The Hearts of Men

by Nickolas Butler

  Nelson does not know how to reply to this compliment, so he aims his eyes at the ground.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  The boy nods, feels his throat tighten. Counselor Tim is conventionally handsome, of average height and build, but his eyes are very, very blue, and as he leans down beside Nelson, the younger boy notices that his face isn’t just sympathetic-looking. It is sad, too. Tim draws in the soft mud of the shore, draws a figure throwing a spear. Bugler draws a crude buffalo.

  “Some fellas and I are working out at the old amphitheater,” Tim explains. “You heard old Whiteside talking about it during announcements. It would sure be grand if you baked a couple of those cobblers and brought ’em out. Heck, we sort of make a work-party out of it. Guys bring all sorts of stuff, if you know what I mean. I’ll even buy the ingredients for you, pay you two dollars for your trouble.”

  Nelson stares up at him. Two dollars! And an invitation to a party? He struggles to compose himself.

  “Um, sure,” he says slowly. “The old amphitheater?” He’s pretty sure he knows where this is.

  “That’s right,” Tim says, rising from his crouch, and smoothing over his drawing with a boot tip. “I’ll drop those ingredients at your tent tonight with further instructions.” He holds out a hand for Nelson to shake. “Don’t let me down, okay?”

  Then turning his back to Nelson, Tim merrily claps his hands and calls for the other boys to assemble at the picnic table for a lesson in cooking homemade bread.

  Mosquitoes begin orbiting Nelson’s ankles, where his socks are puddled over the laces of his boots. He hikes them up, halfway to his knees, and swats at the bare skin above. With his pocketknife he cuts several low-hanging boughs from a nearby spruce and lays them over the campfire, where they are slow to ignite, but then do, making a festive sound as they burn not unlike sparklers sizzling and cracking on the Fourth of July. The air gradually becomes dense with fragrant gray smudgy smoke and the mosquitoes relent, at least for a while.

  OVER LUNCH, the boys strategize passionately about their imminent capture-the-flag game. They pass trays of cold-cut sandwich meat—ham and bologna and salami and turkey, laid out in circular fans according to variety. Likewise with cheese, and later, lettuce, onion, and tomatoes. Baskets of white bread circulate, jars of mustard and mayonnaise, later a great platter of brownies.

  “Jerks have a map!” Jonathan Quick snorts.

  “And they’re older,” says Billy Bowden, a boy of about fourteen, smaller than Nelson, but already beloved for his ability to recycle his father’s dirty jokes. “And bigger, too.” A wrestler, Bowden sports a face smeared in acne, his body purportedly perennially accosted by ringworm, too. Everyone in school has heard the story of Bowden being thrown down to the mat on his back, where apparently, dozens of pimples were all violently burst, soaking his uniform and fouling the royal blue vinyl.

  “Well, it’s not an orienteering course,” says Jim Tolliver, one of the troop’s most senior boys, and off to Notre Dame the next year for college. “If it was, we’ve got Bugler. No, this is about strategy. We’ve got the same amount of Scouts. The question is, where do we place the flag? Who are our attackers? Who are our defenders? Or do we just forget about a plan, and go into this thing for fun? Every man for himself, so to speak?”

  The boys begin shouting suggestions, only to be silenced by Jonathan Quick, who whistles loudly in their faces, drawing a chorus of laughter and applause from the rest of the mess hall, before he huddles the troop in close.

  “Look,” he says seriously, “we can’t have anarchy. I’ve never been much of a planner, but maybe this is the time. I ain’t much for losing, that’s for sure.”

  The boys nod their assent, moving brownies into their mouths nervously, eyes wide, crumbs falling to the tabletop.

  “We need a bet,” Morris Redman suggests. “You know? Something to up the ante.”

  “The winning troop . . . ,” Jonathan whispers quite to himself. He drums dirty fingers against a greasy chin. It is a widely known fact that personal hygiene deteriorates over the course of the week at Camp Chippewa, even among the camp’s most fastidious boys. Hair becomes thoroughly untamed, shabby mustaches begin to dust the upper lips of older boys, the white of one’s teeth dulls perceptibly, zits blossom red and white, like night mushrooms popping from the loam. “The winning troop . . .”

  The boys, having fallen silent now, examine the hall’s rafters and pennants, the dusty taxidermy and the dry pine beams. Around the mess hall, other troops are beginning to rise, returning to merit badge clinics, swimming, fishing, or quietly reading comic books, Mickey Spillane, or the like.

  “The winning troop,” Nelson says with uncharacteristic certainty, “should get twenty-five dollars to split between its boys for use at the canteen.”

  Twenty-five dollars is, of course, a fortune, especially this late in the week, after some boys have already blown most of their money on canteen Coca-Colas, popcorn, candy bars, cotton candy, and ice-cream cones. But it seems an appropriately lavish wager, a sum that can be achieved only through pooling communal assets. And it means that the winning troop will spend the remainder of the week living like kings, gorging on their favorite nosh. They will be famous.

  Jonathan Quick reaches a hand out and slaps Nelson’s shoulder affectionately. “I like it,” he says. “Any objections?”

  The troop is quiet, their eyes wide with promise, excitement.

  “And the loser?” asks Morris.

  The boys look first to Jonathan, then slowly turn their gaze to Nelson, the black sheep, who shakes his head, as if in complete bewilderment. If we lose, he thinks, they will come for my head. And, Please, God. Let us win. “Isn’t it enough that the loser has to pony up money?” Nelson asks.

  “Naw,” Morris continues, “we hate these guys. Let’s make ’em pay. Twice.”

  The mess hall is all but empty, cooks spilling out of the kitchen now to wipe down the tables, to sweep and mop the floors. Only Nelson’s troop remains, and of course, Troop #16, arrayed shoulder to shoulder along one side of their table and upon the tabletop, arms crossed, staring at Nelson and his troop mates as sternly as a rugby squad.

  Jonathan holds out his hands for calm. “Let me take this to Jack Lovell,” he says. “See if he’s got any ideas for the losing troop. Are we agreed then?” he asks.

  The boys give him their thumbs-up, confident nods, clapped hands.

  Jonathan stands from their table, walks over to Troop #16, and shakes hands with another tall, lanky Scout, a boy with a red crew cut, freckles, and eyes that seemed to shine golden. The two older boys talk for a minute or two, then shake, and Jonathan returns to his table as Troop #16 bursts out into squeals of delight.

  “We’ve got an accord,” Jonathan says wryly. “But you won’t want to hear what the loser has to do.”

  “Did you already agree to the deal?” asks Billy anxiously.

  Jonathan nods soberly. “The deal is this: the winning troop chooses one member of the losing troop to . . .” His voice trails off.

  “What?” Nelson asks. The other boys lean close to Jonathan, their captain.

  “Go down into a latrine.”

  The troop gasps.

  “For how long?” someone asks.

  Jonathan gulps air, as if he is contemplating vomiting. “The winning team gets to throw a nickel down the latrine. Losing team has to find it.”

  “And you agreed to this?” Nelson cries.

  “We have one hour to place our flag,” Jonathan replies. “Now, how much money do we have? Come on, fellas.”

  They reach deep into the dark wells of their pockets for bills wet with rain and perspiration, folded tight as origami. They touch coins greasy and shiny, or fuzzy with lint and the decomposed scraps of Bazooka Joe wrappers. Each boy has to come up with about a dollar. With Jonathan acting as troop secretary, they collect twenty-three dollars and seven cents and he places the kitty in a leather pouch that he then hangs from his n
eck, in escrow.

  “Wait a minute,” Jonathan says. “You sure that’s all your money?”

  The boys pull their pockets inside out in a mugging display of full disclosure.

  “Scout’s honor?”

  They raise their right hands in pledge, like senators taking an oath. “Scout’s honor,” they repeat, in chorus.

  “Okay,” Jonathan says, “let’s get our flag hid.”

  “HERE,” HE SAYS, “RIGHT HERE.”

  The boys follow behind Jonathan, swatting mosquitoes and wiping sweat from their brows. The afternoon is growing hot. Finally the rain clouds of the last two days have pushed on toward Michigan, and now the sky is opening its bright blue tarpaulin over the land and the sun beams down upon them with all its fire. Steam rises off the forest and asphalt trails.

  Jonathan stands at the top of a small ridge, the only topography of consequence on their side of the playing field. A scattering of boulders lie strewn about, lichen barnacled over their quartz crystals. A young oak tree chatters its leaves above them and farther up—a red-tailed hawk wheels and circles.

  “Here,” he repeats. “Morris, pound our flagpole in here.” He indicates a specific spot by disrupting the moss there with his boot. Morris summits the ridge and hammer in hand, pounds the flagpole into the rocky soil.

  “Won’t they be able to see it pretty easily?” asks Thomas Salkin, a boy of about Nelson’s age. “Don’t we want to, I don’t know, hide it a bit more?”

  “No,” Jonathan replies. “We want them to find it.”

  “Why?” Thomas asks. He bites at a hangnail. “I’m not going in that latrine. I won’t play. I’ll call my mom and dad.”

  “Shut up,” Morris says. “Shut up, you sissy.”

  “We’ll split our numbers into three groups. One group will go along our western boundary. I want them to sit still and eliminate the chance of getting flanked. Same for the second group, only they’ll sit on our eastern boundary. A third group will hide on the windward side of the hill and if anyone on their team gets close, why, we’ll have a force lying there in wait to snag ’em. I don’t want anyone going into enemy territory. No one! I don’t care if this game takes us a day to win, but we’re not going to force the issue. We’ll let them come to us, and after we’ve captured most of them, we’ll form up together and then we’ll launch a counterattack. Is that understood?”

  The boys salute their general.

  “Morris, you count out six Scouts and take the eastern boundary. Jim, count out six and take the west. Whoever’s left, come with me.” He begins walking past the flag and down the windward slope, where scraggly jack pine, cedar, and juniper grow in stunted clumps. Nelson, passed up by Morris and Jim, follows Jonathan down the hill.

  They hide in the sparse shadows of early afternoon, underneath the hems of coniferous trees where sharp dry needles jab the soft palms of their hands and sap sticks to their hair and uniforms. No wind stirs. Grasshoppers pop off the dry blades of grass, and flies trouble the air. Their hearts jump as if on trampolines and sweat runs into their eyes and down their skinny-boy spines.

  No birds chirp, no chipmunks titter or taunt, and for what seems like hours, Nelson focuses on the rocks about him, waiting for a sunbathing snake to slither past. He runs his hands through his hair, combing for wood ticks and horseflies. He closes his eyes, sleeps. The dappled sunshine on his cheeks and forehead is like the warm hand of his mother, whom he misses so much in that moment, he smiles, thinking of her, standing at their kitchen sink, humming an old, old song and watering her potted herbs with a turkey baster.

  HE WAKES TO SCREAMING. Scouts, crashing through the brush around him. Scouts, whooping and hollering.

  Scouts, carrying their flag high overhead and pouring down the hill, well organized, a line of blockers like a stout arrowhead V preceding the bandits holding their stolen banner. Scouts, his troop, giving chase, their faces red with sunburn. Scouts, running fast through the forest, leaping over huge stumps of logged white pine, hurdling downed maple trunks, wailing as they tear through raspberry and thistle patches. Down the hill they hurtle, Troop #16’s biggest boys pushing down the eastern and western divisions of Nelson’s troop like an oafish offensive line flattening a team of pee-wees. He hears desperation in Jonathan’s voice as he cries, “Stop them! Stop them, goddamnit!”

  Out of the forest they burst, the filched flag held aloft as they run into the parade ground, Nelson’s troop hot on their heels, but not close enough, because the thieves reach Camp Chippewa’s central flagpole and in a roar of unity holler down at Jonathan Quick and his confederates, taunting, “Now eat shit! Now eat shit! Now eat shit!”

  Their chants are only halted when a counselor emerges at the margins of the parade ground scratching his head and crossing his arms, and then, seeing the captured flag, waves at all the young boys and their silly shenanigans, before retreating to his cabin.

  Jack Lovell, redheaded Jack Lovell, who ten years later will die as the result of stepping on a land mine in Vietnam, marches down the hill toward Jonathan Quick, holding his right hand out in search of his winnings. Jonathan removes the leather pouch from his neck and offers it to Jack, like an Olympian forfeiting a gold medal. The ginger smirks at Jonathan and the slumped-shouldered troop of boys behind him.

  “Well,” Jack asks, “where’s that bugler of yours?”

  11

  “FOR GOD’S SAKE,” JONATHAN SAYS, “LOWER HIM DOWN first, then throw the nickel.”

  “No,” Jack replies. “You losers stand there. I’ll throw the nickel down, so that only I know where it went.”

  Nelson stands in his white, white underwear, trembling with fear. Morris holds his uniform, as if, prior to his dying, Nelson had neatly folded and stacked his effects before jumping to his demise. The sun still rages overhead. Flies boil around the latrine.

  “Are you sure that was all your money?” Jack crows. “You didn’t even pony up all twenty-five bucks!”

  “It’s all our goddamned money, you asshole!” Jonathan cries. “Now throw that nickel and be done with it!”

  Jack kicks the door of the latrine open with a boot, and in the midafternoon heat, the smell is pugnacious. Another Troop #16 boy holds open the door so all can witness the throw.

  “Jesus,” Jack gasps, “disgusting.” He gags. “And awfully, awfully dark down there.” And then he leaps up about a foot, as if he were about to spike a volleyball, and at the apex of his jump and with all his might, he throws the nickel into the darkness below. The coin makes no sound at all.

  Troop #16 lets out a raucous barrage of belly laughter and hand-clapping, back-slapping, and foot-stomping. Jack-the-Ginger leaves the latrine and lets the door slam, walks directly up to Nelson, and taking the boy gently by the shoulder says, “Sorry it’s you, bub. But, hey, at least you’ll have more money than your buddies, right?”

  Jonathan Quick pushes Jack away from Nelson, pushes the redhead in the chest so hard, in fact, that he trips over a tree root and falls down in the dust before scrambling back to his feet.

  “All right,” Jack says, determined not to give him anything, “time to pay the piper. Let’s see him go down.”

  With several long lengths of rope, Jonathan and Jim create a harness that fits around Nelson’s thighs and shoulders. The knots are expertly tied.

  “I’m sorry, Nelson,” Jim says, “I’m so, so sorry. This is just awful. Anything you need, I swear, I’m your man, okay? Anything.” He kneels and checks the knots fastened to Nelson’s legs. This would certainly not be an occasion for a knot to fail, leaving Nelson stranded.

  Nelson’s troop stands at a distance and many of the younger boys turn their backs and seem on the brink of openly crying, as much for themselves and their newly empty wallets as for Nelson. Most of the boys came from families who can ill afford to even send their children to camp, let alone lose a dollar bill on a stupid bet. Some of the Scouts are in danger of real lickings if their fathers discover their wager.


  Jonathan hovers close to Nelson’s face, surveying the knots and loops around his shoulders and arms. Then he hugs Nelson, and holding the smaller boy’s head in his hands, he whispers, “I’ve got a nickel in my front left pocket. No, no, no. Don’t make a move yet. We can’t give them any reason to think we’ve cheated. I need you to start crying, right now, really put on a show. It’ll be our distraction. Right now.”

  Nelson sobs and sobs, and some of his sobs are authentic. He is still about to be dropped into the latrine, after all. But a bit of his crying is sheer happiness, because Jonathan Quick has just saved him.

  “Now,” Jonathan continues, “reach into that pocket. But when you do, do it fast, and keep that fist balled up tight. Do it.”

  Nelson dives his hand into Jonathan’s pocket and sweeps the nickel into his palm. Continues sobbing.

  “Hey!” Jack yells. “What’re you nancies doing over there? Get ’em in the damn hole. Somebody’ll notice if we don’t have a bugler for taps!”

  “Don’t come up right away,” Jonathan whispers. “You need to stay down there for at least five or ten minutes. The longer the better. You need to convince them you worked some goddamn miracle. When you hear me and Jack fighting, that’s when you yell for us to pull you up, all right? That’s your cue. They’ll all be distracted. Only, our timing has to be perfect.”

  “Thank you, Jonathan,” Nelson whispers. “Just please pull me up as soon as you can, please.”

  Jonathan rubs his hair affectionately, pulls away. “You ready?” he asks aloud.

  Nelson wipes his cheeks with the backs of his fists, terrified he’ll drop the nickel.

  “All right,” Jonathan says, “let’s go.”

  They walk toward the privy, its stench intensifying.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jim says. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Nelson assures him. “Someone had to go.”

  Inside the outhouse, the space is close, dark, the very air confused with flies and the fumes rising off a pit of excrement. Nelson has actually gone the last three days without having a bowel movement, so much does he despise the outhouse. He would rather squat in the forest, his thighs seated on a downed log, his ass pointed out, or cling to a small birch and do his business the way he’d once seen his mother do on a family camping trip up near Lake Superior.