Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 16:28:06 -0500
From: Bear Pup <orson.cadell@gmail.com>
Subject: Canvas Hell 13

Please see original story (www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/camping/canvas-hell) for
warnings and copyright. Highlights: All fiction. All rights reserved.
Includes sex between young-adult men. Go away if any of that is against
your local rules. Practice safer sex than my characters. Write if you like,
but flamers end up in the nasty bits of future stories. Donate to Nifty
**TODAY** at donate.nifty.org/donate.html to keep the cum coming.

*****

I was a bit shocked that I didn't sob or cry at all. Mr Weepy seemed to be
out of the office right then. What I said meant a lot to me, and took a lot
out of me. I just sat breathing, rethinking each word and honestly decided
I didn't want to take any of the back. I dragged a camp blanket around me,
still leant against my kit with feet pointed in the direction of everyone
else's head. I turned and listened to the forest at night, sounds that
slowly wove into dreams and dreams into deep sleep. I don't know what those
dreams were, but they had a peaceful tension to them that floated me clear
to morning.

*****
Canvas Hell 13: Monsters and Demons

By Bear Pup

T/T/T; NO SEX; self-discovery; centipede monster from hell; confession and
honesty; the demons that haunt us

Saturday dawned clear, bright, beautiful and utterly miserable. Unlike
normal, I was not the first out. I woke to hear Jim heading off to the
Hygiene Hut and Karl moving around to water the beech. I pulled myself out
and relieved my own night's piss. Karl was off to HH before I finished. Jim
was heading to the Mess Hall and Karl was drying himself desultorily when I
got to the showers. Breakfast was a repeat of Thursday, each of us sitting
well apart, pretending it didn't matter.

I had been assigned Policing Duty for Saturday morning; Karl and Jim had
obviously pulled some other duties. Policing normally mean making sure that
the fire-rings, tents and cabins were in good shape, equipment cleaned and
stowed correctly and suchlike. Today, though, we were told that the
boardwalks had to come up. The enormous groan that accompanied this news
was met with a stern explanation. The pallets were just a little safer than
muddy paths, but far more dangerous than bare ground. Two boys had already
been treated for sprained ankles, so the pallets had to go.

Leaders broke 13-16-year-olds up into groups of four. All the 17-year-olds
(myself included) were the draft horses of the operation and assigned two
to each team. We were equipped with large-tyre flat carts and were
responsible for returning the pallets to the storage shed just above the
Admin Building. Horse 1 (me) would tootle along next to the struggling boys
as they pulled the pallets out of the dried mud and stack then on the
cart. When Horse 2 (a nice kid and Jason) came back from dropping his own
stack, I'd head to the shed and the leaders would unload them quickly.

So. Wooden pallets on the ground in slowly-drying mud. Not only were they
reluctant to release their hold, they had become homes to... a variety of
monsters. I hate bugs, and so did a couple of my team, and the others
laughed raucously when spiders or big hairy roaches would come
scurrying. Turnabout being not only fair play but cherished by all boys, I
laughed myself silly when they uncovered a snake. You could not have
cleared the area faster if it had been a bomb or a Mom brandishing a
just-uncovered Playboy. Those four just scattered.

I laughed and laughed. I love snakes; always have. They eat all the
creepy-crawlers I hate most. Plus, as a complete geek, I knew what most
snakes looked like. This was a gorgeous young milksnake with sharp, twisted
banding in every shade of reddish brown. He was probably a bit under a foot
long and the thickness of a big magic marker.

I'll admit he was a bit pissy about suddenly having his house removed and
he bit me as I grabbed hold of him, but they're not poisonous and he
happily wound himself around my wrist as I pried his jaws off my pinkie
finger. I very politely tried to introduce my new friend to each of the
boys on the team, but for some reason they just didn't want to get to know
him. At least I got that impression from their girlish squeals of terror
and sudden desperate need to be anywhere else. I walked over to a bramble
floored with old beech leaves and let the little guy go.

I got my comeuppance a couple of loads later. I was standing right next to
one of the pallets when they lifted it, revealing a monster worthy of
Cthulhu. Black as sin with way, way, WAY too many sickly-yellow legs armed
with hideous, obviously-venomous pinchery things. It was about three feet
long and big round as my wrist and came at me, intent of poisoning me and
eating me at his leisure, each hideous leg to pick and claw at my flesh.

I was cursing the fact that none of the nearby trees had climbable branches
when I found myself about twenty yards off, gibbering as I peeked around
the trunk of a tree. Those fucking little snots just stood there and
laughed, LAUGHED at my brush with an unspeakable death. They had shooed off
the (according those lying little fucks) four-inch centipede. I was,
perhaps, a bit grumpy when we finished. Every time one of them would say
the word centipede I'd shudder. Regardless of the fact I wasn't
particularly dirty, I spent a long, long, LONG time in the shower.

I still had forty minutes to kill before the travesty of lunch so I headed
back to Tent Canvas Hell. Jim and Karl arrived at almost the same time and
we sat frowning. Finally, I broke.

"Okay, stop it! I refuse to be miserable and watch you two glower at each
other and at me every second for the next three weeks! We end this, NOW."

Wow. Where did that come from? Painfully-shy me getting all forceful and
commanding? I was a bit worked up, though, and frankly still on the Mutant
Centipede Adrenaline High. They just stared at me and grumped.

"Fine! Fuck! I'll start. Which one of you was awake last night?"

To this day, I am a terrible poker player. But even as a terrified teen I
could tell the answer from their faces.

"You FUCKS! You were BOTH awake! Go ahead. Deny it." Karl and Jim just
looked at each other and blushed harder, eyes questioning. Both just nodded
and looked down.

"Wa, was Eaglas right?"

"About...?" That was Karl.

"About you being upset that I won't let you 'help' me?"

"Yes," Jim's small but confident voice came out with. "You go nuts if one
of us is hurting, but we can both see you're ripping yourself up and won't
even, you know, let us do anything."

That sent a bolt of fear, shame and elation through me and I turned to
Karl, waiting.

Karl sighed deeply and took a sudden interest in the pattern on his
sleeping bag. "I want to help. I worry. But I don't know what to do. I
can't beat up a bully that's in your head, can I? And not sm, smart like
you two."

That was a knife of pure ice into my soul to hear Karl say that. "But you
are, Ka--"

"NO! No, I'm not. I'm not a complete idiot but I know I'm not in you guys's
league. If we're g, gonna do th, this, then it starts with being honest. So
don't pretend I'm smart. Last night, you said that you felt terrible that
you can't talk to us. Bullshit. You feel terrible cuz you *won't* talk to
us. You want to be our friend without letting us be yours. So either
p-p-put up-p or sh-shut up, Patrick."

Jeez. Karl didn't say much, but when he did, it was a doozy. I looked down
and Jim took up the narrative.

"So now we get to it, Patrick. You kept talking last night about what you
can't say and can't want and are fighting not to do and shredding yourself
about all of it. Out with it. What is it you can't say / want / do,
Patrick, that you think is going to make us hate you?"

In the past week, I would have sworn on every Bible and even the Lord of
the Rings that I would never have been relieved to hear the triangle
calling us to a dubious meal. How wrong I was. It pealed out and I
practically leapt up. "Lunch!"

"Patrick!"

"No. After. Promise." I could only utter mumbled one-word statements. I
made it out of the tent without actually screaming or hyperventilating,
trailed by my seriously disgruntled tent-mates.

Lunch was something called Pepper Steak. Yeah, there were some
tragically-abused peppers and translucent onions in the rice-packed,
soy-based slimy gravy, but 'steak'? We decided it was probably Chihuahua
filets. Regardless, it was far better that Chef's average. The cold option
was a white-bread sandwich containing a half-jar of mayonnaise and a single
slice of American cheese each. I'm pretty sure the only people who took
them were ones planning to fish later... as bait.

I had planned to use the lunch and the afternoon's activity to give me time
to sort things out in my head. I had forgotten that Saturday afternoons
were universal Free Periods. I nearly choked on my Chihuahua realising that
I had no way to escape or delay what would come next.

We finished and I could tell that both Karl and Jim were watchful and ready
for me to try and make a break for it, and just slumped my way out of the
Mess Hell and walked -- where else? -- to the Middle Earth Dell. It seemed,
well, better than the tent and a lot more private.

We got there and sat roughly where we'd been before my epic meltdown, but I
steeled this time to simply get it over with. I'd dwelt on Dr Eaglas' words
throughout lunch and the walk. I couldn't, couldn't reveal the core of what
I wanted. It would destroy me as well as any chance at friendship. I could
open up, though. Some. A little.

For once, I didn't wait for Karl or Jim to prompt me. As soon as we sat, I
looked at them for a minute and then just spoke.

"Karl already knows some of this, Jim." That got me a puzzled and
suspicious glance from Karl. "I, I am always, always afraid, Jim. Terrified
all the time. The idea of trusting people makes my skin crawl. You two are
the first people I've ever really trusted."

Karl stayed quiet and reserved. Jim, though, was... Jim.

"But WHY? You are such a great guy, really cool."

I took a real deep breath. This was the 70s. Every family was 'perfect';
there was no such thing as dysfunctional families. I was the only boy on
Earth with such a home.

"My father... drinks." I saw Jim draw breath and cut him off. "He drinks a
lot, Jim. And Mom is scared of how he'll react to, well, anything. So if I
ask Dad about something, his answer is good until he's next, you know. And
if I ask Mom, she won't answer at all. They're not {sniffle} *there* for
me, you know."

I looked up and Jim was jumping to say something that would help. Karl,
though... Karl's face was a study of a mask starting to slip and
crack. There was a story there, and I thought it was probably a bad
one. Perversely, that gave me more courage.

"When I've made friends, it always lasted until they came over at the wrong
time or something. Then they'd make excuses for why they couldn't come over
any more and finally just move on to other folks. Dad's parents are dead
and Paw-Paw, Mom's father, seems just like Mom, scared of Dad and his own
wife even after she died a couple years ago... so family is out. I mean,
it's not that bad. You hear of, you know, kids beat by parents or hurt or
neglected. I just, well, survive."

Jim looks for a minute. "Where do you live, Patrick?"

"You'll laugh."

"Why?"

"I live, well, we moved two years ago. I live {sigh} in Hershey and Dad
works as an accountant for chocolate bars." Karl scowled at Jim as he
actually did start to laugh.

"Jim! You can't make fun of Patrick for where he lives! What's wrong with
you?"

Jim sat up and said, "Yes I can. My mom and dad BOTH work for
Hershey. Where's your house, Patrick?"

I smiled hesitantly. "Um, we live in what they call the trees? You know,
Oak and Elm? We live on Linden."

Jim whoops with laughter. "I probably walk past your house on the way to
school. I live on South Fifth, between Cedar and Beech!"

"Really?"

"Yep. And you know what, Patrick? Now you DO have a friend and some other
people to count on. My mom and dad would... would really l-l-like you. And
my grandpa lives up on Caracas by Pronio's?"

It's my turn to laugh. "We go to church catty-corner from that!"

We smile and Karl cleared his throat. "So, um, so you don't trust anybody
cuz of that? And that's why you looked at me so scared? You know, on the
first day? You weren't, you know, scared of *me* for, for, wh-what I, you
know, for what did, the kind of p-p-person I..." His voice had slowly
vanished along with our smiles.

"Oh, God, Karl. No. I am so, so sorry. I just have a d, dr, oh God, a drunk
for a dad, Karl. And no one wants to be around me. And I, I th-thought that
I'd have a chance this summer, since no one would, well, know and he
wouldn't be, be around to..." my voice fled as well, "scare other kids
away?"

We were all silent at that for a minute until Karl's hoarse whisper
captivated us, "You have a, a dad 'like that'. But you *have* a dad,
Patrick." Jim and I stared as Karl with wide eyes. His head was down,
fiddling with a tuft of grass between his feet.

"I was six. Daddy {cough} Dad was a security guard at a bank. After first
grade each day I went to the bank and waited until he finished, about 30
minutes and he'd drive me home? You know? And. And Thursday there were open
an extra two hours, for people with payroll checks? So I took, I dunno, the
Big Chief pad to practice letters? Dadd- Dad was a few feet away with a man
came in, yelling. Da. The guy."

"Oh my God, Karl! You said you were six!" The penny dropped for me. "The
thunder. The way it hurts you. Oh God, Karl. Oh my God." He started to leak
tears, not sobbing or weeping, just so heartbreakingly sad. His eyes never
left that tuft of grass. His flat, hoarse and horrified voice continued.

"Daddy didn't even do anything. He just turned and BOOM! The guy shot him
and shot him and shot him until the gun stopped working. And then he ran
away. He di-di-didn't even," and here Karl did sob, just once, "even rob
the bank. He killed Daddy and just ran away."

Silence again enveloped the dell. None of us was willing to break it. It
was so different than the silence when I first came here, the silence of
awe at the beauty of God's creation. Or the silence of horrified foreboding
after Karl asked, "WHY?" Or the silence of awkwardness that met my
confession of my broken family. Or the silence of desperate, gnawing
tension and need that reigned so often in Tent Canvas Hell. This was the
silence of, of reverence. Silence that honoured and embraced and
commemorated something sacred.

Jim could only let silence of *any* kind go so far. "What happened after,
Karl?"

"They caught the guy and he died," he told the tuft of grass. "He'd never
robbed a b-bank before, just stores. They think he saw Daddy's uniform and
freaked, then ran. We buried Daddy and all the real cops were there and
saluted him, which was special. Then we, we just went on. Mom got a
job. She married a guy who had a daughter about a year later. He was there
for four years then just... left. He left his daughter behind like, like an
old suitcase.

"She cried for months. My own 'real' sister and youngest brother needed
somebody, and I decided it should be me. Mom had two jobs by then. I
started taking care of everything I could. I got strong so no one could
bully the kids. I learned to, you know, clean and stuff? And we, we made it
work."

I schnorked loudly, trying to clear my leaking, weeping nose. Karl finally
looked up.

"I hate how much you hurt, Karl. It makes me hurt, too."

Jim's voice was curt and sharp as it cut across me. "Well, genius, that's
how it feels for us when you are ripping yourself apart."

Karl and I looked at him, shocked to the core. "It's true and I'm tired of
it. It stops NOW! I swear I am going to let Karl beat you with your own
severed limbs (he offered) if you don't tell us what is going on and let us
help. You hear me, Patrick?"

I was crying again (naturally, when didn't I cry? When did I become an
eight-year-old girl with a boo-boo on her knee?). I just nodded and Karl
got up and came over and put his arm around me and Jim came and hugged us
both. We sat there for a minute then went back to our individual rocks.

I had never been so scared. I was literally shaking. Could I do this? I
didn't know. I opened my mouth to speak and snapped it shut so many times I
looked like Karl's bass. I finally looked down and started turning a
water-smoothed rock over and over and over. I could hear Jim's mounting
impatience and finally told the rock the truth, voice tiny, distant and
shaking uncontrollably.

"I think I'm really sick. I think there is something really wrong with
me. I want to, to be a-around you guys so m-much it hurts, you know, like
actually aches. And what we d-d-did, Jim, and when I k-kissed K-Karl? It
felt so r-r-right and was so, so, so r-r-wrong. And I'm so confused and
scared and I finally have friends, *had* friends, and I know you won't want
to be near me and couldn't say anything and it was going good, well, other
than the running off and crying parts but I couldn't *not* tell you, but if
I did, I knew that it was over and I'd lo-l-l-l-lose you."

Jim and Karl spoke in unison, and I almost died when I heard them. "You
can't lose us, Patrick." Jim went on. "You couldn't lose us if you tried."

<eof>

So now you know. By the way, is anyone still reading this (other than the
ever-adorable Roger)? I'd still write it cuz I like these three a lot, but
I just wondered if I were writing for an audience of one. Let me know:
orson.cadell@gmail.com.

PS: The snake and centipede scenes are actually autobiographical, the only
parts of this entire tale that have been (other than 'adolescent Tolkien
addict'). I fucking hate those creepy, billion-legged monsters and love
anything brave enough to eat them.

*****
Active storelines, all at www.nifty.org/nifty/gay...
Canvas Hell: 13 chapters .../camping/canvas-hell/
Karl & Greg: 15 chapters .../incest/karl-and-greg/
The Heathens: 3 chapters .../historical/the-heathens/
Beaux Thibodaux: 4 chapters .../adult-youth/beaux-thibodaux/
Mud Lark Holler: 4 chapters .../rural/mud-lark-holler/
Turntable Rehab: 5 chapters .../authoritarian/turntable-rehabilitation-services/