Camp Pleasant (3 page)

“At the dispensary?” I asked.

“No, I have some ointment in the house,” she said. “We can do it here.”

“What’s up, El?” Ed Nolan’s voice inquired loudly as we came into the living room. When Ellen told him, he scoffed. “Aaah, that’s nonsense. A few blisters never hurt anybody. Y’need toughening, boy.”

“I know,” I said politely, choosing concession as my guide to success with Big Ed Nolan. As I followed Ellen Nolan into the hallway, I heard Ed Nolan say to Bob, “You don’t like sports, do you, Dalrymple?” and Bob’s flustered, “Why … sure, sure I do, Ed. I’m not too good at them, of course, but—”

“Uh-huh,” said Ed.

In the tiny bathroom, Ellen got boric acid ointment and a box of gauze.

“Go on in here,” Ellen said, flicking on the bedroom light. “Sit down.”

It gave me an odd sensation to sit on the bed beside Ellen Nolan. To hear her husband talking sports in the next room and see the picture of him, bulky in his football uniform, hanging over the bed with the pennant
Carlyle Teacher’s College
tacked under it. To feel the careful touchof her fingers on my palm and watch her serious face as she put on ointment, then wrapped gauze around my hand and tied it.

“Like hers,” I said without thinking.

She glanced up at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, “I was only….”

I didn’t finish. I felt my heart thudding slowly, harshly. Her hands were like Julia’s hands, warm and certain. I looked away from them.

“What sort of music will you teach the boys?” Ellen asked me.

“Oh, the usual run of camp songs,” I said. “I’ve worked with kids before—at other camps—and they don’t seem to like anything but the easiest songs.”

She nodded. “I suppose so,” she said. “It’s a pity you can’t give them a music appreciation course though. You know, play records and discuss them.”

“Classical music?” I asked.

She nodded with a smile. “I think all people would like classical music if only they were exposed to it early enough,” she said.

“You like it?” I asked.

“I love it,” she said, “but my—” she hesitated for a revealing moment— “we don’t have too many records,” she finished.

“What do you have?” I asked.

“I’ll show you when we’re through,” she said. “We have Tschaikowsky’s—”

“What are ya doin’, El?” Ed Nolan’s voice came splashing over us like cold coffee and we both looked up to see him filling the doorway.

“I’m bandaging his hand, Ed,” Ellen said as if she were apologizing.

“Well, come on out,” he said irritably. “Our bedroom isn’t a hospital, y’know.”

Ellen Nolan’s voice was barely audible as she said, “All right.” I stood quickly, feeling restive under the flat gaze of Ed Nolan’s eyes. For a moment, I hesitated between waiting to follow Ellen Nolan out and proceeding her. Then, as Ed stepped into the room and gestured once with his head, I moved abruptly for the doorway.

“We got a dispensary y’know,” Ed said, attempting to sound amused but failing. “Our bedroom isn’t no blister hospital.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the tight look on Ellen Nolan’s face, the rising color in her cheeks. Then I saw Ed Nolan pinch her as she moved past him. She gasped suddenly and lurched so bad she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her arm.

“Take it easy, El,” said Big Ed, smirking. “You’ll last longer.”

He came out after her and saw me standing in the middle of the living-room floor. “Sit down, boy,” he said.

“Mrs. Nolan said she was going to show me some records,” I said.

“Never mind that,” Ed said. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

Without a word, I sat down beside Bob, as Ellen Nolan moved back toward the kitchen.

“What are your plans for singin’ this summer?” Ed asked me. “I’ll tell you right now I argued with the board against havin’ a music director so I’m gonna expect mighty good work from ya before I’m convinced.”

“Here’s what I’m planning,” I began.

As I spoke I could hear Ellen Nolan moving in the kitchen.

“Tomorrow we’re gonna work on the cabins,” Ed Nolan told us at supper the next day, “and that’s
all
we’re gonna work on because I want those cabins in topnotch order by Wednesday morning when the campers arrive. Oh—” he conceded with a brusque gesture—”there may be a few odds and ends besides the cabins. A few of you cabin counselors may be assigned to other jobs but they’ll only last an hour or so. Your main job’ll be the cabins.”

In the morning, Ed Nolan grabbed my arm as I was leaving the dining hall.

“Say, listen, boy, would you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

“Well, we got all our work assigned for today but we’re still a couple o’ men short for helping clean up Paradise.”

“Oh?” I said.

“I thought maybe you and Dalrymple might pitch in and help up there for a little while,” said Big Ed.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll be glad to.”

“I’ll tell Doc Rainey then,” he said. “Tell your friend Dalrymple.”

“We’ll still be able to work on our cabins today, won’t we?” I asked as Bid Ed started away.

“Sure, sure,” he tossed over his receding shoulder. “It’ll just be for a little while.”

When I told Bob about it, I saw the tightening of angry suspicion knit his features.

“That son-of-a-bitch is out to get us,” he said. “He’ll have us up there all day.”

“If he does, he’s cutting his own throat,” I said. “He’s the one who wants the cabins done by tomorrow morning.”

“He’ll expect them done by tomorrow morning too,” Bob said.

For an hour we worked down the long, facing rows of toilets, Bob humming a minor transposition of “Stranger in Paradise,” as he scrubbed and flushed and scrubbed again.

“There is beauty here,” he announced once, straightening up, dripping brush in hand. “There is intangible loveliness, grace, symmetry — a formlessness of unspeakable glory.”

“There is a strong odor,” I conceded.

“Callow youth,” he said sadly, “who do not see this moment in its true significance.
Hark
.” He flushed. “It is the rushing of a crystal stream, a torrent of summer madness. Ah, it is Niagara, Victoria!”

“It is a toilet flushing,” I said, still cleaning.

“You miss the point, fellow,” he said. “The moment escapes you.” He belched echoingly.

“It is the horn of Rolande summoning Charlemagne,” I said.

“You’ve got it,” he said. “Sit on it.” He sang, “
Once you have found it, never let it go. Once you have found it—”

Morning passed. There was only one other person working with us —a limp-armed dishwasher from the kitchen who mopped at the floor as if he were playing shuffleboard. By dinnertime, Paradise was still not regained from a winter’s neglect.

Ellen was in the dining hall when we got there.

All through the meal, she kept looking at the table, only twice looking up, seeing me, and quickly lowering her eyes. Near the end of the meal, while Ed was telling us how slowly he thought the cabins were getting done and how, by God, we had better get into high gear and clean them up if it took all night—I looked at Ellen again and this time she didn’t lower her waiting eyes. Instead, there was a moment—it seemed long; it probably lasted three seconds—a moment in which her eyes almost spoke to me—asking me to understand.

“Let’s tell Doc,” Bob said when Ed’s talk was done, chopping away my thoughts of her and bringing me back again to the little prison of present difficulties; namely, getting our cabins done.

We went over to Doc Rainey and told him.

“We’ll never get our cabin ready if we don’t start soon,” Bob complained. “We haven’t even touched them.”

Doc Rainey nodded, his face understanding. “I’ll talk to Ed,” he said. “I’m sure we can get somebody up there so you can get your cabins ready.”

We waited while he talked to Big Ed, watching Ed gesture with a stump of cigar, as he explained. Finally they came over to us.

“Look here, boys,” Ed said, “I don’t wanna get tough or anything but you got a job to do so let’s stop belly-achin’ and
do
it.”

“What about our cabins, Mister Nolan?” I asked.

“Listen, Harper,” he said, “you two should have finished up Paradise hours ago. You’re just wastin’ time. The sooner you get the job done, the sooner you’ll get to your cabins.”

Thus spurred on, we returned to Paradise. Jokes did not set in that afternoon. We worked as quickly and efficiently as possible, mopping the floors, cleaning the sinks, dusting the walls, putting in fresh bulbs, rolls of paper, bringing up supplies from the lodge—cleaner, disinfectant, paper, soap, etc.

By three-thirty I tossed my mop into the utility closet and said, “Come on, that’s it. We’d better work on those damn cabins.”

Sid came by as I finished prying the wooden planks from over the door and letting down the shutters.

“Jesus, you’re just starting?” he asked, looking mildly pained.

I told him about Paradise.

“I know,” he said. “I don’t blame you but … oh, the hell.” He pulled off his sweat shirt, got a pail of soapy water and a mop and started working on the cabin floor while I broomed cobwebs from the outside eaves, changed the bulb and got mattresses from the lodge.

At four-thirty, the swim period was honkingly annpunced. Sid looked at me questioningly.

“I’ll keep working,” I told him. “Might as well get the damn thing over with.” He nodded and smiled briefly.

Nolan came by a few minutes later and stood on the porch steps, eating a candy bar and looking in.

“Got a long way to go,” he said through a caramel and nut-filled mouth.

I managed not to say anything.

“Paradise in topnotch order?” asked Big Ed.

“Yes,” I answered bluntly.

“I’ll take a look later on.” He chewed noisily on his candy bar. “Say, Goldberg, come down the office with me, will ya? I want to go over the list of your campers with ya and tell ya about them.”

“Well….” Sid put down the mop. “Harper has a lot to do yet,” he said.

“That’s Harper’s job, not yours,” Big Ed said. “Come on.”

Sid left the cabin, grabbing his sweat shirt from the big, gnarled stump in front of the cabin. I stood barefoot on the soap-swirled floor, mop handle in limp clutch, looking out of the cabin.

By supper I had the floors done, the bunks set up. That left only the painting of the shutters and the locating and lugging up from the lodge of the seven trunks that belonged to my cabin group.

Bob and I sat by Merv at supper, neither of us talking much.

“You both look shot,” Merv said. “Like men back from the dead.”

“We’re not back yet,” Bob said.

“Large Edward on your tail?” Merv asked me and I nodded. “This is a position you’ll learn to assume automatically in time,” he said amusedly. “After a while you won’t even notice it.”

“This I doubt,” I said.

I looked for Ellen at supper but she was absent again. I decided to drop by the Nolan cabin later if I were finished working.

“Say, Harper,” Big Ed said to me at the door, “I took a look at Paradise before.” He shook his head. “It’s kind o’ sloppy, boy, not a topnotch job by a long shot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, as evenly as possible.

Big Ed nodded patronizingly. “Well, we’ll let it go this time, Harper. But you got to get in high gear. Counselin’s no picnic, y’know.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know.”

“Well, I won’t keep ya from your work.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Check ya later.”

I spent the evening painting the shutters by flashlight. About eight- thirty, Big Ed lumbered by.

“Now
it’s getting done,” he said. I grunted. “Don’t forget the trunks,” he said. “And, while you’re at it you might as well go over the beams.” He pointed up at the ceiling. “Looks like a lot o’ dust up there.”

“Yes,” I said, “I will.”

At ten I began lugging up the trunks. By ten-thirty I was done. I took a shower and got into my pajamas; turned out the light and crawled exhaustedly between the sheets.

I lay there in the darkness thinking about Julia. About our years together, our engagement, our wedding plans.

Her funeral.

I wondered when it was going to leave me — this cold, sickening despair. She was dead; buried. Face that, a friend had told me months before. Face it and you can live with it. Ignore it and it will kill you. It was killing me. Over a year had passed since the auto accident; and the gaping hole was still there in my life. Nothing seemed to mend it.

The buses arrived a little after one that afternoon. Dinner had been served at eleven-thirty so we’d all be ready and tensed for the onslaught. From twelve-thirty on, we gathered in the open area in front of the dining hall, waiting.

About one o’clock, the first audible signs of the terrible approach reached our ears. Almost unnoticeably, the sound impinged, increasing in volume gradually like distant surf. The noise grew louder, louder and then, with a flash of yellow side and windows alive with arms and heads, the first thick-tired bus turned in off the road and a burst of cheering dinned in our ears.

Then the second bus turned in and the first one ground to a whining halt in from of the dining hall, ejecting a torrent of yelling boys carrying baseball hats, tennis rackets, bows and arrows, suitcases, inner tubes, footballs, duffle bags, knapsacks and one book. The second bus drew up, braked and cascaded more little boys. Then the third bus, the fourth and, in a minute, the area was interwoven with the dashing and jumping of one hundred and twenty-six vari-sized campers. The air rang with their cheers, yells, hoots of recognition, and general noisemaking.

Which pandemonium faded only after Doc Rainey had whistle-blown his face to a mottled purple. Even then, movement did not cease but went on, a tireless series of wrigglings, hoppings, punchings of arms, ticklings, pokings and repressed gigglings.

“All right, now!” Doc Rainey’s voice rose courageously above the squirming, bright-eyed throng. “Line up for cabin assignments!”

The initial attempt of the boys to carry out this instruction paralleled a meeting of two armies—the first composed of dogs, the second of cats. The feverish shrilling of Doc Rainey’s whistle finally brought motionless silence to the red-faced, tangled gang.