My heartbeat was different now, a slow, metronomic beat in my chest. Merv raised his defeated eyes.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to call the sheriff? Are you still going to….”
I drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know,” I said. I wanted to believe he’d killed Ed Nolan and yet I couldn’t. I had no evidence to the contrary. I could still call the sheriff. There was still the motive, the possibility. But the assurance was gone.
“Go ahead,” said Merv, cutting at his own foundations again. “What’s the difference now? I don’t care. I just don’t care.”
“Sweetie, don’t say that,” Jackie begged suddenly, hurrying to the bed and sitting down beside him. He picked up Merv’s lifeless hand and stroked it. I turned and walked slowly across the room.
“What are you going to do?” Jackie asked. “If you have a drop of decency in you, you’ll let this thing go. I’ll testify he was with me the day it happened. We were together. Here.”
I said nothing.
“Well?” Jackie asked. I turned at the door and looked over at them. They were watching me like a husband and wife whose home life has been threatened.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Merv’s head fell forward. “It’s over,” he muttered.
“Sweetie!”
As I trudged across the court, I could hear the voice of Jackie in Cabin Eight. It soothed, it comforted.
When I reached the camp I found Sid in the office. I handed him the truck keys and told him what had happened.
“Have you called the sheriff?” he asked me when I finished. “I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“If there’s the slightest possibility,” he said, “we have to follow it up. You know that.” I nodded.
“I think we’d better,” he said quietly. “Would you—?”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Cabin Eight, Shady Haven Motel?”
“Yes.” I stood watching him as he wrote it down on a pad.
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“In the Lodge,” he said, “watching the movies. Oh, incidentally, I’m afraid your cabin’s fallen a little behind in getting ready for the close- up. You’ll have to push them tomorrow.”
“I will,” I said.
“Well … get a good night’s sleep,” he said.
“Okay. Goodnight, Sid.”
“Goodnight, kid.”
2.
It was to be the last complete day of camp life but Willie Pratt was not inspired. His reveille was as grotesquely ragged as ever. I tossed back the blankets with a hollow sigh and let my legs down over the side of the bunk.
“What’s this?” I muttered.
Tony was sitting on the edge of the bunk, dressed, leaning on his Louisville Slugger, his legs kicking a little.
“How long have you been up?” I asked.
He shrugged, that look of bitterness on his features. I figured it was best to leave him alone so I got up and went around patting each groaning sleeper.
“Come on,” I told them, “Let’s go. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“That’s all we did yesterday was work!” said Charlie Barnett. I paid no attention. I got dressed and walked up to Paradise to get cleaned up.
At breakfast Tony sat jabbing a spoon into his cereal, hardly eating a mouthful.
“You’d better eat something, Tony,” I said. “We have a lot of work to do today.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“You’ll get hungry.”
“The hell with it,” he muttered.
My boys were behind on the cabin so, outside of a little work in the dining hall that afternoon, the cabin itself had top priority.
After breakfast came a G.I. party. Two buckets of soapy water and stiff-bristled brushes scrubbed at the floor boards started it going. While this was going on, the Moody boys were outside with brooms, poking at the eaves, knocking down dead leaves, dust and spider webs.
I should have known better than to have Tony and Marty Gingold working together but I wasn’t thinking very accurately those days and I had them out policing the area around the cabin.
Jim Moody was the first to announce, “Hey, they’re fighting
Without a word I strode out of the cabin, down the porch steps and around the side toward the two figures pummeling and grunting on the ground just at the edge of the woods. As I approached them, I saw Mack standing near his cabin watching with a smile on his face. I reached down and pulled up the two cursing assailants.
“We’re supposed to be working,” I said patiently. “Let’s go.”
“Well, he ain’t workin’!” Marty Gingold flared, his usually slicked- down hair ruffled and dusty.
Tony said nothing. He just stared at Marty with dead, hating eyes.
“What do you mean, he’s not working?” I asked.
“He’s just sittin’ on his ass on a rock. Well, if ya think I’m workin’ when he don’t, you’re full of o’—”
“All right, all right,” I interrupted. “Go on. Police. I’ll talk to Tony.”
Marty brushed himself off as he waddled away, muttering something about wops.
“Fat-ass kike!” Tony yelled after him, teeth clenched.
Marty whirled, fists suddenly clenched but I waved him off. “Go on,” I said. “Go on.”
Marty cursed to himself as he went off. He kicked a rock across the uneven ground. “Teacher’s pet,” he said. Tony lunged forward but I caught him by the arm and jerked him back.
I led him into the woods and sat him down on a log.
“Well, what is it now?” I asked.
He pressed his thin lips together and said nothing.
“Tony, we have work to do. All of us.”
“Fuck it,” he muttered.
I blew out a heavy breath.
“Tony, are we going to part friends or not?”
“Who gives a—”
“Tony.”
He looked up at me, the skin drawing tautly over the bones in his thin face.
“What do I give a fuck for this camp!” he said furiously. “Ya can shove it up ya—”
“That’s enough!” I wanted to drag him up by the arm and make him work. But I didn’t. I looked at him a moment longer, then said, “All right. Forget it. You don’t have to do anything. Just sit here all day long and stew. It’ll give you a fine memory of your last day at Camp Pleasant.”
“What do I care?”
“You care,” I said. “More than any of them.”
I turned and went back to the cabin where Chester had just spilled his pail of water for the third time. He began giggling hysterically as an outraged Charlie Barnett kicked over his pail and stomped in the puddles of water.
With my help, they finally finished up the floor, before it became waterlogged. Then we went out to do the screens. Marty Gingold was talking to the Moody boys.
“All done policing?” I asked him.
“Why should I police?” he asked bitterly. “Rocca ain’t.”
“Listen,” I said. “You don’t know a thing about Rocca. But remember this: He’s had one hell of a life. A life so hard that none of you can even imagine how bad it was. That’s all I can tell you about that but remember that the camp’s closing is hitting him hard. I know, I know,” I said, cutting off Marty’s protestations, “it’s hitting you hard too. Well, it’s not the same, believe me. You’re going back to a nice home, to people who love you. He isn’t. Now will you stop being so damn petty and forget about him. You’ll never even see him after tomorrow.”
“That’s not too soon for me,” said Marty Gingold.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Come on. Each of you take a screen. Let’s get them cleaned.”
This took about an hour, what with releasing the rust-stuck catches, lugging the screens up to Paradise where the hoses were, waiting our turn, then returning to the cabin with the washed screens and reinstalling them. At eleven-thirty came swimming time. The dock buzzer sounded and t
he sweaty boys rushed down the hill to splash in the lake.
Tony and I were alone in the cabin. He half-lay, half-sat on his bunk staring at a comic book. I could hear his heavy breathing in the silence as I lay there staring at the overhead bunk.
“Why should, we leave?” he suddenly said.
I lifted my head a little and looked over at his hard, resentful face.
“You know exactly why,” I said.
“Just because the fat guy’s dead?”
“Forget it,” I said, turning on my side.
He cursed to himself.
“If you want to curse, get out of here,” I said.
I heard him fling his comic book on the floor. Then his sneakers hit the floor and I heard the scrape of his baseball bat as he dragged it away from its leaning place against the wall.
“Ain’t none o’ ya care!” he said, and his toughness cracked right down the middle for a moment. “None o’ ya care about nothin’!”
The screen door slapped shut behind him and I heard his footsteps as he moved away. I shouldn’t have done that, I thought. He was hurting enough. I lay there staring at the wall, feeling my heart thud slowly in my chest like the fist of a dying man on the wall of his prison.
Lunchtime; a rehash of breakfast. After it was over, our cabin stayed in the dining hall and, with the aid of Mack’s cabin, scrubbed the floor. I looked through the Lost and Found box and found three of Tony’s teeshirts, one of his sport shirts, two of his towels and his rain hat. I sent him back to the cabin with them.
As the afternoon progressed, I kept getting more and more tense, thinking about Merv. What if he hadn’t done it? Then there could be no hope at all. I went to the office to see Sid.
“Is he back yet?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not till five or after, Matt,” he said. Doc was in Emmetsville to see Ellen and find out about Merv. “Oh. All right.”
“Matt, you’re not getting up too much hope on this?”
I swallowed. “I was the one who didn’t think we should even tell the sheriff about it, remember?”
“I know that,” he said. “But you want to believe it. Don’t you?”
“Don’t you?”
“Sure I do,” he said. “But I’m not going to until we know for sure.”
“All right.” I left the office without another word.
Time passing. Minutes spinning past, hours ticking by. The last day of camp. Merv in town being questioned. Ellen waiting to know if she was innocent or not. All of us in camp waiting, waiting. The last day of camp.
The four-thirty buzzer went off. The boys raced for their bathing suits while Mack and I finished pushing the tables back into place.
“Don’t hurt your wrist,” I told him.
“It’s okay,” he said in the tone of voice which indicated nothing of his feelings.
When I left the dining hall, Mack walked beside me. I didn’t know why but I held back a little so as not to move ahead. Our relationship since the fight and, especially, since Ed’s death had been virtually nonexistent. We nodded to one another in passing but that was about the extent of it. I had no idea how he felt toward me.
“Well,” he said, as we started across the bridge, “I guess this winds it up.”
“Guess,” I said. “A pity too. Most of these kids want to stay.”
He nodded. “‘Specially that little wop of yours,” he said.
I forced down the tightening. He’d used the term without guile. I realized abruptly that he was one of those who could call a colored man a nigger without realizing it was an insult.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Sid told me about him,” Mack said. “I didn’t know before.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“You comin’ back next year?” he asked.
I glanced over to see if he was smiling. But there wasn’t a trace of mockery on his face and there hadn’t been any in his voice.
“I doubt it,” I said.
He nodded once. “Well,” he said, “I … hope ya don’t hold no grudge against me.”
I stared at him. “I—”
“Take it easy, Matt,” he said, heading for his cabin.
I watched him until he’d gone in. Then, almost dazedly, I went into my cabin. We’d been enemies. I’d hated his guts, he’d hated mine; we’d fought. Now this.
It’s guys like Arthur MacNeil that make life confusing.
Doc returned near the end of supper. I saw the truck pull in off the road and, through the screen door, I watched him walk slowly toward the office.
I couldn’t eat. I tried to wait a while and not rush in on him. But I couldn’t hold myself. After a few minutes of rising tension, I got up and crossed the floor quickly, my legs feeling numb, my heart beating in slow, gigantic thuds.
He was sitting slumped at his desk, staring at the blotter. When the door shut behind me, he turned and looked at me without a word. He didn’t even have to say it.
“Why?” I asked, not even conscious of the frail shaking sound my voice was.
“His friend says they were eating breakfast when it happened,” Doc told me. He shook his head once, eyes lowering. “There’s no evidence, son. The sheriff had to let him go.”
“Oh … Christ.” I put my left hand over my eyes and sank down on a chair. I hadn’t realized it till then but I was staking everything on Merv’s being guilty. It was the one prop I had left. Now it was kicked out from under me and I was falling.
3.
At eight o’clock that night the entire camp assembled in the Fire Circle, which was a rough circle of log benches arranged in tiers around a smaller brick circle in which the fires were lit.
It was just beginning to get dark. The bonfire crackled loudly, its fluttering orange-yellow arms reaching high above the logs, filling the air with darting sparks which disappeared like short-lived fireflies. I remember that scene vividly—night edging in around us until only the fire kept it out. All of us sitting in that blackness, boys and counselors all huddled together in a circle of glowing, fiery light.
Doc said a few words, so did Sid and Jack and Barney. It’s been a nice summer, we’re glad you came, sorry it had to end this way. We sang a few songs. I directed, watching the faces of the boys flicker with the light and shadow; hearing the sputtering crackle of the fire behind me, feeling its buffeting head; hearing the joined voices sing as only boys can sing when they’re around a campfire and feeling different.
“Should aulde acquaintance be forgot and the days of aulde lang syne.”
When the meeting was over, flashlights were unsheathed and the night was flayed open by slashing white beams. The dark paths became passages of criss-crossed white ribbons dancing up and down and sideways as, talking in mysterious night voices, the boys returned to the cabins for their last night’s sleep in Camp Pleasant.
The overhead bulb of Cabin Thirteen seemed particularly bare and sterile after the warm glow of the fire. It ended the momentary feeling of nostalgia the singing had brought about and seemed to point up the harshness of farewell.
It being the last night, Charlie Barnett and Marty Gingold decided a general roughhouse was in order. To this Chester and the Moody boys were more than amicable. I didn’t stop them since all the cabins were exploding at the seams. I left the cabin when the horseplay started and headed for Paradise with my toothbrush and paste.
Paradise had a few customers in it preparing for bed; the boys who, one day, would doubtlessly brush their teeth under enemy fire, the oblivious neat who move concisely through life, unruffled and dispassionate.
When I returned to the cabin, I found my mattress and bedclothes lying across one of the rafters and a mottle-faced Jim Moody yelling for succor where he’d been bound to the center post of the cabin. From the trembling conspirators under their blankets came ill-muffled giggles.
I released Jim Moody who pounced on his brother with a vengeful curse. I ignored the battle while I replaced my mattress and made up t
he bunk.
Then I made the rolling Moodys get in bed and checked each undercover man. Tony was the only one not there. I put Chester in charge of the cabin and told him his head would roll if there were any more disturbances before I came back. Then I turned out the light and went looking for Tony. All along the rows of cabins, lights were going out and imperfect stillness settling.
I walked around the Senior Division a while but Tony wasn’t there. I went down the hill and looked in the dark lodge but he wasn’t there. I looked on the dock and in the dining hall but he wasn’t there either.
On the verge of getting alarmed, I found him sitting on the visiting team bench of the ball field. He was leaning on his Louisville Slugger as an old man sitting on a sunlit bench will lean upon his cane.
“Bedtime, Tony,” I said.
He didn’t speak or budge. He kept staring out at the moon-gleaming diamond with listless eyes.
“Come on, Tony.”
“Yeah.” He sighed heavily and got up without another word.
We started back to the cabin. I tried to put my arm around his shoulders but he twisted away and I let my arm drop, feeling as if he were a tightly wound spring ready to leap at the slightest touch.
Back in the cabin, I waited while he got out of his clothes and slipped between his grimy sheets.
“All packed?” I asked, and he shrugged carelessly. I checked his foot locker and found his clothes all there—what was left of them anyway. It looked like a pile of soiled laundry. Closing the top of the locker, I straightened up and flicked off the light.
“Goodnight, Tony,” I said. He didn’t answer.
Silence in my cabin. I lay on the bunk staring up at the overhead mattress sagging with the not inconsequential weight of Chester Wickerly. I tried to think about them all going home tomorrow—Chester, Charlie, Marty, the Moody brothers. I tried to think about David and his mother. I tried to concentrate on Tony and his problems; but all I could think about was Ellen.
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