by Chase Connor
“You boys sure have taken a liking to each other.” John said to them as he smiled and folded his arms on top of the table.
Tom and Dally looked at each other. Dally, being the braver of the two responded for them.
“Yes, sir.” He said. “We met on the bus.”
“That’s really nice.” John said.
“Yes, sir.” Dally and Tom responded in unison.
The two boys and the camp counselor all stared at each other for several moments before John finally spoke again.
“I noticed that you boys weren’t with the group at swimming lessons today at the lake.” He said and then held up a hand as Dally opened his mouth to respond. “You know that the swimming lessons are important. It’s part of the experience of coming to camp, right? It’s very important. A lot more important than taking off on your own without supervision to skinny dip down at Long Beach, right?”
Tom chewed at his lip and glanced at Dally. Dally blushed at the thought of having been caught by John. They hadn’t been the creative, slick rebels that they thought they were. If a camp counselor had been so observant, who knew how many kids knew what the two boys had been up to during swim lessons?
“I already know how to swim, sir.” Dally squeaked.
“Me, too, sir.” Tom nodded, agreeing with his new best friend.
The camp counselor stared at both of them with a furrowed brow, obviously about to chastise them both for arguing. Swimming lessons were important, going off and doing best friend things in lieu of that would not be permitted or tolerated. Breaking the rules would surely get both of the boys’ parents called. And obviously both sets of parents would get onto the boys, if not outright punish them when they got home later in summer. Suddenly, John laughed and looked at each of the boys.
“Look.” He glanced around, making sure the three of them were truly alone. “I’m going to overlook it. You boys can go swim at Long Beach during swim lessons if you want, but you need to be careful. Use the buddy system and don’t do anything stupid. Okay?”
Tom and Dally both smiled brightly. John actually wasn’t a bad guy like they had first suspected.
“Yes, sir.” Dally nodded for both boys. “Thank you.”
John winked at the boys then rose from the bench.
“But I don’t know anything about this.” John looked down at them. “Okay? So, don’t get caught and don’t get hurt.”
Both boys responded with resounding “no sirs”, which got them both another wink, and then John left them to themselves to put their trays and cups away. Tom and Dally left the dining hall in high spirits and went to join other boys to play kickball and make crafts and hike in the woods all afternoon. That evening, dinner was a hot dog and marshmallow roast around the campfire down by the lake. All of the boys were present and everyone had a great time. Camp counselors and leaders told funny stories, ghost stories, led the boys in a sing-a-long, and then everyone was sent off to their cabins.
Tom and Dally, once again, spent a good portion of the night talking and learning everything they could about each other. Taboo subjects came up, but again, it was chaste in the way that two best friends can discuss such things and not make it completely inappropriate. Eventually, they both drifted off to sleep, having had one of the best days of their lives up until that point. Both boys thought about how great it was that they had a friend and cohort in John, one of the camp leaders.
“So, did Dally drown while the two of you were swimming naked at Long Beach?” The girl blurted out. “Is that why you’ve got anxiety and depression?”
“Yeah?” Jared backed her up. “You two weren’t supposed to be out there and then Dally drowned and now you feel like it’s your fault?”
“No.” I shook my head. “he didn’t drown.”
Jeff, the counselor leading our group looked at both Jared and the girl, giving them a stern look for having interrupted my “share time”, but he said nothing. Instead, he looked back to me. His eyes held the same questions as the two others.
“This isn’t a story about drowning.” I shrugged.
“You said Dally is dead.” Jared threw his hands up.
“I did, didn’t I?” I nodded. “But he didn’t die in a merciful way, like drowning.”
“Oh. My. Fucking. God.” The girl rolled her eyes. “This story is taking forever.”
I just shrugged and sat back. Story time was over. Jeff, Jared, the girl, and the other three attendees stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Aren’t you going to finish?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
Three days a week, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the swim lessons were conducted. Sure, the boys were allowed to swim pretty much any day they wanted as long as they went with a counselor down to the lake. On the regular swim days, Dally and Tom would go with the other boys and participate in regular swim. That wasn’t so humiliating. They knew how to swim, so regular swims were just fine. But being forced to go with the others boys to swim lessons when that was obviously something for kids much younger than themselves, they just couldn’t abide it. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, they went off together and skinny dipped down at Long Beach, just the two of them. It was their special time as friends, away from the other boys.
Their time at Long Beach and in their cabin at night, whispering to each other in the dark, those were the times when their growing friendship really bloomed. That’s when they could just be best friends and not worry about any of the other boys or the activities that camp required. For the first three weeks of camp, the boys got up each morning in their shared cabin. They went to the community showers together. They went to breakfast in the dining hall together. They went to the morning activities together. They hiked together, told stories, went to campfires, they enjoyed their time at camp.
After the first week of trips to Long Beach to skinny dip while the other boys were getting swimming lessons, the boys had company. John would often stop by Long Beach during those times to check on both of them as they swam alone. He never said anything to Tom or Dally as they swam naked at the beach. Instead, he would lean against a tree and smoke a cigarette, where only the boys would know about it. He wouldn’t tell on the boys for their activity, so they wouldn’t tell on him for smoking. When he was done with his cigarette, he’d wave at the boys and go on about his way to other things.
The two boys and the camp leader developed a camaraderie over those few weeks, a secret society with confidences they would keep from everyone else. They’d guard each other’s secrets and no one got into trouble. It was exciting and thrilling and made Tom and Dally feel even more cool and like bigger rebels than they were. John allowed the boys to have their time together, to be the rebels that they thought they were, and the boys allowed John to have his moment away from camp where no one would get onto him for smoking around the boys. It was almost a perfect set up.
After three weeks, on a Friday night, when the boys were tired from having participated in activities, having swam at Long Beach, having gone to the nightly campfire activities, they crawled into bed, ready to have one of their late night, secret conversations. That was the first night that John entered the boys’ cabin at night. John made soothing “shhhh” noises over the protests of the boy. That night, John crawled into a boy’s bed while another boy cowered in his bed, crying silently as he listened to the muffled protests of his friend, too afraid to run for help. Too afraid to help his friend. So…it just happened.
That was the first time.
The lights in the community center went out again and the heat groaned mechanically. Then the heat stopped blowing and our group of six was left in the dark as we sat in a circle. I looked up, exhaling roughly through my nose. Six other pairs of eyes stared widely at me as I sat there, staring back.
“So, John…” Jared mumbled.
“The heat and lights are out.” I said simply. “Can we go home now? Is group over for the day?”
The
other attendees just stared at me in horror as I kept my hands folded in my lap, waiting for Jeff to answer. Jeff was staring at me with the same expression as all of the other attendees as I waited patiently. My anxiety was trying to climb through my skin and I felt like my heart was being pulled by a rope from my chest into my feet. Yet, I waited. This wasn’t the first time that I had had to ignore anxiety and depression, two of the major roles in my movie. I was getting pretty good at it.
“Yes.” Jeff shook his head, finally losing his gape-faced expression. “Group is over for today.”
Jared and the girl both looked like they were prepared to protest. To beg to hear more of the story. At the last second, though, they both seemed to decide on something, and closed their mouths. I stood from my chair and walked directly through the circle and towards the front doors. On one of the doors, the glass had been busted out, so cardboard had been affixed over the hole with duct tape. The community center was slowly being taken over by the neighborhood around it.
Walking away from the front doors of the community center, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my pack of cigarettes. I flipped the top and fished out the lighter that had been slid into the space left by cigarettes already smoked. Then I pulled out one of the cigarettes and brought it to my lips. My hands wanted to shake, but I wouldn’t allow it, as I lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. I stepped over to one of the long brick planters, that, unsurprisingly, had nothing planted in it, and sat down on the edge. I deposited the lighter back into the empty space in the cardboard pack and shoved the entirety back into my pocket as I exhaled blue smoke.
“Can I bum one of those?”
I turned my head to find a guy standing there. Immediately, I realized that he was the only other guy in group who hadn’t said anything when everyone else took turns asking me questions or interrupting me. He was scrawny, tall, lanky, gangly. His long sleeve shirt—no coat in this cold weather—was baggy on him. His baggy jeans were barely kept on his waist by a tightly cinched belt. His dark hair was buzzed close to his head. His clothes, and the guy himself, looked well washed and clean, but the bagginess of them made him look as though he was dirty.
“How old are you?” I snorted, turning my eyes from him again.
“Nineteen.”
“Don’t believe it for a second.”
“What else don’t you believe?” He asked.
I pulled the pack out of my pocket and held it out to him without actually looking at him again.
“Take as many as you want.” I said.
Take your cigarettes and go.
The guy took the pack from me, took only one, lit it, then put my lighter back into the pack before handing it back to me. I retrieved it from him and shoved it back into my pocket once again. The other attendees walked out in a loud group together, glanced at us, then continued on their way, walking in a group down the sidewalk to parts unknown. They probably lived nearby.
“John killed Dally?” The guy who had bummed the cigarette asked.
“I’m kind of having quiet time here.”
“I bet you don’t get a lot of quiet time.” The guy said. “I bet your brain talks a lot, huh?”
Taking another drag off of my cigarette, I decided to just ignore the kid.
“I have anxiety, too.” He said. “My thoughts go, like, ninety-to-nothing most of the time. It’s like I can’t stop myself from thinking no matter how hard I try. Sometimes I can’t even sleep because of how much my brain just keeps going and going.”
I turned my head to look him in the eyes.
“You don’t have anxiety.” I spit a piece of tobacco out with the tip of my tongue. “You had a meth problem. Now you’re suffering the after effects of that.”
He frowned at me.
“When you do meth, probably long-term, but not so long that it gave you major skin problems or tooth and hair loss, you stop mentally maturing at the age you started.” I took another drag. “The longer you are clean, the more quickly your brain will start catching up to your actual, physical age. You’ll learn the emotional and psychological skills you should already have at your age—which isn’t nineteen—and slowly you’ll start putting weight back on. Might even be able to wear that shirt and those jeans without looking like a scarecrow.”
The kid swallowed hard.
“Now…I would like to be alone.” I nodded. “Please.”
“I’m nineteen.” He stammered. “I just look young and I’m small I guess.”
Then it was a great choice to do meth.
I thought it.
I wasn’t rude enough to actually say it.
“Look, dude—” I breathed out heavily but didn’t turn to look at him again, “I don’t care what you’ve done, or whether or not you lied about your age, okay? I just want to be alone.”
For several moments, the kid stood there, smoking the cigarette I’d let him have and watched me. I stared straight ahead, pretending that he wasn’t there. I could ignore him, just like I could ignore anxiety and depression.
“Did John kill Dally?” He asked again, tapping his cigarette to knock off ashes.
“Why the fuck do you care?” I turned to snap at him.
He jerked slightly.
Scared the recovering meth-head.
Points for Tom.
“Because I want to know how the story ends.” He said in a small voice, sounding as though he would run away, but he didn’t.
“You’re looking at the end of the story.” I said. “Here, outside of this shitty community center. Smoking a cigarette, anxious and depressed, trying to make some kid who lies about his reason for being in a group leave him the fuck alone. That’s how the story ends. The rest is just details.”
The kid stared at me.
“You said all ‘once upon a times’ get a ‘happily ever after’.” He squeaked.
“I said mine ended with a ‘happily never after’, kid.” I replied evenly. “But who knows? Maybe yours will be different. Is that what you want? Someone to assure you that if you stay sober, don’t do meth again, do your steps, go to your appointments and meetings and get yourself together that your ‘once upon a time’ hasn’t actually happened yet? That maybe it starts sometime in the future?”
“Yeah.” He nodded meekly. “I guess.”
“Well, come back on a different day.” I ashed my cigarette. “Today you won’t get the answer you want.”
“Did John kill Dally?” He asked as a familiar car pulled into the parking lot.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I snubbed out my cigarette in the planter and shoved the butt into the pocket of my jeans. When the car pulled up alongside of us at the curb at the front walkway of the community center, I grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. I fell into the passenger seat of the car and closed the door. As I was putting on my seatbelt and then buckling it into place, the car was pulling away from the community center. Luckily, that meant that we were leaving the inquisitive kid behind to smoke the last of the cigarette I had let him have.
“Did you have fun?” My mom asked.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “That’s what it was, mom. Fun.”
Not All Thoughts Are Deceitful
You’d probably expect for it to be difficult for me to keep a job, especially if you know about my anxiety and depression. Not just know about them, but know how deeply they affect me. Regardless, you’d be wrong. Working at the convenience store a few blocks from my house on the night shift is actually a perfect job for me. In my neighborhood, the convenience store is a bit of an oddity because it’s a more upscale area of the city. That sounds like a completely rich, white asshole thing to say, but it just is what it is. There’s no point in dancing around the fact. A convenience store within a few blocks of my house is just not something you would normally expect to see. It’s well-maintained and clean, mostly used by people within a ten-block radius, or people who happen to drive through and need gas.
Because of this, working at night, I don’t really
deal with a lot of people. Some of the local people stop in for a soda or a 6-pack or a late-night snack craving. Other times people may stop for gas, but they almost always pay at the pump, so I don’t have to deal with people just stopping by for gas. So, honestly, it’s a great job for someone who suffers from anxiety. For depression, well, sometimes it can be lonely and allows me time to think too much. But, if things are too quiet and nothing is going on, I use that time to clean the store excessively. Like, on my hands and knees scrubbing baseboards and the corners cleaning.
Obviously, my mother thinks that I should be in college and developing a “real career.” It’s a bit shameful for her that I am working at a local convenience store instead of getting my education and then going out to get a job that anyone would be proud to have as their own. However, I’ve only been in therapy for a year. My counselor and psychiatrist agree with me that I need more time to try and learn to manage my anxiety and depression. And that’s not me avoiding life with the help of my mental health professionals. I’m truly not a full functioning human being.
I can pretend to ignore my anxiety.
I can pretend to ignore my depression.
But that only works for so long before ignoring them puts me into a full-on mental health crisis and I find myself doing things that are not conducive to my health. For the time it takes to go to a psych appointment or see my counselor or go to group, places where I am forced to acknowledge and talk about my mental health issues, I can manage okay. When I’m at work and I’m left mostly alone for a whole eight hours, I do okay. I can manage my feelings and thoughts and behaviors.
The times when I can’t manage is when I’m constantly inundated with stimuli that affect my anxiety and depression. The things that affect them are varied and unusual. The stimuli you’d expect are there, such as crowds, lots of noise, people who won’t stop talking to me or even touching me. Dangerous—or even potentially dangerous—situations. Sudden movements and noises. Especially loud, sharp noises like gunshots or a car backfiring or glass breaking. Constant noises that are unrelenting and fill my head to capacity.
