “What do these people think of me?” and “Am I unique?” and “Am I funny?” and “Am I worthy of love?” And to all those questions, I offer a hearty resounding shrug, and I implore you, when you go home tomorrow, to watch an entire serious dramatic film on fast forward. I’m trying to do for delusion what Clark Gable did for the undershirt. There’s a confidence chemical that suddenly gets produced like crazy in puberty that explains why five-sixths of you think you know so much. Even now, as you scoff out into the night, that’s the chemical at work, and knowing about the chemical makes it no less potent. The goal is to harness that chemical and to run with it as far as you can so that when doubt catches up, you’ll be surrounded by people who angle their bodies toward you and nod brightly when you speak. I’ve got more to say — I’ve always got more to say — but for now I’m out of lozenges. Be sure and wave at me tomorrow morning before you go. I’ll keep walking, but I will see you.
SUNDAY MORNING
THAT’S IT?
Yeah, Sunday pulls the rug out from everyone. When we wake, there’s always some group from far-off already gone, goodbyes unsaid. We treat Sunday like a full day in our heads all week, but then it comes and it’s just a morning — a morning spent packing. All these suddenly-concerned boys run around looking for plastic bags to keep the moldy wet clothes that’ve been balled under the bed all week from infecting their less-moldy dry clothes. We approach each other, newly sheepish, holding copies of the group photo and sharpies, saying, “Are you going to the Fun Retreat weekend in October? I think I’m going, are you going?” We mop and squint and sing a last song. Then parents start showing up, smiling like they belong. Like they have a clue what went on here. Like they’ve ever felt a thing in their lives.
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*
Dear Mom,
For much of the week, I’d forgotten how slow regular mail is. By the time you get this, I’ll have already been home for three days or so. Please disregard the last few letters. They were hasty. If my room is still available, I’d like to stay. I do ask, however, that you take a look at your schedule so we may set aside an evening when I’ll outline the changes I’d like to see our family implement in the coming quarter, such as you learning to make cornbread and us eating on the porch when it’s nice out and us getting a pool and playing kickball and having food fights and you letting me pick on Deirdre when it’s in a funny way. I look forward to returning to my room, my toys, a bathroom with a lock, and of course, Johannes. I hope you have shown him my pictures as I asked.
With affection,
William
BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER
We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.