Dark Waters, Part II

More from my trip with Sam down the Might Manistee…

While everyone gets their tents set up, I wander around looking for someone to help, saying things like “I suppose an extra pair of hands would just get in the way, eh?” and getting affirmative nods from everyone. Such is the life of a confirmed sissy in a man’s world.

The campfire is being fed slowly, little twigs and sticks. Soon about fifteen kids surround it, experimenting with the combustibility of everything they can lay their hands on . . . little boys and fire.

You ever wonder how many people it takes to put up a tarp between four trees? Well . . . more than you might think, although three people did most of the work while the rest of us stood around and tried not to give too much advice. It takes about an hour, even when they figured out that they could hoist one of the women (two moms came along on the father-son trip) like cheerleaders and attach the corners of the tarp to each tree about fifteen feet off the ground. When they got done, we had a perfect shelter from the rain . . . unless, of course, the wind starts to blow at all.

One of the big selling points of the canoe trip, something that got repeated over and over again throughout the day was how good The Big Chili Dinner would be. Shortly after the tarp/wind tunnel went up, I watched them dump gallon cans of kidney beans, tomatoes, and ground beef into two bucket-sized pots and stir them together. I realized then that I did not, in fact, know nearly as much about marketing as I thought.

I’m good at anticipation, running scenarios and planning ahead. There’s a lot to anticipate when you go on an overnight canoe/camping trip. I had done pretty well throughout the day. Everything in our gear was sealed in plastic and therefore relatively dry. The ponchos had been right at hand when we needed them, so Sam and I could attest to the key benefit of being damp as opposed to actually wet. We had enough snacks and water to last for two days. It was getting dark and we had flashlights with fresh batteries.

Yeah, I thought I had done pretty well up until the point that I realized, watching the guys stirring the diarrhea-like vats of chili, that I hadn’t quite counted on one thing: At some point or another, one of us was very likely going to have to take a crap.

We’re guys, we can basically pee anywhere. But ten seconds of musing on the mental image of me, squatting over unidentified underbrush (“leaves of three, let it be”) in the middle of the night and trying to keep shit off my boots . . . well, I suddenly turned into my mother.

I resolved, then and there, to lock everything down. In times of extreme emergency and stress, my mother has the ability to control things with sheer force of will . . . including involuntary bodily functions. I have inherited some of this gift. We’re like the buddhist monks who can slow their heart rate down and hibernate for six months. Only, in this case, it was my upper, mid, and lower intestine as well as any little valves along the way.

There were outhouses, maybe thirty yards outside the main campsite. They even had doors and roofs . . . just no walls — literally putting the “out” in outhouse. Not a chance in Hell was I going to get my naked alabaster ass anywhere near the warped seat. I had a great uncle who got bit by a black widow while in an outhouse. I won’t say where he was bit, but it wasn’t an organ that you want to expose to arachnid necrotic venom.

So. No poop for me. Sam would have to make his own choices.

Once the fire gets going, a few of the real men (there are many on the trip, thankfully) start bringing in windfall to fuel the flames. Eventually they’re dragging up thirty foot trees and laying them on the fire, and Smoky Bear (and the Michigan forest service) be damned. Besides, it’s started to rain again. So who am I to argue?

It’s raining and I don my supercool vinyl poncho (bright green and only a buck and a half). Sam refuses to wear his. None of the other kids are and he’s acutely aware of how stupid he looks in it. He’s slowly dampening from the top down, the rain seeping in a dark stain down his sweatshirt towards his jeans. I force the point, because I’m a good father (and, as his attitude conveys, also an asshole). He mopes off to play. Five minutes latter I see that his poncho has been shredded down the back during a game of tag. I call him over and get it off of him. His relief lasts long enough for me to rip a pair of arm holes in a trash bag and slide it over his head (elevating my status to total asshole in his mind). I add insult to injury by insisting he put the poncho back on over the makeshift lining. He gives me a look that I didn’t think I’d see until he was sixteen.

Night falls and the rain subsides. Dinner is served out in rations, like life during wartime. Everybody gets a bowl of chili, a handful of shredded cheese, and exactly five saltines. On camping trips, everyone is Soviet.

I don’t remember what I did when I was done eating. I expect I must have wished for more food. And beer.

The campfire is roaring now, with about seventeen literal trees hanging out of it. Every so often, one of the guys shoves one of the trunks a little further in. Later, the length of the trees will become an issue.

The kids are all looking for sticks to roast marshmallows. I watch pre-teen boys running around in the smoky dark, with pointed sticks tipped with embers. And I think about how very far away the emergency room is. Once again, I am my mother.

For some reason, the campfire has gone beautifully psychedelic — flames of bright purple and teal and magenta trickle across the logs. There is much speculation as to the cause. I favor the toxic waste theory and resolve not to stand downwind.

Full night is upon us. I’ve had a fascinating conversation with a guy who tunes pianos for a living. I’ve stolen a second bowl of chili — thumbing my, um, nose at the outhouses. The kids are making smores and drinking rationed hot chocolate (“Only one cup and you have to save your cup if you want to have anything to drink at breakfast”).

The boys wave marshmallows around like flaming brands, trying to extinguish them. I wonder how many carcinogens are in a burnt marshmallow. They’re probably as deadly as cigarettes, especially when roasted over a tree emitting emerald green flames.

Sam has about eighteen smores during the course of the evening before he loses his momentum. I can tell he hasn’t thought through the whole outhouse problem just yet.

Eventually they call for ghost stories. I realize that I don’t really know any. I think about make doing an impromptu version of Baba Yaga, but it really isn’t that kind of a crowd. I resolve to stock up on suitable tales for next year. Instead, I listen in — eavesdropping as it were. I hear “Bowen’s Mill” which does reasonably well, I think, until the somewhat rushed and disappointing ending. And they tell “Yellow Bill” which has it’s moments, but also ends a little to easily, quickly.

The biggest problem, I realize, is that neither of the two stories are actually scary. They almost get there and then shy away from it. I realize I’m probably analyzing things a bit too much and wish, not for the last time that night, that someone had brought some beer. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, either.

Then come a few joke stories of the “bloody finger” variety — they start off obviously scary before ending up in a punchline. And one of the boys tells two long, rambling, made-up-on-the-spot stories that very nearly drive everyone to bed. One of them, I realize halfway through, has been freely stole from an episode in Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Eventually the stories wind down and it becomes apparent that someone is going to have to stay up with the fire and keep feeding the trees into it inch-by-inch. There’s about fifteen feet left on each tree and leaving it for the night is a sure way to make the evening news.

I get Sam up off the damp ground and into the tent. I force him to change into dry clothes, send him off with a flashlight to sort through his gastrointestinal and/or urinal needs on his own. He gets back and we both get into our sleeping bags about the time that our host arrives to get his own two boys sorted out.

We lay there for a while in the dark, side by side. The sleeping bags are warm (thank you Steve and Becky) and protects us against the chill seeping up from the ground. I nudge Sam every once in a while, just to bother him. He shines the flashlight in my face for revenge. Eventually he stops. I listen to his breathing slowly steady out and cycle down into sleep.

Alone, wrapped in my sleeping bag, lying on the cold ground in a tent stuck way out in the fucking woods, I try to fall asleep . . . but I am sad and lonely, so it is a long long time before my thoughts quiet down long enough for me to drop off.

Sometime, late in the night, I wake to the sound of torrential rain slamming against the tent outside. I consider my options, ultimately deciding that if we’re gonna get wet, so be it, and go back to sleep.