“That’ll be three Big D’s, Klooberman.”
“Sir?” asked Flick as he staggered along under his huge steamer trunk. “What’s a Big D?”
The counselor glanced at Flick. “A Big D, kid, is a big fat dee-merit. You get more’n five and they cut off your ice cream. More’n ten and forget the swimming. After fifteen, y’go on bread and water. Klooberman just went over twenty.”
“What’s gonna happen to him?” Schwartz asked, looking scared.
“Wait and see.” That was all he said as he swung open the creaking door of our little log-cabin home, standing aside for three startled squirrels to vacate the premises before walking in.
“Here it is, you guys, and you better keep it shipshape or you’re gonna answer to me, Morey Partridge, personally. Y’got it?”
We got it.
“And another thing,” he went on. “Once you pick your bunks, I don’t want no movin’ around, because of bed check. You pick yer bunks, y’stay there.”
We clumped into the dim little cabin. The walls were lined with bunks stacked three high, making six in all. The far wall had a tiny window that looked out into the black forest. Schwartz, Flick, and I were the first in. Behind us toiled three other Chipmunks, lugging their heavy baggage. The one at the end of the line was the fat Chipmunk. He dragged a monstrous steamer trunk over the threshold and without a word collapsed on the low bunk nearest the door. I don’t think he could have gotten any farther. He took off his glasses, which were round and metal-framed, with white tape holding one earpiece together.
“I wanna top one!” Schwartz said excitedly as he clambered up the narrow ladder to the highest bunk near the eaves. I shoved my suitcase onto the middle one. Within five minutes, we all had our individual territories staked out and we were ready for business.
“What’s your name?” I asked the strange Chipmunk in the bunk opposite me. He was unpacking a pair of water wings from his suitcase.
“Calvin Quackenbush,” he said over his shoulder, somewhat defensively.
The fat Chipmunk snorted nastily. Quackenbush glared at him. “What’s so funny, fatso?”
Life in Mole Lodge was already hardening into the pattern it would follow in the weeks to come.
From somewhere out in the rain a bell clanged–immediately followed by the thunder of hundreds of galloping hoofs.
“What the heck is that?” Flick hollered, rushing to the window and peering into the woods–the only point on the compass from which the sound wasn’t coming. The thunder grew. Schwartz threw the front door open. Kids hurtled by, kicking up muddy water, yipping and yelling as they ran, hundreds of them pouring out of the lodges, from every building, all rushing down the slippery slope that we had just struggled up. There’s something about a rushing crowd of people that sort of sucks you in. In a moment, I found myself out the door and running with the crowd, sloshing through puddles, Schwartz panting beside me. Flick brought up the rear, falling down and getting up and falling down again. We must have run 100 yards amid the ravening mob when Schwartz, gasping and wheezing, shouted at a tall Beaver who was going past us like a freight train, his knees snapping high, his arms flailing.
“HEY! What’s going ON?”
Without looking aside, the Beaver tossed back, “It’s Hamburger Day!”
We had arrived at Nobba-WaWa-Nockee a few minutes before the absolute pinnacle of the week: Saturday lunch.
From all directions, streaming hordes of kids surged toward the mess hall. Some raced up from the lake, carrying paddles; others dropped tools and Indian beads as they ran, fresh from leathercraft. I saw a counselor, attempting to slow the mad dash, engulfed and overrun by the mob. Up the steps we ran, spraying mud and gravel. Inside the mess hall, most of the tables were already filled with hardened campers who knew the ropes. The meal, served by fat ladies in white uniforms, turned out to be light gray hamburgers, soggy French fries, cole slaw, and pitchers of cherry Kool-Aid, a true kid meal. The uproar was deafening as pieces of bun flew through the air and counselors battled the barbarian hordes, attempting to maintain some semblance of civilization.
“NOW, SIDDOWN! YOU CAME IN HERE TO EAT, NOT THROW POTATOES AROUND!” Captain Crabtree, in a momentarily clean uniform, shoved at writhing bodies amid the turmoil. It was all over in a couple of minutes. Stuffed with hamburgers and soggy with Kool-Aid, we followed the crowd back out into the rain.
“Hey, you guys!” It was Morey Partridge. “You better not be late for forestcraft. Down at the rec hall in ten minutes. Y’get two Big D’s for every minute you’re late, so get your rumps in gear.” He scurried off into the drizzle to break up a wrestling match that had broken out in the mud.
Out of breath, faces red, clothes clammy, we squeezed into the crowded rec hall, which was already filled with Beavers and fellow Chipmunks. Another counselor stood on a platform next to a blackboard, peering at his wristwatch. At the stroke of one, the lecture began:
“Forestcraft consists of learning to live off the land in the wilderness. The Indians …”
Behind us the screen door slammed noisily and three Chipmunks attempted to skulk in unnoticed. The lieutenant at the board rapped his pointer sharply on the floor.
“Sergeant, get those men’s names and lodges. We’ll deal with them later.”
A chunky counselor wearing a Nobba-WaWa-Nockee T-shirt and a businesslike crew cut closed in on the cowering malefactors. There was a brief session of muttering in the corner and the lecture continued. It was all about how you could tell what direction north was by looking at the moss on trees and how, if you knew where north was, everything was O.K., for some reason. The moist atmosphere of the rec hall slowly approached that of the Amazon jungles as 100 tightly packed bodies exuded noxious gases and the flat voice of the lecturer twanged on. Schwartz dozed off and limply slumped sideways against the leg of the pool table. Immediately, the sergeant rapped him sharply across the neck with a rolled-up copy of Field & Stream.
Schwartz started violently, his eyeballs round and glassy. “It’s got my foot!” he blurted incoherently. Apparently he’d been trapped in the middle of a nightmare. Chipmunks snickered for yards around.
“What’s your name, Chipmunk?” The sergeant peered into Schwartz’s face.
“Uh … Schwartz.”
“What lodge are you in?”
“Mole.” Schwartz had yet to learn that no enlisted man ever gives his right name or serial number to an MP.
“That’ll be two big ones for interrupting the lecture.” The sergeant scribbled something in a notebook.
“The direction that vines and creepers grow on the trunks of trees is important. When lost, a woodsman …”
After what seemed like several days, the lecture was over. The wilted mob surged out with relief into the driving rain.
“Boy, this is fun,” Flick said earnestly to no one in particular. “If we ever get lost, now we can find where north is.”
“Yeah.” It was all I could come up with, since I was too busy keeping an eye out for the sergeant, who was picking kids out of the line ahead of us. He got the three of us with a single scoop of his hand.
“You guys are on cleanup detail. Let’s move.”
We joined a clump of Chipmunks who were cowering next to a battered pickup truck. For the next couple of hours, we hopped in and out of the truck, picking up candy wrappers and stray twigs around the grounds. Between the trees, I could occasionally glimpse groups of campers in ragged formation, on mysterious missions. And from somewhere in the distance, the sound of a Ping-Pong ball continued, as it would day and night for the weeks to come. Though expeditions were formed to find the table and those who were playing on it, no one ever did.
“Get that cigarette butt over there. By that big rock.” The sergeant, whose name was Biggie Clagg, a second-year defensive guard at the University of Iowa (first string) didn’t miss a thing.
“If I ever catch the little crumb who was smokin’ that, he’ll be sorry he ever heard a’ ciga
rettes. They stunt yer growth and they wreck yer wind. I don’t wanna catch none a’ you guys puffin’ on a butt, y’hear?”
So it went as we drove in the rattly truck back and forth through the trees and over the trails.
“You guys are really lucky getting the cleanup detail today,” said the sergeant from behind the steering wheel. “Now you got it over with. You won’t catch it for another week.” We all agreed that we were lucky indeed. If we hadn’t been on this great detail, we might have been wasting our time playing ball or puffing on butts. We looked out at the other campers as they marched about, with honest sympathy for their having missed the chance to be with us.
“Maybe you guys don’t know what good work does for ya, but one day you’ll realize it’s the best thing for ya. Keeps ya sharp. Cuts the fat off ya. Good for yer wind.” Biggie continually flexed his muscles as we scurried among the weeds, carrying burlap sacks and searching for bits of paper.
“Hey! I found a dead turtle!” Flick hollered excitedly.
“In the sack,” Biggie barked. “We don’t want no dead turtles clutterin’ up the trails.”
Flick poked the turtle with a stick. It lurched forward. In a single motion, it snapped the stick cleanly in two. Flick leaped back wildly with a cry of mortal fear. The turtle, in high dudgeon, lumbered off into the undergrowth.
“Boy, what a chickenshit!” sneered Schwartz, flailing a branch about and looking for another turtle.
“YIKES!” he screamed a moment later, leaping upward, his feet churning to keep him off the ground. “HELP! A SNAKE!!”
The entire detail of Chipmunks scrambled onto the truck in about two tenths of a second. A tiny green garter snake slithered away unconcernedly. A garter snake’s life in a boys’ camp is a hectic one.
We drove on. “I don’t know what you guys would do if ya ever saw a rattler,” Biggie rumbled in his raspy voice. “What a buncha pantywaists.”
The rain had petered out. From time to time, the sun broke through the overcast. Out on the lake, a fleet of green canoes milled about on the choppy waters.
“Look at those guys out in those rowboats,” said a Chipmunk near the front of the truck.
“You’ll get your turn tomorrow,” Biggie said. “And they’re not rowboats, stupid. Those are canoes.”
They were the first canoes any of us had ever seen in the flesh. They looked great. Occasionally, from the lake, we could hear muffled shouting followed by wild splashing, but we were too busy picking up candy wrappers to watch.
Our first day in camp ended with supper in the mess hall–corned-beef hash, canned peas, dill pickles, and grape Kool-Aid, followed by watery Jell-O and Nabisco wafers. My mother would have had a fit at our diet, but we thought it was great.
As we were finishing, Morey Partridge came over to our table to announce: “Since this is the first day in camp for you Chipmunks, there won’t be a sing-song tonight, so’s you can get settled in your cabins. You get the night off.”
We wandered out of the mess hall into the twilight. The second shift of mosquitoes had come on duty. A great swirling cloud drifted over us from the lake. We swatted and scratched.
“Boy, do I have to go to the toilet!” said Flick uneasily, shifting from foot to foot as he slapped. I was with him on that. We hadn’t gone since the diner back on the road. The time had come.
“I think it’s over there.” Schwartz pointed up a path that wound behind the rec hall. We joined a long caravan of fellow campers winding up the dim trail. A wooden shed with a swinging door lit by a yellow light bulb stood at the head of the line. From time to time, a kid would come out, ashen-faced, with an apologetic air. As each appeared, a cheer went up.
The line inched forward painfully. It was getting more serious moment by moment.
“Jeez, I’m goin’ in the bushes,” Flick finally said after a quarter of an hour.
“Y’better not,” said Schwartz between clenched teeth. He already had two demerits. “If Biggie found that on cleanup detail, he’d really get sore.”
After an eternity, and just in the nick of time, Flick and I finally got inside the shed. It was lit brilliantly. There were four holes cut in an elevated wooden platform. Two other Chipmunks were hard at work. Furtively, we got down to business. The four of us squatted in embarrassed silence. Three frantic-looking Chipmunks who stood in the doorway formed an impatient and ribald audience. Somehow I had never thought of this side of camp life. It was my first experience with mass facilities, and it had a curiously inhibiting effect. I found that I didn’t have to go as much as I thought I had. As a matter of fact, nothing happened at all.
“Come on, you guys! Yer just sittin’ there!” One of the audience banged his fist on the wall in desperation.
Still nothing happened.
The kid on the end hole stood up, buckled his belt, and scurried out with the air of a man who had done nothing but had taken a long time doing it.
“Oh, wow!” The loud Chipmunk beat another kid to the hole, ripped his pants down, and squatted with obvious relief. Three other Chipmunks entered and began pacing and observing. The new kid on the end hole, who’d been so anxious, fell silent. He, too, was having problems.
“I guess I didn’t have to go,” Flick whispered and left with his face to the floor. I followed shortly. It was the beginning, although we did not yet know it, of a mysterious ailment known as the Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Block, or Camper’s Cramp. Many a kid went for two weeks or more before finally giving in.
Back at Mole Lodge, we prepared to spend our first night in the woods. You’ve never seen a dark night till you’ve spent a night in the Michigan woods. We were glad to be indoors. There were great shadows on the walls as I climbed up into my bunk. The fat Chipmunk already lay in his bunk, reading a thick paperback, holding it close to his nose in order to make out the print.
A face appeared in the screened doorway: “Lights out in half an hour, at nine-thirty.” It disappeared.
Schwartz’s head peeked over the edge of his bunk. “Ain’t this great, you guys?”
From somewhere in the gloom, Flick answered, “Yeah. Sure is.”
I lay dead tired from the long day, the bus ride, the lecture, Captain Crabtree, the rain, the cleanup detail, Biggie; all of it was like some endless dream. I had been away from home only since morning, and already I could hardly remember my kid brother, my mother, and the old man. The lights went out. After a brisk flurry of whispering, silence.
I shifted restlessly on my muslin mattress cover. The mattress seemed to be filled with fingernail parings. Constellations of prickly things jabbed me everywhere. Finally, I slipped off into a troubled sleep.
“What’s that?” It seemed like I wasn’t asleep for five minutes when Flick’s voice, trembling with fear, made me start straight up. I hit my head a reeling crack against the bunk above and fell back stunned.
“There’s something out there!” Flick’s voice ended with a slight sob. Mole Lodge was in a turmoil. From the window, the dim-gray light of early dawn fell on the board floor. I heard Schwartz mutter, “Look out and see what it is!”
There was a pause. Another voice answered, “Oh yeah? Do it yourself. It ain’t gonna get me!”
It was the dreaded Thing in the Woods syndrome that afflicts all denizens of every kid camp everywhere. We lay petrified until the sun came up and reveille was blown. Only the fat Chipmunk slept through it all. He was the first person I ever saw who slept with his glasses on.
It was a sharp, brisk, sunny day. Camp Nobba-WaWa-Nockee swung into action. After breakfast–oatmeal, milk, raspberry jam, burnt toast–Morey Partridge announced:
“Wolves, Eagles, Polar Bears, Jaguars, and, oh yeah, Moles–it’s time for leathercraft. Let’s go. On the double.”
Leathercraft! There are few among us who have not felt the pain of a needle piercing a thumb, the inexpressible boredom of toiling over a wampum belt or a lumpy wallet bearing the likeness of Roy Acuff done in colored Indian beads. For the next coupl
e of hours, we fumbled with pieces of leather, hacking and chopping away. A tall, reedy counselor who called himself Cliffie moved among us in his tight pants and furry shoes, clucking sweetly.
“Yes, boys, we certainly love to make things, don’t we? My, just think how pleased your mommies and daddies are going to be with the wonderful leatherwork you’ll bring them from camp. Made by your very own little hands!”
I decided on a spectacular creation featuring the silhouette of The End of the Trail, which was a picture of an Indian on a horse looking down sadly at the sunset. I had admired it on a calendar my old man had gotten from the Shell station. I figured I would do it with beads and copper rivets.
“That’s very nice,” said Cliffie, peering over my shoulder. I could smell a faint whiff of perfume. “What is it?” I told him. “My, my, your mother will love that,” he commented in a somewhat stunned voice, maybe because it was more than four feet square. That was the only way I could figure out how to get all those beads and rivets into the picture. “Well, keep up the good work.” He patted me affectionately on the behind and strolled off.
Kissel was bent over a shoulder holster with a fringe for his father’s bourbon bottle, and Flick was deeply involved in a grotesque catcher’s mitt that already looked like a dead octopus. We toiled away happily until Jake, the muscular Beaver, barged in.
“What the hell is that silly thing?” he sneered, poking at Kissel’s creation. Kissel said nothing, his face crimson. We sensed trouble.
“Jee-zus, is that supposed to be an Indian?” Jake snarled at my laboriously penciled outline. “Looks like a scarecrow takin’ a crap on some kind of a goat.” He cackled at his own rotten humor. I peered down at my drawing. He was right. It did look like a scarecrow taking a crap on a goat.
“Oh yeah?” I answered with my famous slashing wit. Jake ignored me. He turned his attention to Flick.
A Fistful of Fig Newtons Page 7