by Joey Comeau
After she was done, she sat for a few minutes more, wrapped in her bedsheet. Sicily’s tail peeked out at Martin, and he smiled at it.
“I’m sorry,” his mother said after a while.
Martin shrugged his shoulders, even though he didn’t know what she was sorry for.
“I’m sorry you had to see me like that last night.”
Did she mean in her bra? She was naked right now. It didn’t matter to Martin.
“Whatever,” he said. “It’s okay. Nothing I haven’t seen before!” He laughed, and he expected her to laugh, too. “Nothing I haven’t seen before” was what she always said when he was having a bath and she had to pee. She’d say, “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” and then it was okay for her to come in.
It wasn’t the right thing to say now, though. She set the teacup down and started crying. Martin didn’t know what else to do so he hugged her. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed his head into her shoulder and squeezed hard.
“I love you,” Martin said. “And you can’t be sad. Did you forget about Blood Socket 2?” She unwrapped herself from his arms and kissed his cheek.
“How could I forget about Blood Socket 2?” she said. “Blood and guts and kitten eyeballs.” Then she saw what time it was. “Fuck Jesus, I’m late.”
After he cleaned her mirror, Martin went looking for a list of emergency numbers that his mother had written down for him one night when she’d left him with a babysitter. He remembered her putting it away in the dresser, but now he couldn’t find it. He pulled open the very bottom drawer and started shifting notebooks around. The list was folded underneath one of her sketchbooks.
And there at the bottom of the list was the telephone number for his grandparents in Malagash. He’d never been to Malagash, but he’d seen it on a map, up on the north shore of Nova Scotia. His mother talked about it sometimes, when she told him about when she was a little girl. She never talked about his grandparents, but she loved to talk about the ocean out there. How you could walk out for half a mile and still only be up to your waist in water. Or about digging for clams, finding the small air holes they made and digging down as quickly as you could in the red sand before they escaped.
He closed the dresser and went out to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall. He had only met his grandparents two years ago. They had come to the apartment and sat very still on chairs, smiling. Martin had shaken his grandfather’s hand, and given his grandmother a hug when she asked him if it would be okay.
“It’s nice to meet you, Martin,” his grandmother had said. And then, just before they left, his grandfather had held his hand out to shake again at the door.
“Maybe you could come up to Malagash for a couple weeks this summer,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” Martin’s mother told him.
“They’ve opened up the Bible camp again,” his grandfather said. “It might do him some good to get out in the sunshine. And learning about the Bible never hurt anyone.”
“Thank you for coming,” his mother said, ushering them out the door. “Goodbye.” She closed the door on them, and then she went to her bedroom and had a long nap.
Martin remembered how angry she’d been. She hadn’t wanted him to go to Bible camp then, but now maybe it would help. He could go stay at Bible camp while she was in Toronto making her movie. He wanted to help. It would be awful if she had to say no to the job just because of him.
He dialled his grandmother’s number, and listened as it rang.
“Hello?”
It was an old woman’s voice, and Martin was suddenly not sure if it was the right number. He couldn’t remember what his grandmother had sounded like.
“Hello?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Is this my grandmother?” It was a foolish question. She didn’t know who was calling. If he didn’t recognize her voice, how would she recognize his? There was a long pause, and Martin felt stupid. “Grandma?” he said.
“Is this Martin?” She sounded as uncertain as him.
“Yes,” Martin said. “Hi.”
“Oh, Martin! It’s nice to hear from you!”
He heard her yell something in the background with the phone away from her mouth. There was another pause and she yelled again, and this time he could hear her. “It’s Martin!” she yelled. Then she was back.
“How are you?” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m okay,” Martin said.
He tried to imagine what her house looked like. Where she was standing when she talked, but the only images he had in his mind of Malagash were of the outdoors. Red beaches and red paved roads that his mother had told him about. Big wide open fields and vineyards full of grapes that were too sour to eat. Rowboats and old broken-down buildings.
“I wanted to ask you about Bible camp,” Martin said.
“Bible camp?”
Martin could hear a man in the background now. His grandfather.
“He’s asking about Bible camp,” his grandmother said. There was another pause. “Does your mother know you’re calling?”
“She’s at work,” Martin said. “I didn’t talk to her yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“You should talk to your mother first,” she said.
“Grandpa said that I could come up and go to camp for a couple weeks,” Martin said. “And I was wondering if I still could. I know that it was two years ago.”
“Of course you can!” his grandmother said. “Oh, it would be lovely to see you, Martin. But I don’t know if your mother would approve. She was very clear with us about how she feels. She doesn’t want anything to do with the church.”
Martin knew that his mother was an atheist. He knew it the way he knew she was twenty-nine years old. It was just a fact. It didn’t seem important to who she was.
“I don’t have any money,” Martin said. “Is that okay? I don’t have any money to pay for camp.”
“Our church has a fund for things like this,” she said. “They send a dozen kids every year, and I’m sure they’d be happy to help you, too. But you shouldn’t be asking behind your mother’s back. Talk to her and then call us again tomorrow. Okay, Martin?”
In the background, Martin’s grandfather said something else.
“What did he say?” Martin asked.
“He says it’s a good idea,” she said. “He thinks the camp will be good for you.”
“If this is what you want,” Martin’s mother said. “Then okay.”
They were sitting on her bed, and Martin had the emergency numbers in his hand. He had tears in his eyes.
“You’re not mad?” Martin said.
“Why would I be mad?”
“That I called them? I’m sorry I went through your things.”
“They’re your grandparents,” she said. “If you want to talk to them, you can, Martin. Just because I don’t ever talk to them doesn’t mean that you can’t. I’m sorry that I made you think you weren’t allowed. And you can go to Bible camp, too, if that’s what you really want. I will drive you there and pick you up, though. You are not going to go stay with them at their house. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but I mean it. They are your family, and if you want to talk to them once in a while, I understand. But I will not leave you alone with them.”
“Okay,” Martin said.
He didn’t understand exactly, but right now the important thing was the camp. He would have somewhere to go while his mother went off to Toronto. She would be able to take the job.
“But I can go to the camp?” he asked.
“Sure. I went to that camp myself when I was a kid. It was fun enough. It wasn’t for me, but that’s a choice I made myself. You have to figure it out on your own, I guess.”
“You mean about whether I believe in God?” Martin said, and his mother laughed. She pulled him into a hug and squeezed him.
“It’ll be fun,” Martin said. He tried to sound sincere. “And you’ll be able to go to Toronto. But you have to promise me one thing.”
“Out with it.”
“You’ll save me some eyeballs?” Martin said.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll mail you a big tub of eyeballs at camp, return address marked: The bowels of hell. That’ll help you make friends, I’m sure. And Martin.” She leaned over so their faces were at the same level. “I might even send you some bloodstained teeth.”
After they left the highway, it was still more than an hour of driving down country roads before they reached the Bible camp. Martin watched the trees and farms pass quietly. There was a field filled with horses. There were sheep and goats and cows. When he saw the goats he got excited, and he sat up straighter. None of the goats had climbed up on any of the cows, though. They were all just standing around or sitting with their knees bent under them.
There was a big white house beside the Bible camp sign, but it looked locked up. The driveway down to the actual camp was long and narrow. It wasn’t wide enough for two cars, though it was clearly meant to be both entrance and exit. It went past a small billboard with the camp’s name and then down between two large fields. Badminton nets were strung up across the field on the left, and a line of archery targets sat at the bottom of the field on the right. The driveway continued on down into the trees.
Martin held his mother’s hand as they drove in. The trees were so close that the branches closed above them. After hours of driving in the brilliant sunlight, it felt as though they were descending into darkness. The path twisted and turned and Martin had no idea what they would do if they came across another car.
The trees to their right opened up after the next curve, to reveal a small white chapel with a stained glass window above the front door and a cluster of headstones beside it. There was a pile of dark brown dirt in front of one of the headstones, like a body had been buried there only recently. Martin twisted in his seat as they passed, trying to see the headstones more clearly. Were they new or old? But then they turned another corner and they were back in the trees and the shadow.
The camp was bright and open, and Martin squinted his eyes against the light as they pulled to a stop in the parking lot. There were a half-dozen cars parked in front of the big main building. Children and parents were standing around with suitcases, smiling and talking with counsellors in light brown uniforms.
The main building was white, like the house up by the road, but more faded. The paint was cracked, and there were holes in the screens on the doors and windows. This was the sort of place that only looked right in disrepair. Martin tried to picture it brand-new, everything shining with fresh paint, every set of stairs perfect and straight. It seemed wrong. Camp was meant to be run-down and well worn. Beside him, his mother turned off the car’s ignition. They sat quietly for a minute, looking out at the camp together.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Martin’s mother said, but that wasn’t true. She already had her plane ticket, and they had driven for hours. He couldn’t change his mind now. It was too late.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Bible camp was surrounded on three sides by the woods, and to the north the camp property ran right down to the ocean. From where he stood, Martin could see a long red sandy beach, stretching in both directions. There were clumps of seaweed and rocks in a few places, but mostly the sand looked soft and warm. He liked swimming in the ocean. It was easier. The salt water helped you float. And there were waves. Lakes didn’t have waves. Waves could pick you up and carry you. Some of the other kids were down there with their parents, looking out at the water, or trying to skip stones. They had their shoes off and their pants rolled up, already getting into camping. Martin was still standing at the edge of the parking lot with his suitcase, like he thought his mother might change her mind and come back.
The counsellors were older teenagers, wearing dark brown uniforms, and they were scattered around the camp, too. A blond guy in a uniform was talking to someone’s mom and dad up on the steps to the main building, his hands in his pockets. His mother had told him that every cabin had a counsellor assigned to stay with them and make sure they were safe. Another guy was talking to a group of kids over by the baseball diamond. He had the uniform pants on but he was wearing a plain brown muscle shirt instead of the uniform top. His arms were big and muscled, and he was demonstrating how to swing a baseball bat.
The camp was one big clearing with a small stream cutting across it. There were badminton nets down here, too. But mostly it was grass. The baseball diamond and playground equipment took up the south corner of the camp. Many of the campers seemed to be hanging out there, now that the parents were leaving.
Up on the steps to the main building, a priest was leaning against the wall and smiling. He looked no older than Martin’s mother, but his outfit made him seem more serious somehow, even though he was smiling. He wasn’t wearing robes. Martin thought priests had to wear robes. Instead he wore black pants and a black button-up shirt with short sleeves. But he did have that white collar.
It was so strange to see a collar like that in real life. His mother had never taken him to church, so Martin only ever saw priests in movies. Generally they were performing exorcisms and getting themselves covered in vomit. He wondered if the priest on the steps had ever performed an exorcism. Then he noticed the shovel leaning against the wall beside the priest. There was dirt caked on it, and now that Martin looked, it seemed like the priest had dirt smeared on his pants, too. Were there dark stains on the knees, or was that a trick of the light? It was hard to tell for sure with black pants.
“He’s not as uptight as he looks,” a girl said, coming up beside Martin. “That’s Father Tony.”
She was taller than Martin, and had straight brown hair down her back. Her counsellor uniform was tight, and she had the top few buttons undone the way Martin’s mom wore her shirts when she went out dancing.
“He’s in charge,” the counsellor said. “He’s more boring than anything else, really.” She held out her hand for Martin to shake. A big yellow bracelet hung from her wrist and he focused on that to avoid looking at her breasts.
“I’m Sherri-Lynn,” she said.
“I’m Martin,” he said.
“Well, Martin, it’s nice to meet you.” She pulled her hand back. “And I’m sure we’ll see each other again real soon. Let me know if you ever want to play a game of chess. I don’t mean to judge a book by its cover, but you seem like the kind of kid who might want to play a game of chess.” She laughed. “I should warn you, though. I play a lot. Like, every day. So I’ll probably murder you.”
And then she was walking away. Martin watched her approach a couple of boys who were sitting on the swings. She held out her hand to each of them in turn, and they dutifully shook. When he looked back up at the main building, the steps were empty. The priest and the shovel were gone.
After talking to the two boys on the swings, Sherri-Lynn went up the steps and grabbed hold of a bell rope. She pulled, clanging the bell, and the sound was enormous. Everyone in the camp turned to look, but she didn’t stop. She pulled and pulled, and the bell kept going, until everyone in the camp had started moving toward the main building.
Father Tony wasn’t just the camp’s priest. It turned out he was also the head counsellor. He was up on stage, sitting between Sherri-Lynn with her unbuttoned shirt and another counsellor that Martin hadn’t seen outside. Campers were still filing into the main room, laughing and talking to one another. A big industrial floor fan in the doorway brought a bit of a breeze, but it was still too hot. The room looked more r
ustic inside than outside. The walls were unfinished wood, and there were animal heads mounted above the door and stage. A big deer head over the door, with antlers curving up to the bare wood of the ceiling, and an ugly pig head with wide open eyes right above where Father Tony sat. It looked heavy. If that pig head fell, it would do some serious damage.
After a minute, Father Tony approached the microphone and tapped it a few times until everyone stopped talking. His black priest’s dress shirt was crisp and pressed, and the collar was bright white. There was no mud caked on the legs of his pants, or on his shoes. Maybe there hadn’t been before, or maybe he had just changed pants. Martin sat lower in his seat. Had he just imagined it?
Tony tapped the microphone again. The thuds echoed through speakers in the corners of the room, mounted above crosses and bright, enthusiastic posters about Jesus and the Holy Father and the Bible. “Have you read this year’s real best seller?” Things like that.
Father Tony’s smile was wide, and he had a gentle look to him. “First I wanted to welcome you,” he said. “And I wanted to tell you a little bit about why we run this camp every year.” He cleared his throat. “Because it isn’t easy, you know. I know that sometimes it’s hard to see beyond your own lives, to see that the adults in your life aren’t just window dressing. They aren’t just extras on a movie set, put here to help or hinder you. They are people just like you, with hopes and dreams, and a favourite TV show, and a favourite flavour of ice cream. So let me tell you kids, it’s not easy to run this camp every year. But we take the time off from our jobs, and we give up the little luxuries of life, like cell phone service and cable television. Every year we hike out here to the woods and we live in these little wooden cabins with all you rowdy kids for one reason and one reason only. And no, it’s not the money.”
The counsellors all laughed at this.
“We are all volunteers here. But before you go thinking we’re saints, volunteering our time for nothing, I should admit that we’re here for a selfish reason. We do all these things because we have fun. We get to minister the word of God, sure, but we get to have fun, too.