Strangers (11 page)

…
nothing
to dread…

She was ashamed of herself, an adult, preyed on by those vague and unformed terrors of children, waking them, shrieking, in the thick of night, with a cold, spider-crawl fearfulness that cannot be appeased even by the warm safety of MomandDad’s bed.

Beth sipped her steaming coffee. The dog’s death—Funny, she did not want to think of the dog as Dusty—that would make it worse…

The—dog—was dead for no reason, no reason…

No! Not now. She would not allow herself to descend into a nail-biting, mind-whirling worry about this-and-that…and-everything. Oh, there was reason to be careful—real reason—
and wasn’t there always—
but
she wasn’t going to go overboard, become a statistic on the “Percentage of Paranoids in Today’s Suburbs!”

“…So I got in trouble,” Kim said. “All it was was funny, and they made such a big deal out of it.”

“What did you do?” Michael asked. “Maybe it wasn’t so funny and maybe it was a big deal. That’s a possibility, too, don’t you think?”

“Nah,” Kim said. She drank milk, nearly upsetting the glass. “There was this wimpy girl in our class, y’know. Her name was Alana. She was real scared of snakes, so I put this garden snake in her bed.”

Kim laughed at the recollection of the wimpy girl named Alana who found a snake in her bunk.

“Very nice,” Michael said dryly. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Uh-huh!” Kim said. “Did she ever scream!
”

Yes,
Beth thought,
everything is just fine. There are some men who can’t even talk to their kids, but Michael? He’s just hanging on every word that Kim says…

“And they found out what you did,” Michael said.

“Nah,” Kim said, “Alana was such a wimpo, I wanted her to know who did it so I
told
her and she went and told the counselor.”

“Well,” Michael said, “honesty is the best policy. Confession is good for the soul. Tell the truth and have no regrets.”

Beth watched as Michael moved his hand ‘to his mouth just a half-second too late to hide his smile. Kim didn’t seem to notice.

“So anyway,” Kim said, “I got punished. They made me clean up the
whole
camp. I had to use this stick with a nail on the end of it and pick up all the papers and everything.”

“Sounds like you got what you deserved,” Michael said reflectively. “But do
you
think that was a fair punishment?”

“I didn’t care, so you know what I did?” Kim said.

“No. What?” Michael responded.

“The next night I put
three
snakes in old Alana’s bed! And a toad, too!”

Michael said nothing. Once more, his hand was over his mouth.

Beth thought he was smiling, trying not to laugh at Kim’s mischievous adventures at Camp PineTop.

He was not.

Michael was remembering.

There’s always a wimp at a summer camp.

The wimp at Camp Bethel, when Michael was 12
,—
was named Alvin Burdell…

It was a Tuesday night, forty-five minutes after lights out, and it was time to get Alvin Burdell, “Fat-Guts” whose inclusion on your team meant you automatically lost the race or the volleyball or softball game, the jerk who couldn’t do one thing right but knew how to do a million things wrong, who got you sick just looking at all that wiggling blubber, and who,
just like a big fat baby!
wet
his bed and woke up everyone in Cabin Three with that rotten stinking smell and his crying.

In his underwear, Steve Dawes led them, another boy aiming the penlight; they were the “Cabin Three Commandos” and the Target for Tonight was “Fat-Guts.” Steve had appointed himself chief of the operation and no one had opposed him. He was thirteen and tough, a schoolyard bully on vacation at summer camp, always ready to do what he could to make life miserable for anyone weaker than himself.

More or less silently, the seven boys surrounded Alvin’s bed.

Michael hung back as far as he dared. This wasn’t for him, not his way to get involved with these
nothing people
—he had started thinking of them in that way since his talk with Jan—but he couldn’t refuse to be part of it, either. He had to keep up the pretense, go on acting like everyone else,
the nothing people!
until
…

Alvin was asleep. The penlight threw a yellow circle on his open mouth; a thick shadow moved as if something were trying to crawl out of his throat.

“Now!” Steve Dawes gave the order.

It was a smooth surprise as a pillow pressed down on Alvin’s face, muffling his shocked cry, and hands held his arms. The blanket and topsheet were yanked down. Hands gripped Alvin’s ankles, pinning him totally.

“Fat-Guts” was helpless.

“Yeah!” Steve Dawes said. “Now we fix him!” Steve was holding a can of blue paint and a brush. He kept saying, “Yeah,” voice trilling with excitement, as Alvin’s pajama tops were unbuttoned, the bottoms pulled down to his knees.

“Lookit that whale blubber!” Alvin’s breasts were as bulbous as an over-developed woman’s.

Steve laughed. “Itty-bitty prick like that. Way Alvin pisses, he oughta have a damn fire hose!”

Everyone was laughing, caution diminishing at the continuing success of the Cabin Three Commando raid. “Mowf, mowf!” came from beneath the smothering pillow. They laughed at that too. “Sounds like a harelip dog!”

“Move the light,” Steve said. He took the lid off the paint can and squatted by the bedside. “We’re
gonna
put a sign on you, FatGuts,” Steve said. “Right on your titties. It’ll say ‘Porky Pisspot.’ Then we’re gonna paint your itty-bitty prick blue and tie you to the flagpole so when they raise the flag tomorrow, there’s a big, fat surprise!”

Alvin Burdell heaved; he looked like a giant sea slug. “Mowf, woaa…” was his inarticulate plea.

The tip of Steve’s brush trailed blue, a shaky line P on Alvin’s right breast, then, next to it, an O.

Suddenly, there was a piercing sound—
Ahrkee
—a clack
and a rattle.

“Now what the heck is this…?”

Light descended in a sharp yellow instant from the single bare 75-watt bulb overhead and froze The Cabin Three Commandos.

The boys scattered, backing to their own beds, turning and running, as Jan Pretre strode forward. The frightened excuses spilled out. “We weren’t…” “…
not
doin’ nothin’…” “It was just a joke, huh?”

Then Jan Pretre had Steve Dawes and Alvin Burdell threw the pillow from his head and sat up, blubbering hysterically.

“Hey!” Jan spun Steve around and Steve dropped the paint can. Holding Steve from behind, Jan cranked the boy’s arm up between his shoulder blades.

Steve Dawes yelled, rising up on his toes, eyes bulging, his face as white as breakfast oatmeal. Then he started to peep like a starving baby bird, “Ohohoh…”

“Steve,” Jan Pretre quietly said, “don’t you know it’s wrong to be mean to people? You shouldn’t try to hurt Alvin.” Jan pressed Steve’s arm higher still.

“Ohohoh…”

Staring, Alvin was pulling up his pajama pants. Tears ran down Steve’s cheeks and his face looked as if it were melting. “My arm, my arm, you’re breakin’…”

“Now Steve,” Jan said, “you really ought to apologize to Alvin. Let’s hear you say you’re sorry and that you promise never to be so mean again, okay?”

Each word of Steve’s agonized apology was on a frantically ascending scale. Then he was begging. “Oh, please, my arm, don’t hurt me,
don’t
hurt me.”

Jan released him. Steve staggered. Then, head down, working his shoulder, he slowly made his way to his bed, not looking at anyone. He crawled under the sheets, lay on his side, and shook with sobs.

“Alvin,” Jan said, “there’s an extra cot in the counselors’ cabin. Come on, we’ll get you cleaned up and you sleep there tonight.”

When Alvin Burdell smiled, he looked like a jack o’lantern lit by a dozen candles.

On Saturday, after breakfast, Jan told Michael that he was taking him along with their “good pal,” Alvin, on a special overnighter. Another counselor would take responsibility for Cabin Three that night. Jan told Michael that the overnighter would be a lot of fun.

Then he told Michael
how
they would have fun.

It was nearly
sunset
when they camped in the woods, far from Camp Bethel. Their site was near to a steep ravine, rough ground where the grass had lost the battle to stones and weeds.

Jan built a fire. He cooked beans, the open cans
heated
in the flames, and they roasted hot dogs on sharpened sticks.

“Having a good time, Alvin, old pal, old buddy, old chum?” Jan asked.

“Yeah!” There was a mustard smear along side Alvin’s mouth, more mustard as well as ketchup on his T-shirt.

Alvin’s hand splatted on the side of his neck.
“Got that little stinker!” he crowed, reducing the mosquito’s remains to gooey pulp and flicking it in the fire. “Lot of bugs tonight.”

“Hey, no problem,” Jan Pretre said, “You kill them. It’s easy to kill them, isn’t it?”

Sitting with his legs outstretched, Michael saw a rock within arm’s length. He picked it up. It was egg shaped, the size of a baseball; he felt its weight.

Nodding toward the ravine, Jan said, “Really a beautiful sunset. Let’s go take a look.”

Alvin waddled beside Jan. They stood at the edge of the ravine. Jan pointed to where the pink ball of the sun seemed to rest in the V of a tree where two limbs joined.

“That’s just like a picture postcard,” Jan said. “All that pretty color. It’s so fucking beautiful I could just shit.”

“Huh?” Alvin said. He began to laugh. “Hey, Jan! I didn’t think you talked that way. Hey! Shit!”

Michael got to his feet.

“Sure,” Jan said. “I’m just the right kind of guy, you know, with the right language for the right situation. That’s the way it is, old pal, old buddy, old chum!” He patted Alvin’s shoulder. “You know what I mean, don’t you, you fucking ‘Fat-Guts’?”

“Hey, Jan, I know you’re kidding around, but…”

Michael was running. He held the rock tightly, fingers shaped to it, and his arm was back as though he were about to throw.

Michael did not pitch the stone. Just as Alvin was turning his head, Michael planted his feet, locking himself to the earth. He swung his arm, snapped it forward.

He smashed the rock against the birthmark over Alvin’s ear and there was a sound like a cantaloupe falling from a supermarket cart and smacking the floor. At the same time, there was another sound, similar to the crunching of the shell of a
hard boiled
egg.

And there was yet another sound that might have been Michael Louden’s heart.

Alvin dropped to his knees, swaying. He said, “Dowah…”

Jan stepped in front of Michael, directly behind Alvin, and slammed his knee into Alvin’s back. Alvin rolled down the ravine.

“Really a pretty sunset,” Jan Pretre said. He told Michael to follow him, warning him to be careful; if they didn’t watch their step, it would be easy to fall all the way down to the bottom of the ravine where Alvin lay.