by Tilda Shalof
“That’s what bugs me about Beethoven and those other old-school guys,” I heard one kid say to his friend. “No lyrics.” Then he caught sight of me and gave me a pitying look. “Your era must have been so boring,” he said. “No cellphones, videos, or computers. What did you do all day long?”
I stifled a laugh. “It was rough, but we managed.”
While the kids roasted marshmallows, Mike gave a rousing speech.
“Camp Na-Gee-La is a special place,” he said. “Here we learn about sharing and caring for each other, for our community, and for Mother Earth. We are striving toward a society of equality and justice for all. For example, take candy. Any candy you have must be shared equally. Don’t forget, because next week we have a trip to the jellybean factory.
“We are youth leading youth!” he called out and a great cheering roar rose up.
“We have a dream of a better world!”
“Yay! Yay!” The crowd clapped and whistled.
“Justice and freedom for all oppressed people!”
When the roar died down, Mike said, “Tomorrow you will be assigned your chores, and I expect everyone to work to the best of their ability, whether it’s kitchen duty or cleaning the toilets.”
“Ewww … pee-yoo!” they groaned.
“Remember, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’! Hers, too.” He grinned.
After hugs all around, the younger campers headed to bed while the teenagers got busy with high-energy games of skateboard b-ball and gladiator dodge ball. Watching them, I remembered being their age and that feeling of boundless energy. It was fun seeing kids engaged in sports that didn’t involve a coach, uniforms, schedules, and a drive to and from the event, not to mention trophies handed out for just showing up. Meanwhile, the oldest group, the CITS, went off to their evening program, which involved all of them, boys and girls together, going into the forest that surrounded the camp and staying there for over an hour. Mike called it a social mixer, a way to break the ice so that everyone would get to know each other fast. “When you’re in the dark and can’t see your way, you have to lean on each other. It builds trust,” he explained. These goings-on weren’t building any trust in me. They could be having an orgy in there for all I knew. I can’t say for sure what did go on out there in the woods, but when they finally emerged, rumpled and dazed, they looked pretty pleased with themselves.
While all of this activity was taking place, counsellors who had the night off snuck away and headed for a “romp in the swamp,” which included, rumour had it, skinny-dipping. Later, after it seemed that almost everyone else had gone off to get some sleep and I headed to my cabin and bed, walking past the tripping shed where they kept the paddles, canoes, and kayaks, I heard soft moans coming from inside. Two pairs of flip-flops were lying haphazardly just outside the door. I had to smile.
By the second day I felt as if I’d been there a week. I took a stroll around the grounds. In no time, I was in a scene from a “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” puzzle. Wherever I looked, I saw a potential hazard, something about to break down or an accident waiting to happen. There was broken glass on the ground left from the counsellors’ party. At the waterfront, I found rusty nails protruding from the dock and no sign of a lifeguard anywhere. Later that day, I cornered Mike.
“I have some concerns, things that need your immediate attention.”
“I hear you, but give it time. I know it’s crazy-busy at first, but trust the process.” He tucked his clipboard into the crook of his arm in order to take my hands in his. “You can do it, Nurse Tilda. Be positive!”
Over those first few days I realized that if I was going to last, I’d need a daily routine. But when I tried to set infirmary hours, the kids still came and knocked on my door whenever they liked, day or night. During the brief intervals of quiet, I locked up and walked around camp. I liked to watch the activities because everyone seemed so happy, even doing their chores. My own kids were having a great time, too. Harry found a snake and kept it in a jar beside his bed, along with a pile of flat skimming stones he was collecting. Max discovered the joys of peeing in the forest, climbing trees, and hanging out with his new pal, Wheels, the camp driver, who took him for rides around camp on his BMX bike.
Why couldn’t I just relax, enjoy it like everyone else?
By the third day, the flow of traffic in the infirmary had not slowed and the nights were still full of interruptions. By day the campers came; at night, it was the counsellors. At the end of each day I was exhausted but I learned that there was no point going to bed before midnight because I would only get woken up. One night, for some strange reason (sisterly bonding?), there was a run of gynecological problems. Long after midnight, a counsellor woke me up about a menstrual problem.
“I’m losing all my blood,” she wailed. “It’s extreme.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Weeks and weeks,” she moaned.
“Is it worse tonight? Why did you decide to come to me now, so late at night?”
“I was walking past and saw your light was on.”
I had taken to leaving a little light on in the hallway to help me as I fumbled around for my flashlight and jeans when I got woken up. I made a note to self to remember to turn it off. I handed her pads and tampons and promised to book her an appointment with a doctor tomorrow. “It’s not easy being a girl,” I commiserated.
Shortly after that girl left, another one came to the door with a “quick question” about itchiness and burning, “down there.” Doesn’t anyone ever sleep at this place? I offered to obtain the treatment for a possible yeast infection the next day.
“Okay, but if I take it, how soon after can I, you know, be with my boyfriend?”
“The over-the-counter treatment takes three nights. After that, you should be okay.”
“We can’t wait that long!” She burst into tears.
“Goodbye!” I showed her the door.
I would never talk to a hospital patient like this, but here, it seemed the way to go.
I dozed off, but around four in the morning, I woke up and turned on the light. Something is not right, I thought. Just then, Wheels carried Micaela into the infirmary. She was crying and scared. Wheels’s tough-guy image and usual bluster were gone. He was gentle, holding her close and stroking her hair.
“I hate camp,” Micaela said. “I am sooooo homesick. I want to go home.”
“Is there anything you like about camp?” I asked.
“I only like hanging out with you in the infirmary.”
“You seem happy during the day. You have lots of friends.”
“It’s an act. I’m faking it all the time.”
She sat up, now wide awake. “Do you want to play chess?” she asked Wheels, putting her arm around his shoulder.
“Listen, Micaela, it’s late. Can we discuss this in the morning?”
She nodded. I put her to bed in the infirmary, just down the hall, and she seemed pleased with that.
The late nights, the broken sleep, and my daytime worries were getting to me, and there were still two and a half weeks to go. I cornered Mike after breakfast the next day. “We need to talk,” I said.
“Are you having a hard time, Nurse Tilda? You look like you could use a hug.”
I dodged him and continued. “There are a few problems that need your immediate attention.”
“Lay it on me, sister,” he said, patting my back.
I gave him my top-ten list of what needed to be done to make the camp safer.
“Whoa!” Mike said, holding up his hands. “You’re stressing out for nothing. You know what, Nurse Tilda? These are awesome suggestions. Maybe you should come to a staff meeting. We don’t usually allow parental involvement because we’re self-governing, but we might make an exception in your case. I’ll run it by the others, put it to a vote, and if they’re okay with it, you can join us tomorrow, after breakfast. Sound like a plan?” He put his arm a
round me. “Hang in there, Nurse Tilda.”
What choice did I have?
From time to time, I checked on my kids, but there really was no need. At least they were enjoying camp. Harry was particularly impressed with the lake. He thought its warm currents were from an underwater heating system. I didn’t correct him but did dispel the camp myth that was scaring him and the others about poisonous rainbow frogs that ate little kids’ toes. As for Max, he loved everything.
“Where’s Max?” I asked his counsellor one day when I was down at the lake. The counsellor was stretched out, belly up, on the dock, a towel over his face.
“No idea,” he mumbled from under the towel. He looked like he was taking a nap. Was he the lifeguard? Did I have to supervise the waterfront too? I clenched my teeth. Mothers probably made the best lifeguards, anyway, I thought as I scanned the beach for Max.
“Nurse Tilda!” someone called. “You’re needed in the infirmary.” Okay, but where was Max? He was a bit of a wanderer, and though he always found his way back, I was worried. I could see kids gathering outside the infirmary at the top of the hill, waiting for me, so I headed back. Max’ll show up, I told myself.
Just then, Wheels on his BMX bike came barrelling down the hill toward me at top speed. “Yo, Nurse! Comin’ through!”
He had a passenger. Perched on the handlebars, his bare feet jutting out in front, was Max! “Boo-ya! Step off!” Wheels called out. I jumped out of the way just in time. Wheels slammed on the brakes, Max tumbled off and stood up, giggling madly.
No helmet or protective pads? I scolded Wheels.
By the time I got back to the infirmary, the place was packed. The ceramics instructor who often had just “one quick question” now had “just one more.” A little girl was pale and feeling “yucky.” Another kid claimed to have been attacked by a swarm of killer bees. There was a boy with a scraped arm, and a CIT who was complaining about a wart he’d had for the past three months. Zack was there, too. After my daily nagging, he’d finally showed up so I could clean his wound. (He hadn’t gotten sutures and now it was far too late.)
I did what any nurse would do: triage. Mentally, I prioritized them from life-threatening conditions to emergencies, to potential serious problems, to everything else. With that logic in mind, I took the bee boy first, just in case he really had been swarmed and might be having an allergic reaction. But I couldn’t find any stingers and decided the small raised bump on his arm was merely a mosquito bite. (I most definitely did not follow the advice from the first-aid wheel: For insect stings: Remove stinger and wick the poison out with wet tobacco leaves.) I put some soothing cream on the spot and sent him on his way. Then, I let the little girl who was feeling yucky lie down on a cot while I disinfected the boy’s scraped arm. A few of his friends had by now joined him, all of them trolling for Band-Aids. I tended to be stingy with Band-Aids and doled them out seldom and reluctantly. I preferred to leave small abrasions open to air. Band-Aids seemed useless and I dreaded coming upon soggy ones in the sand or clogging up the shower drain. “I’ll give you one,” I told the boy with the scraped arm, “but only if you promise to dispose of it in a garbage can when you take it off.” I told the CIT with the wart to wait till he got home to get treatment. Finally, I turned to Zack’s knee. Although it was the most serious problem, it would take the longest to treat. The moment I saw it, red and inflamed around the open edges, oozing with thick, sticky pus, I knew it was infected. He would have to see a doctor for antibiotics. I was furious. This infection was totally preventable.
“Why didn’t you come to me earlier to have this wound cleaned? This happened almost a week ago! You’re a counsellor. You should know better.”
Zack didn’t argue. He looked sheepish. Just then, a tough-looking kid wearing purple-brown fingernail polish and filthy jeans with heavy chains hanging out of the pocket burst into the waiting room.
“Hey, do you have anything for depression?” he called out, as nonchalantly as if he was asking for a cough drop. “But please don’t call my parents,” he begged me. “They’ll have a cow.”
He wasn’t homesick, he said, he loved camp, but kept having these “bad thoughts.” Zack used the distraction to beat a hasty retreat, promising he’d come back again to follow up about his knee. By then, the girl who had been lying down had recovered and returned to her cabin with her counsellor, and the ceramics instructor who had only a “quick question” had gotten impatient and left, so Phillip and I had some privacy.
“Phillip, I want to call your parents. This may be something serious, something you need help for.”
“Ahh, do you have to? I wouldn’t have told you if I knew you’d rat on me. Don’t you have a pill I could take right now, to help me sleep?”
“Come with me, let’s go out.” I’d learned the best way to get my own sons to talk was to get them moving. In motion, the words came. As we walked, Phillip agreed to let me contact his parents and restart his antidepressant meds if that’s what they decided he needed. He promised he’d come back to talk with me again.
The next morning after breakfast, I went to the staff lounge, where the senior staff members held their morning meeting. They were lying on the filthy old couches, sinking into the deep indents made by many previous weary bodies. The guys were stretched out, their heads in the girls’ laps; girls lay back with their heads in other guys’ laps. Slumped into each other, the whole mess of them looked like rows of wayward dominoes. I pulled up a metal folding chair and launched into my list of concerns: waterfront safety, the importance of sunscreen, fluids to avoid dehydration, general hygiene, and foot care.
Mike stifled a yawn.
Wheels got up and walked out. “Catch ya later, Nurse Tilda!”
Carly, the head of culture and education, who everyone called Gidget and was hooked up with Moon Doggie (I figured out that their nicknames were a reference to an old TV sitcom), had been paying attention at first, but soon I lost her too. I’d already had a run-in with her the day before when she asked me to check her and her campers, but I didn’t find the lice that she swore her entire cabin of little girls was infested with. She sat there, sullenly, fiddling nervously with her nose ring or else poking her fingers into her Afro, checking for lice when she thought no one was looking.
One by one, as if felled by a sedative, they tuned me out or drifted off to sleep. There was only the sound of my voice droning on about sun hats and closed-toe shoes, especially on long hikes, but no one was listening. Mike was actually snoring softly.
Let me out of here! I thought, but there was no escape. Young people usually have to inhabit the adult world, accommodate to our tastes, timetables, and rules. Here, at camp I was stuck, having to put up with their preference for late-night parties, their predilection for mac and cheese, watery hot chocolate, and ramen noodles with msg broth, and being exposed to their unfamiliar music. I was held captive, trapped in the lonely chasm of the generation gap. Before I came here I’d thought of myself as young and hip, but now I felt like an old lady, nagging, scolding, and complaining. I was wearing jeans and a top from Old Navy but to them it was as if I was wearing polyester stretch pants, bifocals on a string around my neck, and hobbling along with a walker. I crumpled up my list and angrily lobbed it into a garbage can. Mike woke up with a start. “Hey, save a tree! Use the recycling bin,” he said. He was right but I wasn’t in the mood.
After the meeting, Mike came over. “Nurse Tilda, you look like you need a hug.”
I stepped back. “No one was paying attention, Mike,” I complained. “This is important stuff.”
“Camp Na-Gee-La is all about process. We’re a community of shared governance. We don’t come down heavy with rules. Everyone has their say.”
“Not when it comes to health and safety.”
“That nurse needs to chill,” someone said as I walked away.
“Yeah,” her friend agreed. “She should take anger management.”
Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to be
having a grand old time. My own kids loved camp. Phillip was feeling a lot better after his outburst in the infirmary and our walk and talk and there were no more Micaela meltdowns. In fact, as I strolled around camp, all I ever heard were the sounds of laughter, of gleeful kids at play. I was the only miserable one. Even on rainy days, when they stayed in their cabins and had a bunk day indoors, they entertained themselves by singing funny cheers, performing silly skits, and playing board games and rock, paper, scissors, for hours. It was nice to see how content they could be, whatever the weather, managing quite well without parental intervention, technology, or toys. Of course, there were many days when they got into lots of mischief, plotting and carrying out pranks such as panty raids, cabin-hopping (when they invaded another cabin or sometimes even switched over all the furniture and camper belongings), and toilet seat-greasing. One afternoon, a posse of boys burst into the infirmary, begging to borrow the stretchers and bandages so they could dress up like accident victims. They took pictures of each other to send to their parents.
But I didn’t give up trying to bring them in line with what was important to me: health and safety. After they returned from a five-kilometre hike into town to buy (and, of course, share) candy, they were flushed and happy, but their arms and faces were badly sunburned and their feet were sore and blistered. Again, my lecture to the counsellors fell on deaf ears.
I noticed that the organic vegetable patch, which they called “The Farm,” wasn’t thriving; in fact, it was completely overgrown with weeds. During my phone interview with Mike, he had said that the garden would be used to feed the camp and the surplus would be shared with the local food bank. I doubted it would yield enough vegetables for one meal. And that wasn’t the only thing being neglected. Chores around camp were done sloppily or not at all.
It wasn’t because they were too busy. After the long, intense lectures the kids endured each morning on Socialism or Political Activism 101, they had lots of free fun time on their hands. Though the camp didn’t own much in the way of equipment – the sports department consisted of one soccer ball and one basketball – they played a lot of the “old-school” games, as they called them, like capture the flag and hide and go seek. They also had interest groups, like folk dancing (dances of oppressed nations, only), extreme Frisbee, a rock ’n’ roll club, stress-busters, a yo-yo workshop, dream interpretation classes, and the very popular Hippie Club. I wondered what they did in that club – smoke weed, drop acid, have sit-ins, and let the sunshine in?
