“Gentleman,” Skittles is saying, feeling himself hard. “It’s important that we understand that this right here is a privilege. You understand?”
He pauses for effect, peering around the group of us huddled close. The sinking sun seems to illuminate his big baby blues, the tug of a sneer playing at perfectly formed lips.
“It’s a privilege,” he says again, nodding in agreement with himself. “A fucking honor. You’re a part of the greatest fraternity there ever was.”
Long shadows cast by the Adirondack pines criss-cross the flushed faces of the guys around me, 24 of us in all. Shampoo and spray-on deodorant dominate the North Country air, seeming to announce to Nature herself that Civilization, no no no, MALE Civilization has arrived to tame her.
“Bro, this isn’t SAE or whatever!” shouts Tops, a particularly thin dude with red-almost-orange hair that flops around in a wunderkind Silicon Valley tycoon kind of way.
“It’s summer camp, dude. We gonna go get fucked up, or what?”
Skittles is a few years older than a lot of us, a leader of men. He gives Tops the finger, and we all laugh because we’re supposed to. Like we’re all stage actors who’ve just gotten off book,still a little unsure of our lines.
Ten minutes later I’m in the back of a Volvo, an old gray thing probably from the 80s. I’m not the biggest dude but I work out plenty, so it’s a tight squeeze sitting between Paolo and Chock. Hearts sits shotty, sucking down a massive joint that’s already been around the car twice.
I used to know these guys really well, back when we were Peewees, Apaches, and Seniors. We were all counselors in training together too, but everyone seems to have changed a lot in the two years since I was last here.
“Hey…we almost there yet?” I ask, a moment after refusing the third circling of the joint.The old Volvo is only so big, so I guess I’m getting pretty high anyway.
I keep remembering this story I read a few months back in the Post, about some white bros in the park downing beers and smoking weed, all right in the open. The cops were called and, wouldn’t you know it, they let these guys off with just a warning. Well, all except the only Black guy of the crew, who the cops took in for questioning and eventually sent to Rikers for possession.
Well, I’m starting at The University in the fall, and I don’t have time for jail. The whole reason for my even being at Camp this summer is to avoid the normal shit that niggas get into after graduating high school, being bored in Harlem. I’ve always been a good kid, I guess, but Moms was still worried that something might happen. Guess she didn’t bet on my riding around the North Country with a bunch of reckless white boys.
“Chill Cass,” my main man Bryant says, peering into the rearview mirror. “We’re almost there.”
It’s his car we’re in and I have to give it to him: his driving seems unaffected by the billowing cannabis engulfing us.
Now he’s guiding this ancient sedan into a field behind a caravan of other cars. Ahead of us, corn stalks tower above the car, and way in the distance, with the light of the crescent moon, you can make out the Green Mountains over in Vermont.
Bryant was one of the first people I ever met at Camp, in our Peewee days. He comes from an uptight place called Bronxville up in Westchester, but back in the day he had a nice crossover. Me and him ended up on the same team that summer, and we used to run things out there on the court. I discovered swimming that Peewee summer too, a knack that became a way of life for me.
There’s no water here, though—just an old style one room school house from like 1900. The lights from someone’s car illuminate Skittles and a couple of the older guys carrying a bunch of styrofoam coolers. All of us were supposed to give them 5 bucks a piece for beer, but I see the whole thing for what it is: a huge racket. There’s no way that these dudes need a-hundred-plus bucks for this cheap ass shit, but I fork over my five spot without complaint.
After the initial hoopla that accompanies the first couple of downed beers, things start to even out. Most folks have even switched off their flashlights, ok to just talk to one another in the deep dark. The sky is speckled with stars, and I get the feeling that we’re at the edge of the world, on a space shuttle to the Universe.
I’m standing next to Bryant who’s talking a lot about life at Amherst college where he’s considering majoring in music. He plays bass for a funk band on campus, and he’s going on about “laying in a nasty 2 and 4.” The other guys start talking about their own college lives too, and the words “fuckin’ awesome” and “wicked cool” are used a lot. My cohort at camp is a little older than me in real life, so they’ve already done a year on leafy campuses. I only graduated high school last week.
I try to stay present in all the talk, but I start getting that buzzy feeling in the back of my head, like if I breathe wrong I might accidentally explode into a billion pieces. I do my best to just accept my racing thoughts, not to fight them.
It doesn’t take long for Shalla to dominate my brain space. Her big titties and thick ass. Her bangin body that always run hot hot. Her ability to make me feel like no matter what, things are gonna be ok. Moms don’t like Shalla because she’s a grown ass woman, like 23 years. And, she got a daughter, Ebbie, who’s almost 5.
After a little while, I excuse myself from the chit-chat in the dark. I got a phone now, one that Gramps gave me as a graduation present or maybe as an apology, so I make my way to the cornfields a little ways from the school house.
“What’s good sweetie?” Shalla hums in a smoldering voice that turns me on and freaks me out at the same time.
“Cass, that you?” she says to the line when I struggle to find my voice. Shalla don’t have caller ID, and she don’t have no cell phone that shows my number. Yet somehow, she just knows.
“Hey baby,” I say weakly, “You always answer the phone like that?”
“Nigga, you sound weird. Don’t tell me you already havin’ some typa meltdown up there.”
“I miss you,” I respond, like a little bitch.
“What? You breakin’ up, I can’t hear you.”
“I said I MISS you girl.”
“Cass, baby, you and I both know you ain’t never had no real relationship.”
“Yea? So what do you call us?”
“Illusory, dear. Totally a fabrication of your mind.”
“Ouch.”
“Yea. Look Imma hang up.’
“Yo, wait I love yo--”
Click.
I try calling back a couple of times, but it just rings and rings.
I’m starting to hate this fucking phone. I’m starting to hate my moms for getting me to work at camp. I’m starting to hate being way the fuck out here.
I still got a beer in my hand, the same one I’ve been nursing for an hour. It’s kinda warm but I figure it’s time to get started for real, so I take a long swig.
Moms is always telling me about people she sees at the hospital, all mashed up. Brains hanging outta heads, intestines halfway ripped out, you know, that kinda shit.
“It’s cuz doped up people always think they good to drive,” she tells me, every story of guts and gore ending at this same all important conclusion.
The guys here seem to have things pretty well handled though. Right up to when we have to leave, and this fat dude named Inches almost slams into the back of Bryant’s ancient automobile.
I don’t feel like being the exclamation point in some nurse’s story, the way Moms seems to make an example of everyone she treats at Montefiore. So I’m walking now, the caravan of zigzagging cars long since scooted past me to the parking lot up the way.
It’s windless out, clouds now covering the dome of illuminated pebbles that lit up the sky just hours before. I’m trying hard not to focus on the mild panting, the shuffling footsteps, the smell of stale malt liquor. I know my mind is trying to take me back there, to Gramps and all that.
It’s only me out here, I tell myself. Maybe that’s the problem, something deep-deep replies.
It takes me a long minute to realize that I’ve passed the upper lot, the athletic fields rolling out in front of me. Ain’t no campers here yet, this being “training week,” so I feel like the director was just bluffing that the night watch would be out tonight, there to report any stragglers to “admin.” Still, I’m not trying to get in trouble. We were told to be in by 1am, and it’s definitely 2:04.
I’m on “Main Campus” now, framed by “The Hall,” a red barn like building that houses the camp’s theater and music center. Perpendicular to it is “Mess,” camp’s rustic dining hall. The buildings ensconce an enormous green field, a perfect rhombus, lost completely to the darkness. When the kids are here, all manner of laundry lacrosse and frisbee golf happen in the day. There’s even a small baseball diamond, just past The Hall, where my team won camp’s Peewee World Series way back when.
“Hey,”says a voice out of the deep black. I almost shit myself right there, a yip escaping my lips.
I turn the pale light of my cellphone outward, and there’s Bryant. His junk is all pulled out, and he’s pissing a clear stream, right onto the dirt at third base of Peewee field.
“Hey,” he says again, seemingly unaware that I’d screamed at all. “You hear that?”
He lets his semi hard his dick sway freely, like zipping up his pants and contemplating the silent dark are tasks that cannot possibly be done synchronously.
I can see even in this faint light that his eyes are a little more than half lidded, almost like he’s asleep on his feet. I wonder at how he was able to make it driving himself home, even if it’s less than a 2 mile journey.
“I don’t hear anything,” I say, more to break the silence than anything else. I feel like if I don’t talk, he might stand there “listening” forever.
He’s getting flaccid now, but even still, he’s bigger than me. Soft and white and leaking, just a little bit.
“The music,” he says, like it’s dead obvious. He’s pointing toward The Hall, cavernous and backlit as some clouds part to let through a sliver of moon.
“It’s jazz…no…it’s like the music from an ice cream truck, you know?” He’s swaying now, and soon he begins to sing soft staccato notes.
We a comin’-
Gonna kill a darky,
Wee! Before dawn!”
He’s laughing and stumbling and singing this sick shit over and over again as I help him past home plate, into the woods where the cabin lodges are. At least he’s zipped up now so I can man-handle him a little better, but it’s clear he’s real fucked up. By the time I get him inside of his cabin, “Independence Lodge,” he’s just muttering to himself toneless and rhythmic.
de de de de-
De de de de de de,
Wee! Before dawn!”
I’ve taken a risk and turned on the light in the cabin, nightwatch be damned, because I want to lay him in his bed just right, so he won’t throw up and choke in his sleep. Like how I used to do with Gramps.
“Hey man,” he says, his eyes nearly closed as he wriggles into the sleeping bag on top of the sagging bunk mattress.
“You’re my best friend. Ya know that?”
—------------------------
The next morning, I’m standing on the little porch outside of my lodge. A gap through the trees lets the sun through, a hint of warmth on this otherwise almost chill dawn.
With a deep breath that takes in equal parts Adirondack pine and cow shit from the two farms surrounding Camp on either side, I begin running, full speed. To the trailhead, damp with morning dew. Past a cluster of cabins that includes The Independence, just a little east. By the treeline onto Main Campus. Through the Pee-Wee baseball diamond, past The Hall and Mess. Abruptly, I turn right, away from the path to the parking lots and the old school house where we powwowed last night. My lungs are gasping for air now, my heart beating out a bee-bop solo in my chest. My ragged breath is uninhibited and almost arhythmic, and my legs fly even faster as I head down hill, down, down. With a last burst of speed that sends my gasping cells into a frenzied search for oxygen, I make the leap.
The whole world stops then for a long moment. There’s no Skittles or Bryant, no Moms or Shalla or Gramps. Just a tumbling, accelerating peace.
The lake is freezing when my body finally meets it. I let myself sink, the liquid cloudiness becoming the dominant landscape of my universe. I know I’m close to the bottom when my legs brush the almost silky vines of vegetation and my ears begin to pop in rebellion of the sudden pressure. Soon, the need to inhale fresh air becomes overwhelming.
With two desperate kicks, I push myself to the surface. I take in a shuddering breath, and then begin to cough furiously, water filling my windpipe.
“Yo,” says a voice. “Hey! You ok?”
I’m still coughing when I turn back towards the water’s edge some 15 feet above, squinting at the big dude peering down at me. He’s an athlete, no doubt, the tank he’s wearing showing off sculpted biceps. I guess he don’t skimp on leg day either, because his calves look enormous, even though they are nominally covered by a pair of gray joggers.
“I’m cool,” I manage to call out. My heart rate begins to return to normal, not without leaving behind a nagging sense of anxiety.
The big dude trudges down the hill, disappearing from view behind the sloping embankment. A few seconds later he emerges next to the floating black docks that will shortly be constructed into a large floating rectangle, camp’s “Swim Station.”
A wave of resentment washes over me, this bold ass dude destroying the quiet of my morning. Somehow though, I find myself swimming away from the ledge, toward the rocks where he’s standing.
“Owen, right?” I say, treading at the water’s edge. I’d wanted him to start the conversation, but he seems totally cool to just stand there silently and stare.
Last night I’d seen him chilling with the senior division counselors after the “leadership orientation” basketball tourney, before we’d all gotten wasted at the school house. The guys thought it’d be funny to call him Cass and me Owen, you know just kidding around the way white guys do when they encounter more than one negro in a space. In this case, exactly 2 of us.
The fact is, Owen’s a lot taller than me, and a lot darker, not that I care about the kinda stuff. On a scale of one to shoot-a-nigga, I’ll be dead right next to his Black ass in the end times race war.
“Ya’ll dumb as fuck,” he’d laughed last night when the guys had repeatedly “confused” us by the courts. He took it with supremely good nature, his face breaking into a smile that would make the sun seem only a minor star.
So I guess that’s the other thing. I’m pretty nice myself, you know, but God damn is he beautiful. He’s the kind of handsome that you gotta be blind NOT to notice. The sort of good looking that takes up space. Even Skittles looked a little jealous.
“ ‘Owen’s’ what I say to them that don’t try,” he says now, standing at the water’s edge. He’s got a light accent carrying the birthright of his ancestors, and probably mine. “Call me Owusu.”
The smirk on his face lets me know that whatever the secret is behind his almost cryptic words, I almost certainly don’t get it.
“You gonna get out or are we gonna stay yelling at each other like a bunch of fags?” He’s smiling again, genuine this time, and I wonder if he often gets away with saying retarded shit like that just by flashing those megawatt pearly whites.
“Why don’t you jump in dude,” I reply tartly, landing heavy on the “dude.”
“Yeaaaa,” Owusu says, oblivious to the shade I’ve thrown his way. “You caught me bro. I can’t swim.”
He shoots me a baleful expression while scratching at a spot beneath his tank just above his navel. From where I am in the water below him, I can just make out the bottom part of a chiseled 8-pack.
“Listen, just get out. Please? I wanna show you something.”
We’re walking back towards Main Campus now, my teeth chattering. The sun has risen fully now, but I don’t have a towel, and my shorts and t-shirt hug my body in a sloshy embrace.
“You’re quick, ” observes Owusu, with a certain reverence. And then, to my questioning glance, “Yea bro, I saw you runnin’ down to the lake. You got great turnover, especially for a little guy. You remind me of some dudes on the team.
“You do track?” I hear myself ask. It’s a dumb question or maybe just a weak one, but he’s got some type of magic that makes me want to just watch him talk and talk.
As if deciding to fuck with me after somehow reading my mind, he shoots me that smirk again and goes silent.
“Look bro,” I say after a long moment, “What’s the big extravaganza, huh? You wanted me to see something?”
“An extrava—what?” he chuckles, with just a modest touch of mockery. “I know you're going to The University in fall, but it’s just us man. You can talk normal.”
In a flash, I get real hot. For “acting white,”I’ve gotten enough shit in my whole life— I’m not about to be accused of it by this pretty nigga who probably went to like Deerfield or Andover or some other joint that prep-for-prep loves to send “deserving minorities.” Without a word I hang a left at Main Campus, toward the tree path that leads to my cabin.
“Hey, yo,” says Owusu, grabbing me by the arm, and flashing that fucking grin again before growing somber. “I ain’t meant to shit on your…your morning constitutional. You was haulin’ ass earlier and I just thought maybe you…like…maybe you saw something, man. Like maybe you knew something.”
I realize his eyes are almost black in black, his pupils dilated like they’re focusing in the deepest pitch of night. His grip is vice, like robocop strength, and the cold I feel becomes marrow deep. It’s like my very organs are crusting over, my blood transitioning into a 7-eleven red and blue Icee. I want to say something, push away, or maybe even scream. All I can manage is an awkward mewling from the bottom of my throat, an atavistic response to the distress that’s radiating from this beautiful Black man.
Then, over his shoulder, I see it. Well, I see them.
Trudging out of Mess, single file, a shuffling rhythm of feet emerges that can be heard even from where we stand across the open field of main campus. Four of them, then eight of them, twelve, then twenty-four of them labor down the short staircase that leads out of Mess Hall. Slowly, they form a horizontal line that stretches across Main Campus. Each man is evenly distanced from his neighbor, the spacing kept unifrom by the taut chains that connect to iron bracelets on each man's ankle. Every man wears an orange jumpsuit with enormous black numbers and letters scrawled across the front, so blocky that it’s difficult to tell the difference between the letter numbers “0” the “8,” and the letter “B.” All of them have shaved heads and dark brown skin. They’re skinny but not gaunt, and they move like a single organism, a fluid coursing of the body. It’s a calibrated motion that suggests hours of rehearsal. Or, in their case, hours of…something.
Then, a whistle, sharp and sure. Last out of Mess is a red-skinned man in gray, the sort of uniform that unequivocally announces authority. His head too is shaved, but his legs are not chained. His chest bears no number. Just a bright orange badge that glints in the sunlight.
He struts across the line, his pace almost leisurely as he hands each man a small item, perhaps a bag of some sort, but it’s hard to make it out at this distance.
Owusu lets me go, turning to face the orange clad men and their gray master. He’s shaking his head, but I can’t tell if it’s in disbelief, or rage, or just plain inquisitiveness.
“I kept hearing shit all night,” Owusu whispers. “I thought it was from over there,” he explains, pointing at the Hall, but, I got up to go on a run and…and I looked into Mess and saw these guys…They was like cleaning and shit.”
The man in the uniform blows four short whistles, and the man in orange at the far end of the line yells out.
I’m gonna lay down my burden!
And the group men on the line reply:
Down by the river side.
Down by the river side
Down by the river side
The lead man repeats:
I’m gonna lay down my burden!
And the men shout:
Study no war more!
I ain’t gonna study war no MORE!
Ain’t gonna study war no MORE!
Ain’t gonna study-
War No MORE, ‘ORE, ‘ORE!
Ain’t gonna study war no MORE!
Ain’t gonna study war no MORE!
Ain’t gonna study-
War no-
Study war no MORE!
Each time the group says the word “More,” it bends down in a single swoop and scrapes at the ground, returning gracefully to a standing position. Some of the men seem to place the earth they pick up into the item given to them by the gray man, and then repeat the motion. Down, and up. Down, and up. The beat issued by the song, the steps, and the clanging iron is clunky but impressive all the same.
“It’s a FOD walk,” I say, my pulse racing as the group marches closer to us. I feel like we should move back into the woods or something, or wake up some of the other counselors. Surely they can hear all the commotion out here.
“A….what walk?” asks Owusu.
“F-O-D—Foreign Object and Debris. It’s like…like a military thing,” I say mechanically.
I don’t tell him that during my camper years, we’d done this very thing, sans chains of course. It was a task for the end of the summer, designed to clean up camp ahead of when our parents arrived, a fun way to spruce things up after a summer of leaving candy wrappers and bandaids and other shit just strewn about the ground. One boy, usually from the senior division, would be deputized “drill sergeant,” and he would lead us in a call in a response while we marched together as a unit. A white senior boy leading a white group of kids and counsilors in a negro spiritual, as we picked the campus clean of filth.
“I get it,” says Owusu, with zero comprehension. “So…these guys…they’re soldiers?”
“Naw,” I say, as the whistle from the captain splits the air calling the men in orange to halt in place, some 200 yards from us. “These niggas is locked up.”
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