Dan Versus Nature

by Don Calame

  This could be the chance of a lifetime. Five days where Hank couldn’t check in with Mom. Where he wouldn’t be able to say anything to her about the uncomfortable things I ask him about — or ask him to do. How long till he comes to the realization that he just doesn’t have the knack for this parenting thing?

  Sure, I’m not exactly a fan of the natural world, but I might be willing to brave the elements for five days if it would mean slaying the villainous Fang Plaqueston once and for all.

  But could I actually pull it off? Could I say and do the outrageous things Charlie will come up with — all of which I’m betting will be way worse than copping to having a microtesticle?

  The solution hits me like a repulsor blast. “You have to come with me.”

  Charlie coughs. “I’m sorry, what? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  “I said —”

  “I was being facetious, Dan. I heard you quite clearly.” Charlie swivels his chair away from his masterpiece. “And there’s not a chance in Judecca I’m coming camping with you.”

  “It isn’t camping,” I correct. “It’s a survivalist week in the wilderness. We’re going to learn skills to keep us alive without any modern conveniences. With all your talk of end times, I’d think you’d jump at the chance to learn how to subsist off the land.”

  Charlie rolls his eyes. “I am not risking death by dysentery for information that can easily be obtained on the Internet. You, on the other hand, have a real reason to roll the diarrheal dice.”

  “You said you owed me, remember? ‘You require anything, let me know.’ I believe those were your words.”

  “Well, yes . . .” Charlie mumbles, shaking his head. “But I meant . . . help with a paper or putting in a good word with Erin.” He waves a hand at the screen. “Revenge via Photoshop. That sort of thing.”

  “You said ‘anything,’” I repeat.

  “Yes, but —”

  “You like my mom, Charlie, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Sarah has been like a second mother to me. But what does —”

  “Do you really want to see her get her heart ripped out by some thug dentist?”

  “Of course not. Which is why I —”

  “And you care about the school paper, right? The floundering Oracle?”

  “Sure, but I really don’t see what that —?”

  “Just think of the photo-essay you could publish based off our trip! To say nothing of the additions to your portfolio. Come on, Charlie. Come on this trip with me. Be my wingman and help me scare Hank away — and save me from getting Montezuma’s revenge. Do it and we can call it even. What do you say?”

  Charlie stares at the wrestling team photo. His mouth is moving but no words are coming out.

  “Awesome,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll take that as a big yes.”

  “OK,” Charlie says, flipping open his spiral notebook and writing TORMENT CRUSADE: SUPPLEMENTARY MEASURES on the top of the page. “I’ve procured all of the supplies we will need for our larger-scale incursions next week. But we still have to put together a list of smaller strikes: more embarrassing questions you can ask Hank on a moment’s notice, things like that.”

  “Don’t you think the pranks we already came up with are enough?” I say.

  “No, I do not.” Charlie takes off his glasses. Rubs his eyes. “We want to systematically wear this fellow down.” He puts his glasses back on. “The bigger salvos will put the cracks in the foundation. But sometimes it’s the tiniest breeze that finally brings everything crumbling to the ground.”

  We are sitting in eighth-period Life Skills class, in the back of the room. It’s the last day before Easter break. We’re supposed to be working on this week’s assignment: putting together a monthly household budget so we can learn the costs of living in the real world.

  Instead, Charlie has decided that this would be the perfect time to put the finishing touches on our campaign of terror. Though, the way things are starting to shape up, I’m not sure who’s going to be more terrorized, Hank or me.

  “So,” Charlie says. “Let’s brainstorm.” Charlie writes the word “COITUS” in his notebook. “We’ll begin with the one subject everyone’s ashamed of.”

  “I’m not sure if I can ask him any more sex stuff,” I say, glancing over at Erin, sitting beside Gail. She’s hunched over her notes, writing away furiously, casually scratching the side of her beautiful little nose. “It makes me feel too . . . skeeved out.”

  “Exactly,” Charlie says. “Which is why you’ll definitely want to hit the genitalia questions hard. It doesn’t have to be too deviant — at least at first. For example, have him explain the difference between latex and lambskin condoms. Ask him how to do a proper foreskin cleaning or if you ever grow out of obsessive masturbation. Then later you can move on to things like penile implants and scrotal piercings.”

  Charlie excitedly adds these to the list.

  “I really don’t think I can do that.”

  “You can and you must,” Charlie insists. “If you’re embarrassed, just think how mortified he’ll be. Parenting is not for the faint of heart. We need to teach him that.”

  “What else?” I say. “Besides sex stuff.”

  “All right, moving on.” Charlie writes DRUGS AND ALCOHOL on another line. “At some point you’ll want to ask him if he’s ever smoked pot. Or done LSD. Or tried magic mushrooms. Ask him if he ever got drunk as a teenager. Then ask him how often. Parents hate talking about that kind of thing with their kids because they usually have to lie. And if we can catch him in a lie, we can use that as ammunition later.”

  I shift in my seat, my stomach gripping up.

  “What about things I can do?” I say. “I’m much better at that than talking about stuff. Like getting him to leave the hockey game early because I had ‘a stomachache.’ That was fun.”

  Charlie nods. “OK. OK. You’re more of an actor than an orator. We can work with that. How about biting your toenails when we’re sitting around the campfire? Picking your nose and eating it? Constantly playing pocket polo?”

  I sigh. At first, I really wanted Charlie’s help. But I didn’t expect him to get so into the whole thing. And now that he’s committed himself to the trip — gotten over his initial terror of the contaminated wilderness — Charlie has been on a tear, arming himself with an arsenal of disinfectants and concocting countless pranks for me to pull on Hank.

  “OK, class.” Ms. Drizzler clears her throat. “We only have a few minutes left, so we’ll go over your budgets when we return from vacation. In the meantime”— Ms. Drizzler opens her desk drawer and pulls out the little plastic baby carrier with the Baby-Real-A-Lot doll lying inside —“we need to decide who gets to care for our little class cutie over the break. Do I have any volunteers?”

  Erin shoots her hand up immediately. “I’ll take Baby Robbie, Ms. Drizzler.”

  Ms. Drizzler smiles. “You’ve already had your turn, Ms. Reilly.”

  “I know, but I love him so much,” Erin says.

  Several people in the class laugh. I grin dopily. She is so adorable.

  “Yes,” Ms. Drizzler says. “It certainly was evident by the perfect Care Score on your ID bracelet. And the fact that you named him. And printed up a birth certificate. And made a baby book. Not to mention the beautiful sweater you knitted. I have no doubt you will be an exemplary parent someday, Ms. Reilly. But I’m afraid it’s time for one of your classmates to have a turn.”

  Ms. Drizzler turns to the rest of us. “Now, before you all go raising your hands at once, let me remind you that this assignment constitutes fifty percent of your final grade. So”— she holds up the baby —“who would like to volunteer?”

  Nobody makes a move.

  Erin bites her lower lip.

  “Come, now,” Ms. Drizzler says. “Don’t be shy. You each have to watch the baby at some point. Do not make me have to assign a parent. I’ll grade you much harsher if I do.”

  I
stare down at the desk, classic I-can’t-see-you-so-you-can’t-see-me. There is no way in hell that I’m taking a baby — pretend or not — on a survival trip.

  “I’ll give you to the count of five,” Ms. Drizzler says. “Then I’ll simply stab my finger at my attendance roster, and that will be that. One . . . Two . . .”

  Suddenly, I feel someone kick my ankle. I look over and see Charlie giving me a nod.

  I frown at him.

  “Do it,” he whispers.

  “What?” I mouth.

  “The baby.” Charlie lifts his chin toward the front of the room. “Volunteer.”

  I shake my head. “No way.”

  “Three,” Ms. Drizzler calls out. “I’m not kidding about the harsher grade. I’ll take two points off for every missed care or mishandled event. Four . . .”

  “Do it for Hank,” Charlie says under his breath. “We can foist the baby on him. It’s the perfect I-never-want-to-be-a-parent tool. Go on! Before she assigns it to someone else.”

  “Aaaaaand, fi —”

  I fire my hand into the air, instantly regretting it.

  “Mr. Weekes.” Ms. Drizzler smiles. “Excellent. Thank you. Now come on up here and collect your new son and your ID bracelet.”

  Charlie gives me a thumbs-up.

  I stand and trudge to the front of the room, my head bowed, my eyes on the floor. I can’t believe this. Why did I listen to him? This is going to make our trip so much more miserable than it was already going to be.

  I grab the handle of the baby carrier and take the plastic ID bracelet, which will track how well I’ve looked after the doll.

  “Take good care of Baby Robbie!” Erin calls out.

  The class cracks up again.

  I glance over at her. Her eyes are wide and moist, like she’s just given up her only kid for adoption.

  I force a smile and croak out a muted “I will.”

  I turn back to Charlie, who’s rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain.

  My heart sinks as I suddenly realize that I’ve just told my first lie to Erin.

  I will not be taking good care of Baby Robbie.

  Because Charlie intends to destroy this child.

  “Baby-Real-A-Lot, Baby-Real-A-Lot,” a child’s soprano lilts as a girl cradles a tiny plastic infant in her arms. “He cries. He coos. He pees. He poos. Feed him. Cuddle him. Change him when he’s wet. Baby-Real-A-Lot, as real as real can get!”

  Out of nowhere, the girl hurls the baby across the room, its head banging against the door and exploding in a shower of plastic shards.

  Jesus!

  I bolt up in bed, my eyes flying open. The room is a Vaseline smear, mostly dark still. A slash of light coming from . . . somewhere.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I turn my groggy head toward the sound.

  “Time to get up.”

  What?

  “Come on, guys.” Hank’s loud whisper comes from the hazy glow by the door. “We’ve got to grab some breakfast and get going. I’ve got doughnuts and coffee downstairs.”

  My mind starts to chug awake, like a train pushing away from the station. Oh, that’s right. It’s the first day of my birthday punishment — I mean, present.

  “What time is it?” I croak.

  “Four fifteen,” Hank says. “Our shuttle’ll be here in twenty. So, chop-chop. And remember, no electronics. I’m bringing my cell phone but only for emergencies.”

  “Yeah, OK,” I say. “Be right there.”

  “Your mom’s still asleep,” Hank says. “So keep it down.”

  I roll over and click on my bedside lamp, the blast of light stinging my sleep-crusted eyes. I haul my legs around and place my feet on the floor. The room tilts a little. It feels like I’ve been clubbed over the head.

  I yawn and rub the back of my cramped-up neck. God, I’m so tired. I would gladly give my Sandman box set for another ten minutes of sleep.

  I reach for my dad’s old watch and strap it on above the Baby-Real-A-Lot ID bracelet. The band on the watch is getting worn, floppy. I’m going to have to replace it soon.

  “Wake up,” I say to the mass curled up in the forest-green sleeping bag on my floor.

  Charlie pokes his head out from inside the bag. “I never went to sleep.” The low light from his iPad casts a blue glow on his smudged glasses. “I’ve been reading every survival book I could download: No Doctor, No Problem: The Survivor’s Guide to Wounds and Infection; The Ultimate SAS Survival Handbook; The U.S. Army Survival Manual; and a dozen others.”

  “Why’d you bother? Between the guide and Hank, we’ll be well taken care of.”

  “You can never be too prepared, Daniel. Speaking of which, I’m wondering if we might have time to swing by the twenty-four-hour pharmacy so I can pick up a few more supplies.”

  “We have to go straight to the airport.”

  He sighs. “OK, well, I guess we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.” He throws back the sleeping bag flap — he’s fully dressed, never having gotten out of his street clothes — and starts rummaging inside his backpack, pulling out and stacking various boxes, tubes, and pill bottles: six bottles of alcohol gel, three types of analgesic, an intestinal sedative, oral antibiotics, antibiotic cream, two kinds of antihistamine, anti-diarrheal, anti-malaria tablets, potassium permanganate, Dramamine . . .

  “You leave any room for clothes in there?” I ask.

  “Mock all you like,” Charlie says. “We’ll see who’s laughing at whom when you’re hunched over a hole in the ground, violently voiding your watery, blood-soaked stools and pleading for a sip of my Kaopectate.”

  I laugh. “We’re going to a national park, not the Australian outback.”

  “Ignorance is the silent killer, Dan,” Charlie says, carefully repacking his medications. “And instead of worrying so much about me, I suggest you make sure that you’re fully prepared to engage the enemy.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m all set.”

  “You’ve got your dummy sketchbook?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “And your carry-on items?”

  “All packed.”

  “Did you memorize the list of code words I gave you?” Charlie asks.

  I sigh. “Yes, Charlie. I’ll listen out for them.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “And Baby Robbie?”

  “Locked and loaded.” I hold up the Baby-Real-A-Lot doll, clad in a fresh diaper and the blue-and-white baby sweater that Erin made, and press the initiate button on my ID bracelet.

  The doll’s eyes flutter open. It makes a little cooing noise. I grab the tiny bottle and begin feeding it.

  Charlie spent a few hours yesterday working on the baby. He managed to hack into the doll’s programming so he could increase the frequency and force of its “biological” functions. Then we replaced the colored water in the baby’s bottle with a chocolate yogurt drink. Finally, Charlie loosened the joints at the baby’s shoulders and hips.

  Charlie has triple-promised me that he’ll be able to alter the Care Score on my ID bracelet before we go back to school. I’m praying he’s right, or I’m going to fail big-time.

  I look down at the little bundle in my arms. It’s probably just my imagination, but I do see a bit of Erin in his features: his nose, his mouth. I feel a twinge of guilt for what we’re about to do.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” I ask, squeezing the bottle to get the rest of the thick brown goo into the baby’s mouth.

  “Trust me,” Charlie says. “That kid’s a ticking time bomb.”

  And, as if on cue, Baby Robbie blows a massive, sputtering cheeser, his instantly full diaper vibrating in my hands.

  “Jesus,” I say.

  Charlie grins and waggles his eyebrows. “Let the games begin.”

  “I’m not really sure how this works.”

  Hank has the wailing Baby Robbie on the kitchen table. He fumbles with the loaded diaper, trying to figure out how to get it off. Some of the “po
o” is starting to leak down its legs. “Is there any way to keep him quiet while we do this?” Hank glances at the ceiling; Mom’s bedroom is directly above us.

  “Not until we’ve got him cleaned up,” I say.

  Charlie is busy snapping photos of the scene with his camera. The flash blasting our eyes with each shutter click.

  “Could you please stop with that?” Hank says, blinking hard. “You’re blinding me.”

  “I am a photojournalist, Mr. Langston,” Charlie states, rifling off several more shots. “I have vowed to document our entire trip for the school newspaper. The photo-essay from this excursion could be the very thing that saves the Willowvale Oracle.”

  “Yes, well.” Hank squints, holding up his hand. “Could you maybe turn off the flash?”

  “Would you ask Martin Parr or Diane Arbus to turn off their flashes?” Charlie asks, exploding another burst of light in Hank’s face.

  “I don’t know even know who —”

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t,” Charlie says, blasting Hank yet again.

  “Jesus Christ.” Hank rubs his eyes and peers down at the squawking baby. He exhales loudly. “All right. There’s got to be a trick to this.”

  “They showed us how to do it in class,” I say. “But everyone was crowded around and I couldn’t see very well. I thought you’d know how.”

  “I haven’t had much experience with this sort of thing.” Hank flips the baby onto its belly, then onto its back again. “It can’t be that hard. Let me look it up on my phone.” He wipes his hands fastidiously on his pants, even though he hasn’t actually encountered any of the yogurt surprise yet, then unclips his gleaming phablet and starts typing. “OK. Wait. Yes. Right. Got it.” Hank lays down his phone well away from the doll and finds the clear sticky strips at the waist, pulls them back, and carefully slides the soggy, brown-stained diaper off.

  Finally, Baby Robbie stops crying.

  Hank breathes a deep sigh of relief. “Thank God.” Then he tilts his head as he notices Baby Robbie’s tiny plastic penis. “Wow. They really went all out on the verisimilitude, huh?”