No Good Deed

by Goldy Moldavsky

  I shrugged, and the motion reminded me that Ashley’s bodyguard was still holding on to the back of my shirt. “Will you tell your bodyguard to let go of me, please?”

  “Pika,” Ashley said. Pika let me go and returned to the shadows from whence he came. “Were you boys spying on me?”

  I pulled at the back of my shirt and tried straightening the rest of it out. “No. What were you doing?”

  “Praying to Luna, the moon goddess.”

  Of course she was.

  “We’re mostly made of water, you know.”

  No, I did not know. I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about.

  “And if the moon can control the tides, then it can control us too. I learned all about this stuff at a three-day intensive spiritual astronomy course in a mixed-used community space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Pika and I really enjoyed it, didn’t we, Pika?”

  Pika nodded from the shadows.

  “I was praying that Luna would be gentle with us,” Ashley continued. “People tend to do strange things when the moon is out.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Like destroying poor ILP’s mural,” she went on. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I became aware of how awkwardly lanky I was, standing next to her in her loose shirt, her prancing-in-the-woods ways. I didn’t know what to do with my arms. My feet. I wanted to go, mostly because I knew if I stayed here too long she would eventually ask me—

  “Given any more thought to helping me with my Superman script?”

  I sighed and smiled. There it was. “The answer is still no, Ashley.”

  She nodded, but she was smiling too. “I know what you need.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A spiritual journey to show you that helping me with this is good for the soul.”

  “Again, no.”

  “Well, I know what else you need. A little quid pro quo,” Ashley said. “If I want your help with the script, I’m going to have to help you with something too.”

  “But I don’t need help with anything.”

  “You need help with girls.”

  I froze, not because I was embarrassed but because what she said was incredibly accurate.

  “I see the way you talk to Poe,” Ashley went on. “You like her. It’s obvious. But you clearly don’t know how to talk to girls.”

  A minute ago Ashley was singing gibberish to a moon goddess, and now she understood me to the core. “You’re perceptive.”

  “I’m an actress. It’s my business to know how to read people. And you’re very easy to read, Gregor Maravilla. You’re a well-meaning boy, if a little directionless. You couldn’t care less that I’m famous, and that’s exactly the sort of person who would be perfectly honest with me. And you want Poe. So here’s what I propose: You help me with my Superman script and I help you get Poe.”

  “Get? Get?” I said, suddenly disturbed by Ashley’s totally on-point observations about me. “I cannot just get a girl. A girl is not something for a guy to possess. And who says I could ‘get’ her anyway? Poe is very probably gay, and if she is—which isn’t even my place to say!—then your assumption that I could, what—turn her straight?—is totally wrong and very problematic. We shouldn’t even be discussing Poe’s sexuality right now, because it has nothing to do with anything and I am totally against thinking about a girl in terms of her sexual identity and you can’t just turn a girl straight when she isn’t, you can’t just change someone’s sexuality … I mean … right?”

  Somehow, in this whole indignant rant, I’d ended things on a hopeful note. I now looked at Ashley like she was maybe some magic forest fairy who could indeed communicate with moon goddesses and help hopeless guys like me. For her part, Ashley looked at me like she did not understand a thing I’d just said, which made sense since I barely understood it myself.

  “Okay, you may not have a shot with Poe. But even so, I could teach you everything you want to know about girls. And that knowledge could be useful to you long after you leave this camp. I could help you with your general girl problem.”

  “General girl problem” sounded like the kind of affliction I had been hoping someone would diagnose me with just so that I could take the appropriate measures to remedy it. Suffice to say, I was listening.

  “Lucky for you, I know all about girls,” Ashley said. “I am a girl, after all. And my favorite comedy subgenre is the romantic comedy. I basically study romances. Everything you’ve ever experienced has already happened in a movie. And chances are I’ve watched that movie. We could use my encyclopedic knowledge of film to solve your general girl problem!”

  “Me liking Poe has happened in a movie?”

  “Sure!” Ashley said. “It’s just like in Chasing Amy, the seminal Kevin Smith classic where Ben Affleck is in love with Joey Lauren Adams but Joey Lauren Adams only dates women. Ben’s character is even into comic books, like you.”

  “And he gets the girl?”

  Ashley shrugged/nodded, which didn’t really answer my question, but I still considered her offer. “That’s just a movie, Ashley. And I’m not Ben Affleck.”

  “Well, clearly. But have you got any other options?”

  Obviously I didn’t. But I shook my head. “I’m at this camp to win The Prize. I need to focus. People are getting pranked and thrown into the lake and—”

  “And the flyers!” Ashley said. She zipped over to Pika, and he took a piece of paper out of his pocket without Ashley having to say anything. She brought it to me so I could read it. STOP INDENTURED SERVITUDE! the paper roared.

  “Someone taped that to my door,” Ashley said. “Are they accusing me of underpaying Pika? Because Pika is more than just an employee to me. I take this allegation very seriously.”

  “They’re just the flyers that everyone is making, trying to get points.”

  At dinner earlier, PETA slid an EATING ANIMALS IS MURDER! flyer onto my table just as I took a bite out of my turkey sandwich. When I put my sandwich down and picked up my salad, Non-GMO slipped me a flyer telling me to EAT ORGANIC! Diabetes and Unity had started collecting the flyers and trading them like they were baseball cards. Unity’s most prized flyer had been printed on scented neon-green stationery and had only appeared once. It was rumored to be part of a strictly limited set of ten. The flyer was coveted as much for its rareness as it was for its message. It read YOGURT IS ALIVE!

  “Something to do with bacteria,” Unity had told me. “Didn’t you know single-celled organisms are people too?”

  That was literally incorrect, but nobody seemed to care. Making flyers was activism du jour at Camp Save the World.

  “The flyers are harmless,” I told Ashley. “Ignore them.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I found out that Diabetes Awareness was the latest lake-throwing victim. And also, you couldn’t take one step outside your cabin door without landing on one of the rainbow-colored flyers that carpeted the grounds of the camp. I was pretty sure that loud, reverberating sob in the distance was Save the Trees stepping out of her cabin for the first time today.

  I picked up the paper stuck to my sneaker and read.

  My fellow campers,

  I’ve noticed that a lot of us are

  acting out our frustrations with each

  other in ways that seem really

  counterproductive to what we came to

  this camp to do. I say we talk it out.

  Please join me tomorrow night for an

  evening of honesty and truth. (And

  possibly more!)

  AN EVENING OF HONESTY AND TRUTH

  When: Tonight after dinner

  Where: The middle of the woods

  Hosted by: Your friend, Ashley Woodstone

  Ashley Woodstone lived in a yurt. Instead of sharing a cabin with other campers, Ashley Woodstone was spending her summer at Camp Save the World in a circular tent dwelling most preferred by nomads. It was big, though, to the point where I c
ould imagine a bedroom, a kitchen, and even a small living room fitting inside of it. Though really, I had no idea what was inside. It could have been filled to the brim with sacks of mud for all I knew. Sustenance.

  I was only seeing it from the outside, but the yurt looked like it was made out of a wooden frame with a bunch of different materials covering it. In some places the walls looked like they were made of green tarp; in others, animal hide. There were bits of woven mats and other large swaths of greenery that most resembled palm leaves, though that had to be wrong, since palm trees weren’t native to New York. The yurt was kind of like a patchwork tent on acid, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around how it had been constructed. It looked almost like it’d been there forever, like it had emerged from the earth whole, having collected its tapestries naturally over the centuries. It also looked like maybe a team of beavers had assembled it. Maybe they had. Who knew, with Ashley.

  But the Evening of Honesty and Truth wouldn’t be taking place inside Ashley’s yurt.

  About thirty of us campers had shown up. We sat in a circle around a campfire in front of the yurt, waiting for all the truth and honesty to begin. Ashley was nowhere in sight, but her bodyguard was here. He folded his arms over his wide chest and walked slowly and silently around us, like the bad cop in an interrogation room. He looked, as always, mildly bored and massively ticked off.

  I was fully planning on not coming to Ashley’s Evening of Honesty and Truth. Tonight was movie night at the rec room, and they were playing a movie called The Stupids. If its title was any indication, it would still be better than this. It was Win who’d convinced me to come to the Evening of Honesty and Truth. He said the camp could use some “honesty and truth” right about now. He also said that Poe would be there. Obviously, skipping movie night was an easy decision. Poe sat next to Win, who sat next to me, which basically meant that Poe and I were sitting together.

  Ashley banged through the front door of her yurt and came to meet us. “Friends!” she said. “Welcome to an Evening of Honesty and Truth. I’ve been meaning to host an evening of honesty and truth ever since I got here, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I’m glad so many of you could make it.” She circled the group of us, and her soft features were made harsher by the dancing firelight. “This is a safe space. I want everyone to be able to say whatever it is they want to say and not feel threatened. But in order for that to happen, you must all agree to listen and feel, openly and without prejudice. Why don’t we talk about why we’re here? At this camp. Let’s remind ourselves of the beauty and significance of our true missions. I’ll start. I’m here to spread the word about the economic and nutritional value of eating dirt. Who wants to go next?”

  A girl raised her hand. I couldn’t remember what her campaign was.

  “I’m at this camp because there are so many screwed-up things happening in the world. And all any of my friends at home ever want to talk about are boys and clothes. I hate them.”

  Feminism raised her hand. “I hope you’re not implying that girls who talk about boys and clothes are inherently stupid or vapid or something, because that is so not a good attitude to have.”

  “You of all people should agree with me,” the first girl said. “Girls who only care about girly things aren’t doing anything for the betterment of womankind.”

  “And just what do you mean by ‘girly’ things? It’s people like you with your warped ideas of gender norms and what it means to be a ‘real girl’ that are—”

  Stop Clubbing Baby Seals stood. “Can we get back on topic, please? S.P.E.W. is right.” S.P.E.W. That was who the first girl was. I still had no idea what S.P.E.W. stood for, though. “The world is screwed up, and some of us are here trying to learn how to make the world a better place. Unlike some other people here with ridiculous campaigns that are basically just wasting the camp’s resources.”

  “We all know you’re talking about me!” Anti-Robotics said, shooting up with remarkable agility for such a large guy. Anti-Robotics had the physical shape of a linebacker and the high-pitched, shrill voice of an elderly woman stuck in a free-falling elevator. He directed all of his rage at Stop Clubbing Baby Seals. Something about the way they were looking at each other made it seem like this was not the first heated debate they’d had. “Everyone wants to ignore the inevitable, which is that by the year 2045 artificial intelligence will take over our lives, and if we don’t do something to stop it now, we are looking at a world in which robots will dominate the earth!”

  “Guys, I think we’re getting a little off topic,” Ashley said. “We’re here to talk about the sabotage that’s been happening around camp. And I don’t think anyone knows more about that than I Like Paint, whose beautiful unity mural was destroyed in a callous act of hatred. Would you like to say something, ILP?”

  ILP stood up slowly and looked around the campfire, his eyes seeming to settle on all of us briefly. I wasn’t sure why Ashley was making him speak. All he was going to say was …

  “I like paint.”

  We let I Like Paint’s words settle over us. They were quiet but profound, and a reminder that people who don’t speak your language have a voice too. Ashley squeezed ILP’s shoulder. “I think those words are more poignant now than they’ve ever been,” she said.

  Rights stood next. “Ashley asked an important question: Why are we all here? Well, actually, let me explain it to you. I am here to win The Prize. And I intend to use my wealth of knowledge on the topic of my campaign to help those of you in need. Diabetes, you were thrown into the lake last night, were you not? If you accept my help, together we can combat those man-haters who put you in that lake. Heck, we can make you the stronger man that I know you can be. If being knowledgeable and helpful means I’m closer to winning The Prize, then so be it. And if that means partaking in a few pranks here and there, then I am perfectly comfortable with joining in the fun. And all of you should be too.”

  The way he spoke, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine Rights as a politician one day, one of those crooked ones who serves his constituents all smiles while dumping toxic waste into their water supply. He began to walk around us, the goose to our ducks. “I think you’re all forgetting that we’re here to win a trip to Florida. If you’re just here to make friends … you’re basically forfeiting.”

  I surprised myself by standing, but I couldn’t just sit there and listen to the crap Rights was spewing. “There’s a difference between promoting your cause and dumping on everyone else’s, Rights. The latter is called sabotage. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re basically inciting it right now.” Speaking out against Rights spiked my blood with adrenaline. I felt like I’d just taken off running. It felt good. “We’re working against each other when we should be working together. Well, technically separately, I guess. But separate and civil. The point is, all the sabotage is making this whole camp experience suck. And I’m not going to stand for it anymore.”

  The adrenaline was still there, even though I’d stopped talking. It felt suddenly like maybe coming to this camp was paying off. Like maybe I was learning how to become the leader I one day intended to be. I was pumped, but that feeling was quickly extinguished when Rights pulled the book from behind his back. My book.

  “Are you people really going to sit there and listen to someone who reads How to Get a Girlfriend every night before he goes to bed?” Rights said.

  I could have set myself on fire. Literally: I jumped over the campfire trying to swipe the book out of his hands, but Rights was too quick.

  “He underlined parts of it,” Rights said. “Well, he underlined most of it.”

  My eyes darted to Poe. Her face contorted in a mixture of squick and pity. I lunged for the book again, and this time I managed to yank it out of Rights’s hands, but something told me the only reason I got it back was because Rights let me have it. I tossed it into the fire without a second thought.

  “I mean, is this really the kind of guy you’re all going to listen to?”
Rights went on, addressing the campers. “We all just watched him burn a book. He’s a book burner.”

  “BOOK BURNER!” Books Save Lives yelled.

  “So what if I sabotage your campaign?” Rights continued. “You are a white boy who thinks it’s his mission in life to save the children of Latin America.”

  “I want to feed all children,” I said. “Also obviously Latin American children, but—” My voice was drowned out by Rights, who spoke over me. Not that it mattered, since no one was listening to me.

  “And did you hear what Children just said?” Rights asked. “He said we need to be separate but civil. Separate but civil. Now, I don’t know about you folks, but to me that sounds an awful lot like separate but equal. He’s pretty much a low-key bigot.”

  It got very quiet very quickly. Even the embers in the flames seemed to stop crackling. “Are you kidding me? I’m not a bigot!”

  “Sounds like something a bigot would say.”

  “This is ridiculous. I love everyone!” That sounded weird. I shook my head quickly and tried again. “I love children!” That sounded even worse.

  “Next he’s going to tell us that he’s not a bigot because his best friend at camp is black,” Rights said, pointing to Win.

  There was so much tension in the air, and I thought it was because what Rights said was so inappropriate, but when I looked around, trying to find someone who I could share my shocked outrage with, everyone looked back at me with accusatory disappointment.

  “Wait, I don’t believe that,” I said. “I didn’t actually say that—Men’s Rights did!”

  I tried to catch Win’s eye but he was whispering something to Poe. It was probably about how much of a bigot I was.

  “I’m not a bigot!” I said. Though it didn’t seem to matter. Once Rights said it out loud, everyone believed it was true.

  Shit.

  The camp thought I was a bigot.

  “Thank you for a truly enlightening evening, Ashley,” Rights said. Then he took a wad of bills out of his pocket and threw them at my face. “Go feed the children, dipshit.” And with that, he left.