He moved slowly forward through air smelling of sweet perfume and hair spray. “Brittany?” he called out.
“In here,” she said, in a low, husky voice.
HE STEPPED GINGERLY into her, their bedroom. She was still in her wedding dress, the spaghetti straps pulled down over her shoulders, though, the candlelight throwing sweet, mysterious shadows on her clavicles, her throat, her breasts. Nice shadows. His breath caught. He hadn’t been with a woman since before Rachel left for Botswana. Sure, there had been some innocent fumblings, some heavy petting after bar time. But those incidents always ended the same: his walking the girl home, or to a cab, or holding her hair as she puked into his toilet. But now there were two doors behind him, and he felt something in his chest snag, felt his face flush so hot, his blood surging, veins coursing with blood.
Pulling her dress up a bit, she parted her legs and he almost felt himself faint. The apartment was so hot and his uniform stifling.
He began unbuttoning, fingers growing more confident as they went. Soon he was naked before her, and standing at the foot of the bed. He realized he was covering his crotch with his hands, like there was about to be a well-struck penalty kick.
She giggled.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“Come here,” she said.
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m sorry about—”
She slapped him, lightly, across the face. “No,” she said sternly. “No.”
And then they kissed, his arms full of the frills, folds, and delicate fabric of her dress, never quite removing the garment. Her legs were scissored behind him, while outside, the men of his unit were now singing along to what sounded like Bon Jovi, with every so often the wet crash of someone cannonballing into the pool. Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear . . .
41
“WOW,” RACHEL SAID. “SO, YOU’VE HAD A WEDDING night already.”
He stymied a laugh, rubbed his nose. “I guess. Kind of.”
“Just that once?”
He shook his head. “No, we sort of dated for a few months. She’s a little bit crazy, turns out.”
“Turns out?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm, so you fucked your dead friend’s wife; that’s your mortal sin, huh?”
“They weren’t married.”
“Right.”
“But pretty much, yes.”
“That’s kind of shitty.”
“I know.”
“So there is a chance, then, that you’re not actually the spokesperson of cosmic decency, some Knight of the Round Table. You might be more or less human.”
“I’m not proud of . . . of what I did there that night, no. After a while though, we became more than just that one thing, though. She was definitely crazy, but she was a good woman, too. I still think about her, in fact. Maybe you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. When I was back on leave, we’d drive around Otter’s hometown down there in Florida, this place on the panhandle called Apalachicola. His folks didn’t even know that Brittany and I were, you know, together. Or hell, maybe they didn’t care, really. I remember, they invited me into his bedroom, you know, his old childhood bedroom. And it turned out he was a Boy Scout, too, an Eagle Scout, actually. Otter never talked about that. He talked a lot about football, but never said shit about the Scouts.
“But then I remembered, we used to lie in our cots at night and we’d have these competitions to see who could tie the most arcane knots. The cleat hitch. The bowline. The sheepshank. The Karash. And that sonuvabitch, he knew most of ’em, too. Then it became a game to see who could tie what knot the fastest . . .
“He was the goofiest kid, you know? And I think about that. That really, he was just a kid. A fucking kid. His whole life out there. Just about to be married. And his favorite thing in the world was playing video games and talking SEC football. Doing these stupid Steve Spurrier impersonations.”
He went quiet here. She waited for him to go on, but he just sighed out a long, sad breath.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel murmured. She reached for his hand.
“So you asked me if I ever did anything wrong, if I ever slept with anyone else.” He looked her in the eye. “The truth is, I don’t regret sleeping with Brittany. I think of her as my friend. Maybe I was even in love with her. Because if I’m being honest, she was there for me, you know? When I needed someone. She seemed to understand what I was going through. Almost every part of it. Including losing my buddy. My fucking friend.”
42
THERE ARE FIVE SHOOTING STATIONS ARRAYED BEFORE the bunker, and behind the stations is an elevated chair where the counselor sits, much like a judge, keeping score. Each Scout will shoot twenty-five clay pigeons. The boys wear belts around their narrow waists with pouches to carry both spent and live ammunition.
“Puller ready?” the counselor calls out. “Shooters ready? All right, let’s have one.”
A junior counselor hidden in the bunker activates the throwing machine and a clay pigeon goes sailing out ahead of the shooters before falling into the grasses, some fifty yards out. Now the boy on the far left readies his shotgun against his sweaty armpit, calls, “Pull!”
A clay pigeon soars out, rising up on a current of warm summer air, only to be very nearly vaporized by the boy’s ensuing blast.
Rachel looks up from her book, realizing even with earplugs at the ready that reading is going to be futile. So she sits in the shade and watches them shoot. Trevor would have made an excellent coach or counselor, she thinks to herself. He was always so patient with her, teaching her how to use a gun, his voice moving into a slightly smoother, lower register, and when he needed to move his body near hers, to demonstrate how she might track a target with her shotgun, its barrel, he never turned it into something cheesy, never pressed himself against her, childishly, and when she did, when she ground her hips or butt back against him, he would say, “Rachel, come on. This is serious.”
So when Thomas shoots twenty of twenty-five clay pigeons and turns to grin at her because he is one of the finer shots, certainly in his troop, and perhaps in the whole camp, it is with a winsome wave and smile that she acknowledges his feat. Because with all the shooting, all the exploding clay pigeons, all the young boys, she is seized with the fear that her son will eschew college altogether and follow his father’s ghost into the military, there to fight some derivation of the same enemy Trevor fought.
She peers under the picnic table. A caterpillar is slinking steadily along over the cracked cement and blotches of dried bubble gum.
Twenty years, she thinks, and we’re fighting the same people in the same countries. Twenty years.
43
SOMETIMES POSSESSING THE KNOWLEDGE THAT A person is a potential enemy is more effective than gaining a distance away from that enemy, and that is exactly how Rachel feels about Platz. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. As long as she can see him, or anticipate him, she feels basically safe. Unfortunately, this has meant abandoning her dawn swims to the island, but she has quickly replaced that time by joining both a morning and late afternoon free swim and while it’s sad to see such a pristine northern lake largely ignored by hundreds of boys more intent on playing video games in cabins stinking of toe jam, junk food, and patchouli incense, she is happy to be left mostly to her own devices, save for the leering if harmless stares of the boy lifeguards behind their knockoff Ray-Bans.
She’s taken to joining Nelson at meals, which is a delight. She never realized that he intentionally spent time with boys whose parents might be going through a divorce, or boys from low-income families. It was one of the counselors who told her he regularly gifted such boys with new Boy Scout handbooks; nor was it unusual for such a child to crack this new book and find within a fifty-dollar bill and some ancient baseball card, dutifully protected behind two layers of plastic.
“The baseball card thing is new,” the counselor told Rachel, “but he
’s been giving away handbooks and money for ages, I guess. I’ve heard stories of him driving into Rice Lake to buy new backpacks, school supplies, clothes, even shoes.”
“I guess that doesn’t surprise me,” Rachel said, feeling a flood of warmth in her chest.
“To be honest with you,” the counselor said, “we were all a little confused about the baseball card thing. Especially at first. A lot of the kids didn’t understand what they were. Some even threw the cards away, or into their campfires.” He leaned close to Rachel. “You can’t tell Scoutmaster Doughty that, though, please. It might break his heart.”
“I won’t,” she assured him.
“But then, some kid investigated the card he’d gotten from Doughty on his computer or something. Turned out the card was worth like, a hundred and fifty bucks or maybe more. We think he’s like, trying to give us an investment or something? Or maybe it’s like, we’re supposed to start collecting cards. Nobody is sure about it because Mr. Doughty doesn’t talk about his gifts. Kids just find packages outside their cabins. Tends to happen to the boys that are really well-behaved. Or someone that’s been bullied. Apparently he hates bullying.”
Rachel looks at the counselor.
“Funny, isn’t it?” the kid continues. “A man like Scoutmaster Doughty, a war hero. I heard he used to get bullied, too, but it’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?”
Rachel nods her head. “We all start out as little kids.”
THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW, she has returned to the campsite after dinner, climbed into her sleeping bag, and with the light of a lantern beside her, happily read East of Eden while outside her little cabin, a small campfire burned and there was the sound of men laughing low and in a tight circle. And each night, just as she enters her cabin, she is careful to lock the hook-and-eye bolt on her door, so that when she finally drifts off to sleep, it is free of the fear that Platz might come creeping beside her bed while she’s dreaming.
She is ready to return home now. Has been since that walk with Thomas, since perhaps her first night in camp, she realized, hearing that Nelson would be retiring. An epoch seems to be coming to a bittersweet end, and she does not care to stand on the shores of these lakes she has so loved, weeping. No, when the week is just about over, she will take a good long walk around the camp, explore every building, buy a Coca-Cola from the canteen, and when it is time to climb back into the Jeep on Saturday morning, she will be ready to say goodbye to the Whiteside Scout Reservation and return to her shambling home, the stack of bills on her kitchen table, the gutters sprouting volunteer trees, and the myriad wasps’ nests beneath her wraparound porch. Maybe, she thinks, Thomas and I can visit Trevor’s grave. Plant some new flowers. She never intended these trips to the cemetery as chores, but there have been times, she knows, when the moping teenager in the passenger seat thought of them as such.
So, on Friday night, after taking a shower after dinner, lying in her sleeping bag, her things all policed and packed up, Rachel is surprised when there is a knock at the door of her cabin. She hesitates for a moment in her sleeping bag, decides to stay put. “Thomas,” she calls out, “that you?”
There is a sardonic laugh in the darkness outside. “Sorry to disappoint you,” Platz says.
“What is it, Mr. Platz?” she asks sternly, setting her head back down on the pillow, her book splayed open across her chest. Takes a certain satisfaction in refusing him the honorific of “Doctor” before his last name, which she knows perfectly well drives some physicians crazy. Besides, he is not her doctor, a disturbing thought, indeed.
“Well, look . . .” He pauses. “Can I please come inside? I feel sort of foolish talking to you through this screen door.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that would be appropriate at all,” she replies coolly. “I can hear you just fine. How can I help you?” She does not care in the least if her tone is icy, less than inviting. This may be her final year in Scouting anyway, and this man is no friend of hers. She is exhausted and right now wants only to return to her book.
She hears him sigh, slap at a mosquito on his neck. “I just wanted to say that I was sorry about the other day by the lake. It was incorrect of me to approach you that way, and I apologize.”
She listens for more.
“Do you accept my apology?”
She thinks about that for a moment before saying, “Yes.”
“Good,” he says, his voice rising in volume. “In that case, some of the other dads and I are going to build up a big bonfire, we’ve got the makings for s’mores, and we were planning on getting these lazy goddamn teenagers out of their bunks for at least one night of ghost stories, some jokes, and maybe some old-fashioned fun.”
Her phone buzzes and she reaches for it:
You going to the campfire BS?
She sits up in her sleeping bag, aware of the flimsy, threadbare T-shirt she is wearing over one of her most tired bras.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she says sincerely. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Great,” Platz says, slapping his hands together in triumph.
Yep, you better, too! Last year of camp, you lazoid!
F
At least, she thinks, he hasn’t added the U. Plausible deniability. She giggles, remembering reading such a message several years back. Initially, she hadn’t understood and texted back, FU what? And then, even more embarrassing: University of Florida? Gainesville is a nice place! Your dad had friends who loved Florida!
She climbs out of the sleeping bag and quickly slips out of her gym shorts and into a pair of blue jeans; then socks, a pair of boots, one of Trevor’s old flannel shirts, so old and well worn it won’t be too warm on a summer night like this. She is excited. Even if Platz is the world’s biggest asshole, she agrees that the boys should be by the fire tonight, that this is what Scouting is all about: camaraderie and fresh air and wholesome fun.
Several of the fathers nod their heads at her, smile, and tip their baseball caps or say quietly, “Evenin’.” She nods back. One of them, she can’t remember his name, asks, “Coffee?”
“Sounds good,” she says, “thanks.” Then, “Geez, this is so nice. Why haven’t I been out here all week long.”
The men laugh at that, and one of them says, “You didn’t miss a thing. Just a bunch of lummoxes out here farting and being juvenile.”
“But the coffee’s fresh!” the first man says. He wipes out a blue tin cup with his shirt. “Sorry about the cup, though. We packed most of the troop gear up already.”
“No worries,” she says, sipping at the coffee. Truly terrible.
“The coffee no good?” the man asks, a look on his face of what appears genuine hurt.
“No,” she manages, “it’s great. Put some hair on my chest.”
They all get a chuckle from that one.
Now the boys are leaving their cabins, screen doors slamming behind them. A few fathers emerge from the forest, hatchets in hand, dragging yet more firewood. The big lout, Bill, is down on hands and knees by the fire pit, blowing at an infant flame just now rising from a pile of kindling and tinder. His pants have fallen down off his ass a bit, so that in the dark, his butt cheeks seem to be smiling.
“Jesus Christ, Bill,” someone says. “Should have taken leather-working when you were a Scout. Made yourself a damn belt to hold that shit up.”
The laughter around the fire pit is steady now, jocular. She is again reminded that this was what she so desired as a little girl—not a bunch of catty gossiping and pretending to be so afraid of salamanders or snakes, not some demeaning skill development like: Baton Twirling, Hostess, Housekeeper (actual Brownie badges up until 1995) . . .
Bill hikes his pants up, rises to his full height; out of breath, his face red even in the gloom, but for the first time, Rachel sees him smile. She studies his eyes and sees none of the darkness Trevor warned her of. Just a childlike spark; he’s having fun.
Platz elbows Rachel gently, a flask in his hands. “Care for a
little bump in your coffee?”
“No thanks,” she says. “I don’t need it.”
“Well, I’m no salesman,” he says, “but this is some pretty damn fine bourbon. Pappy van Winkle, twenty year. I shouldn’t even be sharing it.”
“I’m more of a Scotch drinker, myself,” she says, which is, in fact, true.
“No pressure,” Platz says, restoring the silver flask to his back pants pocket. She notices another flask in a separate pocket, a brass-colored one.
“You actually have two flasks?” she can’t help herself from remarking. “Jesus, no wonder you guys are so gung ho on Scouting tonight. You’re all loaded.”
“Now, now,” he says. “That’s not fair. Besides, you’ve been holed up in your cabin for the past three nights. It’s not exactly like you’re being the world’s best chaperone or role model. Least we’ve been out here, keeping the fire burning.”
The fire has caught by now, and there is a pile of wood growing beyond the camp chairs and benches to keep it going. One of the fathers sits on a tree stump, a guitar strapped over his shoulder and a harmonica hanging around his neck. He strums out some practice notes and she can hear the kids chattering with embarrassment and derision. Then he breaks into a fairly impressive cover of “All Apologies,” and the kids quiet, which surprises her, because it seems as if they recognize the song, one of her own favorites, though she was totally oblivious to Nirvana back in the day, only discovering them while Trevor was deployed, when she was culling through his CD collection.
“Come on,” said Platz, again at her elbow. “This might just be the best bourbon a person can get. Once the Chinese and Japanese developed the palates and pocketbooks to begin collecting bourbon, this shit disappeared. It’s something like two hundred and fifty bucks a bottle. But it seems fitting, right? As an apology. I really am sincerely sorry.”
The Hearts of Men Page 29