SHORT STORY: Camp Charleston Part IV of IV

continued from part III, part II, and part I

He’d already taken off on his bike. Ray raised his eyebrows in sympathy. Then it was off on my bike after Daniel. He careered down through the open gate nearly running a pair of kids over before wiping out in a skid in front of the dining hall. He was crying when I got to him, a scraped knee, that slick wall of blood where skin should have been. When I got off my bike, Manny of the ponytail and biceps was taking his sweet fucking time coming over from the jungle gym.

“Daniel,” I asked, “are you ok?”

Daniel kept crying.

“Well,” I said. “That’s what happens when you break the rules like that.”

Manny had just approached when Daniel spit in my face. A hot gob of saliva was slowly sliding down my chin.

“Whoa,” was Manny’s helpful response.

I wiped the spit off with the back of my hard fist and was up quick. Daniel was up quicker and he was running, boy, for the life of him. He ran across the field toward the barn, didn’t make it halfway before I caught him, grabbed his one shoulder hard, pushing down so he knew not to run.

I held him, not gently. Took a deep breath. Took three more. Counted them.

Then I loosened my grip so it was hard but no longer dangerously so.

“Daniel, I want you to know I’m very angry right now. Do you know why?”

“Fuck you,” he said and spat again but his time, my adrenaline rushing, I moved in time.

I grabbed both Daniel’s arms and sat him down – hard – between my spread legs in the middle of the field. And believe me, this time I made damn sure to keep my own self leaned right back so he couldn’t backward head butt me. He didn’t try. There was only his short hard breaths and my short hard breaths and the fire that should have come out of us both.

I told him I was furious with him again. “So angry you wouldn’t believe.”

It went on for many silent minutes like that. Me holding him strong. He not fighting against me. I didn’t care. There was not a chance in hell I was letting go.

When finally somewhat calmer I asked him what the problem was he wouldn’t say.

“Did I do something to you?”

He shook his head.

“But you’re angry?”

He nodded.

“Well, if you talk maybe I can help you.”

He didn’t.

“Do you maybe want to stand up and go for a walk with me? Would that help?”

Daniel nodded.

“Can you stay calm?”

He nodded.

“Daniel?”

He said, “I can. Promise.”

I let go of his arms and we both stood up.

“But Daniel, I swear to God, if you even try –” He was off and running. He made it to the barn and ran round back of it, which was off limits. There was no fence dividing camp from forest back there. I wasn’t far behind though and Daniel had held up, standing by the barn wall. I stopped, allowing five feet between us. His personal space. I remembered.

“Daniel, this is serious,” I said shaking my head, noticing, peripherally, what looked like a broom handle up against the barn wall behind the kid. “We are off camp property right now. You better believe you’re gonna get a call home for this.”

“Fuck you,” he said. He turned from me, saw the broom handle; it all happened very quickly. When I tried to approach he swung at me. He kept swinging. Finally I went for it warning – yelling – that he better not hit me. He barely managed to swat my arm. I grabbed the stick, yanked it from him. I kept it behind me, squeezed tight in my hand. Daniel’s arms were swinging wildly when I came in at him. The back of his hand caught me in the face, my nose, this time making it bleed. I let go of him to raise my free hand to my nose. “Fuck!” Again he was off, this time running straight into the forest. I didn’t run after him. He could have run straight into the lake for all I cared. A long dark minute, maybe more, passed like that before I blew my whistle. Ray got there first. Randy Sue just seconds behind him.

Ray saw the blood coming down onto my lips. “Jesus Christ! What happened? Where’s Daniel?”

I punched the tin wall of the barn. Punched it so hard the whole thing bang-shuddered. “I can’t!” I said. “I can’t. I give up. I’m sorry, I give up.”

Ray was already running. Randy Sue carefully approached me and took the stick that was still in my one fist. “Go. Just go. Get out of here! We’ll find him.”

I started running; I had to get out of there, get off camp grounds if I was gonna cry. It had to come out because I really didn’t know if I could handle it, this job, this kid. And because if it didn’t come out that way, I could so easily have hurt a little boy. I made it out off camp, down the road to the tin of butts. I was doubled-over, sobbing like a baby, heaving like a child. It came out too uncontrollable, open, ugly. I hated myself for it, which made the sobbing all the worse. And still, through all the snot and the tears, I remember thinking so lucidly how remarkable it was that there were people who could help kids like this their whole lives. That there were careers like this. Because I wasn't halfway through the summer and believe me my tears were mostly about how ashamed I was with myself because if I made it through the summer - if I made it through - I knew I'd never do this again.

It was almost nine o'clock when he was finally found in the barn. Even Daniel Duchene didn’t want to be out in the forest alone when it got dark. I was called out of evening activity. Randy Sue was with Daniel in the barn. She was on a mat on the floor, the little blond boy in her lap. “Daniel has something to say to you. Don’t you, Daniel.”

He was red-eyed, post cry, his nostrils still flaring with each inhale. He could barely look at me; he looked at the ground when he said, “I’m sorry.”

I let out a breath. I said it was ok, that I was just glad he was ok.

Daniel gave a large yawn.

“I think someone’s had a very long day,” Randy Sue said. She walked with us back to the kid’s house. I waited in Daniel’s room while Randy Sue took him down the hall to brush his teeth and pee. He came back in his yellow pajamas. Like a little big bird.

Daniel climbed the fire engine red ladder up to his bunk, and Randy Sue went up to kiss him goodnight.

Standing in the doorway I said, “Goodnight, Daniel. I hope tomorrow is better, ok?”

Randy Sue walked towards me, to pass me, to leave. On her way out she quietly said to me, “I think you can handle this.”

I whispered a thank you, making it as warm and heartfelt-true as I knew.

The smile she left me with was more of a close-mouthed grimace.

“Benjamin?” Daniel called out to me, clearing his throat, as I watched Randy Sue walk down the hall.

“Yeah?”

“Is your nose ok?”

I moved in toward his bed, said I was fine. “I was just worried about you.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I’m so crazy,” he said and cleared his throat again.

“You’re not crazy. Just … sometimes, difficult.”

“They call me Crazy Daniel at school.”

I closed my eyes for a long few seconds. I said, “That’s hard.”

He said, “It’s true. I am crazy.”

I said he wasn’t. I said he was the smartest kid I’d ever met.

“Do you hate me now like everyone else?”

“No! Not at all.”

I got in really close and I told him I had a secret. I told him that I loved him. And it surprised me when I said it, the way it just came out of me. Cause it was true.

I met Ashley up at the road after. She asked if Daniel was ok. Then she made a crack about my nose. I tried to smile. Then I lied and said I was just tired. I went back to my room wishing Randy Sue would be there. But of course I’d ruined that one.