Josh Wolk - Cabin Pressure

CABIN PRESSURE

One Mans Desperate Attempt to Recapture
His Youth as a Camp Counselor

Josh Wolk

For Christine, of course

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MADE MY SUMMER CAMP SO SPECIAL WAS THE LIBERATION from self-consciousness. For eight glorious weeks, boys were free of the intimidating, judgmental scrutiny that they had to tiptoe around for an entire school year. They could finally be comfortable with their own personalities, likes, and dislikes, at ease knowing that no one was staring at them, analyzing their actions.

Which was kind of at odds with my writing a book about them.

No camper or counselor asked to have their summer chronicled and interpreted by me. When I told the director my intentions while applying to return to work at camp, he said, All I care about is getting a good staff. What you do with the experience is up to you. When I arrived, people saw me as a counselor. When I disclosed my memoir side project to people, camper and counselor alike asked a few questions and then got distracted by the diving board, sailboats, mountains, bows and arrows, or tennis courts and dashed off to have a good time, quickly forgetting about my book. Fortunately, it didnt stop them from being themselves. Which is all the more reason not to punish them for it.

All the events that appear in this memoir did happen, but I have clouded peoples identities, composited some, and changed all their names, as well as the name and location of the camp itself. This last part was a decision I struggled over, as I wanted my camp to be recognized as the beloved spot it is, but I didnt want to leave anything that would make the people involved recognizable. Everyone I had the pleasure to spend the summer with left camp with idyllic memories, memories I didnt want to confuse by making these wonderful kids and dedicated counselors feel retroactively self-conscious. This goes most of all for my hilarious, sometimes maddening, but always incredible cabin of fourteen-year-old campers: I can think of few people in this world, including myself, who would be willing to be immortalized as their adolescent self.

PROLOGUE

A DOUCHEBAG SAYS WHAT.

I had learned this helpful fact in junior high, butmuch like algebra and the capitals of foreign countriesI had forgotten it sometime over the last twenty years. Now, at thirty-four years old, standing on the edge of a dock, I got a refresher course from the three twelve-year-olds splashing in the green lake water below me.

Come on, I want to see your backstroke, I begged them.

Adubagsaywhuh? mumbled a lumpy, shaggy-haired boy whose dense pattern of freckles made him look like hed been shot in the face with an orange paintball. He bounced on his toes, spinning himself in a slow circle in the water, making tiny waves with his cupped hands. His two swim-classmates had their backs to me, looking out at a couple of sailboats slowly inching toward their moorings on this windless day.

I dont know what youre saying. I stared at him. Get moving.

Adubagsaywhuh?

What? I said.

Ahhhhhh! he sprang up in the water, laughing and spraying my feet with water. His friends turned around to see what happened. I said a douchebag says what, and you said what! Guess youre a douchebag! Hey, guys, dja hear what I just did?

One of his friends said, Ahomosaywhuh.

What? asked the freckled one.

Ahhhhh! Homo! Hoisted by his own petard. Gratifying, sure, but it didnt bring me any closer to my goal of getting these three to swim. And now a frenetic splash fight had broken out. Pinwheeling their arms into the water for maximum dousing, they turned their heads from each other to keep their faces protected. Preventing their mouths from filling with water allowed them to take the what game to the next level while still keeping up an aquatic assault.

Adickheadsayswhat!

I cant hear you. Afartfacesayswhat!

Apoopeatersayswhat!

Enough! I yelled, taking a step back to avoid the crossfire. In the distance I heard a bugle honk, signifying the end of the class, and the end of another morning at Camp Eastwind. All right, you win! Now get out of the water! The splashes petered out and they scrambled up the dock ladder, stopping only to shake and spray me like wet dogs before scurrying to get their towels. I sat down on the edge of the dock, dangling my feet in the water and looking out at the lake that stretched beyond our cove. Shadowing the far coast were low, green Maine hills and mountains. The summer air was freshthe only trace of anything unnatural was the faux-beachy smell of the sunscreen trapped in my untrimmed beard and mustache. When I first got to Eastwind this summer, I was convinced this spot was the most restful in the world. After six weeks, I believed roughly the same thing, provided all the kids were removed.

My coswim counselor, Helen, wandered up behind me. So whats this I hear about you being a douchebag?

I cant deny it. I said what.

What?

Welcome to the club, douchebag. I hopped off the dock into the water and submerged, enjoying the deadened underwater silence, where there were no lake trout muttering, Abottomdwellersayswhat?

Lunch was characteristically hectic and deafening, the dining hall full of flailing arms all trying to get the last slice of bacon for their BLTs. This sparked a philosophical debate at my table of five kids that lasted for the duration of the meal: Can vegetarians drink bacon grease? While trying to moderate this discussion, an orange gob of French dressing dripped off my salad fork onto my T-shirt. I halfheartedly wiped it away with my thumb, leaving a rusty streak. My normal fastidiousness had gone the way of my need for privacy this summer; my T-shirts and shorts were Jackson Pollocks of meal stains. The water left after I finally did my laundry would provide scientists with the precise DNA of my diet.

By the time lunch ended, wed agreed to disagree on the bacon conundrum, at least until we could find a vegetarian. Now it was Rest Hour, time for everyone to return to their cabins and count the minutes until they were no longer forced to sit still. I went to gather the mail, and made the slow walk back to the cabin, orbited by four of my fourteen-year-old camper roommates demanding to know if they got any letters.

Nobody gets mail until everyones on his bed, I said.

OK, fine, but just tell me: Did I get any?

Nobody gets mail until everyones on his bed.

Im not asking to have it, just tell me, did I get any?

Nobody gets mail until everyones on his bed.

This loop continued until I pushed open the wide screen door of our one-room pine cabin. I strode down the aisle between two rows of metal cots, neck ducked forward so as not to smack my forehead on a rafter. I passed the bed of Lefty, the cabins biggest wiseass. He was showing off a tiny class photo of a girl to his wide-jawed sheepdog of a pal visiting from a different cabin, who took it in admiringly. So she sent me a letter and I wrote her back, but I made her wait a little bit. Shell totally write back.

Shes cute, said the sheepdog, nodding. His helmet of thick, curly hair flopped atop his head like a bleacher-bums rainbow wig. Really cute. You should totally do her.

I interrupted. Are you pulling out that picture again? How can we be sure thats not your sister?

Haaaaa, your sister! the sheepdog said, laughing and pointing at Lefty.