AL
Listen hard and you won’t even feel the shot, little lady.
“You’ll never know how to win,” people cried to the baseball team. It’s true, thought Al. We lose all the time, sixty, nothing.
“I sure would have fun as a grandmother,” replied Edith.
“I know, Mom,” Al said, “but women love winning.”
The year was 1920. Al practiced viola upstairs. He was on the 4th book and getting better.
Once, on Thursday, Mandy was passing by carrying bread. She heard Al and went up. Al was abused by his father as a boy and got sad. “You don’t know me,” Mandy declared, “but play your sad song, please.” He did, and they ate the hot bread with cheese, and he looked in her deep eyes and saw that baseball was just for fun.
Because of love, does it get any better?
Al called all the team and announced he might quit for personal purposes, and they said they might disband as a group. He did, so they did.
NOT HERE TO FAKE FRIENDS
This place is in serious need of some sheep-goat separation. Is it too late in the week to switch from the Put Up with Goobers model to the Reality Elimination model? Picture it: Each night at campfire, every camper writes the name of the cabinmate he hates most. (In a tiebreaker, the counselor votes too.) The kid from each cabin with the most votes is then dramatically handed a cell phone, and must, in front of everyone, call his mom to have her come pick him up. Only after he confirms that his mom is on the way does the aborted camper get the chance to make a brief speech. Some will plead their fellow campers rethink the decision, others will lash out, others still may try to hurl their rejected bodies on the pyre. Whatever the case, we survivors are then free to tolerate and empathize with and even love the newly-dismissed peer in the light of their numbered-and-counting minutes with us, safe in the knowledge we’re the victors we’d always assumed we were, for once sure we’re surrounded by those who truly care for us and always will.
~ ~ ~
*
Dear Mom,
Last night, we dined on macaroni and cheese mashed up with beef chili. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in my whole life. What other combinations have you kept from me?
Billy
THE QUIET CABIN
All around in the post-rain everywhere, such rich material for the counselor of letters: Tetherball as metaphor for marriage, flooding lake as the unconscious, the muddy soccer field as the state of our two-party system, camper restlessness as childhood, trees as forest, leaves as trees, tried as true, muddy shoes as nature vs. nurture, grazing deer as splendorous awe, catch as catch can, town candy as contraband, the fact that my campers have informally joined other cabins as history repeating itself, in-cabin dampness as desire, the sight of Sandra running in the rain as desire, thin cotton clinging to Sandra’s chilled tan skin as desire, camp as fun, fun as camp, my exclusion as popularity contest, popularity contest as loneliness, loneliness as crippling loneliness, “as” as projection, projection as a comfort, but less and less, these days.
THE WOMAN AT THE TREE
Yesterday, Tad found me napping in my bunk and asked to borrow a water gun. I unlatched my prank trunk and showed him a good pump-action. He wanted something smaller. I said, “Covert mission, eh?” and gave him my little dollar store pistol. It holds next to nothing, it leaks, and sometimes it fails to squirt. Tad didn’t care.
He let me tag along past the cabins, past the snack shack and it’s winding, waving line, and we traded @ShitMyDadSays tweets. I figured we were headed to the pool, but Tad stopped instead at the Tree of Safety where eight pale kids worked Sudokus and Mad Libs. Tad pointed the water pistol at shy Elaine Schroeder and said, “Okay, Leni,” coining her now-ubiquitous nickname, “where do you want it?”
The dorks erupted. “You can’t, Tad! It’s the Tree of Safety!”
Tad held his hand out for quiet. “I come not to bring safety but danger,” Tad said. “I come not to bring exemption but inclusion.”
Leni leapt up and puffed out her chest. Tad shot once — nothing. Again — a dribble. A third time — and a gorgeous arc of water caught the light from where the leaves part and got Leni right across her — had we ever noticed before? — enormous rack. She’d never looked so good. “Check it out, Leni: You survived.” Tad said. “Now leave this place. Go have some fun. Go to the pool or something.”
When he left, the dorks plotted to tell on Tad, but Leni would take no part in their schemes. “I’ll deny everything,” she said, and left with me. And of course now she and I are going out.
FUN TREATMENT PEDAGOGIES
Threat: “Next time you waste my time like that, Peter, I’m gonna rub your face across the diving board.”
Physicaclass="underline" Rub Peter’s face across the diving board. Remind him of previous warning(s).
Gesture of Goodwilclass="underline" “Peter, you can borrow my copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Hilarious Campers until you’re able to buy your own. But I expect you to read it.”
Post-Gesture Quiz: “Now Peter, if you were to rip on Richard right now, with Chapter 4 of Seven Habits in mind, which of his weaknesses might you isolate?” […] “Good — and what might you say about his gargantuan freak ears to drive the joke home?” […] “No, I would not call out, ‘Hey, Big-Ears, your ears are like elephant ears.’ Don’t apologize, just try again.”
Intervention: Gather all the campers whose time the unfun camper has wasted. Each reads from a letter outlining how he’s been annoyed or inconvenienced. Repeatedly assure the camper your actions are coming from a place of love (even if they aren’t).
Use of Recalclass="underline" “Remember when I rubbed your face against the diving board, Peter? Next time it’ll be poison oak.”
REMEMBER TO BREATHE
What if I told you everyone at camp was secretly much happier than they looked? And if I said their happiness stemmed from the fact that they thought of you much more than you‘d expect them to? That it embarrassed them how much they thought of you? That they know, too, that you’d probably love to hear that you are remembered when you’re not around, but that they find it hard enough to talk to you as it is, the way their words fail? What if I spoke of a commanding presence and an it that people know when they see it? If I told you that everyone assumed that you aren’t famous only because you chose something richer for your life? If I explained that any hostility you sense in others is never anything but petty jealousy, and that in their—our—better moments, we’re kicking ourselves? That we’d take a bullet for you onstage at a hot summer stump speech? That it confuses our hearts the way God tells each of us that you’re the one, but that mine is the heart most confused? You might be compared to a summer’s day if you or I knew anyone who talked like that.
SUGGESTION
Some kind of gong to bang when a skit’s got to stop.