A Comedy & a Tragedy

by Travis Hugh Culley

  Before we left for Daytona, we went down a list of items to pack. It included things like clothes for seven days, a swimsuit, a towel, a pillowcase, an extra pair of sneakers, sunscreen, bug spray, and soap. At the bottom of the list was “shaving cream.”

  I looked at my father. “What do we need shaving cream for?” Joe and I were both many years from needing to shave.

  “We’ll get you your shaving cream.”

  “Do I need a razor?”

  Dad tapped me on the back and told me I would understand when I got there.

  After loading the car, we pulled out of the driveway and began a long drive northbound on the turnpike. We spent one night at our grandmother’s house and got up early to watch the sunrise with my grandfather on the beach.

  At about ten in the morning Joe and I were let out of the car in a church parking lot. Kids were being loaded into school buses. Dad boarded with us and started to load our stuffed pillowcases into the overhead carrier. Mom snapped photographs, waving.

  The moment we sat down, the whole bus was given a big southern welcome by a gleaming preacher. He prayed for us. Then, on command, the bus drove out onto the street. Children were waving out of the windows until there was nothing, only a road, a bus full of strangers, and my brother sitting next to me, reading.

  The drive was about an hour long. We passed through a few small towns, and then we followed a dirt road into the woods. After a few bumps and turns we pulled into a clearing with a swimming pool, a baseball diamond, and a small cluster of red barns. When we got off the bus I could see there was a lake and beyond that, for thirty miles it seemed, nothing but kids and trees.

  The camp had been a farm before. Dad’s church bought the land and made renovations, converting the barns into a mess hall and cabins for the boys and girls. Then they added a swimming pool. Dad said that he had learned to swim at this camp when he was our age, “everyone did.” Later they built a chapel, a wide building with a stone fireplace against the back wall and a plywood stage. Construction was still fresh when my brother and I sat down in the pews.

  At camp, ritual and tradition determined every minute. A bell rang to start the day. Breakfast was served in the mess hall. After prayers and announcements, we were assigned chores. Some days it would be my job to wash dishes. Some days it would be my job to clean the canoes. Some days I was asked to sweep the boys’ cabin and to put the dust into a trashcan that another boy would take out.

  Every summer, campers freely and liberally wrote their names on the interior walls of the cabins where we slept. There was no rule that you could not, so everyone did. Most kids marked a place near the bunk of their choice, to claim it as theirs. BILL SLEPT HERE, 1971. ANDREW, 1968. While sweeping, I had a rare chance to be in the cabin alone and to look at all of the kids’ graffiti. Names were written over names. Writing went everywhere, overlapping itself. Signatures scarred the wooden windowpanes, the ends of the bedposts, the beams and joists in the ceiling. Writing covered every wall, inch by inch, panel by panel, rising up the sides. With each summer, the barn collected more names.

  After doing our chores, kids broke up into two groups for classes. The schedule went as follows: swimming classes were mandatory—even if you knew how to swim. If you took swimming in the morning you took Bible study in the afternoon; if you took swimming in the afternoon, then you had craft making in the morning. Joe and I chose the craft making option because I didn’t read, and because he did not believe in God.

  The day began in the chapel with a small group of kids. Joe and I spent a few hours mixing watercolors and painting plaster statues. After peanut butter sandwiches and pop, we changed into our swim shorts and leapt into the pool.

  In the afternoons, after swimming, a volunteer would start up the boat and take kids around the lake on inner tubes or water skis. At night, after dinner, there were a variety of scheduled events. Tuesday night, we played Capture the Flag on the baseball field. Wednesday night there were board games in the mess hall. Thursday night was a talent show, and on Friday night we sat around a bonfire and listened to the older campers tell scary stories about a deranged lunatic who lived in the woods across the lake and preyed on innocent campers every summer.

  When it was time for bed, the adults put out the fire and sent us up the hill from the fire pit. The boys and girls separated into two groups, walking up to our respective cabins to say our prayers with one of the youth ministers. They turned out the lights.

  On the last night of camp, after dinner and an evening prayer, a special service was held in the chapel. I remember the sound of children clomping through the doorways and around the pews. Behind the preacher, a guy with a mustache playing a guitar led the group in songs. Children sang along, reading from a book of hymns. I sat down near the back of the congregation, a leafy book open in my lap, trying to follow the tabs. Joe sat next to me. The guitarist played, the children sang.

  Then the preacher became solemn. He began telling us about original sin, Adam and Eve, naming the animals. Song after song, the preacher became more serious. He approached the pews telling the story of Noah, and the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah. He told us about Jacob wrestling with the stranger by the bank of a river:

  “Jacob and the man fought all night, and with every blow Jacob made he took a blow of equal power, and so the fight lasted all night, until the morning light could be seen. When morning came, Jacob asked the stranger what his name was, but the stranger would not give it.”

  Again the guitarist began to play, and the preacher turned to the hymnbook. We were being invited: “Will you accept Jesus Christ into your heart to be your Lord and Savior?” One by one, children stood from the pews. “Now is your chance,” he urged, drawing us onto the stage. First there was one, then there were three, and then there were five more.

  “What is your name?”

  “William.”

  “And do you accept the good Lord to be your Savior, William?”

  “I do.”

  “Say it with me: I accept the Lord Jesus Christ…”

  “I accept the Lord Jesus Christ…”

  “Your new name is Michael, William Michael, and the good Lord will look after you all of your days, and will reserve a place for you in heaven, William Michael.” William Michael joined the others onstage. “And you?” He beckoned from the altar. “Are you going to accept God’s invitation?” Rob was now Mark. Children who already had biblical names were given second names. James was given Matthew. Andrew was given Paul.

  Language, the preacher’s power to name and rename children, was like a tool in his hand, a branding iron he waved before us. I looked to my brother. Was he going to go up there? Would he accept a different name? Something held me in my seat. The tool didn’t work on me. I pulled the edge of my brother’s shirt and sat on it so that he would not budge. I was the illiterate one, I would protect him.

  As the pews thinned out, the stage grew crowded with children. I thought about the names in the cabin, and I understood what the camp was for. Camp was a system of experiences built to separate us from our parents.

  Once all of the other congregants had gone up, the red-faced man looked out at Joe and me, sitting shoulder to shoulder. His head shining, the preacher urged us to accept the Savior and to follow the others. Veins pulsed behind his ears. We did not stand. We did not understand. Bereft, the preacher gave a closing prayer.

  After the service, all of the children were called to the mess hall for the end-of-the-week party. It was Carnival Night. There were decorations and refreshments. The adults had set up tables with a different game on each. At one table there was a dart-throwing game, at another an apple-bobbing contest. There was a game of Twister, a basketball hoop, and, near the bathrooms, a big heart-shaped kissing booth with red curtains.

  In front of the booth, boys and girls waited in line. It amused me, the red drapery and the heart-shaped frame. There was even a mirror in the entranceway, where kids brushed their hair and puckered their lips. Never
before had I been witness to a true kissing booth. Interested, I stepped in line behind the others. I had never kissed a girl before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. When I considered that I didn’t know who I might be kissing, I thought about stepping back out of line. It may not have been the right time to do this.

  Then, from across the room, one of the adults noticed me. Before I knew it, he was beside me, holding my arm tight. In a low voice he told me I shouldn’t be in this line. I was too small, he said. Then he sat me down at one of the wooden picnic tables. “Now, just wait here. I’ve got something for you.” He stood, and walked to the kitchen.

  I waited. Kids were going into the kissing booth and slowly, one after the next, coming out the other end. I looked down at my ankles, crossed beneath me. The man returned with a red cup. He didn’t know my name, but he talked to me through his mustache as though he did know my name. “I got you some pop,” he said. “You thirsty? Drink this up, okay? This is for you, okay? Don’t share it with anyone else.” He nodded as he spoke.

  Holding the plastic cup in both hands, I couldn’t figure out the flavor. It tasted like ginger ale, but it was darker than ginger ale, and sweeter. The man was satisfied with me when I sipped from it. I wasn’t in trouble anymore. Then he left me on the bench with my drink. In the back of the mess hall, I saw a girl looking over at me, and I thought she might have seen what had just happened. Without thinking much, I walked over and introduced myself. She said her name was Angela.

  “Did you see that?” I asked. “That man just pulled me out of line.”

  “What for?”

  “He said I was too small to go into the kissing booth.”

  “You’re not too small.”

  I was flattered, yet cautious. I sipped from my cup and asked her if she had been in.

  “In where?”

  “In the kissing booth?”

  Angela looked away. She wasn’t planning on going in either. I wondered what was inside. Was there a boy and a girl in there? It would only seem right. Was there a countertop, or a table that they leaned over? Who were the lucky volunteers who had been chosen to kiss the kids at camp? It had suddenly become too loud at the carnival. Angela couldn’t hear me.

  Sipping from the dark ale, I invited her to go outside so that we could hear each other better. She agreed, and I held open the screen door. We walked past the vending machines with the pop drinks in those old glass bottles. I remembered the satisfaction of wrenching the caps from them for fifty cents, and I remembered the taste of a cold caramel honeycomb on my tongue. This was different. I sipped from a flat sour cup and followed Angela into the beam of a spotlight that was mounted to the roof of the old barn. The light was too bright. We squinted, and walked down the hill to the empty swing set glowing in a pool of moonlight.

  Angela sat in the seat of one swing. I put my cup down in the sand, and asked her if she wanted a push. She said she was afraid of heights. I wasn’t afraid. I loved heights and so I took the swing next to her and started kicking myself into the air. Maybe Angela would push me.

  “Just wait. I’ll go all the way up!” I said.

  My head was spinning. It had become a beautiful night with a clear, full moon that hung over the lake. I felt a tingle of deep excitement I had no name for. I felt I could hold the moon in one hand. On the swing, I experienced something of a miracle. It seemed there were two moons. One was hung from the night looking down, and the other was the first moon’s reflection wading in the glassy lake, looking up. As I swung, the distance between the two moons appeared to lengthen and shorten. Angela watched me from below. I was lifted up so high that the chains went loose in my hands. I held on until gravity came and snapped them taut again. Then I decided to jump from the swing. I thought I would land on my feet in the grass below.

  “Watch this!” I cried, making my last few kicks. Eager to fly, I turned my wrists under and threw myself into the space between two moons. Hearing the chains ring above me, I lost all perception of the ground. I fell hard, knocking myself out on the packed earth.

  I awoke to find the man with the mustache telling Angela to go inside. She ran up to the light. I had dirt in my mouth. I brushed pebbles away from my face. The man with the mustache picked me up in his arms as though I were a guitar and carried me down the hill and toward the lake. I kicked out of his arms, refusing to be carried. I wanted to walk on my own. I was a big boy, I said. The man told me I could walk beside him if we held hands. Feeling dizzy, I let him lead me alongside the pool, and down behind a big tree near the lake. We walked along the bank and then up the other side of the pool, avoiding the light from the mess hall. He walked me to the door of a small white building above the chapel. I was confused. The man had said he was taking me to the clinic, but the door read OFFICE. That much I could read.

  The man with the mustache knocked on the door. An older man, expecting us, opened it and whisked me inside. No words were said. Was this the same preacher from the sermon? I couldn’t tell. His face was not red anymore, but his eyes were the same glassy blue. The man with the mustache left. The door was closed. The older man went over to the letter-writing desk and began to ask me what happened.

  I told him: I’d fallen.

  “Swinging too high?”

  I repeated my words, knowing what I’d done.

  He said he’d give me something for the pain. He was putting on a latex glove, just one, on his left hand. He had a small clear jar and a gauze pad that he drew from the drawer of his desk. He opened the container and poured some of its liquid into the cotton. Gently, he came closer and asked me to show him where it hurt. I lifted up my shirt, over my left side—and then I disappeared, falling right through my skin, feeling the pastor’s plastic thumb against my cheek.

  One moon had been cut from the night. I woke, spinning, feeling held by the sound of crickets. I was in the anxious embrace of a man, someone. He was bumping me. I had no idea how I’d gotten here, or where I was. I couldn’t feel anything but for a sort of glowing in me, and all around me. I could see through my skin. I was aware of my back and legs, my hands and face, even with my eyes closed. Someone was bumping me, and the table I was lying on. I had been dreaming of being in heaven, knowing what heaven was—except for the crickets. I remember thinking there would be no crickets in heaven. God would not bother to populate the clouds with them. I must be on earth. I was in a small room, on a white metal table, beside a piano that was covered with a thin quilt. There were golden crosses on the walls. He didn’t think we were in heaven, did he? I felt like I was having an argument with myself, like wrestling with myself. I thought: If I could just explain, then I would wake up, or he would wake up—or wake himself up. I placed my arms on the tabletop, and turned to explain about the crickets.

  The man stepped back, his collar loose. He collected the tails of his shirt and stuffed them into his pants, adjusting a belt buckle. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants. I sat up and found that my shorts were around my ankles. I was dizzy. I was sick. He said, “You’re okay. You’re okay. See? No bruises or scrapes.” I had no way of understanding what he meant.

  Sitting up on the table, I drew my swim shorts up to my hips, and I looked up at the man who had been bumping me. He was old. His cheeks were flushed. He had starch-white hair.

  Reaching with my toes, I found the floor, but it was moving. With both feet on the ground I could ask, “Do I have to be here?”

  “You don’t have to stay here”—he sat back down in the corner—“but you can stay, if you want to.” Turning my eyes away from the old man, I walked through the front door, stepping unsteadily down to earth.

  He came to the door again and closed it gently, saying only: “Go back to your cabin now. You’ll forget everything in the morning.”

  Outside was infinite night, and I was dizzy. I didn’t even know what direction I should walk in until I saw a light over the mess hall, stretching across my forehead in rays. I was at camp, and I was thirsty.

  I walke
d uneasily up to the doors of the mess hall and peered in. The space had been emptied. The carnival had ended. In the mess hall a clock read absolute midnight. Two arrows had collapsed into one and were pointing to a pinhole, the moon, now above me. Where had this time gone? Where had the children gone? Then I saw the narrow sidewalk that led back to the cabins. As my eyes adjusted I saw the swing set. There in the sand, a red plastic cup. Did I leave it? In the cup, half full of something dark, I saw purple poison. A cold sweat touched my forehead, and I steadied myself. Then I heard a voice. It came from within me:

  In case something happens, you’re going to need to remember this.

  A breeze passed over the lake, drawing fog. Two hours had vanished, maybe more. I saw trees in silhouette. I remembered the lunatic in the woods, and I walked back to the boys’ cabin. Opening the screen door, I managed my way down the dark hall between the bunk beds. I recognized my bed by the graffiti on the bedposts. I pulled myself up and fell into my sheets. I laid my head on the pillow, trying to stop spinning. To help myself sleep, I curled up and listened to the sound of the other boys breathing.

  As dawn approached, I found the letters of the alphabet moving beyond my reach. Day was here. There was my body; I saw it. I kept floating over, sweeping past it, unsure if this was the body to which I’d been assigned. The names were moving like liquid around the beams and panels of the cabin. The scratches of so many pens and pocketknives cast tiny multicolored shadows into the grain. Colors converged; it wasn’t light. Blue ink read green. Red ink read black. Black markers shone orange and yellow.

  I heard laughter where children stood to write their names. I saw their markers in hand, tops careening to the floor. I saw all of this clearly, even from my bed, but then it struck me as odd, very odd, the silence. The breathing had stopped. I sat up and leaned over the rail. I was alone in the cabin. All of the other boys had packed their bags and left them on their naked mattresses. I heard laughter. My stomach ached. I had to find the bathroom.