The Order of the Poison Oak

by Brent Hartinger

  Problem was, Web wasn’t there. (To continue with the really-having-to-pee analogy, this was like finally finding a bathroom only to see a padlock on the door!)

  I got my kids settled at a table, but kept a keen lookout for Web.

  Em stepped up beside me. “Did you see we’re going out on a pontoon boat for today’s all-camp activity?” she asked me.

  “Yeah?” I said, trying to pay attention to her but still looking around for Web. “Great.”

  “But they can only fit two cabins of kids on the boat at a time,” Em said. “So we’re going in shifts. Meanwhile, the rest of us’ll play volleyball.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Don’t want the boat to sink.”

  “You’re up first on the boat. Your kids, and Gunnar’s. I saw your names on the list.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know,” Em said, musing aloud, “I was thinking of taking my kids on a little hike this afternoon. Would you mind if we traded?”

  I scanned the cafeteria again, but there was still no Web. “What?” I said to Em.

  “Would you care if my cabin went with Gunnar’s? You can go with Otto’s cabin, when I was supposed to go. You’d be second.”

  Suddenly, I spotted Web! He was just entering with his kids.

  “I gotta go!” I said.

  “Is that okay?” Em asked.

  I looked back at her. “Huh?”

  “If we trade! My cab in goes first on the pontoon boat, your cabin goes second.”

  “Sure!” I said. “Whatever.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Em smile to herself, but I didn’t pay much attention because I was already working my way over to Web.

  He was staking out a table with his kids. I pulled him aside. “We need to talk,” I whispered.

  “About what?” He wasn’t whispering at all, which surprised me a little. Maybe it meant he really didn’t have anything to hide.

  “About Min!” I whispered.

  “What about her?” He said this completely casually, like he had no idea what I was talking about. Either that or he was partially autistic.

  That’s when it occurred to me: we couldn’t talk here either. People would overhear. Min might see. I glanced around to see if she’d arrived with her kids yet, but she hadn’t.

  “Never mind,” I said to Web. “Let’s meet tonight after lights-out. At the cove.”

  He grinned at me. “Sure.”

  In other words, it would be another eight hours before I could finally take a piss!

  * * * * *

  After lunch, my kids and I headed back to our cabin before volleyball. I brought up the rear, but soon Ian lagged behind with me.

  “That was cool,” he said quietly, looking over at the lake.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Last night in the woods. The Order of the Poison Oak? That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks.” Needing to talk to Web or not, I was all smiles again, at least on the inside.

  The kids in front of us had reached our cabin and were going inside, but Ian stopped outside. “I just have one question,” he said.

  I stopped too and looked at him. “Sure,” I said.

  “How come you’re a member?”

  “What?” Suddenly, I wasn’t smiling on the inside anymore. Can a person frown on the inside?

  “You heard me,” Ian said. “How come you ‘re a member of the Order of the Poison Oak? You’re not like Otto. You don’t have scars.”

  “Oh,” I said. If the qualification for being a member of the Order was that you knew what it was like to be teased and misjudged, well, let’s just say my membership papers were in good shape. But I was a member because I was gay, and that was something I couldn’t tell Ian.

  “Well,” I said, stalling for time, “I have psychological scars.” Psychological scars? Had I really just said something that stupid, especially to a ten-year-old boy? “Let’s just say I’m an honorary member,” I went on quickly. “Okay?”

  “Why?” Ian said.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you an honorary member? You told us a member can’t talk about the Order with anyone except another member. So who talked to you?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. Problem was, I didn’t have a good answer.

  “I think I know.”

  “You do?” I was afraid to ask the rest, but I didn’t have much choice. “Why?”

  He kicked a pinecone. “You’re gay,” he said simply.

  I had told myself I wasn’t going to come out at camp—that the whole point of coming here was to be somewhere where I didn’t have to be known as The Gay Kid. But I couldn’t lie to Ian. Not after everything I’d said about hidden beauty and not being ashamed of who you are.

  The pinecone Ian had kicked skittered to a stop.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

  Ian nodded. “I figured.”

  I was tempted to ask how he figured, but I didn’t.

  “You know how I got these scars?” he asked me, tilting his head a little, meaning his melted skin.

  “No,” I said. “No one ever told me that.”

  He stared out at the lake. “I was seven years old, at day care after school. My mom hadn’t picked me up yet, and I was the only kid left, along with the teacher. All of a sudden, there was this big boom, and the whole building shook, and there were all these weird creaky groans. We knew something really bad had happened, so we ran out into the hallway. I wanted to run out the front doors. But the teacher thought we were in the middle of an earthquake, and the front doors were made of glass and they were by some windows too. So she told me to stop. She was the teacher, so I listened to her. The building kept rumbling, so she told me to get to one side of the hallway. I did everything she said. And that’s when steam burst out of the radiator, right into my face.” I watched Ian as he told his story. He didn’t sound upset. Then again, it wasn’t Lake Serenity that I saw reflected in his eyes.

  “Wow,” I said. “That really sucks.”

  “I’m not mad it happened,” Ian said. He looked at me, and the lake in his eyes had become a raging ocean. “I’m mad I listened to her.”

  We stared at each other for a second.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”

  He nodded once. “Sure. And by the way, it’s cool. I won’t tell anyone about you.”

  * * * * *

  My kids and I played volleyball until it came our turn to ride the pontoon boat. When we saw the boat returning to the dock, I led them down there.

  As the first group of riders was disembarking onto the dock, I noticed something strange. Gunnar looked wet.

  Completely wet. Hair and clothes and everything. He was absolutely dripping.

  I met him at the end of the dock. “Gunnar? What is it? What happened?”

  He didn’t look at me. It was almost like he was ignoring me. “Let’s go!” he said to his kids, who were snickering amongst themselves. “Everyone to the volleyball nets! No, leave your life jackets on the boat! I’ll join you at the nets in a few minutes!”

  “Gunnar?” I said.

  “I fell in,” he said to me. His kids were on their way to the volleyball nets, and my kids were out on the dock climbing onto the pontoon boat. So we were more or less alone now. But he still wasn’t looking at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I fell off the pontoon boat!”

  I didn’t quite know what to say to this. “Well, are you okay?”

  He turned on me suddenly. “Maybe you didn’t hear me! I fell off the pontoon boat! Right in front of my kids! Right in front of Em. Do you think I’m okay?”

  “Oh, God, Gunnar. I’m sorry.”

  “I made a complete fool of myself!”

  I glanced out at the boat. It was mostly loaded now. I needed to be out with my kids. “Gunnar, I’m really sorry.”

  “So?” he said evenly.

  “S
o what?”

  “So I thought I was going out on that pontoon boat with your kids and you! I saw the list earlier!”

  “Oh,” I said, remembering. “Yeah. Em wanted to switch. She asked me about it at lunch.” And in the back of my mind, I immediately thought, Uh-oh!

  “Russ, I thought I asked you not to try to set me up with Em again!”

  “You did. But that’s not what this was. Em said she wanted to switch.” Of course, now I realized why she wanted to switch. She wanted to be able to spend some time with Gunnar, but she hadn’t said that outright, because she knew I would have turned her down. I should have turned her down anyway, but when she’d talked to me, I’d been distracted, looking for Web.

  “I specifically told you!” Gunnar said. “Twice! And you didn’t listen! And I made a complete fool out of myself again!”

  “Gunnar, I was distracted, and I—”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care. I don’t want your excuses. Not another word. Because you and I aren’t friends anymore.”

  “What?”

  He was already walking away. “You heard me! We’re through!”

  * * * * *

  I’d been at camp less than two weeks, and I’d somehow managed to betray both my best friends. That had to be some kind of record. But I’d waited all day to hear what Web had to say about Min, so that night, after lights-out, I went to meet him at the Cove of the Ever-Changing Rock Formation (tonight the rock looked like Devils Tower, Wyoming—the place in that movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

  I guess he had forgotten that we were there to talk, because the first thing he said was, “Come on! Let’s skinny-dip!”

  “Wait!” I said. “I wanted to meet here to ask you some questions.”

  He stopped, his shirt already halfway off. I could see the ridges on his stomach, but not the elastic of his underwear (was he not wearing any again?). Across the lake, forest fires burned, still out of sight, but they must have been brighter now, because tonight they were making the sky throb and ripple like the orange glow of a fake fireplace.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “Are you with Min or not?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  He dropped his T-shirt back down around his torso. “I told you. No.”

  “Why does she keep saying you are?”

  He arched his back and swung his arms in circles, like he was on a swim team and loosening up for a meet. “Beats me. Maybe she’s got a thing for me.”

  “Were you with her last night?” I asked.

  I could see him choosing his words. “For a while,” he said. “We went for a walk. But it was nothin’.”

  “Web. I need to know the truth.”

  “I just told you! She’s into me. I tried to tell her I’m not into her, but she doesn’t get it.”

  Something about Web’s story didn’t seem right. And why did he suddenly sound so impatient with me? On the other hand, it was close to what I wanted to hear. It did kind of make things make sense.

  “You need to talk to her again,” I said. “Tell her the truth.”

  He stepped toward me. “I will ,“ he said softly. “Later.”

  “Wait! This thing with Min!”

  “What about it?” He was breathing in my ear.

  “It’s all a misunderstanding?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

  “But—”

  “Shhhh.” Then he leaned closer to me still and whispered something.

  “Web!” I said, even as my pulse quickened.

  “What?” He looked absolutely innocent, which was saving something given what he’d just whispered in my ear.

  “We can’t!” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, we don’t have any condoms. And even if we did, that’s just not something I’d do—not for a long, long time.”

  “What, don’t you trust me?”

  “No! I barely even know you! And you don’t know me either. You don’t know anything about what I’ve done and who I’ve been with.”

  “Who says I don’t know you?” Web said. “I know what kind of person you are. I know all I need to know just by looking in your eyes.” And speaking of looking into eyes, that’s what he was doing right then.

  “Web—”

  “I know what a good person you are,” he went on. Then he smirked. “And how sexy you are.”

  I’m embarrassed to say that talk like that from another guy generally works on me. Maybe it always works on me, because it was working on me even then.

  “Come on.” I said this bashfully, like I wanted him to stop, but what I really wanted was for him to go on talking.

  Web read me right (not difficult). “You are,” he said. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were so cute. I knew what I wanted. I wanted . . . this.”

  And he leaned in to kiss me.

  The second his lips touched mine, I heard a third voice, and not in my head. “Uh-huh!” it said. Web and I turned to look. Of course, it was Min.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t follow you?” she said. I wasn’t sure who she was saying this to, Web or me, but I guess it didn’t really matter.

  “Min,“ I started to say.

  But she, like Gunnar earlier in the day, was already storming away from me.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Mm!” I called after her. “Wait!”

  She didn’t wait, and I can’t say I blamed her. I wanted to follow her, but I wasn’t sure what I’d say. Deep down, I guess I’d known that Web was lying about not having been with Mm. So what was I doing kissing him? (Though, in my defense, technically he was kissing me.)

  I looked at Web. “Well?”

  “Well what?” he said, clueless to the end—or at least pretending to be.

  I pushed away, then stood there glaring at him like a disgruntled store detective. “Why is Min so upset?”

  “Got me.”

  “Web!”

  “What? She’s jealous! I told you she’s got a thing for me.”

  “You hooked up with her last night!” I said. “Didn’t you?” I sounded accusatory, because I was.

  He stared at me for a second. Then he sighed, wilting like a plant. “Okay, I lied. I was with Mm. I’m sorry, okay? But I had a reason.”

  “What reason?” There was nothing he could possibly say to excuse what he’d done. Was there?

  “I didn’t know I was gay,” Web said, softly, haltingly. “Not until two nights ago with you. It took me by surprise. I’d never felt that way about a guy before. I was with Min then—I lied to you about that. I’ve been with lots of girls. But it was so different with you. So much better.”

  “If it was so much better,” I said, “what were you doing with Min last night?”

  “This is a big deal for me, okay? I’m gay! Like I said, I’d never even thought about that before.”

  “What does that have to do with—?”

  “I needed to know for sure,” Web said. “So I hooked up with Min again. I know that’s not fair to you, or to Min. But I was confused. I wanted answers. And I found them. By being with Min, I learned once and for all that I didn’t want her, or any girl. I want you.”

  Web sounded absolutely convincing. And even now, part of me wanted to believe him. Fortunately, I’m not a complete idiot. For one thing, if he didn’t know he was gay until that night with me, how did he know he wanted to kiss me the first time he saw me?

  “I don’t believe you!” I said.

  Web looked devastated, like a tree that had been toppled by a windstorm. “I’m telling you the truth! Russel, don’t you see? I love you.”

  And that’s when I had my answer. He suddenly sounded so unbelievably phony. Up until now, his performance had been pretty damn good. His saying he “loved” me was the first completely false note. But that’s how I knew once and for all that this was a performance. Web was lying to me, just like he’d been lying all along.

/>   “You’re pathetic,” I said, turning to go.

  “Russel?” Web said. “Please. Don’t just walk away. I need you!”

  “Would you stop?” I said. “It’s not working.”

  And so Web did stop. He stopped looking like a toppled tree, or even a wilted plant. He stood up taller, but seemed looser, more relaxed. His face lost the hangdog expression too. The change was quick, and so complete that I felt a little like I was watching him transform into a werewolf.

  Then he started laughing. Not at me necessarily. Just laughing.

  “What?” I said.

  “You look so serious!” he said.

  Okay, so maybe Web was laughing at me. I liked it better before, when he was telling me how sexy I was. I now felt completely self-conscious, but I tried to carry on. “This is serious!” I said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Web said. “We were just having fun anyway.”

  “You just said you loved me!”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that!”

  “Come on, Russel. That was just stuff.”

  This guy was incredible! “‘Stuff’?” I said. “Did you tell Min that ‘stuff’ too? That you loved her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you. To have some fun.”

  “So what are you?” I asked. “Bi?”

  “Who cares? I just like sex.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I could tell you were mooning over me. Dude, you were, like, kinda obvious.”

  I knew my face was turning red. My only hope was that it wouldn’t he visible in the moonlight.

  “Then Min told me you were into guys,” Web went on. “So I wanted to see just how far I could get. Which was pretty damn far!”

  Even as embarrassed as I was, I couldn’t help but think: Min had told Web I was gay? How could she!

  “What kind of person are you?” I said. “Lying to people? Taking advantage of them?”

  “‘Taking advantage’?” Web said. “Are you kidding? It took me all of twenty minutes to get into your pants. Not exactly a challenge. Even Min took longer than that.”

  By now, Web had to be able to see how red my face was, even in the dark, even in the orange throb of those distant forest fires.