by Tilda Shalof
“Why won’t you ever tell me what you’re cooking?”
“No chef likes that question.”
With the third week came even more wonky headaches, irritated rashes, queasy stomachs, scratchy throats, and assorted bumps and bruises. It seemed like everyone at camp had one complaint or another. I did what I could to make things better, and luckily the problems were fairly minor. Nothing turned into pneumonia or septic shock, and certainly not flesh-eating disease. I handed out a panoply of over-the-counter painkillers. I sang the corny old song about “black flies pickin’ at my bones in North On-tar-i-o,” but of course they didn’t find it the least bit amusing. Sometimes, as a private joke, I put ordinary Vaseline on their bites and they walked out, satisfied and cured; it soothed them just as well as the expensive ointments, which wasn’t much.* Sometimes all the kids needed was a hug, a few moments of attention, an explanation, a short rest, distraction, encouragement, or reassurance, all of which I could easily give.
Sometimes my nurse-patient consultations took place in the mess hall. Hardly a meal went by when I didn’t feel a tap on my shoulder. I’d be mid-bite and a camper or counsellor would bend down to show me some sore part of their body or divulge a private matter. “Come see me later,” I begged, “during office hours!”
An unusual dish was served up at one meal. When girls at a nearby table started jumping up and shrieking, I went over to investigate. It turned out the hot dog lunch was the inspiration for one boy to place his penis inside a bun and offer it to them on a plate. “Who wants to lick off the ketchup?” I heard him say.
“Put that back where it belongs immediately!” I shouted, but no one could hear me over the roar of laughter of the entire camp.
Sometimes they came to me with problems that might actually be serious. A disturbing disclosure was made over the veggie stir-fry one time.
“I’ve missed my period,” said a counsellor, plopping down on the bench beside me. “It’s been two weeks. Should I be worried?”
“Yes!”
The sluggish, overweight ceramics instructor who always had a “quick question” for me finally got my attention when she happened to mention in passing that she’d recently been diagnosed with diabetes. “My blood sugar rate is around 2.1 or maybe it’s 21? I can’t remember. Which is worse?”
“You need to see a doctor,” I told her. “It could be serious.”
“My diet doctor ordered vitamin B12 shots. He said you’d give them to me.”
“We don’t stock that in the infirmary.” I dreaded making another request of Wheels. “You’ll have to get it yourself.”
“What about two B6? Do you have those?”
“It doesn’t work like that …”
I was often stumped by the kids’ problems. You have to know a patient’s medical history and personality in order to determine the best approach and method, and I had very little to go on. I was operating on a strictly need-to-know basis.
As for my own kids, I hadn’t seen them in days. One morning, I headed down to the cabins in search of Max. His cabin was quiet and I assumed the campers were out at their activities, but I knocked first. (I didn’t want a repeat of the scene when I’d walked into what I thought was an empty cabin and found two counsellors in bed, making out.) No one answered, so I opened the door and stepped into the darkened room. A burly, hairy guy was lying in Max’s bed, naked under a sheet that fortunately covered up his private parts. He squinted at me and shielded his eyes against the light from the open door. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Who are you?” he grunted. “You woke me up.”
“I’m the nurse. Why are you sleeping in my son’s bed? Where is Max?”
“Who’s Max?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned over, and settled in for more shut-eye. I slammed the door behind me and set off in search of Mike. It was a shame they’d never gotten around to giving me a walkie-talkie because I was ready to scream at the whole camp. Imagine, this scary thug, sleeping in a child’s bed!
I found Mike in the staff lounge, lying back on the couch, listening to music with his girlfriend, Shona, who was draped over him, her head resting in his lap. He chuckled when I told him about the intruder. “Oh, that’s Spleen. He’s a legend around here.” He shook his head in recollection of past heroic Spleen antics. “Spleen – what a guy! Hey, don’t look so worried. He’s harmless. He’s buddies with Quade, Max’s counsellor. Spleen’s out on parole – I mean, on vacation. He’s staying with us for a few days before he moves on.”
“Out on parole?”
Shona giggled and turned away to hide her amusement.
“He was convicted of a B and E but I swear, he didn’t do it! Spleen is awesome with kids. We’re lucky to have him at camp.”
I guess I didn’t look reassured.
“He’s not a serial killer or a child molester, I promise you that.”
I wiped my brow in an exaggerated gesture of relief.
Eventually, at the waterfront I found my kids. Harry was swimming with his friends, watched over by a dopey-looking lifeguard. Max was happily playing with his gang on the beach, building sandcastles and smashing them down. I returned to the infirmary. There I found a raging, pacing Carly. She had buzzed off her ’fro and her almost-bald head was covered in a bandana do-rag.
“There are more cases of lice infestation!” she snapped at me.
“There’s an epidemic going on around here and you’re doing nothing about it.”
“I examined your campers’ heads. I didn’t find a single lice – I mean louse.”
“I showed you those white thingies in Sasha’s hair.”
“That’s dandruff. Nits stick to the shaft of the hair follicle. You can’t flick them off. I’m not going to treat a kid who doesn’t have lice.”
“Well, Wheels has already gone to town to buy me lice shampoo!”
“So, you are going to put chemicals on your scalp that you don’t need?”
“My head is so itchy. I’ve been up all night. This is so freaking me out.”
Everyone runs around barefoot, sunscreen bottles haven’t been opened, your own boyfriend won’t take care of the dripping, festering wound on his knee, and you’re worried about harmless head lice?
“This is a serious hygiene problem,” she said.
“Lice are a nuisance, not a disease. Besides, no one here has lice,” I told her.
I wanted to lock the door and barricade myself in there, but of course, there were no locks on any doors in this place. I put a sign on the door that I was going for a walk. First I stopped at the mess hall to fill up my water bottle at the fountain. As I was doing that, I noticed a little rivulet on the floor of what looked like … blood! I followed the stream to a large puddle that was being fed by a continuous drip from the unplugged refrigerator. Was there a body in there? I yelled for Sarge. He came running.
Packages of frozen meat had been placed in the fridge to slowly defrost, but instead had melted into warm, oozing messes. When Sarge saw the bloody puddles on the floor and then the soft, grey meat he threw down his dishrag and cursed. “Damn kids! They unplug the fridge for their music at night and then forget to plug it back in again afterwards.”
I looked down at the meat blood. “When was the last party?”
He stopped to think. “Not last night, but the night before. I think.”
“Do not use this meat, Sarge. Throw it out immediately.”
I stood back trying not to retch at the smell of warm meat blood. “It’s rotten. It’s been out more than twenty-four hours.” I watched him thinking this over. He prided himself on his frugality and recycling. (I’d seen him make soup out of potato and carrot peelings.) Sarge didn’t take suggestions about his cooking at the best of times, but this was serious. However, he wouldn’t promise to dispose of it, and I stomped away, frustrated again.
In sheer desperation, I called Ivan to tell him my troubles, but he was out. I left a pathetic message, one that would make him feel sorry fo
r me having such a terrible time while he was probably living it up, eating out at restaurants, and enjoying the single life, temporarily unfettered by any responsibilities. I returned to the infirmary to spin my first aid “Wheel of Fortune,” hoping for some sage advice to miraculously appear.
I landed on “Toothache: See your dentist.”
Thanks a lot! I spun it again.
Foreign Body Obstruction in Airway: If patient swallows a sharp object, get him to eat mashed potatoes to surround object. For further treatment, call doctor.
I was laughing my head off at that one when Mike burst in, the screen door banging behind him. “Hey, Nurse Tilda! Someone’s on the phone from the public health department for you. Something about the water supply. Sounds majorly important.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking in this fresh disaster.
The inspector explained that there was run-off from the septic tank leeching into the reservoir – the lagoon – at the back of the camp. The underground spring that supplied drinking water to the camp was contaminated with unsafe levels of bacteria.
“What a bummer,” Mike said when I got off the phone and told him what was wrong.
I got up slowly, thinking rapidly. “From this moment on there will be no drinking water from the tap or the lake. Swimming and showering are banned. The water supply has to be turned off.”
“Hey, does that include swimming in the lagoon?”
“It’s a cesspool!” I glared at him. “This camp should be shut down,” I muttered.
“If there are problems, we will form a task force to address them,” said Mike.
“No committees! No meetings!” I thundered at him. “This is a deadly situation!”
“Watch out, guys,” he warned his pals who’d gathered around us. “The nurse is going ape.”
I grabbed his walkie-talkie and screamed into it. “Listen up! To everyone at Camp Na-Gee-La, there is no drinking water until further notice.” I held it close to my mouth and repeated the warning. I turned back to Mike, who now looked ready to comply.
“We’ll put up signs all around camp,” he said.
“That’s not good enough! Call Anderson! The water supply has to be shut off.”
“Can it wait? He’s busy fixing the roof. It’s been leaking.”
“No!” I stormed at him.
“Don’t stress out, we’re dealing with it.”
“People can get seriously ill and die from contaminated water,” I told him. Mike looked shocked. Was I finally getting through to him? “I want you to order a truckload of bottled water and tell Sarge to boil all water before using it for cooking or washing. This is an emergency.”
At that, Mike stood there, thinking. “Does this mean the carnival is cancelled?”
I lunged forward to strangle him, but he must have thought I was zeroing in for a hug. Once again we ended up in another tangle of misunderstanding. I pulled away. No one was taking me seriously, but at least I could try to save my own kids. I raced to find them and warn them not to drink the water. I barged right into Max’s cabin, and plowed through a sludge of wet towels and bathing suits, piles of grubby clothes and scattered candy wrappers. The kids were all there, a couple of them up high in the rafters, climbing the beams and swinging like monkeys. A few kids were gathered on the floor in the corner of the cabin, feeding potato chips to a family of mice. I happened to notice a nine-year-old boy wearing a dress, with his hair in pigtails and ribbons, but there was no time to inquire about that. Quade and a few other counsellors were playing poker with Spleen, while Max sat on the jailbird’s shoulders, doing flips backward onto the bed, giggling helplessly each time. (Fleetingly, I had to wonder if the gambling winnings would be divvied up equitably in true socialist form.) I interrupted the game to give them the warning.
“Hey, first you tell us to drink more water and now you’re telling us not to drink the water at all? I don’t get it,” Quade said. “Make up your mind. What’s your bottom line?”
“Yeah, what gives?” Spleen said without looking up from his hand.
No time to explain! I ran out and continued to spread the word. Rain started coming down, a heavy but pleasant downpour that broke the heat wave. By late afternoon, it was still coming down. The roof was leaking in the mess hall and Anderson and Wheels were up there, trying to patch the holes. The water had been shut off and bottled water had arrived. Meanwhile, all around camp, the valleys were filling up. Two enterprising counsellors hauled up canoes from the shed near the lake and were paddling on the newly forming ponds of knee-deep water. The kids piled into the boats and others started jumping into the water with their clothes on. Kids dragged the vinyl mattresses from their beds and used them as rafts or to slide off the mess hall porch into the middle of a huge pile of mud. Pretty soon, just about everyone was deep in the mud, wearing their bathing suits or else stripped down to their underwear. I caught sight of my own kids. Max was running through the mud barefoot, looking like a feral child, while Harry was drifting around contentedly in one of the canoes, his white, mosquito-bitten arms splattered with mud. Everyone was delirious with joy! It was Woodstock, but without the drugs or music. But then someone realized that music was exactly what was missing from this scene and ran to bring the boom box from the mess hall. Soon the valley resounded with garage band grunge from what sounded like a homemade tape.
Mike joined me and gazed at the scene appreciatively. “The fun never stops around here, does it, Nurse Tilda?”
Please, make it stop! Just then I noticed that the live electrical cord running from the mess hall was lying in a foot of water and I ran off to put the kibosh on the music.
Later on, after the water emergency ended and the mud bacchanal died down, and after I’d finished treating the cuts and twisted ankles from kids slipping and sliding in the mud, there was still Zack’s knee and Sarge’s lungs to worry about. I had nabbed Zack at lunch, but he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t examine his knee right then and there (he’d placed it right beside my tuna-fish sandwich).
“Bring this knee of yours to the infirmary after lunch,” I’d barked at him, nudging it off the table. He didn’t show up until much later. Immediately I saw that his knee was even worse. The wound was now wide open, smelly, and mushy – all signs of infection. “Okay, that’s it. You’re going to a doctor. This could have been prevented but now you need a deep debridement to clean all that out and antibiotics, too.”
“You mean pills?”
I nodded.
He backed off. “I have issues with pills.”
“How so?”
“I don’t take medicine.”
“You can’t swallow pills? I’ll crush them into applesauce for you.” I was losing patience.
“My mother’s a Scientologist,” he said. “She doesn’t want me taking pills. She believes in the body’s natural healing powers.”
Just then Sarge arrived, right at dinner time. “I came for my breath-a-lyzer,” he said, his usual cryptic self. His lungs sounded better now that he was using his medication properly. I handed him the new inhaler I’d bought and had charged to the camp. I had him in my corner so I tried again. “What’s for dinner, Sarge? Hope you saved me something tasty!”
“Spaghetti,” he said, and, like the true gonzo chef he was, added, grinning sadistically, “with meat sauce.”
* I don’t make this stuff up.
* One resourceful counsellor took his itchy kids to the kitchen to find a banana. He rubbed the inside of the peel on their bites and that seemed to work well, too!
4
ESCAPE FROM UTOPIA
Sarge wasn’t joking. He had cooked up the rotten meat and served it for dinner.
All I could do was retreat to my room and wait for the victims to start staggering in. I hunkered down in bed under the covers, hiding from them all, and braced myself for the impending food-poisoning disaster. I left the light on in my room all night, and I stayed in my clothes so I’d be able to jump up and react even
faster. I studied my textbooks, reviewing the signs of salmonella and staphylococcal food-borne infections. “Botulism,” I read, “starts with diarrhea and vomiting, eventually leading to paralysis of the eyes, mouth and throat, and respiratory system.” Ultimately, they would all go into cardiac arrest! Let the outbreak begin: I was ready.*
The funny thing was, that night everyone slept more soundly than ever before. It was the first night I wasn’t disturbed. No one even came for an antacid tablet. The only thing I ended up nursing was my own resentment and fatigue. In spite of the ominous events, things actually improved over the next few days. Mike had gotten Anderson to board up the entrance to the lagoon in the woods. Plumbers were called in to repair the leak
in the septic system. The camp’s water supply was shut down and the public health authorities disinfected the system. We drank bottled water for three days and then the water was re-tested, deemed safe to drink, and the advisory lifted. The weather had turned sunny and hot, so I returned to my previous harangue about drinking lots of water to avoid dehydration and heat stroke.
I knew for sure that the camp’s spirit was back to normal the morning when the wake-up music was “Walkin’ on Sunshine.”
There were only a few days left until the end of my tour of duty. I still fantasized about fleeing, but I was determined to see it to the bitter end. Mike and I had even become buddies.
“The buzz around camp is we’re thinking of inviting you back next year,” he told me. “You should take it as a compliment.”
“The only buzz I’m aware of is from the mosquitoes,” I shot back grumpily (though I was secretly pleased).
I had to admit, there were some delightful moments at Camp Na-Gee-La. One day I watched a group of twelve-year-old girls and boys on kitchen duty. The music was blaring, and the kids, all in their bathing suits, were laughing and dancing, spraying each other with the hand-held ceiling nozzles. They were having such fun – their wet, shining faces so joyful as they threw gobs of bubbly suds at one another. I tried to not notice the slippery floor, the piles of food residue in the sink, and the partially rinsed dishes.