GOLD STAR SANDERLING

3.

The rainy days at Madison County Day Camp were way worse than the sunny ones. I know that sounds like, duh, but I was an indoor recess kind of kid, so any opportunity to not play outside was bliss. Shuttered in that cedar lined cabin with boys being boys, though, that was a brand new circle of summer camp hell. I had less to offer them in conversation than baseballs to hit or soccer balls to kick or frisbees to catch. So, I hunched in the corner under my cubby, against the hard, knotty wall, squinting at their foreign language, and on constant alert to avoid the tennis ball pinging around the room as part of a dangerous game with on-the-fly point systems.

Olly Oakes, Head Counselor, was darting in and out on a walkie, looking important, gathering intel. Each time the door flew open and the sound of the rain filled the cabin, all activity would halt like he was the lightning. Most of the time he had nothing to say, but this time he announced he needed two campers to round up any equipment left on the field in the melee of the sudden downpour. All my bunk mates, of course, wanted a chance to run out into the storm and release their squirming hyper-adolescence. I crossed my arms under my thighs and turtled into invisibility.

Nick Sanderling was alway the loudest, always the first, always ready to seize every kind of summertime opportunity. And he was always picked, like a camp counselor's version of a teacher's pet.

Over the chorus of chanting volunteers, I heard Olly call my name. Avoiding the potential for shenanigans, I guess, if Nick were paired with one of his friends. Disappointment hushed the room. I peered up into their chagrin, then lowered my head, stood myself up, and marched through the maze of tsks and eye rolls and sneering stares, avoiding eye contact with Nick when I reached the other side of the bunk.

Olly quickly yanked two garbage bags over our heads as makeshift ponchos. I struggled to just barely push my arms through when he opened the cabin door and sent us out into the rain. 

I followed Nick down the slick steps. The sound of the rain seemed more treacherous than the feel of it, but it must have just been the tree coverage because when I looked between their towering trunks, toward the lake and the field, it was like the greens and blues and browns of the summer camp world were being censored. All fuzzy and blurred out and not quite there.

We reached the precipice at the bottom of the hill, by the Arts & Crafts cabin, where we would step out onto the activity field, all wide open to the sky.The grass was filling up with water like a kiddy pool. We both stopped, instinctively. I looked at him for guidance. He looked at me with certainty. And then he took off running. I held my breath. Then jumped in after him.

Nick’s camp star instincts kicked in with a jolt and he glided around like a champion video game character collecting tokens, while I scurried behind like a hapless sidekick. I was grateful when I spotted the yellow of a wiffleball bat in the distance. I presented it to him as a precious offering, proof of my human worth. He just pointed to the shed and resumed hunting and gathering.

He called me over when it was time to carry in the soccer nets. There wasn’t much talking, just each taking a side and going about the routine. And I felt nervous about that. About the lack of conversation. About my general inability to small-talk with other boys. It’s what made me weird. It’s why I had no friends. But when it was time to fold the tennis and volleyball nets and we’d come together at the handoff and his fingers would take the corners from my fingers and I’d pick up the other end, it didn’t feel so strange.

We put away what seemed like the last of everything when gold star Nick Sanderling said, “Let's do one last loop.” 

I huffed out a nod and we ran the perimeter again, sloshing and slipping in the grass. As we rounded the baseball diamond at the northeast tip, I totally biffed it. Launched myself face first into the swampy mess of the field with a grunting thud. Pushing myself onto my hands and knees, I bit back bitter humiliation and braced for Nick’s inevitable taunts. But when he turned around, he seemed genuinely concerned. 

“Are you ok?” he yelled through the shouting rain.

I nodded from all fours, totally defeated.

And then, as he ran back to help me up, Nick Sanderling slipped, too. And I gasped in shock as he fell to the ground. And I swear the camp shook a little. But then his laughter burst open just like the clouds had right in the middle of Ultimate not an hour before. And I followed suit, in a cheek-stretching release. And we could barely contain ourselves enough to go on, but we lifted each other back up and started running again. 

A full sky flash of lightning startled me to a stop. And suddenly we were on the opposite side of camp. And it stunned me to have made it that far. There was Madison County Day, all stretched out in front of me painted in drab, dreary, melting watercolors. And I wondered if maybe I had never really seen it before. If I was so preoccupied with being stuck inside of it, so desperate to be released from its permanent sunshine, that I never really looked. But here we were on the other side of it seeing a rainy day version that really nobody was supposed to see and it actually did look kind of, I don’t know, like, mythic.

“It’s cool, huh?” Nick said, wandering back to me when he noticed I stopped.

I nodded, reverently.

We stood there admiring it for a moment, rain popping in a plasticky drumbeat off our trash bag torsos. 

“Come on,” he said, tapping my shoulder and nodding me off into the wooded trail that led to the other side of the lake and up toward the zip line. 

I watched him start to go and my body went a little funny because I knew I was about to be rule breaking. I chewed at my lip for a second, trying to find the will and the reason to pull myself back, but came up thoughtless. So, I set my jaw and followed him under the arch of the trees. 

As I journeyed the trail, I watched my white sneakers caking in gray brown muddy blood. I felt dizzy running off into this shouldn't situation. Though we weren't running, I guess, it was more of a power walk, but it felt like running. Like the rush of going too fast, of losing control. My blood was running. My lungs were running.

We were nearing the zip line tree and I knew he was gonna make us climb it. And I was gonna, like, die or break my arm or something and be in major trouble. But then he kept on going into a part of the world I had never thought to imagine before. And when he finally stopped, at this tiny little break in the trees, I caught him just looking out in a quiet wonder. I slowed my pace and walked up next to him and followed his gaze out over the lake.

This little inlet hid any concession to camp. You couldn't see the waterfront. There was no view of the docks or the beach or other camp stuff from this corner. It was just an unadorned lake surrounded by trees drinking the raining sky like in the middle of the wilderness. 

“This is my favorite spot,” he whispered, like someone was listening. 

I nodded, approvingly.

He sat down. I sat next to him. On a makeshift little perch that was just the root of a tree growing out over the lip of the water. Too small, really, for two people. So the sides of our bodies brushed as I sat. I squeezed my thighs together so that we wouldn't be uncomfortably touching, pulled my elbows in under my ribs, and clasped my hands around my wet shins, staring at my knees and the lake beyond them. Nick stretched and put his palms into the dirt, so that his left arm was reaching behind my back. He started knocking his knees so that his left leg would hit my right and bounce back again. Pat, pat, pat. 

I couldn't believe this was Nick Sanderling’s favorite spot in the whole of the camp. Shouldn't it be the basketball court or the archery range or any and all of the places where he was king, where he never missed, where everybody wanted him on their team, where he could be seen, where he could be championed. 

“I'm glad Olly picked you to go with me,” he said, uncharacteristically nervous.

I nodded, curious and elated and guarded.

We were more open to the rain, sitting here, just outside the trees. I watched the water streaming into my socks and bouncing like sparks off the lake. And then Nick stopped moving his legs and just let them fall open, so his knee was resting against mine. I peered down at his black Adidas Sambas, his soaking white calves, his khaki cargos, his puddling poncho, his breathing chest, his shivering pink mouth, and into his furiously intent gray green eyes looking square into mine. I swallowed a gulp. I'd never been here before. Not just this spot at the lake, but locked in a look like this. Blinking through the water rushing down our faces. Our bodies shaking from wet cold.

A spectacular, earth-shifting roll of thunder froze us in fear. Our eyes remained wide open in full body paralysis until it clattered to an epic end. Held breaths broke into smiles. And, then, relieving laughter. And I let my knees fall open, too, and their slipperiness made his slide on top of mine and our legs formed a little Venn diagram. And I opened my chest and stretched my hands back behind me, so our arms crossed and our bare elbows met. And I turned and looked back over the lake, feeling his skin on my skin and our closeness.

And we sat still like this. For a minute or a second or an hour. And I thought maybe I’d let myself fall even further into him. But just as I felt the cold, squishy prickle of our linking limbs, there was a sharp, halting whistle in the foggy distance. He shot up. I slammed my knees together.

“That's probably for us,” he said, brushing the water off his poncho.

Gold star Nick Sanderling.

And before I knew it we were pounding the path back to camp.