#3: Checking the Water
“All night I have hardly slept. And now Larry is right outside my window.”
Ben Lomond, California | Summer of 1962 | By CLAUDIA STERNBACH
Tags: California, camp
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Fallen IdolsThey had bean and cheese burritos, oranges, trail mix and juice. Dad also bought beer and strike-anywhere matches. He called them “essential tools for survival and comfort in any situation.” He never mentioned the essential bodily need for water. Feeling of HomeThe girls exited the reality of living in the 1990s. They were Wyoda girls: gay and fresh as daisies. This was their first foray as jungle women. But that year a darkness invaded Camp Wyoda. Their un-chaperoned skinny-dipping had attracted deviousness. Checking the WaterLarry was 18. He wasn’t a counselor but he did all kinds of interesting things. Sometimes he was a lifeguard at the pool, sometimes he ran softball games in the field just past it. Larry was the cutest boy at camp, and he wanted Claudia to help him check the water. Alone At LastBoys, boys, boys. Boys everywhere being boys. As advertised he got all the swimming, BB gun shooting, canoe paddling, and Capturing the Flag he could stomach, and always with lots of other boys. Boys above him when he slept; boys beside him when he ate. PartisanshipA mosquito buzzed by her ear. If it bit her she knew she would move, stirring up the rotten leaves and pebbles beneath. Slowly, she turned to where she could see a small slice of sky dissected by tree trunks. How long could she remain like this? Simon Was Not Screaming AnymoreThey went to the door and cautiously opened it, shining the light of the torch in the direction of the nois. There, illuminated in the beam, a full-grown leopard stood over the huddled body of a small boy, its jaws clenched around his throat. A Rock and a Hard PlaceWoch nan dio pa konnen doule woch nan soley. She, the rock in the water, had been cast out of the waves and was catching her first glimpse of the pain of the rock in the sun, a small taste of the struggle of the Haitian people. How could she possibly leave? When “The Nature” CallsOnce the food was packed the teens set to work pitching tents. Up went a pole, over went a tarp, in went the stakes – poof, tent! A little city sprouted across the tundra. They giggled as the Americans struggled to set up their royal blue Wal-Mart monstrosities. The True Story of the Mad LoggerAs time went on the captain was forced to sell off most of his land to the logging companies to pay for his sick wife. As his realm shrunk the loggers moved ever closer, until they set up camp directly across the river from the Captain’s cliff.  |
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