11: HALF NAKED
Before my granny died from being 75-years-old, she told me that there was no one happier than someone who whistled. It was an allusion of a peaceful mind, someone lost in a place that wasn’t in front of them, and no matter how bad things got, someone who could whistle was always going to be okay.
I whistled.
“Could you stop that whistling.”
I looked up.
Karen was just ahead of me. Her tight braids pulled at the roots of her hair, and made her eyes look like they were being tugged to the sides of her head. There had to be a better hairstyle than those braids, and they had to be hurting her. But she wore them like she had no other choice. Maybe it was all she knew how to do with the kind of hair she had.
“I could stop, sure.” I whistled non-sense from then on. No particular tune, just awful sounds that made whistling the worst. And then I whistled that camp song from the other night, Black Socks.
Karen was cranky. That was something all of us hormonal teenagers were probably used to—attitude switching on a dime. I had heard all about it from my folks. She turned around and pretended to ignore me. There was no such thing as actually ignoring annoying people, you could only pretend to.
“I love to whistle,” Sharon said. She began to whistle Black Socks too. I stopped because suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore.
Rick’s group of boys were waiting for us. They were spread around in a circle, lost in the chitchat of manliness and muscles and pubes for moustaches. Karen made a beeline for the spot next to Murray. I knew where I was sitting as soon as she did that.
“Excuse me.” I tried to get around her.
“Move it, Valerie,” Karen said.
“You move it.” I shoved her.
She shoved me back. I flew across the pit and landed on the ground.
“Did you trip?” Sharon gasped. She held out her hand for me to take. I stared at her old hand, and it was so close to my face that I could almost smell her skin.
“Nope, just a really big wind blew me over. Like a huge one.” I stood up and grabbed the spot next to Murray. “That and there’s a lot of sticks and stones around here. Maybe even some bones.”
“Well be careful,” Sharon said.
Karen was still standing in the circle.
“There's a spot over there next to Brooke," I told her.
Sharon started things off fast. We had our jugs of water in our hands and I leaned forward, took a sip of 49, and tried not to make eye contact with anyone.
"This is the talking stick." Sharon held up a colourful stick. "When you have it, you can talk. When you don't have it, you can't talk. You can voice whatever is on your mind, and you don't have to have a point. Before we begin, are there any questions?"
"What's the point?" Freckled Landon asked.
"The point is to open up. The point is to trust the people around you. The point is to listen. But mostly, the point is to be free." Sharon had her arms outstretched like some sort of bird. "I will start off the talking stick session today. My topic will be 'first time'. If you can, try and stay within my topic."
There were so many awkward and embarrassing scenarios headed my way. But all I cared about was Murray getting the stick. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I wanted to know what was going on in that criminal head of his.
"My first time stealing," Sharon said lowly. "Yes, I stole a piece of gum from a corner store when I was 6-years-old."
"No miss! You criminal!" Jack yelled.
"Excuse me, I have the talking stick," Sharon said.
The circle went quiet.
"I felt so guilty that I couldn't even eat it. So I hid it in my top drawer. But my mom liked to pry. She found it and asked me where I had gotten it. I was so nervous and scared that I couldn't force myself to lie. I burst out in tears and told her the truth."
I kept my head looking at the ground and thought about candy. My favourite thing was sour candy. And ice cream. That was what my parents used to bribe me with. If I was good, I could have ice cream. If you cleared your plate, you could have ice cream. But that didn’t work forever. Why was I not willing to do things for ice cream anymore? When had the reward become not enough? Staying up late was better. Or going out on school nights. Or staying in and hiding.
"She made me go back to that same corner store I took it from and tell the owner what I had done. Up until that point in my life, I had never been so embarrassed. The owner was stern with me, and I cried."
I looked up when she stopped talking.
"Now I have a point to my story, not that you have to. I learnt that it is better to tell the truth and feel awful for a bit. It will help fix your mistakes. Then you can go on and feel better."
I tapped my knee against Murray’s. He pulled it away.
Freckled Landon’s hand shot up.
She threw him the talking stick.
"That's not true. If you had kept the gum, you could have felt the satisfaction of being above the law, and getting something for free. Going back to the owner only made you even more upset, and that got you into even more trouble." He threw the talking stick back at her.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Landon. But maybe during your stay here you'll learn to think differently," she said. "Anyway, who's next? Don't make me choose."
I relaxed when I saw her feet pass me.
"Tracy. I choose you then."
I looked up. Tracy had eyebrows that were on the top of her head. Tracy had knees that were shaking as she sat. And apparently, Tracy had a fear of public speaking—didn’t we all?
“Me?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
I felt nervous for her. I wanted her to do well, but I didn't even know her. She looked like she was in shock and maybe going to puke. And for some stupid reason, I didn’t want her to to do something she clearly was uncomfortable doing. Because I had already been a jerk to her before—
I jumped up.
“Valerie?” Sharon looked nervous.
"I'll do it.”
I seemed to have shocked everyone. Especially Tracy.
When I took the stick from Sharon, Tracy's doe eyes were huge. Murray watched me carefully. He had a smirk on the side of his face, and when he rubbed his jaw, I heard the sound of his stubble on his skin. He looked good. A little hair on his head, a little hair on the bottom. Short. I’m sure he wanted to know what I was going to say. I'm sure everyone wanted to know.
I walked slowly around the middle of the circle. I didn’t know where to begin. I didn't want to pick something that needed a lot of explaining, and I didn't want something that could be looked at as the reason I was there. There was no reason why I was there. No specific, single thing. I wasn’t going to talk about why my parents thought I needed help.
“My story is about my first time…at summer camp.” I looked at Brooke. She yawned. I knew I was going somewhere safer. “I was 8-years-old. And I didn’t want to go at all. But Mum wanted me out of the house and to meet new people. She dropped me off and I threw up in the parking lot where parents were dropping their kids off. I was so anxious, and I even cried. I just didn’t want Mum to leave me.”
Sharon nodded, trying to encourage me along. But that was scary seeing someone do that—wanting to hear more. There was so much I could say. That was a scary thing. That I could say anything in the world, the worst kinds of things, mad things, and people would listen, judge me, or maybe agree.
"But Mum left me at camp because that was the whole point of summer camps. No parents. And it felt like I was never going to see her again, and it was going to be the worst summer ever. The camp counsellors led me up to the mess hall, and a little girl came up beside me. She sat down right next to me, and she had tears in her eyes as well.”
Murray was watching me. I became aware of everything I was doing. How I was standing with my knees locked. How my hands were moving—were they shaking? I kept my voice low. Monotone. Because anyone who had something important to say s
aid it in monotone. Monotone was clean and efficient and serious and dependable. Monotone didn’t give a damn about anything.
"And camp was so scary in that moment because everything I knew was away from me. My sister wasn’t there, and I missed her making fun of my hair or my teeth or my clothes. I missed my older sister and that was nuts. I didn’t have any friends there, and it was scary thinking about where I was going to sleep every night. It was scary thinking about the things outside, and the noises at night. But as I sat there and thought about all the scary things that camp could create, there was someone beside me who was new to the system too.”
I stopped talking and looked at everyone. I hadn’t really been paying attention to them. I wasn’t even there with the people I was telling the story to anymore. I was back at Camp Hedgewood, I was 8-years-old, and I was scared out of my mind. And that was okay.
"So what did you learn from your experience?" Sharron asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.”
“I was scared of camp. I was a kid.”
“And?”
“And?” I looked at her.
“Yes?”
“And…so was that girl.”
She looked at me. Waited. Maybe she was thinking.
“Sharon I don’t know what else to say.”
“That’s okay.” She took back the talking stick.
I sat back down. Karen was looking at the ground. Brooke was playing with her hair. Twin and Twinner both took a sip of their water jugs, 89 and 4.
“Maybe it’s nice to know that there are people just as scared as you are,” Sharon said. “That it’s normal to be afraid. And you’re not alone with that feeling, even if you think you are. No matter what age you are, it is okay to be terrified.”
“Yeah maybe. Who knows.”
“If anyone else has anything to contribute, please take this talking stick from me.“ She brought her hand up to her lips. “Otherwise, just be quiet.”
And it went on. Boys and girls stood up and talked about their first soccer games and first time driving a car, and everyone was so scared at the time. Brooke talked about the first time she had sex because she was proud of being inappropriate.
“Brooke, that sounded scary,” Sharon said.
“It was, I didn’t think he was going to put it in all the way, but he did. And he was the one who cried, not me.”
When it was all done, the one person I wanted to hear from hadn’t moved an inch. And when Sharon let us go, Murray was the first to disappear. His mysteriousness made me even more curious about him. Maybe he was doing it on purpose.
“Valerie?”
I looked at Sharon. She had her arms crossed. Her sprained wrist was glaring at me.
“Thank you for sharing today,” she said. “That was good what you said.”
“Yeah, I was just rambling.”
“That’s fine. I’m glad you participated.”
I had participated and I hadn’t died. Nothing was different. Nobody said anything about it. Nobody had made fun of me. And still, I felt absolutely the same. Indifferent, and far away.
My cabin mates and I were getting along. Each day seemed to be getting better. I wasn’t dreading the activities as much, and I wasn’t thinking of home either. I was getting used to where I was, and following directions because I had to. No one had tried to kill each other yet, and we didn’t have reasons to fight. Things were calm. There was nothing to worry over, and we looked forward to our own bunks at the end of each day.
It was bedtime. The best part of the day was the end of it.
"Valerie, that was nice what you did for Tracy.” Brooke looked up at me from her bottom bunk. She tried to avoid Karen's feet hanging in her face.
Karen shushed her.
“Don’t shush me.”
Karen pointed over to the corner bunk toward the twins. They were fast asleep. Typical twins, in their own world. I wondered if they were together in one dream.
“What?” Brooke asked. She couldn’t see what Karen was doing on top bunk. She could only see so much from her bottom bunk cave.
"You’re annoying,” Karen said.
“Yeah, Brooke’s the annoying one. Sure,” I said. “You’re all over the place with your personalities. Are you like a skitzo or something? I have no idea if I even like you or not.”
Tracy laughed.
That was the first time I had ever heard her laugh. And it was a million times better that she had laughed at something I had said. It made me feel amazing. I had cracked the miserable. My stomach felt light, and their was a hint of nostalgia, like I was back at Camp Hedgewood.
Karen jumped down from her bunk and headed for Tracy. Her footsteps shook the whole cabin. "Like you can talk. You’re as spineless as they come. You haven't said two words since your arrival. You’re nothing but a dumb name, Tracy.”
Tracy got out of her bunk and stood in front of her. She had the most dead gaze I had ever seen on a human before. It was like someone had turned a switch off and she had shut down completely right in front of us.
Karen slapped her. The sound made a quick crack. It must have stung.
But Tracy didn’t even flinch or make a noise. She simply stared at Karen and took a step forward.
“I’ll do it again,” Karen said.
“Go ahead,” Tracy said. “I dare you.”
Karen slapped her again. .
But Tracy didn’t move at all. Her face was bright red on the side Karen had hit her. Like fire. Bright and burning.
I moved to the edge of my bunk and jumped down. Even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t want them to kill each other. I stood between them, like things would end if I did that. I could have stayed out of it but I didn’t want to.
“What are you doing?” Karen shoved me.
"Chill Karen. You guys are scaring me—"
Karen spat on me. Her saliva hit me in the centre of my face. It dripped down my nose and across my mouth.
I wiped her spit off my face with the bottom of my shirt. It was warm and thick, like she had been saving it for me. I was absolutely disgusted, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being spit on wasn’t something I had expected to happen to me, ever.
"For the last time, my name is not Karen. It's Logan. And you swooping in to—-”
I hawked a loogie and it flew straight at her. It hit her near the left side of her face, near her ear, and got in her hair. It wasn’t a dead hit, but it went everywhere. That was better.
She didn’t wipe it off. She let it drip and move, like it wasn’t my spit, like it was just water that had gotten on her. She left it there as if it didn’t bother her at all.
“You got something on you.” I pointed to the area where most of my saliva was dripping from her. It was a thick, snot clump. I didn’t know I had it in me.
“Why the hell are you even in front of me right now?” She was completely still, like some kind of insect before it was about to jump on you.
"What's pissing me off is that you're the biggest wimp of all of us. I didn't see you jumping in to take a turn with the stick. That's because you’re a coward." I sat down on Tracy’s bed. I wondered if she cared. She sat down beside me.
"I am not a coward,” Karen said. She looked at Brooke. Brooke couldn’t keep her eyes off the spit smeared across the side of Karen’s ear and hair.
“Doubt it,” I said.
“You’re being childish.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You are.”
"Yeah? No. You’re the coward, and a child.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.” She took a step forward.
“I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t.”
Karen pushed my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Come on.” She pushed me again.
“What?”
“Fight me.”
“Why?”
“
Because it’s fun. You want to have fun. That’s why you’re here.”
“You’re crazy.”
She shoved my shoulder again.
“Mess off.”
“Come on, Valerie.”
I stood up. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Well,” she said. “There you go.”
“Coward,” Twinner hissed.
I looked up at her. “Oh yeah? I don’t see you down here.”
She jumped down from her bunk. She stood in front of me, and touched her flat chest to my flat chest. I could see all the holes in her face from the piercings that were taken from her.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I told her.
“I want to fight,” she said. She slapped me in the face so fast that I barely saw it happen.
I dropped to the floor. The slap stung my skin, and I held my face to keep the burn away. I glanced up at her, and it looked like she was going to—-
Karen kicked her in the gut.
Twinner dropped down to her hands and knees in front of me. Her breathing went heavy, and I was scared she was going to pass out.
“Oh my god, you’re going to kill her!” Twin yelled.
But something worse than death happened—Twinner threw up on my head. Her vomit dripped down my face and onto my shoulders. I screamed, and pushed her away with my feet. When I stood up, I didn’t know how to stand without getting more on me.
“That is the sickest thing I’ve ever seen,” Brooke said.
There was nothing I could do. If I stayed how I was, it would just seep in, and I would vomit too. I didn’t know what to do. The only option I had was a shower to wash all the guts off of me. A full cleanse of all bad things.
I moved for the door because I couldn’t just stay there. When I got outside, I still didn’t know what to do. There was no running water near us, and there was no available lake to jump into.
Karen and Brooke followed me up the path in the woods. Neither of us were expecting little Tracy to come crawling out of her cage to sneak out too. Her dewy eyes seemed to glow in the dark, and she kept her hands in her pockets like a little kid hiding what she stole from her parents. She looked so much smaller than us, and she was only a year younger.
The mess hall was through the trees. I felt sick. I thought about puking and I thought about telling the counsellors what happened. That Twinner had lost her guts all over me. My hands shook from disgust, and I was pretty alive for being so dead.
I ran down the path toward the mess hall. It was the same path I ran down every summer when I was a little camper, excited by being there. The twigs and rocks dug into my bare feet, which was something I hadn’t ever noticed when I was a kid. Maybe my feet had lost that hardness that really young people seemed to only have.
The mess hall was right in front of me, and the only outdoor running water was the hose attached at the back. It was all I had to get clean.
“Hurry up,” Karen said. She was somewhere behind me.
I stopped at the edge of the forest. The two girls were running toward me, and if you didn’t know the scenario, it looked like I was winning a race in the dark. Karen was waving her hands to get me to go.
I ran to the side of the mess hall where the faucet was. I didn’t think I’d be able to find it that quick, but it was sticking out and obvious as soon as I turned the corner. It didn’t take that much of a turn to get the water flowing, and it poured out onto the ground like a cold, icy waterfall. I put my head underneath the spout, and I shivered as the water soaked my roots, fell down my shoulders, and drenched my back.
I peeled my shirt off, and then my shorts came off too. I felt like there was a clock somewhere timing me before someone would point a flashlight at me. It was a race to rinse as quickly as I could, and then I rung out my clothes before I began to put them back on.
And then it happened. There was a beam of light.
I bolted for the woods. My heart was jumping up into my throat as I ran, and the girls were far ahead of me, sprinting down the path like it was a sport they were good at. My bare feet were quick on the ground, and when I got to the cabin, I slammed the door shut and collapsed onto the cabin floor. We could only hope that no one had seen us.
Twinner was on her top bunk, looking down at me. Her toothbrush was between her lips.
“You have anything to say to me?” I asked her. “Like an apology?”
“Nope.”
“Why are you looking at me with that dumb face of yours then?”
“Because you’re fucked now.”
“What?”
She touched her t-shirt. Her eyebrows raised and a smile formed on her face when she saw that my stomach was dropping deep into my ass.
Brooke gasped. “Your shirt—it’s missing.”
“Yes, thank you. I’m realizing that.” I stood up. It was amazing how bad situations could get worse. It wasn’t fair. There was no explaining to the counsellors why I was half naked.