Camptown Ladies

by Mari SanGiovanni

  Erica and Vince simultaneously grabbed both my arms as we laughed with the crowd while Glady Ateher surveyed the rest of our crew. The performer stopped at Lisa and gave a long dramatic pause as the crowd howled in anticipation. Lisa beamed like a shorter, more masculine version of Dad. Her eyes flashed and said: Bring it on.

  Glady Ateher waved her supple wrist at Lisa as if she was shooing a fly. “Too easy,” she said, and she moved down to Erica as the crowd went wild. “Hmmm,” she said, but instead of taking a shot at Erica, she sidestepped back to Lisa and the crowd roared again. Then she slid over once more to Mom and asked in an accusing voice, as she pointed to Lisa, “Did you make that?”

  Mom’s affirmative answer was lost in the hysterical crowd’s cheers.

  Glady Ateher slid back to Dad and yelled into the microphone to be heard over the laughter. “Pops, we need to talk. Here’s the thing: Unless this is some elaborate ruse to hide the fact that you are actually dating the cute fairy on the end,” she said as he pointed to Vince, “none of this makes any fucking sense.”

  Dad thought it was really funny to nod his head and pretend that he was really dating Vince behind Mom’s back, until Glady Ateher shoved her microphone under her armpit and pulled Dad out of his seat with his giant ham-sized hand. Then she walked Dad over to Vince, dwarfing him with her height magnified by towering heels, and grabbed Vince too, hoisting them both effortlessly onto the stage. She ignored their protests, feeding off of the cheering crowd, as she dragged them both and yelled into his armpit microphone, “This is why it’s called a Drag Show, folks!”

  The place erupted into full applause and Erica nearly fell into my lap laughing her head off. On stage, Glady Ateher grabbed them both by the back of the head and made them kiss her on either side of her cheeks just as a giant camera flash went off. Then the performer gave Dad and Vince two choices: “Either I use that picture we just took for my next poster, which means it will get plastered all over the web. Or . . . one of you has to get in a bikini top while the other one gets spanked.”

  Before Dad had time to thoroughly weigh all his options, Vince yelled with his hand raised up like a kindergartner with a weak bladder, “Bikini!!”

  Glady Ateher said pointing to Vince, “Candy Ass over here knows a good deal when he hears it!” Then she yanked a bikini top she had kept stuffed inside her own bra, and threw it into Vince’s face. The crowd was encouraging as Glady Ateher said, “Shirt off, Candy Ass . . . Sugar Pops needs to get some pleasure out of this when he’s getting his spanking.” Dad was laughing, but not nearly as hard as we were, especially when somebody off stage handed Glady Ateher a ping-pong bedazzled paddle with the word BITCH spelled out in sparkling pink rhinestones.

  I could read Dad’s lips mouth the words “Holy shit” as Erica fumbled for her camera, but she was laughing so hard she could barely see straight and eventually had to give up on the idea of capturing the moment. Lisa was holding her stomach and rolling side to side in her seat, every once in a while re-charging her laughter by looking at Mom sitting perfectly still with her frozen smile, like a teacher attending a really bad elementary school play.

  Dad was shaking his head no, and as Glady Ateher directed him to kneel, Dad finally grabbed the microphone in a moment of panic and said, “No, wait! That’s my son!”

  Glady Ateher said, “Listen, Sugar Pops, just because a Candy Ass calls you Daddy, don’t mean he’s your son!” The crowd roared again as Glady Ateher placed a beefy hand on Dad’s shoulder and I could see in that moment he was torn between spanking his son and hitting a man dressed as a woman.

  Dad dropped to his knees just as Vince got his bikini top adjusted over his hairy Italian chest and grinned sheepishly to the crowd. Vince was humiliated, but I knew he was thinking about the years of laughter we would get out of this night when it was all over. He was dying up there, and his sisters were loving it.

  Glady Ateher handed Vince the ping-pong paddle, tipped the mic toward Dad, and asked, “Any last words?”

  Dad said, “Yes! This is my son, and that’s my wife!” There was a tone of desperation in his voice that made the crowd more rowdy. Glady Ateher stopped Candy Ass Vince with his BITCH paddle poised to strike.

  Glady Ateher said, “I don’t know, folks. Should we release him?” The crowd started booing, insisting on the full floorshow. “Aww, come on. I’ll tell you what, Sugar Pops, if you can prove you are married to that lesbian over there, I’ll set you free.”

  Dad yelled into the mic, “Honey, tell him!”

  Glady Ateher glared down at him and said, “Tell him? Sugar Pops, I know you ain’t calling me a him, not after two hours getting in this dress! I think you want to rephrase—quickly.”

  Dad was confused until the crowd started yelling, “Her! Her!”

  Dad said, “I meant tell her!”

  “OK, Pops, lets see if the governess just called to save your ass,” Glady Ateher said as she pulled out a pair of handcuffs and attached Dad to a stool on stage. “Stay put.” Then she lumbered down the stage steps and over to Mom with the microphone and Mom paused dramatically for a moment before saying in a deadpan voice, “I have never seen that man before in my life.”

  Lisa fell off her chair laughing as the crowd went bananas, and I could tell by the way my sister was crossing her legs as she rolled back and forth, that she was dangerously close to pissing herself. So dangerously close, that when Vince paddled his father’s ass, she couldn’t risk watching.

  Seventeen

  Be Careful What You Fish For

  The official opening weekend in May was still a month away, so there were barely any campers at camp. Probably for the best since that didn’t stop Lisa from testing out her idea of making what she planned was the first of many regular announcements over the crackling loudspeaker:

  “Attention, Happy Campers! Good morning to all! Since the Camp is under new ownership, allow me to introduce myself: I’m Lisa Santora, your lord and master of all things Camptown Ladies. You can call me Camptown Conquistador, or Lisa, whichever you prefer. Joining me is my brother, Vince Santora, otherwise known as Candy Ass, or the little ones can call him Candy Butt. Please see him for any and all complaints about the bathrooms; this is his specialty. My Mom, Mrs. Santora, will be running the store, and my Dad, Sal Santora will be in charge of selling wood. Hurry, though: On a chilly morning Mom says his morning wood will go very quickly, if there is any at all.

  “My Aunt Aggie and Uncle Freddie are strictly here for your amusement, and ours. Nothing like having a couple of old folks around if you need to borrow an extra cranky old person. I don’t want to say which one is the cranky one, but her name rhymes with “Taunt Raggy,” or “Haunt Baggy.” And kids, don’t be shy! Be sure to ask for a ride on her scooter, since Aunt Aggie is a big fan of the little ones, but first, go ask your parents what sarcasm means.

  My Uncle Freddie can be counted on for an Italian joke whenever you need one, but if you can’t speak Italian, just assume the punch line has to do with eggplant, grape vines, or the stone mason trade, and the guy’ll have you rolling.

  The really tall looking girl you may have seen flitting about is actually our decorator, a boy named Eddie. He’s only here three days a week, so those are the perfect days to sign up your teenage sons for Little League across town. Remember, safety first! Eddie has been working tirelessly planning all the decorating of all our renovated buildings.

  You may be wondering why there are no roofs on any of our buildings, or why our decorating is only happening under tarps and tents. We can only decorate after we get all the authentic Italian clay tile roofs in place, and this has been a challenge, since, leave it to a gay man, Eddie thought the first shipment was a tad off in the shade of terracotta, and sent the entire shipment back, and reordered instead from a cute little company from Italy that forms each clay tile the old-fashioned way, by taking the wet clay and bending it against the workers legs to create the nice U shape. Sexy, yes, but Eddie did this all without
consulting with our contractor, Erica. If you heard the sound of two wild cats fighting a while back, that was Erica and Eddie, though it could have easily been mistaken for Mom and Aunt Aggie in the Camp Store.

  This has caused a huge delay in the roofing, which of course means we can’t work on the guts of the buildings until that is done. My dream was to have Camptown Ladies look unlike any other campground—this part has come true! We now have more than a dozen log buildings with no roofs, but the clay tiles are due to arrive today, along with our specialty crew from Italy to get all the roofing jobs done right. I know what you all are thinking! Yay, more Italians!

  Rest assured, we are pig-scrambling to get the old recreation hall converted into a dining hall, to realize my plans of having the best Italian restaurant in Rhode Island right here in Camptown Ladies. I have been working with my favorite chefs on Federal Hill in Providence to secure an amazing menu. All I need is a building and some campers. Oh, and if anyone knows anybody who can get a restaurant permit or two pushed through, that would help too.

  So, in order to get you the best restaurant in town, if you see any signs of slacking off by our lovely contractor, Erica, as in All My Children, please report this to me immediately. I understand the value of a dollar, so when I purchase a woman, I expect her to be working her pretty tail off 24/7. Also, feel free to ask her any questions about her work, and Erica just loves questions about her job, and if you have any suggestions, or any thoughts on how she might do her job better, please speak up and let her know—especially from the men. She loves this!

  We also have lots of activities planned for the upcoming year, and at the end of the camp season, we’ll be having an annual bonfire that I invite you all to return for, even if you’re not a season camper. Immediately following the bonfire, there will be an auction of any children that are left unclaimed, so please stick around for that. A reminder that at Camptown Ladies, leashes of all kinds are welcomed, we don’t judge.

  That’s all for now, and if you have any suggestions, please take a walk right by the suggestion box hanging outside the camp office. Seriously, walk right by it, since there is no place in the box to put suggestions. Have a great day.”

  The weather had started to lose some of its chill and we were all taking a break in the middle of the day. Although Camptown Ladies was officially open, it was so early in the season that only a few of the diehard regulars had come back to their trailers, and there was not one gay camper in sight.

  Aside from the contracting issues that sat squarely on Erica’s shoulders, we discovered the regulars needed nothing from us except for us to switch the electricity on, and take their payments for the season. Since we had never turned the electricity off, and we certainly didn’t need their money, this left an Italian family too well prepared with too much time on their hands after officially opening the camp gates for the very first time. (The gates were always open.)

  To address the critical issue of our boredom—and, more importantly, to comfort each other with drinks—Lisa had called a meeting at the end of the work week at the condo. We had to face the fact that the expected caravans of gays had not arrived on glitter-filled buses named Priscilla, or dyke-filled Subarus named Argo (after Xena The Warrior Princess’s horse). The evening would also signal the end of my avoidance of both Vince and Erica and my stomach churned at the thought of sitting around a table with both of them, one in particular. Then, luckily, Erica took a pass on the meeting.

  Then, later, not so luckily, I felt cheated that she wasn’t coming.

  But now it was midweek, and I’d decided to avoid Erica’s construction crew by sitting in a lawn chair I had dragged over by the fishing pond and watching Lisa expertly fly-fishing on the other side. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the less I was around Erica, the less my thoughts about her in P-town seemed an issue. But there were two things that bothered me. Why did I feel the need to avoid her, and why had I almost completely stopped thinking of Lorn?

  Lisa had chosen fly-fishing as a way to spend her downtime since the few regulars at camp were merely scattered trailers of retired folks who barely did more than sit on their trailer porches and flee at the first sign of a nip in the evening air. Since schools were still in session, we had to face the fact that Camptown Ladies might remain quiet for another month or two.

  I had been distracted by the rhythmic whoosh-whip sound of Lisa’s fly-fishing line and hadn’t noticed right away that behind her, at the edge of a campsite, a little boy had been secretly watching her. When Lisa looked over at me, I nodded toward the patch of trees behind her and she spotted him as he ducked behind the trunk of a terribly skinny tree. He thought she couldn’t see him but the width of the tree barely covered the width of his head.

  Lisa called out gently to him without turning around. “I have taught so many boys to fish, if you want to learn.”

  She was being truthful. While we were growing up in our middleclass neighborhood, both the dads and the moms had to work several jobs to keep their houses in a town were taxes were getting out of control. Our dad was the only one who taught his kid to fish, and right after that, Lisa taught all the boys in our neighborhood. She worked as a busgirl at an ice cream shop to earn the money to buy herself a fishing pole that summer, and later she got so good that the adult fisherman would sometimes ask her what she was using on her lines. She had a great casting arm, but her real secret had been to dip her flies in Mom’s meat marinades overnight, and sneak them out at the crack of dawn to hit the pond.

  The little boy stayed behind the skinny tree, his body exposed on both sides. She kept fishing as he peeked at her and she called out, “If you change your mind, I’ll be happy to teach you,” but he was attacked by shyness and ran back into his campsite.

  Since my mission in life was avoiding Erica, I got to witness this for the next two days, until the little boy called back a confession that he didn’t have a fishing pole. The third day, Lisa stood a child’s fishing pole next to his tree, and when the little boy showed up, he stopped short at the tree, in shock. Lisa called out to him, “That’s your pole if your mom and dad say it’s ok.”

  “My Dad doesn’t live with us,” the boy said, as he grabbed the pole. He crept toward the water’s edge, holding the pole as if it were a gun about to go off. Lisa didn’t waste any time and began teaching him. He was shy at first, but he so badly wanted to fish that he got over it and asked a million questions; I was sure he knew the answers to some of them. They stayed fishing side by side for some time until a panic-stricken young mother came running out of the woods.

  “Buddy! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “The boy lady is teaching me to fish!” He said as Lisa chuckled under her baseball hat and adjusted her football jersey so the mom could see she had breasts.

  Lisa said, “It’s my fault. He’s been watching me fish for a few days, so I coaxed him out with this extra pole I had kicking around.” Lisa had bought that pole at a local bait shop, and the price tag was waving from a string on the grip like a tail.

  “That’s very nice of you, but Buddy knows he’s not supposed to leave the campsite without telling me, and is never to come to the pond by himself.”

  Lisa said, “Yeah, Buddy, you shouldn’t do that.”

  The woman said, “Say goodbye to the nice lady, your lunch is ready.”

  Buddy tried twice to put down the pole, but couldn’t do it. Finally he said to Lisa, “Can I keep it?”

  “Buddy, that’s not polite,” his mother said.

  Lisa said, “If your mom says its ok.”

  Buddy looked up at his mom like his very life depended on her answer, and Lisa said to her, “There’s no hooks on his, it’s completely safe.”

  The woman said, “Buddy, what do you say to the nice lady?”

  “Thank you!” And with that, he ran off, clutching the pole in hand, in case the boy-lady changed her mind.

  “Thank you,” the woman said, and Lisa nodded at her befor
e setting another perfect cast whipping in the air just inches above the surface of the pond. A fish made a dive for the fly and missed. The woman watched a few more casts before she followed her son toward their campsite. The woman turned around, hesitated, then asked, “Would you like some lunch? It’s only peanut butter and jelly, but I have some ice cold beer.”

  Lisa smiled in my direction, her back still toward the woman. “Got any Fritos?”

  “I have a kid. Of course,” the woman said, laughing at her.

  Lisa packed up her fishing things and I watched her head toward the trailer, wondering why she stopped short before going in. She gave a victory fist in the air, looked over at me, and pointed to something at the back of the trailer. There was a sign indicating the woman was a past Hilary Clinton supporter. This sign would not have meant much to anyone else, but to Lisa, this meant she should make a lewd motion as if she was spanking an invisible woman’s ass over her knee. Then she took off her cap, folded it in her back pocket, and disappeared inside the trailer to attempt fishing on dry land.

  Later, I busied myself by helping Eddie finish the last of the interior sanding on the logs on the recreation hall. Lisa’s dog, Cindy-Lu, was hanging with us, as if she instinctively sensed that this would be the place where food would be served, so she needed to make this her territory. Eddie, Cindy-Lu, and I were all cast in a creepy blue color from the draped blue tarps over the roof, and Eddie’s constant whining was being drowned out by Erica’s scolding voice in my head telling us about how we were doing everything backward. But even Erica knew that at this point we had no choice. If we waited for the roofs to pull everything together, it would be down to the wire if our promotional handouts in P-town worked and campers arrived with the warm weather.

  Erica was not around since the clay roofing tile shipment had finally arrived. Although Lisa wanted the crew to start on the rec hall, Erica finally convinced Lisa it was more important to get at least a few of the bathroom houses in shape first, which meant she was deep into the camp, working her way to the front with her new Italian crew.