Gabe Durham - Fun Camp

Every time I love someone, you set them free.

Nobody blames you, demon. You show a deep passion. You work long hours. But you must’ve had an inkling: How many pentagrams did you think we’d allow on one girl’s bedpost? On how many summer days did you think gloves would hide your sloppy stigmatas before a staff member figured out something was up? Hey now. Let’s not make this into a thing. Tears aren’t evil. Show your grit with a stoic exit. You can give Susie a last shiver if you want, take a last look through her tiny windows, whisper a final corrosive in her ear. She will miss you at times. Back-talking will sting when she sees whom she’s hurting. Whipped cream on steak will lose appeal. Flirting with rebels will still an entirely different set of voices. I was thinking I’d let you cast yourself out — there’s dignity in that — but get yourself gone by the end of the workday. I’d let you finish out the week but we need her bubbly for tomorrow’s relay. Hold up your head when you get back home — the other demons are in your same sad boat. They wouldn’t be in Hell if they hadn’t done something wrong. Nobody there wasn’t caught failing.

*

Dear Mom,

It’s dawning on me, the disadvantage I’m at not having been raised in a bilingual household.

Billy

All it takes is a glance out the craft hut window to imagine the real party that must be happening up in the cold, I’m talking cold , mesosphere right now, daily burning through meteors like 30-packs of Keystone, and to picture how unconvincing our in-the-moment expressions must seem from up there. But down here, the alternative is dim and bratty and nothing I want to look at. Had this one kid who kept trying to hide up in his bunk before activities, lying real still like I wouldn’t notice, offering bribes when I collected him by force and sat him beside me. Then a switch flipped. He had this great night at skits, laughing louder than anybody, and became self-sufficient for half a day. Now every time I see him, he makes this bittersweet face and tells me how many days and hours of camp are left cause he doesn’t want to go home. I can empathize, the way trying to live in the moment is like trying to find the button that turns off the reverb on the karaoke machine. I had a couple of his cabinmates heave that kid in the pool with his clothes on, but there’s only so much one counselor can do to drown out a kid’s brain’s wants.

A woman was killed in a wreck at the tunnel five years ago tonight. She died in the snow from the fire, drowned, her spirit condemned to wander the waterways, weeping and searching for her children until the end of time. After what seemed like hours, she heard a far off bugle blast, and then silence. Her baby was still alive. Was he looking for his head? She went home and collapsed into bed, wondering what happened to the man on the motorcycle. The next morning, she went to the bathroom, and there, scrawled on the mirror in blood: I am the viper. I’m on the fifth floor. She realized then that the old man at the gas station had been trying to warn her. To this day, the light of her torch still can be seen on stormy nights. To this day, the fathers of the village wear scars as a reminder. To this day, La Malhora appears at the crossroads whenever someone is going to die. That baby was my daughter. That psycho was me.

*

Dear Mom,

Let us not fear death. There is too much to do while yet on this earth.

Billy

Peek here, progeny. You got slacks to tell me I can’t strafe into my own square yardage with a rage-gage sport-slick auto-rotation twelve-forty and pluck me up something for the spit? I respect you’re unalert to the factuals. Fair as fare, sure — you’re up in your tusk spire, not knowing how my days roll out, thinking up muck to hock. It get cold up there, Senator? There’s an honor in my twelve you don’t cohere. A subset of somesuch would be lucky to go out with permanence by means of my craft. If I’m a monkey — and there’s exhibits to the situals — then at some point the critters of this greenscape globe ought to learn themselves some avoidance procession. What we cannot abide is weakness by and by. Critters. Heh, heh. “Ooh, look at me. So mystic in my fur. Think I’ll prostate myself in this smoothie-black road and see what shakes.” Well what you won’t do is pass on no dumbslick spunk, Thumper. And so the cyclone ongoes.

These days we’ll do a “Pirate’s Cove” theme one year, “Adventure Inland” the next, then something controversial like “A Week at the Movies” before returning to “Pirate’s Cove,” but there was a time when Indians were the theme, the pull, the selling point of every camp in the nation. Boys slept in teepees and arrowed straw buffalos. Each camp had a brave to call its own, right there on the front of the pamphlet. Solemn full-headdress Indian was more fun, plainclothes nature survivalist Indian had more dignity. Later, due to the rightful concerns of the Moms, natives were replaced by safe whites in redface who’d hung around the real thing for a long weekend, taking notes. My own Pap used to polish his face up burnt orange then monotone to the kids about the tribal councils, the first Thanksgiving, headdress color combos, names that’re almost sentences, swinging from trees to cover tracks when pursued, and of nightly meetings at the burning council ring. Some bits were of disputed authenticity, like the ole hand over mouth “wa-wa-wa,” but it was loud and felt great to do. Great enough that everybody felt their racism shedding, letting themselves think of Indians as this far off dodo dream. But then the soldiers killed Hitler, came on home, squinted at how their boys got funny, and we soon cut the teepees and resident redman from the prop roster. We scrubbed the campfires white and used them for their hypnotic potential, for singing Eagles hits, for life-changing emotional appeals, for tales of hook-handed lady-scrapers. They were too pretty to discontinue, too much fun, and budding girls looked too good in their light.

So I say the situation then you each say what you’d do. You’re flummoxed in a locked zoo at night, in boots and a knit cap but otherwise bare, there’s been a drought, you and she have just this evening had a tough talk after which it’s clear that you’re the one who loves her more. Sleep eludes you, it’s a leap year, the baby test came back “baby,” the zoo’s owner is a registered sex offender and he’s told you more about it than law demands, money is thankfully not an issue, the cages have all been opened, the electric fences have been down since the storm, you had a reasonably happy childhood, and you’re allowed to pick two of the following: a flashlight, a mirror, self-assurance, compassion, a full moon, a phone call, a decoy, a harpoon, passable French, a walkman, batteries, a map, and a clue. The first part of my question isn’t a question: I’m so sorry to have put you in this position. The second part of my question, on the condition that you are man enough to let her go: I will love the child as if it were my own.

I feel like we’re missing some campers. Are we missing some campers?

It’s so hard to command emotions, Fun Camp! It just is. But we believe, don’t we, that commanding the good ones, like, “I’m having a smiling time in the managed danger of this hot field,” is a shot at actually feeling happy and that commanding the bad ones, like, “I’m hungry,” or “Trees suck,” or “Fire in the building!” is a shot at nothing at all? Unless it’s Oscar season? Put another way: Is fake it ‘til you make it just for job interviews, or for when flossing too? Or still another: Which would win the genuine face pageant: The “everything is good and ends badly” face? The “not getting as much sleep as I’d prefer” face that’s so popular around here? Or is it the one that implies, as the young pop star once declared at the receipt of her own Commander of Bad Feelings award, that this world is bullshit ? God, I hope not. How embarrassing for the friendly and what a coup for the sultry. My closest approximation of sultry is pouty, and I never think I’m being pouty when I’m being pouty. How Holly reminds me I’m being pouty is by telling me it’s important to try and enjoy this. This being anything, whatever’s in front of us.