A Fistful of Fig Newtons

by Jean Shepherd

  “Put that hat back on, Chipmunk. NOW!” The fat Chipmunk quickly jammed his hat back onto his head.

  “Lieutenant Kneecamp, will you please proceed?” Captain Crabtree had the situation well in hand. Pale and shaken, the fat Chipmunk slumped down next to Kissel. He had a wad of gum stuck on his knee. The lieutenant threw the bus into gear and we slowly pulled out of the terminal, amid frenzied waving and cheering among the assembled parentage. We rumbled out into the gray, rainy street, and the last sight I had of my family was the familiar image of my old man holding my kid brother by one ear and swatting him on the rump.

  Captain Crabtree stood swaying in the aisle. “In three hours we will arrive at camp. We will make one stop, in precisely ninety minutes. If you have to go to the toilet, you will hold it until then.”

  I had already felt faint stirrings. Now that he mentioned it, they flared up badly. I had been so excited that I’d forgotten to go after breakfast.

  “We will now sing the ‘Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Loyalty Song,’ ” Captain Crabtree shouted over the roar of the engine. “Here, pass these songbooks back. I have counted them. I want every one of them returned at the conclusion of the trip.” He needn’t have worried.

  He handed out mimeographed blue pamphlets. There were mutterings here and there. The fat Chipmunk had closed his eyes and appeared to be holding his breath. I was handed a songbook. The lettering on the front read Nobba-WaWa-Nockee True-blue Trail Songs.

  “All right, men. The ‘Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Loyalty Song’ is the first song in the book. It is sung to the tune of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’ You all know it. Ladadeedeedadadum,” Captain Crabtree sang tonelessly. I opened the book. Schwartz and Flick, their hats jammed down on their heads, had their books open, too. Life at Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee had officially begun.

  The captain produced a pitch pipe that looked like a little harmonica. He blew briskly into it, producing a wavering note that was barely audible over the bellow of the worn Dodge motor.

  “Now, sing it out. All together. I want to hear some life in it.” He blew into his pitch pipe again. Led by the Beavers, we began to sing the “Loyalty Song”:

  “Nobba Nobba-WaWa-Nockee …

  EeeIiiEEEEEiii OHHH …

  With a weenie roast here … and a snipe hunt there …

  EeeeIiiiiEEEEEEEIiii OHHHH

  With a leathercraft here … and a volleyball there …

  EeeeeIiiiiEEEEEEiiii OHHHHH.”

  There were thirty-seven verses, which made reference to pillow fights, totem poles, Indian trails, and the like, with the concluding blast:

  “Colonel Bullard is our chief …

  We love him, yes we do.

  Nobba Nobba-WaWa-Nockee

  EeeeIiiiEEEEEIiii OHHHHH.”

  Again the bus exploded in a roar of cheers and stompings, with a few hisses and a couple of raspberries from the Beaver contingent. The rain drummed on the sides of the bus as we hurtled toward our gala summer.

  “Boy, lookit those great jackets all the big kids have,” said Schwartz enviously.

  “Yeah,” said Flick. “And what’s that yellow thing on the front?” Over each boy’s heart was a golden emblem.

  Kissel, who overheard us, squinted closely at the Beaver sitting in front of him. “I dunno,” he stage-whispered. “It looks like a picture of a rat holding an ice cream cone.”

  The Beaver turned savagely, baring yellow teeth, his bull-like neck bulging red with rage. “That’s the Sacred Golden Tomahawk of Chief Chungacong, you stupid little freak!” he snarled. “Hey, Jake! You hear what this stupid little kid called the Sacred Beaver?”

  “Yeah, I heard. I think we gotta teach ’im a lesson, eh, Dan?”

  Dan Baxter, as we were later to find out to our sorrow, believed we should all be taught a lesson.

  The fat Chipmunk, without warning, again hurled himself to the floor of the bus. A skinny Chipmunk yelled out, “HEY! He’s doin’ it AGAIN!”

  Captain Crabtree rose ominously from his seat, staring back into the swaying bus. The fat Chipmunk lay sprawled in the aisle, kicking his feet like a grounded frog, his eyes clamped shut, his arms held rigidly to his sides. I had seen that move many times before. My cousin Buddy was famous for his spectacularly creative tantrums. One of his specialties was the very same catatonic beauty that the fat Chipmunk was now performing surpassingly well. If anything, he was even better than Buddy at his peak. The bus slowed to a crawl as Captain Crabtree lurched down the aisle.

  “GET UP!” he barked, his voice crisp and cutting. The fat Chipmunk just lay there, quivering. One of his feet flicked upward, neatly disengaging his shoe, which bounced off the captain’s chest. It was a nice touch. The entire busload of kids, all of whom from time to time had themselves practiced tantrum throwing, recognized a tour-de-force performance.

  “I SAID GET UP!” The fat Chipmunk quivered again, this time producing a venomous hissing sound–an interesting detail.

  “What was that?” The captain’s voice was menacing. “What did you say?”

  The hissing continued, now accompanied by a curious sideways writhing of the body that produced a rhythmic thumping as his plump buttocks drubbed on the bus floor.

  “O.K.,” Captain Crabtree barked. Reaching down with a quick, swooping motion, he hauled the fat Chipmunk to his feet. Instantly, Fatso’s legs turned to rubber in counterattack.

  “I’ve had about enough out of you,” the captain muttered, his glasses sliding down his nose from the exertion of holding the fat Chipmunk erect.

  “This guy’s great!” Flick whispered, more to himself than to any of us. It was obvious we were witnessing a confrontation that could go either way.

  “I’ll give you one more chance to sit down and behave.”

  Captain Crabtree steered the blubbery, quivering mass toward his seat. The fat Chipmunk seemed to swell up like a toad, his face turning beet-red. Just as the captain was about to lower him to his seat, he let fly his ultimate crusher, a master stroke of the tantrum thrower’s art.

  “BRRRAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHH, BRAAAAAHHHHKKKKK!”

  For a moment, none of us could comprehend what was happening. It was done so quickly, so cleanly, so deliberately. The captain staggered back, bellowing incoherently. A pungent aroma filled the rear of the bus. The captain reeled, dripping from his necktie down to his brass belt buckle. The fat Chipmunk seemed to have shrunk two sizes as he squatted on his seat, exuding malevolent satisfaction at a job well done.

  “STOP THE BUS!” the captain hollered brokenly. “NOW!”

  His crisp suntans were completely soaked by a deluge of vomit. The bus careened to a halt. The captain rushed up the aisle and out the front door. He disappeared into the weeds at the side of the road.

  Immediately, the crowd broke into an uproar, with a few scattered bursts of applause coming from the Beavers up front. The fat Chipmunk had won instant respect. Schwartz, his voice rising in excitement, asked, “Hey, kid, how’d ya do that?” There was no reply.

  Flick, who was the naturalist among us, since he raised rabbits and hamsters, put the event in perspective. “He’s like a human skunk. When he’s trapped, he just lets ’em have it.”

  The fat Chipmunk had opened his right eye and fixed Flick with a piercing glare. From that instant, he was known as Skunk. It was not in any sense a term of derision. He had clearly demonstrated that he could handle himself exceedingly well and was, in fact, lethal.

  The captain, drenched to the skin from the driving rain, with bits of residual vomit staining his tie, but once again in charge, reentered the bus.

  “All right. Let’s move out,” he ordered in a voice still shaking with rage. “One more incident and the colonel will get a full report.”

  Comparative peace settled over the mob, which was now somehow changed as we rolled on through the rain. There was a brief stop at a gas station with an adjoining diner. We lined up outside the john.

  “Hey, take a look at Skunk,” Flick said to me. Skunk wa
s on a stool in the diner, taking on more ammunition in case there was further trouble.

  We moved out again in a haze of drowsiness. It had been a long trip. The country had turned to farms, Bull Durham signs, and occasional run-down vegetable stands that all seemed to be closed. Old, gray, sagging farmhouses with hand-lettered signs reading FRESH EGGS and HANDMADE QUILTS FOR SALE rolled past. We were in Michigan. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Finally the bus slowed at a crossroad. A rutted gravel road wound off to the north. A swaying yellow arrowhead attached to a tree trunk read CAMP NOBBA-WAWA-NOCKEE 2 MI. The bus exploded in a tidal wave of cheers as it wheeled onto the gravel road. We were almost there. I felt a wild tightening in the pit of my stomach. In just a few minutes I would be at camp. Camp!

  It was raining even harder now. The ditches on the side of the road were rushing torrents of muddy water. We were among heavy, dripping trees, and the branches intertwined over the road until we were rolling forward through a dark, green-black tunnel. Anxious and subdued, the Chipmunks peered out the windows into the passing gloom. We lurched around a bend and headed down a slope.

  Schwartz hit me sharply on the shoulder. “Hey, look!” He half-rose from his seat, pointing toward the front of the bus. I stared ahead. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth. Then I saw it–a gray, flat gleam through the tangled trees ahead.

  “What is it?” Flick asked, squinting. A tall, sandy-haired Beaver turned a scornful glance in our directions. “What does it look like, stupe?” He nudged the bullet-headed Beaver next to him and said loudly, for our benefit:

  “Jee-zus. They’re getting worse every year. Guys like that wouldna lasted five minutes when we were Chipmunks. Right, Jake?”

  Jake, the bullet-headed Beaver, laughed a grating cackle that boded ill for any Chipmunk who crossed his path.

  “It’s the lake!” I shouted. “Holy smokes, it’s Lake Paddaclunka-whatever-they-call-it!!”

  An expanse of choppy water lay ahead. The short, broad Beaver turned at this remark, his red neck straining again at his T-shirt.

  “Hey, Jake!” he barked. “They don’t even know Old Pisshole when they see it.”

  At this, five or six Beavers began poking each other and making incomprehensible cracks. Jake turned and grinned mirthlessly in our direction. He was missing three lower teeth and one of his ears appeared to be badly chewed.

  “Y’mean none a’you know what Paddachungacong means?” He waited for an answer. All we could do was stare dumbly back. “Well, I’ll tell ya. It means Sacred Place Where Big Chief Took a Leak.”

  Again the Beavers roared in appreciation of Jake’s cutting wit. We later found out he was telling the truth. That’s exactly what Paddachungacong means.

  By this time, the bus had rolled onto a broad clearing that sloped down to the lake. A row of stubby square log cabins with green tar-paper roofs straggled off toward the woods. The bus lurched to a halt in front of a long, flat, low building with a dark, screen-enclosed porch.

  “All right, men, let’s move out.” Captain Crabtree again stood in the aisle, directing the troops. “Watch out for the puddles. And move up onto the porch.”

  The yelling, scrambling mass of Beavers up front charged out the door and onto the porch, slamming the screen doors. We followed quietly, not knowing quite what to expect. The rain had let up, but the mud was two inches deep. My shoes had grown four sizes by the time I had walked a yard.

  “Quit splashing, Schwartz!” hollered Flick as Schwartz kicked up sheets of muddy water behind him. A chill wind blew off the lake. Just before I reached the steps, a sharp sting hit me on the back of the neck. Instinctively, I swatted at it. Already a huge welt was rising next to my left ear. I could see several other Chipmunks swatting at invisible attackers.

  “I see why they got screens all around that porch,” muttered Flick as he scratched frantically at his ribs.

  Inside the building, which was a big empty hall with a lot of long wooden tables pushed together at one end and a row of naked light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, the Beavers milled around as though they owned the place, with the cool, on-top-of-it air of battle-scarred veterans. Captain Crabtree climbed up onto a chair and clapped his hands for attention.

  “All right, men. Let’s quiet down here. Colonel Bullard will be along shortly. He wants to greet you personally and will perform the initiation rites.”

  The rain, which had picked up again, drummed heavily on the roof. Here and there, a few puddles soaked into the wood of the floor under dripping leaks. I stared out the windows to my right. A few kids who had arrived earlier in other buses trudged back and forth wearing raincoats. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the sound of a Ping-Pong ball being batted back and forth.

  “When the colonel arrives I want all of you to stand up straight and be quiet, y’understand?”

  The crowd shifted restlessly. Outside I spotted a tall figure wearing a trench coat rounding the corner of the building. There was a loud clumping on the steps, the screen door swung open, and Captain Crabtree snapped to attention.

  “Ten-HUT!” he shouted. “COLONEL BULLARD!”

  The colonel, his face deeply tanned and seamed, as though carved from rich mahogany, strode to the center of the room.

  “Jesus,” said Flick, “he must be seven feet tall!”

  The colonel was wearing a peaked military cap with a large gold eagle. He wore gleaming black boots and carried a whiplike swagger stick, the first I had ever seen, which he slapped smartly against his dripping trench coat. The room fell silent, except for the steady patter of rain on the roof. He towered above Captain Crabtree, who was standing at attention atop his chair.

  “At ease.” His voice was deep, resonant, official. “This looks like a fine body of men. We’ll soon whip them into shape, eh, Crabtree?”

  Captain Crabtree nodded briskly four or five times and descended from his chair. Colonel Bullard cracked his face into a huge grin, his teeth gleaming brightly in the gloom. For the first time, I noticed he had a thin mustache, like Smilin’ Jack.

  “Fellows,” he boomed, “we run a tight ship here.” He slapped his swagger stick hard against his whipcord puttees. “But a happy one. Right, Beavers?”

  It was a rhetorical question, since none of the Beavers answered.

  “But happiness, fellows, must be earned. A good workout in the morning, a few hours of honest labor, and then we have fun. Now, all you Chipmunks raise your right hand. So.” His gloved first shot up nearly to the ceiling. “And repeat after me the Sacred Oath of Chief Chungacong.”

  He extended his forefinger and thumb at right angles, his forefinger pointing at the ceiling, his thumb jutting out sharply. “This is the secret sign of the Brotherhood of Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. Now,” his voice grew richer and fuller, “repeat after me: ‘Oh, Great Spirit of the Woods, Oh, Giver of Life …’ ”

  Our forefingers pointed like a forest of toothpicks at the leaky roof.

  “ ‘We shall work hard and play hard, with clean minds and clean bodies, to thy greater glory.’ ”

  Together we shouted out the creed. The colonel paused dramatically. “And now, for the most important part of our ceremony–the Secret Wolf Call of Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. Captain Crabtree, perform the call.”

  The captain, eyes closed, tilted his head back and from deep inside his khaki tunic came a high, rising, spine-tingling wolf call. It echoed from floor to ceiling, from jukebox to screen door. The colonel, his face solemn after the last note died, said in a low voice: “Men, once you have joined your brothers in the sacred Nobba-WaWa-Nockee wolf cry, you will be bound together forever.” A hush fell over the mob. Even the grizzled Beavers were caught up in the occasion. “Together, men. Let’s hear it.”

  The colonel waved his swagger stick like a wand over the crowd. Slowly at first, but then with gathering momentum, a great collective howl rose to the rainy heavens. I found my eyeballs popping, my neck bulging as some strange primitive beast deep within me rose to
greet the rolling storm clouds. Schwartz, sweat pouring down his nose, seemed to be rising from the floor. The fat Chipmunk, his glasses steamed up in excitement, yowled in the corner. The colonel, his face impassive, loomed like a great oak amid the banshees. Just as the wail reached its peak, he slapped his swagger stick hard against his trench coat. Instantly, as if a switch had been thrown, the howling ceased, leaving a ringing silence. The colonel stared slowly around the hall, his gaze direct and level, taking in all of us.

  “Men, we are now brothers.” He turned and strode from the hall without as much as a backward glance.

  “HOORAY! YAY! YAY! HOORAY!” A ragged cheer broke out.

  Captain Crabtree was back on his chair. “All right, you guys. Let’s get cracking. We’ve got to move into the lodges before noon chow. Let’s go.”

  Led by the Beavers, we charged out of the hall back into the rain. Lieutenant Kneecamp had unloaded all the baggage, which was piled up in five neat pyramids with signs on each one. He shouted into the hubbub: “Whatever pile your bag is in is what lodge you’re assigned to. I don’t want no arguments. That one over there is Eagle Lodge, that one’s Grizzly Bear Lodge, that one’s Hawk Lodge, that one over there is Polar Bear Lodge, and that one on the end is Mole Lodge.”

  We finally found our stuff, after a lot of rooting around, in the Mole pile. It figured. I hoisted my suitcase, which felt twenty pounds heavier, since it was now soaked with Michigan rain water. Three or four new counselors had appeared, dressed in khaki jackets with yellow arrowheads on the sleeves.

  “All right, you guys from Mole Lodge, follow me,” one of them called out listlessly. We fell in behind him as we struggled up a slippery clay slope toward the long line of log cabins.

  A motley collection of kids squatted in cabin doors or lurked about in slickers and ponchos, watching the new shipment check in. A couple hollered: “You’ll be sorr-reee!”–an ancient cry that must have echoed around recruiting camps in the days of Attila the Hun.

  The counselor glared in the direction of a pimply kid who ducked behind a cabin after chucking an apple core at Schwartz. The counselor scooped up the apple core on the first bounce and winged it back at the retreating figure. It caught him neatly between the shoulder blades, splattering wetly as it hit.