Fiction

Phill Provance

Camp

I hadn't thought about Justin for years, until the day after my divorce was final. Even stranger, I don’t remember now what we were doing or what exactly I’d stepped on. Three decades later, I’d assume we were coming back from the pool and I’d decided not to put on the neon water shoes my mother had sent me with. Those suckers hugged my ankles so tightly it made me think of  a grown man’s fists squeezing my throat shut. It makes sense, then, that I’d have left them off at some point when Justin and I, having just come out of the water, scrambled chilly and dripping up the long, uphill dirt path to our cabin, leaving my soft eight-year-old sole exposed.

Anyhow, whenever and however it actually happened, something went into my right foot at some point early that week, and since Justin and I were the only two boys in our four-boy cabin–and since I thought it would be tough of me not to let the adults know–Justin did his Cub Scout best to nurse me, swiping a bottle of peroxide from the dining-hall med kit and pouring it on my foot, then trying to dig whatever-it-was out with a pen knife. This all made me feel better, even if it only made my foot worse. 

Justin also spent the next two days with me in the cabin, avoiding every activity but meals, when he would carry whatever was dry enough to sneak out in his hot-pink drawstring satchel up the hill for me. Otherwise, he would sit with me and read our small collection of comic books and Goosebumps we’d brought for rain days, or we’d talk in the dimly lit cabin about our families. To have heard us tell it, our parents were absolute monsters: I, for instance, explained how my mom had left my dad after he’d gotten drunk and nearly bitten her nose off. Justin said that he’d never met his dad, but so as to outdo my story, he said his mom usually could only afford to feed him and his two sisters PB&Js for dinner. He said he didn’t mind, though, because he liked PB&J more than anything, even chocolate cake. We both agreed we wouldn’t be anything like our dads and would be as much like our moms as boys could be. Moms, after all, were always always worth loving, and dads were evil or, possibly worse, didn’t exist.

The adults, all other people’s dads, confirmed our suspicions of this a day or so later when one of the scoutmasters finally trekked up to our cabin and started screaming at me for hiding away and telling no one about my foot. At this point my heel had puffed and grown cherry red, with a line of red stretching up just above my ankle. The only person I’d ever heard shout louder than the scoutmaster had been my dad. His face got about as red as my foot, and he blustered so much I thought our little clapboard cabin would fall down around us. Then, we were on the trail to the mess hall, Justin supporting me with my arm around his shoulders as I hopped behind the scoutmaster down the rutted, stone-pocked hallway of yellow and green leaves. The sun streaming through the canopy overhead was too bright after days in the cabin so that sunspots floated everywhere in front of my face, and sweat pricked my skin whenever we passed through a shaft of light. I remember thinking Justin must have felt uncomfortable, too, because his head only came up to my chest and he was skinny as a sapling. It couldn’t have felt good being yoked with all my weight.

Eventually, when we got to the dining hall, there were two other scoutmasters, then a fourth, stout man, who said he was a doctor. They lifted me onto the end of one of the long tables so my foot dangled off the edge and the doctor ducked down with what looked like an Estes modeling knife in his hand. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but there was a pinch in my heel that grew and grew, then a stink like a dead mouse filled the room and my foot felt somehow lighter. The doctor straightened and walked something small and black pinched between a pair of tweezers to where my head was lying. He held it close enough to my face that I could see a drop of yellowish goo trickle down one of the tweezer tongs, but I didn’t recognize what it was and lied that I must have stepped on it at home.

“Well, wherever you picked this up, you should have been wearing shoes–and you should have told us about this days ago. You could have lost your foot!”

He disappeared behind the metal double doors to the kitchen with his specimen, while one of the regular scoutmasters wrapped my foot in gauze. It was then that I realized Justin had left, but I didn’t have much time to wonder where he’d gone because next they took me into an office just off the kitchen and set me in a cushioned chair while the scoutmaster who’d come to the cabin called my mother. The call was short, but from what I gathered from the silences between the scoutmaster’s brief explanations and his look of frustration, my mother was in no mood to fetch me. “All right, but if something like this happens again, you’ll have to come get him,” the scoutmaster huffed before returning the handset of the office’s black Bell rotary phone to its cradle.

“I have half a mind to call the camp administrators and have you sent home anyhow,” he said afterward, looking me in the eye from across the desk. “What in the world possessed you to keep this a secret from us? Do you realize you might have died?”

“But it was an accident.”

“Of course it was, but what wasn’t an accident was you hid it from us. How would we have helped you if I hadn’t gone to check on you?”

“I was trying to be tough. I thought scouts are supposed to be tough.”

The scoutmaster made a noise somewhere between a growl and a snort. “Yes, scouts are supposed to be tough–not stupid. Give me one reason I shouldn’t call your mother back and insist she take you home right now.”

I didn’t have a reason to give him, but it felt like if I went home and didn’t finish out the week I would never get my Arrow of Light badge and be able to become a real boy scout. I’d been a scout since first grade, had filled out the paper to sign up for Tiger Cubs myself. My stomach twisted and my throat tightened and, before I knew what I was saying, I blurted, “Justin’s mom only feeds him and his sisters PB&J for dinner every night and doesn’t give them any other food!”

The scoutmaster’s eyelids narrowed, and he looked off to the side. After a minute more, he looked back at me and said, “All right. You can go.”

One of the other scoutmasters drove me to the camp trading post in a golf cart and bought me peanut M&Ms and said he wanted to watch his son’s baseball game, which was between two troops of full-fledged boy scouts from the other side of camp.  The diamond was near the main lodge, and we sat in the wooden bleachers and quietly watched till the game ended after the top of the seventh. The scoutmaster’s son’s troop didn’t win, but I was amazed anyhow with how the older boys’ tall, thin bodies seemed to move so quickly and naturally when they threw and caught and swung at the ball, and I wasn’t sure that my pudgy body would ever be able to move like that.

After the game, the scoutmaster bought me and his son ice cream at the trading post, and while we boys sat on the steps of the lodge porch and ate, he went inside to use the phone. He had been checking his watch all afternoon but hadn't seemed like he was in any rush. Now, after his call, though no faster than before, he came out and herded us straight into the golf cart with melted, sugary drips still running down our knuckles. He dropped his son off at a nearby ring of tents, then drove me to my cabin, heading back down the hill as soon as I’d hobbled up to the door. When I opened it, all of Justin’s things were gone, his sleeping bag, his hot-pink satchel, his pen knife and his share of the comics. On the little desk was a note in scribbly letters, written on what looked like one of the blank pages from the back of a Goosebumps book.

“You are a horrible friend,” it said. “You are alone now, and I hope you will be alone forever.”

Looking around the empty cabin, I realized Justin had left and felt sick again. There, in a tidy pile by the desk, were all my things, my backpack full of clothes, my books and comics, and my half-eaten can of Pringles. Otherwise, the cabin was barer than bare in a way I hadn’t noticed before, just some dark-brown boards nailed together in the shape of a box with wire mesh in the eaves. It seemed my friend had done the only thing a person can do when he is betrayed, and now I was by myself. I wanted to pray that his curse wouldn’t stick to me but knew that I couldn’t because I deserved it. Ashamed, then, and too tired to walk to the dining hall with a bad foot, I lay on my bunk’s thin foam mattress and cried.

Summer Job

They were just outside Tulsa when Jimmy finally emerged from the semi’s sleeper cabin. Up ahead absolute gridlock of bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched at least six miles, with the snarl nowhere in sight. Jimmy rolled down the window and propped his boots cross-legged on the side view. He plucked Earl’s pack of Reds from the change tray, shook it once, then flipped open the top and gazed at the contents.

"Only three left. You don’t mind, do you?"

"No, go ahead," Earl sighed.

"No, no, really. I won’t if you’re not OK with it."

"Well, it’s either that or have you in here all jittery for who knows how long, so I guess you’d better."

"Thanks," Jimmy said, lighting up and handing Earl what remained of the pack. Leaning back, he puffed quietly for several minutes and stared thoughtfully into the distance. Then, straightening again, he turned to Earl with all the proper ease of any barstool philosopher and said, "Makes you wonder how we all keep going, doesn't it?"

"What?" Earl responded, swiping through whatever was on his phone. 

"Keep going. You know, all these eighteen wheelers, miles and miles of them. Everyone hauling to factories and fields and steel mills and lumber yards and railheads and loading and unloading and reloading and heading back. Ain’t it just amazing it all keeps going day after  day?"

"I don't know," Earl said. "I don’t think there’s anything very mysterious about it. Some people need jobs, and other people need stuff, and where we meet there’s trucks and truckers."

"Right. But what about all that ‘stuff.’ What is all this crap we're hauling anyway?"

Earl dropped his phone in the change tray and rolled his eyes at Jimmy over his glasses.

"No, no. I mean, seriously. What is all this stuff really," Jimmy repeated.

"I don’t know, but I guess you’re gonna tell me."

"Pfft. Now see, that’s the problem with you. You only see things for exactly what they are. It’s like a fetish or something–a blessing and a curse."

"Only curse I’ve got as far as I can see is you," Earl laughed–but it was clear by his tone he was only part joking in a way that sent Jimmy to silence.

"Yeah?" the younger man said at length, "Well, you just might need me sometime, too," and he flicked his spent butt between the uprights of his brand-new Timberlands.

Later, about an hour north of Fort Worth, Jimmy had passed out again, leaving Earl to fight sleep in the empty parking lot alone. Off to the left of the long stretch of pavement where the semi sat, the motel sign’s flickering "T" and "E" buzzed so loudly they sounded like a swarm of flies.  Earl shifted in the driver's seat, the vinyl sticking to his thighs in the July heat. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, watching the door to room 17. Nothing. Had he gotten the day wrong? Now, after sixteen hours of nonstop driving and Jimmy’s near-endless chatter making him nuts, he hoped he hadn't screwed this up.

He pulled a fresh pack of Marlboros from the carton under his seat, tapped a cigarette out, and lit it off the dwindling stub already in his mouth. He took a long drag as he clenched his teeth into the stiff, fresh filter and held his breath while the smoke scraped the inside of his lungs. He glanced around at the cracks and oil stains in the asphalt and at the grass in the berm beyond, struggling to survive around the edges. A few cars, dented and rusty, sat in the parking lot, looking as weary as he felt.

He was just about to shift gears and begin the nerve-wracking process of maneuvering the trailer back onto the highway when door 17 finally opened. A woman stepped out wearing a robe that barely reached her knees. Her hair was a mess of blond curls with noticeably brown roots, and on her feet, she wore a pair of dingy pink slippers. Based on the description he’d been given, the woman wasn't June. Earl's stomach tightened. 

"Looking for someone?" The woman leaned against the door jamb, a smirk playing on her lips.

Earl took another drag, his hand shaking. "Got a message to deliver. For, uh, June."

The woman’s smile widened. "June’s busy. Maybe you should come back later." 

Before Earl could answer, the door opened wider, and a man emerged. He was tall, with a thick mustache and a belly that strained against his Hawaiian shirt. He squinted at Earl, then at the semi-truck idling in the lot.

"What you got there, friend?" he asked, his voice rough as sandpaper.

"Just a delivery," Earl mumbled, sweat prickling his forehead. "I was told to leave it with June."

The man laughed, and the sound echoed across the empty parking lot. "June don’t handle deliveries. You leave it with me."

Earl’s mind raced. This wasn't what he'd signed up for. He was a legitimate trucker, not some kind of mule. But he needed the money, and he’d already come this far. The air hung thick and heavy, smelling of exhaust fumes and something else he couldn't quite place. He climbed out of the cab, his legs stiff from the long drive. 

"Follow me," he said, his voice barely a whisper. 

The man accompanied Earl to the back of the trailer and waited for him to unlock the doors and pull them open. Inside were stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes. Supposedly, they contained electronics, but as far as Earl was concerned, they could be assault rifles stuffed with cocaine as long as he got paid and didn’t get caught with them. 

The man whistled. "This is quite a haul." He ran a hand over one of the boxes, his touch possessive. "You sure you’re in the right place?"

Earl nodded, his throat dry. "Got the address right here." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. 

The man didn't even look at it.

"Alright then, leave your rig here tonight. We’ll take care of it and have you ready to head out in the morning."

"What about …?"

"Oh, right," the man said, pulling a cell phone from the breast pocket of his shirt. He punched and swiped, and after a minute or more, there was a ding on Earl’s own phone. The trucker slid his phone from his pocket and a notification from his bank that he’d received $150,000–exactly what he’d been promised.

"So we’re good?" the man asked.

Earl nodded.

"Good. Why don’t you go enjoy yourself and leave the rest to us." And, with that, the man turned and walked back to his room, the woman trailing behind him.

Earl watched them disappear, feeling the knot of unease growing in his gut. He climbed back into the cab and shook Jim awake. "Grab your shit," he said. "We’re staying here tonight."

He waited for Jim to drowsily stumble from the passenger side before locking the cab and leading his half-asleep younger brother to the motel office.

Later that night, Earl found himself in a dimly lit strip club on the outskirts of Dallas. He sat at the end of the bar, nursing a beer he didn’t really want, the music so loud the bass shook the floorboards. Several strobe lights overhead cut the thick, hazy gloom of cigarette smoke and ladies' deodorant. Aside from the dancers, the place was empty except for him, Jimmy, and the bartender.

Jimmy, meanwhile, was leaning over the rail of the stage, waxing poetic in a hoarse shout about the girl spread-eagle in front of him. She was just Jimmy’s type, a redhead with curves that could melt asphalt, her makeup heavy, her hair piled high on her head. 

"Look at her," Jimmy slurred, turning back toward Earl and pointing with his thumb. "Isn't she something? A real heartbreaker!"

Earl groaned. When Jimmy suggested they "find a club," he’d hoped to get in and get out with as much of his $150k nut left as possible, but Jimmy’s lips were looser than a Tai hooker on a docked aircraft carrier. He wondered if Jimmy didn’t care about paying his tuition or if he was just too naive and coddled to know what was up. Honestly, it was probably the latter because it didn’t take an engineering major to know the way a certain type of woman gets when she smells cash on you. Earl had seen it all before, lived it, breathed it until it had almost choked him.

The girl finished her set and descended the stage as she slid back into the tight, red dress she’d just shimmied out of. She sashayed toward Jimmy in a swirl of silk and sweat and slipped into his lap, then pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. Earl watched her and Jimmy chat awhile, just as mesmerized as, presumably, his brother was by how the smoke curled in arabesques from her lips. Earl had been married almost 10 years, but in that moment, he was alone and lonely, and he almost had half a mind to butt in on the pair and flash some real cash. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he watched Jimmy, emboldened by too much cheap whiskey and the dim, suggestive lighting, run his hand up the girl’s thigh. 

"Come on, sweetheart," Earl heard him shout. "Let’s have a drink."

The girl paused, looked him over with an appraising eye, then, perhaps sensing who was really holding the bankroll, glanced over Jimmy’s shoulder at Earl. Earl met her gaze, his own unwavering, a challenge simmering beneath the surface. She hesitated and, then, with a look that didn't quite qualify as a smile or a smirk, rose and followed Jimmy to a set of stools beside Earl.

"Don't mind him," Jimmy said, his hand resting on the small of the girl’s back. "He's just a little shy."

The girl tittered so girlishly it grated on Earl's nerves. "Shy?" she repeated in a thick, honeyed drawl. "Ain’t too many shy men come in this place."

Earl felt his jaw tighten. He took a long swallow of his beer, the bitterness a welcome counterpoint to the girl’s saccharine flirtation. He wanted to escape the pulsing music, the flashing lights, and the scent of cheap perfume and stale dreams. But Jimmy, oblivious, was already ordering another round, his hand resting possessively on the girl's thigh. 

Earl closed his eyes, and the image of the blonde from earlier that day flashed behind his eyelids. The memory was sharp, vivid, a knife twisting in his gut. He’d gotten his money, and he’d seen some men unloading the trailer into a pair of box trucks as he and Jimmy had pulled away in their cab. But he couldn’t get over the fact that the hefty, middle-aged brunette he’d been promised would meet him at the dropoff had been nowhere in sight. What in God’s name was going on, he wondered. If this "June" wasn’t going to meet them, or if she was but ended up unable to make it for whatever reason, the client could have at least called or texted.

As things stood, though, Earl wasn’t only worried about whatever it was he’d been paid a mint to haul; now he had to worry somebody involved was missing. If he’d known all this before leaving Chicago, he either wouldn’t have taken the job, or he would have at least asked for more money. Hell, the way Jimmy was going, he’d be surprised if they weren’t cleaned out by morning.

Earl watched the pair beside him, the girl seated between him and Jimmy and leaning in close to murmur something in Jimmy’s ear. It was obvious how this night would end. Earl had seen it play out a hundred times before. Jimmy, drunk on cheap liquor and false promises, would stumble out of the club arm-in-arm with the girl only to wake up the next morning alone, his wallet empty, his heart a little more bruised. Earl wanted to warn his brother, to shake him awake from the drunken stupor clouding his judgment. But what was the point? Jimmy listened about as well as deaf a person when he was drunk, and right now, he was too caught up in the fantasy, the illusion of a connection, to pay even Christ incarnate any mind.

"So, what brings you two fine gentlemen to our benighted establishment?" Earl heard the girl purr.

"Business," Jimmy said in a tone Earl could only describe as a weak attempt at worldly. "I’m Jim, and this is my–err–partner, Earl."

"Well, Jim and Partner Earl, what kind of fun are you into tonight?"

Earl finished his beer and dropped the bottle into the beer gutter so it clinked hollowly against the laminated wood. Then, he stood up, his movements deliberate, his gaze fixed on the back bar.

"I'm going," he announced flatly. "You coming, Partner Jim?"

Jimmy, lost in something the girl had said, barely registered Earl’s words, but Earl didn't wait for a response. Tossing some bills on the counter, he turned and walked out, the image of Jimmy's oblivious smile burning into his memory. Seconds later, he was out in the cool night air, the blaring music faded into a muffled drone behind him. He lit a cigarette and felt a familiar emptiness settle into his chest. He debated calling a cab and leaving Jimmy to deal with his own bad decisions, but no sooner did he grasp his phone in his pocket than he let it go again. Maybe it was better to let Jimmy have his fun while he could. In the morning, they would be on their way to Kansas City to pick up another load on their way back north, and anyway, Earl didn’t want to think about the man and woman from that afternoon, let alone go back to the motel by himself. Maybe this haul was just another job, but he didn’t want to get any closer to it than he absolutely had to.

Still, a doubt lingered, a nagging voice in the back of his mind. He reached into his wallet and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper with the address on it. It was just a number and a street and the name "June." Had he missed something? He couldn’t help but feel there was something more, a clue to a puzzle he didn't want to solve. 

Suddenly, though, he heard the click of a pair of high heels beat the blacktop behind him and turned to see Jimmy and the girl exiting the club. He crumpled the paper in his fist and tossed it into some weeds at the edge of the lot.

The next day, Earl awoke around noon in his motel room’s sunk-in armchair, the bill of his ball cap pulled down over his eyes. Jimmy was snoring in the bed beside him, a bit of cheese on his face from where he’d rolled over his half-eaten breakfast sandwich. Earl had spent most of the time after they returned from the club sipping coffee in the Carl’s Jr. across the lot from the motel, watching the truck and the door to room 17. Not once in the three or four hours he sat there did anyone come or go. In fact, the lot had been empty aside from his semi, without even a car in front of room 17 or any of the adjacent rooms. He couldn’t remember if there had been one there, but he thought he’d seen one, just a nondescript silver Honda or Toyota or Kia–the kind of car you drive when you don’t make enough money to stand out or make so much money you don’t want to stand out.

Anyhow, after watching the better part of the night, Earl assumed the man and woman had left with the box trucks. Eventually, Jimmy had crossed the lot after the girl left, and they’d gotten some food before heading back to the motel for Jimmy to sleep off his hangover. Earl turned on the TV and slowly raised the volume until Jimmy rolled over and yawned.

"What the hell you trying to do," he muttered.

Earl whipped his brother’s sweat-stained t-shirt at him and walked outside for a smoke. The night’s worries coming back to him, he crossed the lot to the rig and opened the door to the cab. Everything was exactly as it had been, just the midday Texas sun was starting to cook the stale mixture of cigarette smoke and dust inside. He noticed that the door to room 17 was open as he headed back across the lot, but peering in, he saw that it was cleared out and a maid was making up the single queen-size within. Returning to his own room, he sat on the edge of the bed, his gaze drawn to the flickering light of the television.

"It was a long night," Jimmy said coming from the bathroom. "Guess I fell asleep."

"Yeah, I guess you did," said Earl.

“Look, don’t give me any shit about Lisa because I don’t want to hear it.”

“So that’s her name, is it?” Earl said, cracking a smile.

Jimmy paused in pulling his jeans on and studied Earl’s face, clearly unsure if his older brother was joking. 

“Listen, don’t worry about it,” Earl went on. “Looks like you had fun, and the good news is your little fling didn’t cost us anywhere close to what we made.”

“Well, I figured you kind of knew that. Hard to believe we’d spend that much partying.”

“You’d be surprised how fast it can go. Anyhow, we’ve got to get back on the road in the next half hour if we’re gonna make our pickup.”

"Where to this time?"

  "Eighteen-wheelers. Mile after mile of eighteen-wheelers."

“Ha! You’re pretty funny when you want to be. I thought you’d turned all piss and vinegar on me.”

“Me? Nah. But when there’s money to be made, I don’t like losing time,” Earl said, rising. “You know, most jobs pay a bonus if you’re early.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. And just so happens I factored in the possibility of a little delay on your part. But from here on out we’re all business, and by the way, I didn’t pick your ass up from school to ride shotgun the whole way. I’m gonna need you to pull your own weight behind the wheel, or I’ll have Hellen and Stevie be my riding partners when we get back to Illinois.”

“I thought Stevie was playing baseball this year.”

“He is, which is why you’re gonna have to contend with your nephew and sister-in-law if you screw this up.”

In the daylight, with about an hour awake behind him, Earl didn’t feel the same unease he had the night before. Even the scraggly patches of grass poking up through cracks in the pavement seemed more vibrant. Screw it, Earl thought. Maybe the job was weird, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong or illegal. Maybe this June lady just couldn’t make it after all. Part of him still knew that was probably wishful thinking. But, as he climbed into the cab, turned the ignition, and put the rig in reverse, it felt like they had made a clean escape, and whatever had been going on with that man and the blonde, it was all but behind them. 

  “So Kansas City now?” Jimmy said, picking through a stack of papers he’d pulled from the visor.

“Kansas City,” Earl said in affirmation as he pushed his phone into the windshield mount and pulled out onto the access road between the motel and the highway. “Hey, Siri, start a route to Kansas City.”

“Starting route to Kansas City,” the phone squawked. “Arrival time, nine hours and nine minutes.”

“What’s in Kansas City anyhow?” Jimmy asked.

“Stuff.”

“Right, stuff.”

“Look, it ain’t what you haul that really matters with this job. People say it all the time in other situations, but especially with driving trucks, ‘it ain’t the destination but the journey.’”

“Yeah, I feel you.”

For a moment, Earl expected Jimmy to say something more, but more never came. Instead, the younger man rolled down his window and watched the landscape as it began to scroll by faster and faster. Earl turned his attention to the road and rolled down his own window. Now, as they climbed the onramp and began picking up speed, he could hear the wind beating against the hood and smell the exhaust coming off the other rigs. Somewhere, for an instant, he thought he heard a siren in the distance, but then there was nothing again except the gushing roar of the traffic rushing all around them. In the sideview, he watched as the ribbon of asphalt and whatever it was they’d almost gotten mixed up in vanished behind them.