The winter before my first summer at camp, when I was still 11 years old, I started staying up real late watching all kinds of trash. It was around the time Gramps started living with us, so I sort of just retired from the business of sleeping regular hours. Or like, at all.
One ass-o-clock night, I saw this interview from the ‘70s judging from the host’s bell bottoms and groovy scooby-doo lingo. The featured guest was a former Hollywood starlet from way back when everything on screen was black and white, but mostly just white—the era of America everyone calls “classic.”“Well,” says the foppish host with a combover, “you’re in a movie, 2 theater productions on the East Coast, and of course, your television show here in LA. You also run your own studio lot for which you preside as chair of the board, and you famously manage to make it home to cook and eat dinner with your 5 grandkids, 6:00pm sharp. Oh, and did I read this right? You’ve started a charity to feed starving children in Africa?”
“Just hungry kids, darling, not starving” croaks the star, cigarette in hand. “And anyway, they’re youths from Harlem, not Haiti.”
The host joins the crowd in nervous chortling, his bizarre “te-hee-hi-hee-hi” picked up by the hot mic on his lapel.
“Ok,” he says, wiping the tears from his eyes, “well, I guess what everyone wants to know is, how do you do it all? I mean, where do you find the ENERGY?!”
The wizened star purses her lips coquettishly and muses for a long moment.
“Johnny, I’m divorced,” she drawls.
“Well, er, yes” stutters the host, whose name decidedly ISN’T Johnny, but who also hasn’t bothered to correct her. “So you’re divorced? So what?”
“So what? SO WHAT?” She’s staring at him incredulously now, like she might remove the violent red fluff of a wig from her scalp, and beat him with it.
“You wanna know how I got the time, baby?” she warbles, leaning into bedroom talk on a program that was, in its day, probably broadcast on primetime national TV.
“It’s because I’m not doing any FUCKING!” Top volume. Full theatratics. Pandemonium.
They’d bleeped out the word of course, but you could still see that’s what she said, the word stretched across her mouth like a dildo sized turd.
The camera pans the red faced Americana studio audience, raucously clapping, whistling, stamping their feet in approval. That shit made Arsenio look rated G.
The guys here love Owusu. At breakfast, the meat head types are swapping lifting regimen while gobbling boiled eggs. In the breaks during the first-aid orientation on the field outside of Mess, the thespians are ogling about one show or another that they might put on this summer, with Owusu the star naturally. Over the cold-cuts at lunch, the intellectuals are trying to laugh at Owusu’s “aw shucks“ routine when they attempt to suss out his views on Don Rumsfeld, war criminal or American hero? Everyone calls him “Owen”
I’m not sure anyone really cares what he’s saying, I mean, not really. He’s just “a cool bro.” A “solid fucking individual.” Someone who’s just “wicked awesome, ya know?”
It’s the aged rouge-wigged Hollywood icon on a friendly sound stage. Curated pap, piped to the masses.
“Jealous?” sniggers my dude Bryant, leaning into my left ear from behind. We’ve moved to the afternoon portion of the day’s training, seated once again on the wooden benches in the great barn theater, “The Hall.” Our post lunch seminar: “Important conversations.”
“What are you talking about,” I whisper back. He’s been too hung over to say anything to me all day, though I did see him dap it up with Owusu before lunch when they were taking a leak side by side at the urinals
“Owen, dude. He’s gonna be in charge of the swimming and diving program this summer. Guess that means you work for him.”
I let that hang as Camp’s director, a balding fat man everyone calls “Hap,” begins talking at us. He’s on a roll with the day’s orientation, using his former life as a stage actor to connect with us with Shakesperian poise.
Now, Hap lands on the hot and heavy: something about how if any of us feel even remotely attracted to one of our campers, “and I mean sexually,” we should have an “important conversation” with him, post haste.
“Get outta here” I finally shoot back, swiveling my head toward Bryant in the most inconspicuous manner I can muster. “He can’t even swim.”
When Bryant doesn’t reply, I turn around to look at him full on, not caring that Hap has us all sitting in one of his measured “beats,” clearly wanting us all to consider the import of pedophillia. Bryant gives me a classic gesture, the ole shrug and raised eyebrow.
“Excuse me, um, Hap,?” says Chock from next to me on the bench, lumbering to a standing position with the most earnest of expressions. He looks like a pupil issuing forth before his headmaster, a caricature straight out of that prep-school movie starring the comedian-cokehead actor who everybody says is so talented in dramatic roles.
“What if a guy here, um, expresses feelings for you. You know, like sexually?”
I always thought Chock was a little slow. Fortunately for him, that kind of thing doesn’t matter too much at camp. There was a summer when we’d been best friends, back when we were second year “Apaches.” We’d played “Marco-Polo” at Swim Station every day during afternoon “freetime,” and had even kept up a pen-pal correspondence for 6 months after camp ended that summer.
If I’m honest, Chock had been an unremarkable Camp Brunah kid. Now he’s an unremarkable Camp Brunah grown dude. Light brown hair that isn’t quite blond. Eyes that can’t decide if they're green or blue. A body type that toggles “overweight” and “obese”. Chock goes to Villanova.
“I mean,” continues Chock, when Hap presses him to elaborate on his wild hypothetical, “say Cassius here thought that another counselor was, like, cute. Like…like what if he had a crush on someone, let’s call him ‘Owen’ ?!”
Paolo, sitting on the other side of me, begins shaking silently, his whole body writhing in spasmodic bursts as he sneaks me glances.
He and I traded victories in camp swim meets events when we were 14, our sophisticated “Senior Year” as campers when dominance in any sport meant prestige. He’s one of those HGH dudes who’d grown a foot in two years since we were junior counselors, and his lanky 6’4 frame can’t hide the fact that he’s laughing his ass off now.
Paolo doesn’t swim competitively at Dartmouth, which, in my opinion, makes him a waste of talent. And as he melts into fits of repressed guffawing, I’m thinking he’s also a waste of space.
When I look around, I realize that Paolo isn’t the only one getting a chuckle at my expense. Even Hap’s eyes are twinkling, with an avuncular Santa Claus mirth of course. He makes as if to carry on with orientation but, too bad for me, Chock isn’t done.
“What if Cassius was like ‘yo Owen man, I wanna jump yo bones man. Lemme make you my mans, man! We can like jump the broom, know what I’m sayin? You my BITCH.’ ”
I’m considering doing to Chock what I’d seen some girls do to some nigga at school last year, who’d pledged his love to a chick from homeroom and then publicly courted another one from 10th period. The girls learned of each other somewhere in the second week of school, fought one day during lunch (destroying each other’s weaves), made up (in a wonderfully restorative conversation over haircare), and collaboratively (and ruthlessly) stomped the shit out of the dude playing them, such that he was pissing blood and barely conscious by the time school police officers could break it up only moments after it had begun.
Before I can rain down the sound and fury on Chock, I hear Owusu’s voice.
“Chock, sweetie, you know we’re into kinky threesomes. Ain’t that right Cass?” He’s flashing that celebrity grin all around the camp theater, absolutely bringing down the house.
Chock trades a few more verbal friendlies with Owusu before he sits down, while Bryant behind me grabs my shoulders and howls. Paolo’s long ass body drops head first into my lap, gurgling buoyantly like someone’s stabbed him in the throat.
It occurs to me: Owusu’s the kind of dude who makes everyone everywhere know that everything is alright, everytime. There’s no fighting that kind of energy. While everyone gets a good laugh, I just smile big, trying to look cool.
A century passes before Hap finally clears his throat loudly in a failed attempt to cover his approval of us boys being boys. In a rambling soliloquy, he launches into the next item on his list of “important conversations”: discrimination, of any kind will not be tolerated…
—---------------------------------------
“Hey baby!”
“Hi Cass.”
“You sound distracted, are you busy?”
“I ain’t busy.”
“Well, you’re just being...like…are you ok?
“I’m fine Cass.”
“Ok.”
It’s downright cold tonight, a modest breeze prickling my skin from where I stand, deep in the cornfield. I can hear the guys shooting the shit at the school house some distance behind, beer bottles clinking, the whiff of cigarettes and weed corrupting the pure mountain air. Everyone’s beat from the spirited soccer match we’d had post dinner, letting off steam after a long day of sitting. The occasional bursts of laughter over the mingling voices convey a satisfaction of self that I wish I could feel.
But the pause on the line is more pregnant than a street cat getting ready to drop 10 kittens. I glance up at the ADK sky to steady myself, just barely making out the wisps of the milky way.
“Listen,” Shalla finally says into the phone, drawing out the word like it’s 15 syllables long.
I know what she’s about to say—-can hear it in her voice.
“I love you Shalla,” I blurt, like we’re two star crossed lovers in fair Verona.
“Yea,” Shalla acknowledges, as a preamble. Then, she presses to the thesis. “Say goodbye to Ebbie.”
“Goodbye?”
“Uhuh,” she says rolling over me, “tell her you ain’t gonna talk to her for awhile.”
“But–”
“Shut up Cass, ok? You're in the woods this summer. You’re gone to the University after that. Say goodbye, ok? You two… us…it’s just illogical. ”
She’s got a point, but we’d had this conversation already as I'd packed up the last of my things for camp. Then, we'd decided that long distance could work for us.
“Fuck logic,” I spit out, just as I had a few days ago. In my head it’d sounded braver than it came out.
Shalla sighs, and then the sound gets all muffled, like she’s holding the receiver to talk to someone in the room. After a moment, I hear a man’s voice near the phone, crystal clear. My anguish turns into straight up despair.
“Yo, is that Jayvon? I been gone 2 days and you already talking to THAT dude??”
Jayvon’s a Spanish nigga from the block. He’s only a little older than me, but he’s got no prospects and limited up-side save for whistling at fat asses that sashay by the stoop he usually occupies. Still, girls fuck with him presumably becasue he’s got a monster dick and knows how to use it. That’s at least what Shalla tells me when she’s feeling real low and wants to be mean. I should also mention: Jayvon is Ebbie’s daddy.
“You sound manic, Cass, seriously. I don’t know what’s going on up there, but we got too much to handle to deal with it right now. You was good to Ebbie, so, Imma let you say bye to her.” Apparently Shalla’s a fucking charaitable organization now. She’s the Red Cross and the Catholic church, conferring upon me favors of immense magnitude.
I’m getting ready to really tell this bitch about herself, when the sweetest voice hits the line.
“Hi Cass-Cass” says Ebbie. “Mommy says I’m not gonna see you no more. She say everybody gotta grow up sometime.”
“BB, hey girl,” I say, surprised at the tears springing to my eyes. I call her “BB” because that’s what she is: Black Beauty.
“Mommy don’t know what she talkin’ about, ok? It’s like I said the other day—I’m just gonna be gone for the summer, and then Imma be home. Nothing’s gonna—”
“Uh, I gotta hang up now,” Ebbie says simply, a jumbled mash of voices hissing in the background.
“No, wait! Give Mommy the phone. Matter of fact, put your daddy on the phone. I wanna—”
“Bye Cass-Cass!”
And then she’s gone.
It takes me a good 10 minutes to find my way out of the field, even with the benefit of a brilliant night sky. It’s the buzzing in my skull that makes it hard to focus on anything. Still, I follow the murmuring voices and after some time, I make it to the school house and it’s contented din.
Hearts is wasted tonight, smoking a huge blunt while holding court about stolen land that we stand on. He’s a long haired brainiac who claims that somewhere in his line he’s got Iroquois blood, but he looks just like a white boy to me. I wonder if he put his supposed Native heritage down when he applied to Vassar.
“We’re thieves, man” he’s saying to his rapt audience in the dark, “and some day, all of this land, and shit, all of us, are gonna be swallowed up in retribution.”
The guys around him protest at this, and I take it as a cue to grab a can of Natty from the case laying at his feet.
“The only ones here got a chance is me an’ Cass,” he says, pointing his blunt at me and nodding significantly. “And Owen too,” he adds slyly.
“Shit, prolly Owen more than anyone. That dude is pure, man.”
I can’t tell if he’s being earnest or supremely ironic, but I laugh along with everyone else.
Out of nowhere, an explosion of pain radiates from my neck.
“WHAT THE FUCK” I hear myself shouting, polka dot floaters filling my field of vision.
I feel a trickle of blood from where the lip of the can I’d begun sipping has sliced deep into my own upper lip. My throat throbs like a bruise is tryna pop out right then and there. Worst of all, I’m completely soaked, as though a special delivery deluge has opened up exclusively for me.
“Somebody ‘bout to GIT it” I menace through gritted teeth, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Woah, woah! Cass! Buddy, chill!”
It’s Skittles coming towards me, emerging from the cornfields. Just behind him is Owusu, smiling big. Neither carries a flashlight, but the light of the others illuminate us.
“It’s just a water balloon man,” says Owusu, “No harm, no foul!”
“You...was this YOU?” I ask, my tone barely quieter. I’m getting ready to kill this dude.
“Bro, it’s not a big deal,” Skittles says. “Honestly, I heard that there are townies that have those balloon launcher things, so it’s prolly one of them. “
“You’re not mad are you,” begs Owusu, throwing out his hands in a pleading gesture. “They was just prolly having some fun is all.”
I squint around at the guys, trying to gauge how to feel. Hearts takes a long drag of his blunt, staring like he’s trying to work out some truly mystical conceit. Bryant, my main man, concentrates on a spot on the ground. Paolo and Chock both wear eat-shit grins, clearly enjoying the evening’s spectacle.
“Naw man” I say after a while, turning to Owusu and forcing a smile into my voice. “I ain’t mad. I ain’t mad at all.”
“Aww, you’re so cool” Skittles says, congratulating my good humor. He’s made it all the way over to me, and throws his arm around me, like he doesn’t care that he too is getting a little wet.
Suddenly, the whole gang is shouting:
We’re Lake Champlain Ordained
And 20 Beers deep
We’re just a touch Insane
And make grown men weep
Oh!
Rah! Rah!
For CASS, Rah Rah!
Rah! Rah!
To CAMP BRU-NAH!
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