The First Cut (9 page)

By the time Joyce drove up in her Honda, the boys oblivious to anything other than the game machines in their hands, the sun had started to set behind the cliffs and the fire was crackling along nicely. Though the temperature still hung in the low 80s, he'd cast about for wood to build a fire in the ring of rock at the center of the campsite. As the sun dropped completely behind the bluffs, it would take much of the day's heat with it. He got up from his chair, set the novel he was reading conspicuously on the seat so Joyce could see he wasn't working, and went to help with their bags.

"Dad!" shouted Eric, the older of the two boys as he shot out of the car. "When can we go in the river? When do we get to fish?"

Eric was a lanky, brown-haired kid who looked like a young version of his father. Charlie, his towheaded younger brother, now out of the car himself, followed gamely. Joyce popped open the trunk and she and Paul began pulling out bags stuffed in between the spare tire and the box that served as her winter survival kit. He hadn't removed it this spring, and now it was just three months away from being needed again. Paul turned, a load of sleeping bags in his arms, to see the boys now running in wide circles around the campsite. He cringed as they came within inches of tripping over the twine he'd used to stake up the rain fly on the tent.

"Careful, guys," he said as he walked toward the tent. "See this yellow stake? There's a rope tied to that to hold up part of the tent. You don't want to trip on that, OK?"
They nodded, and then recommenced their spree. Paul stood with an armload of sleeping bags, unable to unzip the tent flap. Joyce, as petite and graceful as when they'd married, came up from behind and passed him without touching to unzip it. She slid the one bag she'd been carrying into the tent and then took the sleeping bags from Paul.

"Are you sure it was smart to build a fire so close to the tent?" she said by way of hello. "And was it necessary to install trip lines all around it?"

"Hello to you, too. It's so nice to see you," Paul said. The boys, by now trained to recognize his sarcastic tone, stopped and looked up. Paul smiled at them, and then reached inside the tent for the soft football he'd brought along. He tossed it to Eric.

"Why don't you guys go to that open area over there and throw this around. I'll come over in a second."

He turned back to Joyce "You know, I've done this before. I don't think I need you to tell me how to pound a tent stake or build a campfire."

"Well, this is getting off to a fantastic start, isn't it?" Joyce said.

Paul ran his hand through thinning hair, closing his eyes for a moment as if to clear his thoughts. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to come all the way up here, but I'm glad you did. I think you'll be glad, too, if you give it a chance. Can we both lay off for a day?"

They'd had some spectacularly passionate arguments in the past year or so, some real verbal prizefights when the kids were away at her folks, and they'd grown deft at launching coded, even-toned zingers at each other when the boys were home. They fought more and more about the amount of time Paul wasn't at home, and the quality of that time when he was. Whether she truly believed it or not, Joyce kept hinting in none-too-subtle terms that she thought Paul was having an affair. It came to a head in the last week, and Paul was staying at a hotel in town, living out of his suitcase.

He'd done his part today, leaving early on a Friday to come up here. Maybe Joyce would meet him halfway, maybe they could channel that energy toward something positive. How could anyone fight with those bluffs to look at?
Joyce looked defeated. She nodded, agreeing to be civil without actually saying it, then leaned into Paul and gave him a polite hug. It wasn't much, the kind of embrace you get from a distant relative at a funeral, but Paul would take anything at this point.

"If you want to get stuff organized, I'll go tire them out a bit," he said.
It didn't take long for Eric and Charlie to grow weary as Paul's passes bounced off their heads, the foam ball caroming away from their outstretched hands each time. The three returned, the boys clutching Paul's legs and sitting on his shoes while laughing uncontrollably, forcing him to walk lock-kneed like Frankenstein's monster toward the campsite. Joyce was sitting in his chair when they returned, his book open on her lap as she idly flipped through the pages. She looked up as the boys rushed her, talking in sharp, bark-like bursts about the game. Joyce smiled warmly at the two, even tousled Charlie's hair a bit.

"So," Paul asked, "are you guys up for a cookout?"

Joyce dropped the book to her lap. "We already ate," she said. "We stopped at a burger place in Cedar Rapids on the way. I wasn't sure you'd remember to pack anything. Besides, the sitter didn't feed them anything before we left."

Paul didn't mention the hot dogs and other food waiting in the cooler.

"Well then," he said, "I guess we should cut right to dessert. Do you want to see how the cowboys used to cook their meals?" The boys turned from their roughhousing. Charlie cocked his head.

"What about soldiers, Dad? Do they cook over a fire like that? I read that they eat meals out of those cool plastic bags that are all sucked down around the food like the astronauts," he said.

"That's right," Paul said. "That's how astronauts eat, soldiers too, I suppose. This," he said, whittling a stick to a point with his pocketknife, "is how cowboys eat."

"What are you gonna cook, Dad?" Eric asked.

"You guys know how to make S'mores?" They shook their heads no. "Well, first you gotta roast some marshmallows."

He pulled another stick from the bush, whittled it down, and handed one to each boy.

"Stick a couple of them on the end there, then stick them in the top part of the flame and move them around a bit, OK? Your mom and I will be over in a second with the rest of it."

Paul handed Joyce graham crackers, while he broke the chocolate into smaller pieces.

"You know, you're little plan is pretty transparent," Joyce said, breaking the silence. "Bring the family to the wilderness, force them to work together, regain the boys' trust, save the marriage."

Paul cringed. He knew Joyce was too smart to fall for this, but he hoped it would work just the same. He wanted his wife back, his family back.

"I didn't just do this to get you guys up here. I needed this, too," he said. "You've been right. I spend too much time at work, not enough time with you and Charlie and Eric. I wanted to come here and break the cycle, I guess, use it as a launch pad for a new regimen."

Joyce was finished with the crackers, a neat pile sat before her on the table.

"That's why I asked you to leave, Paul. I couldn't figure things out with you right there. I don't know what to believe about what you've been doing. You say it isn't a woman, that it's work. I'm not convinced, and I sometimes think it would be easier if you were just cheating on me. To lose you to a job, to a bunch of numbers on a page, I don't know how to deal with that."

"But how can you --"

"Let me finish," she said, holding up her hand. She took a breath. "We're not a formula, Paul. You can't just plug the missing elements into one of your little engineering problems and make it suddenly work. Just add one part Dad, two parts 'Swiss Family Robinson' and, presto! Out pops a family, good as new. Things have been wrong between us for a long time, and it's going to take more than a weekend to fix them. I don’t think you realize that yet."

"Give me a little credit, OK? Did you ever think that I simply had great memories of this place and wanted to share it with my family?"
The boys came rushing over to them, raising blackened marshmallow carcasses up for inspection.

"Are these good, Dad?" asked Charlie.

"Sure are," he said. "But we need a few more for all of us. Why don't you go help your mom cook another handful and I'll start making the S'mores."

They ran off, a smiling Joyce behind them, while Paul tossed the lumps of petrified sugar toward the river. Joyce came back in a moment with a handful of golden brown marshmallows, which Paul stuck between the chocolate and crackers. They all ate their fill, then sat around the campfire, watching the flames dance, flinching when a knot on a log popped and sparked. For a moment, everything was working the way Paul had hoped. He wondered why it took a trip halfway across the state for it to be like this.

They readied for bed, the boys climbing in first. They insisted on placing their sleeping bags between their parents much to Paul's chagrin. Paul and Joyce each brushed their teeth and washed their faces. Joyce had missed a stray streak of ash from the fire, and Paul wet his thumb and brushed it off. She made a move as if to avoid his touch, but didn't.

***

Eric kicked Paul, the blow from his twitching leg blunted by the two layers of sleeping bag between them. Paul stirred, and then pulled himself up on elbows propped behind him. He heard the clink of metal from outside -- probably someone else setting up camp. He triggered the light on his watch and saw it was after midnight. He lay down again, settling his head into the balled up shirt that was his pillow, and tried to sleep.

Voices joined the other noises now, quiet at first but building as the men who were talking punctuated their conversation with shouts. Paul figured them for some fishermen who stopped at the bar in town before coming to set up camp, forgetting the hassle of doing so in the dark.

He woke with a start at a shout. He'd dozed for a moment, but now everyone in the tent was stirring. Joyce rolled toward him.

"What is that?" she asked. "Why are they yelling?"

From their chatter, Paul could tell they were playing cards now, complaining about their hands. He unzipped the window above his head just enough to peek outside. A camper sat two spots away, a window glowing brightly in the darkness. Inside, he could make out two or three men, seated around a table, cans of beer in their hands. They were drunk, he was sure, and having a good time, completely oblivious to their volume as their voices carried clearly on the crisp night air.

"It's some guys playing poker a couple of spots over," Paul said. "They just pulled in, so maybe they need to unwind before they hit the sack."

They were whispering, but the combination of their voices and the noise from outside fully woke the boys, who both started fidgeting. Joyce threw an arm over both to calm them.

"Can you just go out there are ask them to be quiet and not make excuses for them?" she said.

Paul slipped out of the tent, hopping along for a moment as he pulled on his shoes. When he got close enough to hear the men's conversation more clearly, he stopped. They were obviously quite drunk, and talked to one another belligerently.

"You better not be dealing off the bottom," he heard. "I'll kick your ass if you are."

He wasn't eager to confront them, so he turned and went back toward his tent. But he knew he couldn't return without having done something, so he went away from the campsites and toward the front of the campground, to the office and a building where the showers and bathrooms were housed. The office was dark, so he went inside the bathroom and sat for a moment in a stall trying to gather his courage. Were he by himself, he would have wrapped his head in his arms and tried to block out the noise. But Joyce clearly wanted action, and the last thing he wanted this weekend was to let her down.

He exited the building and walked back toward the campsites, coming at the loud camper from the other side. He could hear the men talking from far off; the other campers nearby surely could hear the racket, but no one came out to confront them. He trod lightly up to the door and tapped his knuckles quietly against the hard plastic.

"That you, Leroy?" came a shout from within. "Get yer skinny ass in here and get drinkin!"

Paul knocked again. He heard rustling inside, then the door opened and one of the men leaned out.

"Oh, you're not Leroy. Who the hell'r you?"

Paul took a step back. "I'm… I… Um, you guys are kind of loud."

"We are, huh? Well, I don't see anyone else complaining. If we're so loud, why don't these other folks come tell us?" he said, swinging his arm wide to indicate the surrounding campsites. He nearly fell out of the camper, but grabbed the side of the doorframe and righted himself.

Another man pushed the first out of the way and looked out at Paul.

"Oh, wait," he said, his demeanor more pleasant than the other man. "You're the manager, ain't ya? Oh jeez, I'm sorry. Mike was just messin' with ya. We didn't realize we were so loud."

"Actually," Paul said, "I'm, um, well, yeah, just quiet down a bit, OK?"

He stayed beyond the light spilling from the camper, hoping the man wouldn't realize Paul wasn't the same person who'd checked them in.

"We're just blowing off some steam is all, waiting for one of our pals to show up. We'll quiet down."

Paul nodded, said a quiet "thank you," and started walking away. When he reached the bathrooms, he stopped for a moment in a shadow behind the building. He couldn't see or hear the men from there, and decided it was safe to return to his tent. He walked in a wide loop back the other way toward his campsite. As he zipped himself into his sleeping bag, Joyce stirred.

"They're quiet. Did you do that?"

He nodded, then realized she couldn't see him in the dark.

"Yes. I told them to keep it down."

Joyce leaned over the two boys, sticking a hand out tentatively in the dark. Locating Paul's hand, she grabbed it and gave it a quick squeeze.

"Thanks. Now we can all get some sleep."

***

Paul woke early the next morning. He slipped out of the tent and lit the camp stove to heat water for some much-needed coffee. The boys crawled out next, then Joyce, who took the cup he offered with a familiar smile that was more grimace at this point of the day. Eric chased Charlie down to the river's edge, where the two of them sat down on their haunches and began splashing in the water. Paul told them to be quiet. He said they didn't want to wake the other campers; in truth, he didn't want their neighbors to stir and see him out here. Two canoes sat upended at the edge of the neighboring site just like those left by the rental company at Paul's. He wanted to get on the river as soon as possible to avoid a confrontation. The drunks probably would need to sleep off their late night well into the morning, but Paul didn't want to risk it.