Gabe Durham - Fun Camp

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Dear Mom,

I miss you. And Dad. And our house. And Johannes. Please show him pictures of me while feeding him treats. Please keep Deirdre out of my room and punish her if you catch her in there. I’m having some fun already but I don’t know how I’ll make it a whole week. A girl stole my hat but I got it back.

Love,

Billy

These guys were here for the Jews the week before us, they’re here for Fun Camp, and they’ll be here next week, when we’ve all gone home to caption camp scrapbooks and the Junior Achievers show up to swap business cards, practice faking shame over international foibles, and generally treat this ranch like a convention center. So, briefly: Nurse Nadine here’ll fix you up like a pro while honoring her belief in the Healing Power of Improvisational Storytelling. No examples just now please, Nadine. Save it for the wounded with no place to go. Chefs Grogg, Puddy, and Marimba will be dishing up all your high-protein fun fuel this week. Be sure and thank them — food staff have powers you just hope to God you’re nice enough to keep them from using. That said, Grogg’s a talker, so engage at your own risk. Same goes for Ole Sammy here, on paper a groundskeeper but in practice a cool drink-sipper who perches in the shade dispensing salty wisdom. This guy’s sage as hell and has maybe even been in some wars? Sam? Sam’s shaking his head. But just know, the perma-staff’s got their own thing going. They won’t be on-message like myself, Dave, Bernadette, and your counselors, so when they speak, be respectful and polite but be prepared to dismiss whatever they advocate as apocryphal. Likewise, they’ve asked that we not try to convert them this year, even while smiling, even when they could sorely use our message. We’ll soon find out if they mean it.

Were you there when he got out of the lake, shimmering, holding a mackerel he caught by hand? Out of that dumpy muck somehow smelling better than ever, like melted butter with lemon? I am planning on waiting. He’s only looked at me four times in two years. I’m simply saying that if Tad Gunnick took me on a nature stroll and pointed out various floras and faunas and told me that, frankly, clothes have always been a pet peeve of his, I’d do what I could not to bother him. And if that felt as good as he promised, and he laid out a soft velvet blanket like a gentleman and served me up a wine cooler, we would take it from there. There are limits to what a deft urbanite woman can barricade in the name of godly repute, is my point. Boy here likes you, he throws you in a pool. Boy here really likes you, God hums your name in his ear just as his dreams start to boil, then he approaches you somber at Quiet Time with big news he implies you can’t decline. Back when I was in Girls Cabin 3, I got off on that just fine. But God must love a beauty in a spaghetti-string tank top cause my dream card filled up quick.

You can get less than eight hours of sleep or more than eight hours of sleep or eight hours of sleep.

You can die alone or die addicted or go out to the bar tonight.

You can get diabetes or let fame make you boring or shoot hoops shirtless.

You can smile more or smile less or appear to be self-monitoring enough already.

You can tap on a wall or buy something that beeps or store your paintings on the hallway floor.

You can look up words you don’t know or use context clues or you can read a book tonight.

You can say a prayer or sing a prayer or eat while it’s hot.

You can pay one dollar for one donut or four dollars for six donuts or you can approach the dinner table with a clean conscience.

You can eat wax or be a hero or eat glue.

You can use me or define me or ask for my place of origin.

You can arrive early or arrive rested or you can think of yourself more as a searcher.

You can’t or you won’t, or in a more formal setting, you cannot or will not.

You can put down the dog or take her for a walk or finally name her.

You can replace the light bulb or live rustic or you can move away forever.

You can do a dance or wait to get thrown out or you can put your pants back on.

You can shuck, husk, or befriend.

You can shell, scale, or frown over.

You can bore, marry, or kill.

You can enjoy entertainments, enjoy a mercurial rise, or you can never stop putting bunny ears on loved ones in photos.

You’re with us or you’re against us or you made other plans but wish us the best.

Rap music is too something or not something enough, which is why some people feel a way about it.

I laid out a tarp in the field behind Girls Cabin 2 and sat in the center, waiting for what.

What’s the rule on campers soliciting curly locks from loved counselors?

If you campers want fuss, I know a country where waiters will sing at you. If you come to this one place, it’s me and Dan and Danny and Pat and Dee and Allie who will sing. Then we applaud cause you made it, breathing and beating like you’re told to. Fitness helped, quenching helped, other deeds, and now you’re here. How good are you at happy? Or, I mean, how adaptable? Cause one year it’s all about graciousness — don’t fumble the bounty — and the next fourteen it’s about stride — don’t hold your hands out like that. We don’t card so you might be faking and we’re pretty sure you are and you’ll never know we know, us being professionals. Singing away while presenting a flickering sundae with long shallow spoons to diffuse the pleasure to all your little co-conspirators. How we can tell is: real birthdayers emit a certain glow you don’t have. It’s their day, annexed for them. We could use a day — and believe me— we’d know what to do with it, the way our cheeks ache, the support our backs require.

is the Midnight Hike, which begins promptly at 8:30 on the mess hall steps and ends on a nearby mountaintop. We’ll corral our best songs, the stars and moon, and my most affected — public — speaking voice, all for the good of the Powerful Communal Experience. Some years ago, kids got it in their heads to make the evening a date night as well, just because of all the darkness and blankets and huddling together for warmth, and for how hard it is for the staff to round up campers who feel like sneaking off to do stuff in the mountain’s many cozy alcoves. You don’t need to get a date — the week isn’t about that — but I’d be remiss not to mention it, since, historically, all the kids who’ve got it going on tend to find dates. If you want to cut your losses early though and “just have fun with your friends this year,” that’s permissible, but don’t be surprised when your hot companion drops your understanding butt the minute some Tad Gunnick type likes her jeans.

If it was officious, I’d tell you how was what, but the spit of it is: You’re lathering up with the wrong Pam. The six-platter lunch about sputtery dudes like you is that the seams are sweet, so the populace turns its neck portside, takes aim at treefrog counts, buzz to bee ratios, and other nummy but ultimately poodling non-factuations. In this lawnscape, Budder, there are gnomes and there are flamingoes. And when something with a beak’s got a hat on, the Book of What-All is gonna have somesuch to speak around it. You samba down here in my bunker like your flesh ain’t bubble wrap and tell me where to braise my Schnauzer, you gray-ladeling son? I got half an eye to kick your arm.