GOLD STAR SANDERLING

2.

My favorite thing about Madison County Day Camp was when it was over. When I’d be sitting on the picnic table outside of the cabin, peeking between the trees, down the hill toward the lake and see Dad’s dusty red Ram roll out the end of the driveway to come pick me up. My least favorite part was everything before that.

Lake Macounda, pronounced like ‘raccoon, duh,’ as with much of the lore surrounding the camp, was a clever shout of Native mascotry and appropriation. There was no Native history to this camp. And there was no history at all to the lake. It was a man made body of water built by Madison County Day, for Madison County Day. MA - COUN - DA.

This glorified pool sat at the mouth of that endless, gated driveway and served as a sort of proof that one had entered a true suburban American idyll. A pristine lake. Perfectly calm. Only a whisper of a ripple skimming the surface. The picture of it, a thing of classic New England charm. Masquerading an icy truth.

The boys bookended each day in the lake. We were the first to rip it open every morning during Instructional Swim, an hour of lessons, and the last to leave it after our grand finale Free Swim, an hour of relative fun. Barely kissed by the shaded morning sun, Lake Macounda was arctic at 8 AM. Staring at its looming opacity as we marched toward it was an attack. Some of the counselors wore sweatshirts, wrapped in towels, as they waited for their campers on the beach. Most of the instructors didn’t even go in.

Despite my general lack of athleticism, I did know how to swim. My mother did not know how to swim, so she had me bobbing up and down in the town pool with a styrofoam block strapped to my back before I could even walk super well. But standing at the end of that dock, more naked than I had ever been in front of other people, blinking into the impossibly quiet mystery of Lake Macounda, my confidence fled.

On that first day, after tossing our towels and shirts on the grassy hill next to the beach, we were marched in a line up the ramp to the top left tip of the H dock, all smooth and perfectly painted in a Connecticut gray. I lingered at the end of the line as one by one my bunkmates plunged into the frigid abyss. A blur of shrieks echoed the surrounding sky. I could hear the militaristic commands of the swim instructor, but only as hollow, grunted mumbles. My ears were ringing too intensely to make out definitive words. I clung to my body for modesty and comfort. Goosebumps travelled up my arms like a virus. My jaw erupted in convulsions. I clenched it and sucked in my gut to maintain a posture of bravery as I teetered from one foot to the other to free my soles from the cold, slippery planks.

I ventured a panoramic glimpse of the lake and saw a scene from war. Campers of all ages and shapes and sizes and varying degrees of fear and shame and confidence were bobbing and splashing in and out of the water. Instructors in red swim trunks pointed in any and all directions and mimicked swim strokes upright like mad baboons and blew into their tense, angry whistles with sadistic glee.

“You’re up.”

I felt a cold, dry slap between my shoulders. I squinted through the reflection of the new sun on the water to seek the source, but startled back as a whistle blew directly into my left ear, surely to lasting effects. I heard another mumbled order through my deafening blindness.

“Huh?” I asked, wincing, pathetic.

“You’re up, buddy.”

Noah Sherman. An almost sophomore too burly to be believed. With a full five o’clock shadow and curly black chest hair threatening to escape from under his weather worn MCDC crew neck. 

At camp, adult is a relative term. At camp, Noah Sherman is in charge. Sure, there were “real” adults around. Uncle Chuck, the Camp Director, and Aunt Debbie, his wife. They were close to my grandparents age. And there was Aunt Joan, the Camp Nurse, and Uncle Mike, who ran Archery, and Aunt Linda, who did Arts & Crafts. They were all grown ups of varying acceptable authoritative age ranges. But we only interacted with any of them on special occasions. Our closest connection to adult supervision was in the form of Camp Counselors.

The Boys’ Head Counselor, the counselor most in charge of all the other counselors, was Oliver Oakes. Everybody called him Olly. He was a giraffe-like, lacrosse-playing, American Eagle dreamboat. And he was only even going into his senior year. Of high school.

Noah Sherman was a Bunk 6 counselor and was also, at that moment, the swim instructor in charge of my placement test. And, essentially, in charge of my living or drowning.

I hadn't heard a single word of his instructions, so I quickly tried to scan and assess what my fellow campers were doing in the dark depths below. But with barely enough time to swallow one last breath, Noah offered me another “Let’s go, buddy,” another chirp of the whistle, and a healthy shove to the center of my spine.

And maybe it was a generosity. Cruel, but ultimately more humane. Without time to question it, the cold water was an exquisite kind of crash. My body was in shock, sure, but also flush with an aliveness that maybe people got from cigarettes or beer or things I’d never been cool or brave enough to try. Or maybe that was just a side effect of all the water rushing up my nose and pounding at my brain.

I’ve always kept my eyes open underwater. And the belly of Lake Macounda was like looking through a root beer bottle. Brown and dusty and carbonated. I could see reedy plant life sprouting up from the bottom and the treading legs above me. I breached the surface with a thrilling gasp and a refreshed smile, totally out of trend with my shivering, jaded, unamused cohorts.

For the next forever, Noah gleefully barked orders at us from above. To tread. To float. To backstroke and breaststroke and butterfly until eventually we were all sitting on the beach, awaiting our fates. Not even allowed to get our towels yet, succumbing to the chill morning air freeze drying our chattering bodies.

Most of Bunk 5B was placed in Levels 3 and 4. Level 5 was the most advanced and not really a level at all, just an assistant to another instructor. Only Nick Sanderling made level 5. This didn’t seem to surprise anybody, as most of my bunkmates just groaned like “of course” when Noah announced his placement. And only me and Randy Sykes, skinny and bespectacled, with a two sizes too big bathing suit, who also seemed ill-equipped for the high stakes, all sports world of summer camp, were doomed to Level 2. Level 1, it should be said, was just for the 6 and 7 year olds.

Randy and I made our trek through the sand to the section of the beach with the rest of Level 2, all so much smaller than us. Me, with my suit too short, and Randy with one he could barely keep on.

“Randy, your suit’s falling down.”

“Whoops!” he sang out like a Looney Tune, as he yanked it back up. He looked around, in comical shame, at anyone who might have caught a peek. Then, he turned to me and said quite sincerely,  “Thank you.”

I nodded.

Our Level 2 instructor was Jeff Aronson. Jeff was nice enough. Another high school jock-type, which seemed the only credential to get the job, but with a goofy, gentle-giant quality that softened him a bit. He sat in the sand with us, like a cool, young English teacher in a backwards chair, as he preached the rules of the waterfront and detailed our swimming syllabus for the next four weeks of camp.

I was always a pretty skilled compartmentalizer. Though prone to daydreaming, I knew when and how to set my focus. I dutifully listened in every class at school. Latch-keyed, I was the first of my family home every afternoon. Alone, I’d make a grilled cheese sandwich, sit at the kitchen island and immediately start and finish all of my homework. But nothing in the world of Madison County Day felt important enough to commit to. None of it felt real. It was a buzz of someone else’s fantasy. Someone else’s daydream. So, as Jeff droned on, my mind went away. To a wishing I was home. Or at my Great Aunt and Uncle’s beach house, or with my cousins at their actual lake, not this pretend one.

I flinched back to reality when a set of legs stepped between me and Randy from behind and walked toward Jeff, setting himself down at my diametric endpoint in our Level 2 learning circle.

Nick Sanderling was summer camp perfection. Anyone who takes pains to build an American summer camp hopes that someone like Nick Sanderling will show up and prove its epic potential. And here he was, the youngest camper in Level 5 and Jeff’s Level 2 assistant swim instructor. Splayed out on the sand in easy confidence. His carefree body all naturally lean and free of blemish. His straight black boy band hair totally undeterred by the water, if even more sparkly and appealing.

Meanwhile, my sheared curls had become a coarse, cotton candy nest. And I pulled my knees further up and hunched my shoulders further down to hide my blubbery form. I felt like an insult to the Teen Beat Adonis on display in front of me. And when Jeff finally let us break, I was desperate to get to the hill and pull my hat and my shirt back on. I started lumbering as quickly as I could through the crunchy, white sand, arms folded in front of my belly like a shield.

And then a tap on my shoulder.

“Hi. Teddy, right?” Nick Sanderling said as he caught up to me.

“Uh huh.” I mumbled, afraid to look at him, staring straight down as I kept walking.

“Noah’s a dick.”

“Oh,” I kind of said, though it was more of nonsensical snort.

“You shouldn’t be in Level 2, you’re not that bad.”

I shrugged.

“Your legs kinda sink down too much, but your strokes are fine. I don’t even think he was watching. Jeff’ll probably advance you.”

I nodded, though slightly confused. And then I briefly dared to look into Nick’s utterly sincere face. And he nodded and lifted his brows to show me he meant it. I nodded back, again, forcing a smile, as I threw my sight back in front of me. And I watched his legs run ahead up toward the hill.

And I felt like I was sinking, but also floating. And I kind of wanted to smile. And maybe I even did. And it was kind of the worst. So, I shook it away.

“Do you wanna be my buddy for Free Swim?”

“Huh?”

“Do you wanna be my buddy for Free Swim?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Free Swim. At the end of the day. Everyone needs to have a buddy. Who you make sure doesn’t drown. And they blow the whistles and everyone holds their buddy’s hand and that’s how they know we’re all still alive. And I don’t usually have a buddy, so I just sit on the beach, but I thought maybe you could be my buddy since you’re new and we’re both in Level 2, but then I saw Nick talking to you and maybe he asked you to be his buddy and maybe I missed my chance, but if you wanted to, if you weren’t Nick’s buddy -”

“I’ll be your buddy, Randy.”

“Oh. Cool. Great. Great.”

I wasn’t sure how many more times I could stomach hearing the word buddy. But also I thought maybe a buddy wouldn’t be so bad.