by Nick White
“Can I touch it?” It was like someone else had spoken, had mimed my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no,” she said. “Come forward.”
I skidded up the embankment, and once I reached her level, she kneeled. Carefully, I placed my hand on her skull. Her bare scalp was coarse and patchy, especially around the ears. Her skin smelled of baby powder. Up close, without all her hair, she looked smaller, frailer. But more beautiful, too.
“I am nothing,” I said. My hands moved to her temples, where her pulse thumped against my fingers. “I am no one. God, rend my flesh. Burn me anew.”
She looked up at me. “Peace, son. Peace.” I slung off my clothes and raced toward Lake John. A crackle of thunder rippled above; I threw myself headfirst into the water. When I surfaced, I saw the other boys on shore were copying me, clamoring to touch Mother Maude’s bald head, even Dale. It was a good-bye, and as with most good-byes, it was tinged with sorrow and relief. All at once, the other boys came splashing into the lake. Dale swam out farther than the rest, his legs kicking hard behind him. It rained, and the feel of pure water on my skin was a revelation. I stood in the waist-high water and soaked it in. At first I didn’t hear the shouts over the pounding water clogging my ears. It was Christopher, and he was saying something about Dale, telling them to hurry. Rick and Larry had already dashed in. The other boys had stopped swimming and faced the other side of the lake, where a dark figure was undulating toward us. Shirtless, Father Drake was wading through the water toward us, as methodical as a shark. He carried Dale around the chest as if he were a piece of luggage, and he came by me with such a force of waves that I was knocked over. When I got back to land, dripping and itchy, Dale was on his knees, coughing up water, and Father Drake towered over him, screaming. “Think you can just get away from me that easy, huh?” There was such joy in his voice. “And miss all the fun I got planned?”
Christopher, Rumil, and Sparse were grouped together by the last two torches at the edge of the water, and Christopher was telling them what he’d seen. “He just went under and I knew, I knew, I knew.” He was shaking so bad that I slapped him. “Knew what?” I said. “Knew what, goddamnit?” Christopher touched his face, stymied. Sparse stepped between us and used both hands to push me back so hard that I went tumbling and cartwheeled into the lake. “Dale,” Sparse hissed, as I stumbled back to my feet. “He tried to drown himself, you damn fool. Don’t you understand anything?”
—
The next morning began our third week at Camp Levi. The end of June. Heat followed us everywhere. It pushed against our chests during sleep, haunted us throughout the day even in the shade. At breakfast I could hardly choke down the food—Cheerios in reconstituted powdered milk. My skin had been peppered with a new batch of sores from last night’s swim, and a new alliance had coalesced in the meantime. Christopher and Sparse and Rumil. They had bonded in their hatred of me and their newfound pity for Dale.
They showed their dislike by ignoring me. I almost relished the ostracism. I suspected true rehabilitation required it. None of them, not even Christopher, was fully committed to the process. I recognized their weakness now and pitied them for it. All morning they kept talking around me, to one another, meaningless talk, while they slurped cereal from their plastic bowls like greedy savages. Christopher asked about Mother Maude. “What happened to her?” Dale surprised everyone by jumping into the conversation, very briefly, to inform us that he’d seen her drifting away quietly. “After she saw I was all right, she put her wig back on,” he said, “and started walking around the lake.” His voice, as he spoke softly and calmly, took us all aback. Christopher admitted that he was going to miss her, and Sparse snorted. “I can’t say the woman will ever make my pen-pal list,” he said. Rumil, shifting topics, wondered about Father Drake. “You think he’ll make us tell him all that stuff we told her?”
Not long after Rumil’s question left his mouth, Father Drake’s voice, as if answering him, bellowed through the trees like the roar of a locomotive. We heard him long before we saw him. “You boys get enough beauty rest?” he yelled. He capered down the clearing at a fast clip. A thick white layer of sunblock coated his nose. A Mississippi State baseball cap sat on his head, the long bill pushed low to hide his eyes. Like us, he’d taken swims in Lake John and had the welts along his arms and legs to show for it. If it bothered him, he didn’t let on. Once he got close enough, he leaped onto our table, kicking over our cereal bowls. Mine and Sparse’s were mostly full, and lumpy milk sloshed into our laps. Father Drake found this hilarious. He laughed so hard it sounded like a cough. He referenced the clipboard in his hand as he spoke, giving the impression he was reading from a script. “Once upon a time, my children,” he said, “I used to chew tobacco. Big wads of Red Man if you can believe it. But now I get my kicks by chewing on weak sissy ass. I chew and chew, and I spit it out.” He swatted the top of Dale’s head with the clipboard. “You understand me, mermaid? You get to leave this camp one way, and that’s through moi.”
Rick and Larry bounded out of the Chapel Cabin at a brisk jog. Larry was clutching a foam football, and when Father Drake nodded, he pitched it over. “The microlesson for today will be a little different,” Father Drake told us. “A little more intensive than what I suspect you’re probably used to.” He explained that we would spend the morning in a rousing game of Smear the Queer. “I wanna see what I’m dealing with. I wanna see what kind of stuff you’re made of.” Because I had never spent much time on playgrounds, the game was new to me. The rules, though, were fairly straightforward: After we scrambled for the ball, the boy who secured it became the target. He’d run from one end zone to the other—in our case, from the Sweat Shack to the abandoned house—dodging tackles. Each time he touched either spot, he scored a point. The only way he gave up the ball was if it was taken from him. “Now, we are not hooligans,” Father Drake said, pacing back and forth across the tabletop. “So there are certain prohibitions: no knuckle sandwiches, no kicking, no elbowing, and no girly antics, either, meaning no scratching or biting. This ain’t Dynasty. You’re men. Use your shoulders, use your bodies. Okay?” We nodded, not knowing what else to do. He added that the boy who racked up the most points would have a special responsibility later tonight. “But more on that later. For now, let’s see what happens.” He dropped the ball on the table, and it bounced once, twice, then flipped into a roll, finding its way to Rumil. Father Drake grinned. “Let’s go.”
The game started slowly. Rumil was sprinting to the Sweat Shack before it occurred to us that we needed to catch him. “Move, you bastards!” Father Drake said, and we were off. Sparse had no muscle, but he was fast, spiriting ahead. Dale was the slowest, but he would be the most dangerous, I suspected. Sparse got to Rumil first, looping an arm around his waist only to be shrugged off like an old coat. Sparse tripped on his own legs and got a mouthful of grass for the effort. Rumil stretched out his arm with the ball and touched the side of the Sweat Shack. “One point for Rumil,” Larry announced, and Christopher cheered, which infuriated Father Drake. “Why you stopping, fatty?” Father Drake screamed. “Get him!” Father Drake had remained standing on the picnic table to watch us better. Rumil dodged and weaved on his path to the abandoned house. He easily missed Sparse and Christopher; neither seemed to be trying very hard. Then he outstepped a heaving Dale and came stomping by me. I lowered my shoulder and swung out my arm, clotheslining him in the middle. He hiccupped as the air pushed through his gullet. He flipped back onto the ground, which was soft and muddy from last night’s rain. He was back on his feet in no time. But the ball was mine. I ran to the abandoned house and slapped the railing on the front porch. “One point!” Larry yelled. “For Rooster!” I turned back toward the Sweat Shack to find Sparse and Christopher much more interested in the notion of bringing me down. They rushed me, Christopher’s head battle-ramming me in the gut. My body was tossed, scraping away grass as I w
ent tumbling across the slick mud. Now Christopher had his hands on the ball, but he didn’t keep it very long as Dale, while not fast, was faster than he was. He gave the one true tackle of the game, using his shoulder to bring Christopher down fast and efficiently. It was almost artful. Once Dale had the ball firmly tucked under his arm, there was no chance for the rest of us. He blocked and faked; he sidestepped and charged. He broke through every attempt we made, going back and forth from the Sweat Shack to the abandoned house at a slow, deliberate speed. “One point for Dale! Two points for Dale!” Larry’s voice became a refrain to our game. “Three points for Dale!”
As the game progressed, we got more and more ragged and dirty. Our yellow T-shirts and khakis hadn’t been washed or changed since our first night by the lake. The fabric was easy to tear once snagged in a fist. Though Dale would clearly win the game, it became a point of pride for us to throw ourselves against the great bulwark of his body as he crashed through the clearing. Father Drake egged us on. I ran at Dale three times before my nose got bloody enough for me to notice and three more times before a ringing sprang into my ears. Fluid leaked from the nastier sores on my arms and legs; it felt like my insides were escaping. Still, I raged on. So did the others. We were no longer driven by our hatred of Dale. He didn’t even matter. As we bashed ourselves against him, we were only damaging our own bodies, a kind of self-hate that was somehow honorable. I wanted to keep going. I wanted to sling my limbs and organs against his until all my clothes had been torn away, all my flesh and meat, too, until there was nothing left of me to give.
By point twenty, Dale threw the ball down and sat on the edge of the abandoned house’s porch, huffing. He said he was done. “If that ain’t winning,” he said, “then I don’t know what is.” Father Drake jumped down from the picnic table and came running over. “My God, my God,” he was saying. “You sure do like pounding them boys, don’t you, big fella?” He waved over Rick, who presented Dale with a bottle of water. Dale poured most of it on his face, his tongue wagging out of his mouth like a dog’s. Sparse was spitting blood, and Christopher was hacking into the crook of his arm. Rumil stared longingly at the water Dale was lapping up, and I was still prone in the mud from Dale’s last run-through. Father Drake hooted. “Y’all got your asses whooped.” When Christopher finished coughing, Father Drake said, “You, boy—here.” Christopher was too slow for him, so Father Drake slapped the clipboard against his own hip. “Hurry, son. Get the lead out.” As Christopher neared him, he unfolded his right arm and showed Christopher something, and Christopher, squeaking, took a step back. Father Drake’s face puckered. “I knew you didn’t have the stomach for it.” He whistled for Larry, telling him to take the fat one to the Sweat Shack. Christopher didn’t move and watched, stunned by the quick turn of events, as Larry nodded and went over to the front of the Sweat Shack to jimmy open the door. Father Drake pushed at Christopher’s shoulder. “Go on,” he said, and Christopher snapped out of his daze. “Yes, sir,” he said.
The door to the Sweat Shack was about a foot high and made of a thick wood that had been painted and repainted so many times I could no longer guess the kind of tree it had been. It swung open into pitch-black. Rumil, Sparse, and I moved around to the front to watch, as if this were a public execution. Before Christopher went in, Sparse told him to shut his eyes. “Pretend,” he said, “like you are taking a nap.” Christopher wasn’t upset but seemed mystified by his own rotten luck. Larry, who was standing beside the little opening to the Sweat Shack, told him to go in feet first. “And stay lying down on the ground,” he added. “You’ll only knock yourself out if you try to stand.” After deliberating over how to manage it, Christopher finally got on his back and crab-walked inside. Larry shut the door behind him, and Rumil jumped when the latch caught. That was that.
Father Drake was leaning against the house, watching me with the same pained expression he used back at the apartment in Hawshaw. Like he didn’t know what to do with me. He said, “Rooster—you come.” Now he showed me his arm. A fat gray tick had nestled in the seam where his forearm met his bicep. “Pull it out,” he said. “Go on.” When I hesitated, he grunted. “Don’t make me try to fit two of you in there.” I pinched the bug and pulled on it. It dislodged the way an eraser top twisted out of a pencil. Father Drake bent his arm to staunch the blood, and I held the tick between my fingers not knowing what to do with it. The insect was still alive and convulsing, so I flicked it to the grass. For this, Father Drake took off his cap and whacked me across the face. “You got to burn them,” he said. He squatted down and fingered around in the grass until he found it. “They’re too hard to be squished, and if you don’t kill them, they are likely to go looking for you again.” He wrapped it in a piece of tissue paper he’d pulled from his pocket, then from the same pocket he retrieved a lighter. “Once it gets a taste for you, it’ll never stop until it can get another.” He let the ball of paper burn in the grass for about a minute, then he stomped it out with the heel of his sneaker.
The others had gathered around me. Rumil and Sparse. Rick and Larry. Even Dale had wandered over. Father Drake seemed pleased to be holding court and smiled like he was meeting us for the first time. “Well, now,” he said. “Who’s hungry?”
—
For the afternoon, instead of testimonials, Father Drake put us to work. As Rick and Larry supervised us, we carried the old furniture out of the abandoned house and piled it in the middle of the clearing. Father Drake took an ax to the bulkier pieces, breaking them down. Rumil and Sparse hung together, lifting together, moving in a synchronized silence that excluded Dale and me. Dale didn’t need any help. He toted the heavier pieces just fine all by himself—the wooden icebox, an old curio—while I struggled, grasping and pulling, to move anything. I was in the middle of dragging out a desk when it got stuck in the front doorway. Rumil and Sparse were outside milling about the growing pile, pretending not to notice, and I was too proud to ask for help. Dale appeared behind the desk from somewhere in the house and heaved the back of it out in one push. He was carrying two drawers, and it wasn’t clear to me if he was being helpful or just wanted the piece of furniture out of his way. After he slung the drawers onto the pile, he returned, shoving me aside. He dragged the desk off the porch and across the clearing, leaving muddy ruts in his wake. I got behind the desk and tried to help, but he barked at me to get back. Father Drake had paused in arranging the pile, and Rumil and Sparse moved away from Dale as he marched by. After Dale positioned the desk by the edge of the pile, Father Drake handed him the ax. Dale gripped the handle like a bat and swung. Shards of wood exploded from the desk. He swung again, and again, his grunts turning to screams. It didn’t take Dale long to smash the desk down into manageable pieces. “Lord,” Father Drake said. “I could power a city grid with that kind of rage.” Dale dropped the ax and sank to his knees to catch his breath. Meanwhile, I took the broken pieces and tossed them onto the pile.
We finished at sundown. After the pile was arranged to Father Drake’s liking, he doused the furniture in kerosene. He motioned for us to sit on the ground in front of it, and once we were down, he explained that the purpose of tonight was to symbolize our turning away from the past. We had spent two weeks acknowledging it, he told us, and asking for forgiveness, and now was the time to repent. “How many of you have ever heard of the refiner’s fire?” he asked. I raised my hand, but Father Drake ignored it. “In Malachi, chapter three: ‘Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me . . . He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.’” He repeated the phrase “offerings in righteousness.” Rick and Larry had appeared. Larry carried our notebooks; Rick, a fire extinguisher. “Now, Dale,” Father Drake went on, “has proved today that he is ready for the purifying heat of the Lord by his awesome display of strength earlier today, so he will start us off.�
�� He asked Dale to come to the front, where Larry handed him two notebooks—his and Christopher’s. “Since Christopher cannot do it himself,” Father Drake said, “you will absolve him of his past.” He pulled out the lighter, the same one he’d used to burn the tick. Father Drake flicked it on. “Now, the refiner’s fire,” he told us, “is different from other fires. A forest fire destroys; a campfire gives warmth. A refiner’s fire, however, is localized, directed. It burns away our impurities.” Dale held both books over the flame, and the flames grew around the books, licking up the pages. “It purifies us.” Before the flames reached his fingers, Dale threw the books into the pile of furniture, and the fire caught, turning the pile into a pyre. Black smoke whooshed off the flames, causing us to cough. Father Drake told us to get close, then closer, until we stood at the very edge of the fire, the heat singeing our eyebrows and cheeks. For an instant, I imagined him coming behind us and pushing, sending us headfirst into the flames. Instead, he made us stand there until our foul bodies were coated in an extra layer of soot. Then he told us to imagine that who we were, everything that made up our identity—he said “identity” as if it were a disease—was bound up in the pages of our notebooks. “Now,” he said, “throw your offerings into the mouth of God.” I chucked mine and didn’t see where it landed in the fire, for the smoke had become too much for me. I stumbled back, coughing. Rumil had already heaved his in, too, and stumbled back out of the way of the smoke. Only Sparse remained at the edge, gripping his book, shaking as if he were cold. “It’s not real. It’s just a symbol,” Rumil said to Sparse’s back, until Father Drake told him to shut his mouth, threatening him with the Sweat Shack. Sparse might have stayed there all night in front of the fire, refusing to destroy his notebook, while the top layer of his flesh burned away. But Dale stepped in. He seized the book out of Sparse’s hand and flicked it in as if it were just another piece of trash, then he pushed Sparse away from the fire. “It ain’t worth it, Robert,” he said, and Sparse corrected him, his voice thick from emotion. “That’s not my name, Dale.” Dale shrugged. “Whatever, but it still ain’t worth all that.”
