I’m ready to become one with nature, but I accidentally start mumbling one of Mark’s songs from RENT. EJ reaches over and slaps my neck before saying, “Space Cadet Carter!”
“Ow!”
“What is Aunt Jenny’s position on show tunes?” he asks.
“She’s not into them.”
“That is correct!” he says. “Now, tell me where the hell we’re going.”
“How should I know?! Jeremy just said it was behind the lake. Anywhere in here should work.” I point to an open field on the other side of a drainage ditch.
He replies, “There’s no road there.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “They haven’t gotten around to paving the great outdoors for you yet, pussy.”
“It’ll mess up Aunt Jenny’s paint!” he exclaims.
“The doors don’t close and the windows won’t roll down anymore,” Bag interjects. “You’re worried about the finish?”
“If anything’s in danger, it’s the field!” Nutt adds.
“What would Bear Grylls say if he knew a guy like you existed in his world?” Doc asks.
EJ flips the turn signal. He doesn’t even slow down before flying off the road. We all scream as the car blasts through a ditch and dirt flies over the windshield. We cackle as Aunt Jenny bounces across the field and tosses us like salad. I laugh even harder when I see Hormone’s CRX bopping around behind us. You can see Hormone and J-Low yelling at each other like an old married couple as camping gear (s’mores, beer, and hot dogs) flies around the little car.
EJ’s family used to own a camper, and Bag’s mom’s ex-boyfriend, Carl, took Bag to Jellystone Park a couple of years ago, so he and EJ are going to show the rest of us how to set up a camp properly. Carl bought Bag a three-hundred-dollar North Face sleeping pod (not to be confused with a sleeping bag…it’s a pod!). His mom dumped Carl, but he got to keep the pod.
The trees eventually become too thick to drive around (or over) so EJ parks Aunt Jenny in a little clearing and we grab the gear. We trudge a couple hundred yards deeper into the woods, where it’s creepy quiet but very cool. There are no houses in sight or dogs barking in the distance. You can see a bit of Grey Goose Lake, but it really seems like we’re roughing it in the middle of nowhere.
I see why people stopped sitting on the ground and living in tents, though. I also know why my dad never got me into this stuff. The tents stink like butt-crack, and it hasn’t rained around here in months, so these plastic stakes won’t break the earth’s crust without snapping in half. The support poles make great swords, but we can’t figure out how else to use them.
We give up on the shelter part of camping and concentrate on the fire, because it’s freezing and no one is wearing a shirt. I just peed right out in the open! Camping is hella-good male bonding. If we kill something tonight, it’ll be perfect (not for the squirrel or whatever, but for the experience).
We undo some metal hangers to cook the marshmallows and hot dogs. There is no shortage of wiener jokes, but we don’t have buns or condiments because our moms didn’t plan this cookout. We also have stale Corn Nuts, warm Mountain Dew, and stolen beer. I understand why there are no camping-themed restaurants.
I’ve heard old people say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” But they’re mistaken, because no matter how much smoke we produce, there is no fire. We’ve got a bunch of wood, but our notebook paper will only start little fires that put themselves right out. We find out that textbooks don’t burn (sneaky teachers), but progress takes a turn for the better (or worse if you’re a squirrel living in the area) when EJ discovers an old greasy metal can inside Aunt Jenny’s trunk. It’s not labeled, but the contents smell very flammable. We don’t see the harm in using a few sprinkles to get things going (because our moms are not here to say, “Absolutely NOT!”).
Bag sniffs the can and gags. “Whooaahh!!!”
“Aunt Jenny may have been a moonshiner!” Doc adds.
J-Low offers twenty bucks to the guy who takes a drink of the stuff, but we may actually be getting a little wiser in our old age. We also know that J-Low doesn’t have that kind of money.
We decide it’s gasoline, so EJ drips a drop of it onto the smoking mound of logs and dry leaves. A shot of flame leaps into the air, and we all gasp, “Woooow!!!”
A few more drops get things rolling. When the fire evens out, it’s kind of amazing. We cook our food like cavemen and eat it without ketchup, like savages. The fire seems to tap into a primal part of my soul, and I start running around the blaze and howling at the moon. My boys make fun of me at first, but before you know it, they’re jumping over the fire and screaming like wild animals too.
It’s all good until I notice Andre bending one of the hot dog cookers into a little circle at the end. I’m thinking that he’s making an old-fashioned bubble blower, but I’m waaaay off.
He slides the rod into the fire and says, “Yo, we should brand each other!”
Everyone gets quiet and just stares at the fire for a second. The male bonding just came to a grinding halt. Nobody is drunk enough to think that’s a good idea, or confident enough to be the first guy to say, “Hell NO!!!”
I know he means “brand” like cow ID, but I say, “You mean like marketing-type branding? Like I’ll be KFC and you be FedEx?”
I thought that was clever, but no one laughs because Andre is twisting the hanger in the bottom of the coals.
“No, gay-wad,” he says. “I mean we hold each other down and jam this red-hot circle into each other’s shoulders! My cousin’s in a frat that does it.”
He’s hoping we’ll all yell, “YEAH!!!” and fight to see who goes first, but we just keep looking at the fire until Bag says, “Or maybe the back of the calf? That would look cool.”
A few guys nod like, It would. It seems as if they might actually be considering this terrible idea! I, on the other hand, had an epiphany last year: my friends are awesome, but I don’t have to do everything they do, and I don’t need their approval. And what good is an epiphany if you don’t break it out in situations where people are about to permanently scar themselves?
Andre pulls out the bright orange hanger and asks, “Who’s going first?!”
Everyone looks around the camp, giggling, hoping someone will volunteer, when I say, “Stop. Shut up! This isn’t like lifting weights or shaving our heads. This is gonna hurt!”
Andre wraps his T-shirt around the end of the hanger because it’s too hot to hold. “That’s right,” he sneers. “It is gonna hurt like a bitch. But sometimes you gotta man up!”
“Is that what I gotta do, Andre?”
He’s glaring at me when EJ drains an entire beer, burps, and says, “I’ll go!”
“What?!” I gasp.
“Really?” Andre asks.
EJ nods, and everyone stops giggling.
“Dude, you don’t have to do this,” I say.
“I know!” EJ barks as he rolls up his left pant leg.
“So we’re doing the leg?” Andre asks.
EJ doesn’t say anything. He starts breathing really hard and fast, like he’s about to lift a heavy barbell. He looks like a real-deal caveman as he lies facedown in the leaves.
Andre quickly says, “Hold him down!” and shoves the rod deeper into the coals. I should push everyone away from my best friend, but it’s like a raging fire of testosterone has swept through our campsite, and there is no controlling it.
About ten of us pin him tightly to the earth. “Are you sure, EJ?!” I ask as I clamp down on the back of his foot.
He nods, so Andre pulls the branding iron/hanger from the blaze. It glows even brighter as he blows on it. EJ’s foot trembles beneath my hand. Either that or I’m shaking. I think everyone is quivering…including Andre.
“I’m gonna hold it down for three seconds!” Andre yells. “Don’t move or we won’t get a good stick!”
He’s never branded anyone before, and he’s trying to sound like an expert. I’m even more pissed of
f because it occurs to me that Andre’s probably going to be successful in life. He’s come up with a crazy idea here and has tricked others into thinking it’s a good one. That’s like the definition of an entrepreneur! We all know that he’s full of crap, but we’ve got one of our friends pinned to the earth so he can be branded. That’s about as legit as it gets!
Without hesitation, Andre presses the circle into EJ’s leg. The flesh sizzles like an Outback steak. EJ’s body flexes so violently that every one of us is jolted into the air from the force. I’ve never felt anything as powerful as his foot kicking into my hand…until Andre pushes the iron back into EJ’s leg in a slightly different spot and EJ kicks up again, even harder. My best friend lets out this primal scream that causes everyone to jump back. We just watch him squirm in agony. His skin is actually smoking! I doubt either touch of the circle made it the prescribed three seconds, but he is definitely branded. His leg is twitching and swelling with every beat of his heart.
He’s still breathing really hard when he quietly asks, “How’s it look?”
Everyone relaxes when Bag replies, “Pretty friggin’ gnarly, man!”
Nutt shines a flashlight on it and says, “It’s purple.”
“What?” EJ asks.
Andre assures him, “That’s a good sign. It means the scarring is deep.”
“Is that what it means?” I ask, like a dick.
Bag puts his face closer to EJ’s leg. “It stinks! And it kind of looks like a figure eight on its side.”
“Like the symbol for infinity,” J-Low adds.
We all look closer and nod. “Oh yeah!”
EJ asks, “Like infinity the math term or like, Infiniti the car company?”
“Uh, both, right?” Nutt replies.
Doc says, “No, my stepmom has an Infiniti. It’s like—”
“Yeeaah,” Levi says. “That’s a nice ride. Did she get fake boobs or not?!”
We’re all pretty sure she did, but Doc won’t confirm it. “How the hell should I know?!” he says.
“Sounds like you do,” Bag says.
“That butt-hole claimed he didn’t have the money to get me braces, but his new wife’s blowin’ out her bra all the sudden and no one’s allowed to give her hugs anymore,” Doc grumbles.
EJ gets us back on topic. “What about the logo on her car?”
“Probably can’t touch that either, huh, Doc?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “I think their emblem is more like a pyramid with a circle around it.”
“Naw,” Bag says, pointing at EJ’s growing scar. “That’s the Infiniti sign, right?”
Levi is a math nerd, so he says, “It’s definitely the symbol for infinity.”
EJ finally jerks around to look at his new scar. He says, “Why do I have two circles?!”
Andre replies, “You jumped like a little bitch, so I had to hit you twice, and then you scooted.”
“Way to go, E!” I say.
Doc continues, “The speedometer on that Infiniti says it’ll do a hundred and forty.”
“You should get her to drive you to the pool next summer,” Bag says. “And then get her to go off the diving board.”
“Isn’t an Infiniti just like a nice Nissan?” J-Low asks.
“We should send a pic of your leg to their marketing people!” Nutt suggests. “You could get paid off of this!”
EJ has no intention of going corporate with his brand. He also has no memory of the branding, which I find fascinating. We try to do an impression of the scream he let out, but he says his brain just deleted it. Eventually he hobbles to his feet and asks, “So, who’s going next?”
I have to admit it looks pretty cool and I am slightly jealous, but I will not be getting branded tonight, and neither will any of the other guys.
Everyone says some version of “Sorry, dude” or “No way!”
Even Andre shakes his head like, That was too heinous.
EJ has the right to call us pussies, but he’s not mad. No one actually said they would do it with him. He just thought we’d follow him off the cliff, but we really seem to be maturing. It’s cool, but also a little sad.
After a while the fire dies down, so a few of us go out in search of wood. Some are willing to go farther than others because it’s dark and there might be snakes out there! I am certain there’s a cobra underneath every log, but somehow my boys have rounded up another huge pile of wood without incident. Lucky is what they are!
Bag is just about to sprinkle more gasoline onto the new logs when a rustling in the bushes stops him. I jump to my feet and say, “What the hell was that?!”
Everyone seems freaked because something is definitely growling out there. Twigs start cracking as the thing charges toward our campsite! Even though there probably isn’t a bear within a thousand miles of Merrian, I am positive that’s what it is. A real-life Smokey the Bear coming to maul us for using gas on a fire.
I take a fighting stance. I’m ready…to throw one of my boys into the beast’s path before I run for my life. I never get the chance because Nutt sprints out of the darkness buck naked with a tree branch in his hands. He jumps over the small fire, yelling, “I found wood, boys!”
We all groan and tell him to put his pants on, but he’s having too much fun. He uses the branch like a stripper pole and does the helicopter dance for a while. Then he starts leaning on people and asking, “Have you ever seen a moon this gorgeous?”
We’re trying to ignore him, but he grabs a hot dog and wedges it between his butt cheeks. “Look who found buns!” he cackles, and waddles around the camp.
I have to laugh, but then he crosses the line by squatting down and grunting, “Who wants chili on their dog?!”
He backs himself over the fire pit and declares, “I like my buns toasted, don’t you?!”
EJ is still in a lot of pain, but he’s always quick with the improv. He snatches up the can of gas and dumps it on the fire. Only about a cup of liquid erupts out of the lid, but everyone runs for cover like a bomb is about to go off. The only guy who doesn’t realize a massive fireball is about to shoot into the air is Nutt.
People tell you to “Pour it on!” in swimming, but I never really got what that meant until I saw gasoline poured directly onto a fire.
Everyone yells, “WHOOOAAAH!!!” except Nutt. He’s too busy screaming and rolling around in the leaves.
He thinks his ass is on fire because Doc told him, “Dude, your ass is on fire!”
It’s not, but the real Smokey the Bear would be proud of Nutt’s fire-safety skills.
“Stop, drop, and rolll!” Hormone yells.
The rest of us are just marveling at the flames as they reach higher and higher above our heads.
Andre kicks the charred hot dog and laughs. “I think you burned your wiener, Nutt!”
“I smell burnt pubes!” I say.
Of course they want to know why I know what burnt pubes smell like, but their burn session dies down when we notice our fire is getting bigger. A lot bigger! I suddenly recall the drought Merrian has been in, and realize that we’ve built this fire under a bunch of dried-out trees. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but it seems more significant as the flames lick the low branches and they begin smoking like insecure girls in eighth grade.
Andre thinks fast and throws a sleeping bag onto the blaze. Part of the fire dies down for a second but then eats right through the dusty cotton to burn even higher and hotter.
“Are you trying to make it worse?” I ask.
Doc grabs Bag’s North Face sleeping pod but gets tackled by its owner.
“Get off!” Doc barks. “It’s polyester—it won’t burn!”
“You are not smart!” Bag grunts. “Your nickname is meant to be ironic!”
Doc eventually overpowers him and throws the three-hundred-dollar blanket onto the blaze. It really does subdue the flame…until Bag yanks it away. When the fire gets a fresh hit of oxygen, it jumps like a rocket into the trees. My mout
h is wide open as the whole forest seems to ignite, and I get really hot, really quick. Bag’s sleeping pod is totally ablaze (polyester does burn) and he’s swinging it around like a madman. I know he’s trying to save his overpriced blankie, but it seems like he’s trying to start a forest fire as quickly and evenly as possible. We try to stamp out the smoldering leaves, but there’s a reason firemen don’t wear Nikes! My shoes are melting to my feet as I yell, “Bag! Stop, you idiot!”
Bag is crying and can’t hear me. The flames have climbed up to his hands, and he’s finally forced to drop the pod. The rest of us are squawking like chickens and running for our lives. We just keep running into each other and spinning around in circles because there is no way out!
Hormone is looking up when he yells, “The fire is headed toward the cars!”
After hearing that statement, EJ just runs right though a wall of flames and disappears. Seeing one penguin jump off the iceberg sends everyone else right after him…all except one pussy-assed penguin still debating his options. I can hear my boys screaming in pain on the other side of the flames, like they regret their decision to run directly into an inferno, but then the only sound is roaring fire. I yell, “You guys?!” but no one responds.
I’m totally alone and frozen with fear. The fire seems to be closing in on me. My eyes are burning and I’m struggling to breathe, but I can’t think of anything except, I will not run into a wall of fire!
I wish my football coach were here to hit me with his whistle and yell, “MOVE, you dad-burn guckin foose!!!”
Or that my swimming coach would materialize to scream, “Go! Go! GOOOO!!!”
I try yelling at myself, but it just causes a coughing fit. Somehow it works, though, and I find myself running toward the area my boys exited. But just as I’m about to flame-broil myself, I notice a whole area of fire that’s died out. The scrub plants are just smoking in this one little spot, like a mirage in the desert. I hit the brakes and dash into the little flame-free corridor.
I jog around the blaze and see that it is spreading fast, right toward Aunt Jenny and the CRX. My boys are all kinds of burned, and there are no cool logos imprinted in their welts. Their clothes are actually smoking. They really seem to be in a lot of pain. I’ve got an annoying tickle in my throat, but I decide not to complain about it.
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