Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 19:55:25 -0500
From: Sequoyah <sequoyahs-place@charter.net>
Subject: Saga of the Elizabethton Tarheels--Chapter Two

The Elizabethton Clan
Chapter Two

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Chapter Two


The day after school ended, I made a decision: I would not waste my summer
at the country club. Summers before it had been swimming at the club,
tennis at the club, golf at the club and so on, ad nauseam. Living on the
beach, I did spend a lot of time there and had learned to sail while in
grade school. I was given my own sailboat when I graduated from middle
school, and spend a lot of time sailing. I loved the beach -- especially
walking along it in late afternoon to early evening -- and I was in heaven
sailing.

I knew that to try to get out of the end-of-school dance and later the
end-of-summer dance would require more effort than enduring them, so I
didn't object to those, but when Mother gave me my summer schedule, I
balked. After a couple battles, I finally came up with the idea of summer
camp. Mother immediately started checking out the "right camps" and I saw
where that was headed. After a search around and talking with Fr. DeBruhl,
the new rector of St. Paul's, I found a work camp in the North Carolina
mountains. There would be the usual camp activities -- ropes confidence
course, campfires, etc.--and, in addition, campers would work five days a
week constructing a camp for under-privileged city kids.

Mother pitched a hissy fit -- "You don't know what kind of people will be
there!" she objected over and over. I finally managed to catch Father over
the weekend and explained how I thought it would be good experience and, in
a very subtle way, suggested it would likely provide some good "solid
family" material for the next campaign. You would have thought it was his
idea.

When I told the Clan what I was up to, John said he thought it was a good
idea and asked about his doing the same. We had pretty much planned all the
things we would be doing together when he found out the camp was full. He
was still interested in getting away from the club for the summer and, even
though he was Presbyterian, I suggested he talk to Fr. DeBruhl. Seems
Fr. DeBruhl had done field work in Atlanta in a settlement house kind of
setup and arranged for John to work there in an inner-city project tutoring
young kids.

We were both due at our summer places the week after July Fourth. Fourth of
July was always a big day at the club, but Susan suggested we do our
own. She suggested we spend the day on a small island where there would be
no crowd. Justin and I had the sails up and headed for the island by 8:30
and John took his inboard and set out around 10:00.

John was not known as Quiet John without reason, but you would never know
it if you only saw him behind the wheel of his boat. Once behind the wheel,
he became a speed demon. No-one would ever have claimed Adam and Bobbie
were quiet, so it was assumed that when we were at the beach, they would be
with John. Reserved Susan lost all reserve when John got out of the "no
wake" area and shoved the throttle forward. Justin, who could be pretty
rambunctious, had never liked the motor boat. "Too loud and too fast," was
his comment, so he sailed with me.

As much as I loved being with Justin and talking with him anytime, we both
were usually silent when we were sailing, yet I never felt we were closer
than when we sailed.

Anyway, when we arrived at the island, we unloaded the coolers and put up a
shelter. A day on the beach without a shelter, even with sunscreen, and I'd
be cooked. For a blond I tanned--NOT.

I slathered on sunscreen -- Justin made sure my back was covered--and we
all swam from John's boat. We had all grown up in the water and swam like
fish. Adam was showing out, diving from the boat when he missed a step and
scraped his legs pretty good. I'm sure the water stung and he did lay on
the beach for a while, but was soon back in the water.

I left the water before the others and started getting the food ready. It
was a job to get it out without getting it full of sand, but I managed
fairly well. When everything was nearly ready, I gave a wave and the Clan
gathered. After all the activity -- and being teenagers -- no-one lacked an
appetite.

When we had cleaned up from our picnic, Adam and Bobbie took a blanket and
a beach umbrella and wandered to the other side of the island. Susan and
John swam out to his boat and started racing around at top speed. I lay on
a blanket under the shelter and Justin sat beside me.

"You know I'm going to miss you this summer," he said after we had not
spoken after the others left. "I'm glad I'm working. It'll make the time
pass faster."

"I'll miss you too, Justin, very much."

We were both silent again, each with his own thoughts.

"You have to promise me one thing, Justin. You have to promise you'll go by
and see Clarisa. You know she will be really disappointed if you don't."

Justin's face was suddenly covered with one of his heart-stopping
smiles. "You don't have to worry about that! She's using the carrot and
stick approach," he laughed. "She promised to feed me if I come by and, to
use that lady's exact words, 'Cut 'em off if I don't.'"

"Ouch," I laughed in return. "Anyway, I'll only be gone four weeks, back
the first week in August. The time will fly by."

"I wish," was his reply.

It was one of those moments which I was having these days, a moment in
which I almost told Justin how much I loved him. Fortunately, he stopped me
with, "Gad, someone would think we were queer for each other." It hurt like
hell, but it prevented my losing the one kind of love Justin could and did
offer me.

I knew the camp would be primitive, but I had no idea just what primitive
meant! The bath house was a platform made from wood slats and blue tarp on
poles around the edge. "Showers" were buckets hanging above the slat floor
with a rope attached to the lip. To shower, you dipped water out of the
creek, lowered the overhead bucket, filled it, hoisted it back in place,
and stood under it. You pulled the rope attached to the lip of the bucket
to pour water over yourself, soaped up, then poured the rest of the water
over yourself to rinse off. That's the way it was supposed to work. Of
course, it took several days to learn how to keep from pouring the whole
bucket over yourself as soon you pulled the rope.

The toilet was a trench with two poles running from one end to the
other. You flushed by covering what you left behind with dirt from the pile
resulting from digging the trench. Every week, a group had the job of
digging a new trench and moving the "seat."

We slept in tents -- which we erected the as soon as we arrived -- four
campers assigned to each. The common area was a floor covered with canvas
-- no walls. It was used for all our gatherings including meals -- which
were prepared in a military surplus field kitchen by our "professional
chefs" -- who rotated every day according to the duty roster. Fortunately,
I could peel potatoes and did not have to cook, or we would probably have
had a medical emergency.

To say the work part of camp was an experience is an understatement. While
I had never thought I had no mechanical ability or was unable to work with
my hands, I certainly had no skills, zilch, when it came to
construction. Within three days, I had blistered hands, a black fingernail
from a mislick with a hammer, and had been told if I got within half a mile
of an electric saw, I would be downed with a two by four before I could do
major damage.

As the days passed, all that changed. My hands toughened up and I was well
on my way to great calluses. I could drive a nail without putting a dent in
the timber and I was even allowed to use the saw.

The cabins we are building were pretty primitive, but solid. It took us a
week to finish the first one and then we did at least two a week for the
next three weeks. The last week, another group of campers arrived and with
them to fetch and carry, we finished the eighth and final cabin two days
before camp ended.

I don't suppose you can have a senior high summer camp without some
hanky-panky going on. The first afternoon in camp we were told the
rules. The camp director had said, "I would be a fool to think that rules
will not be broken, even when they are as few and simple as ours. We have
four: No drugs, no alcohol, no sex and you gotta respect people and
property. That's all. Drugs, alcohol, or disrespect of people and property
gets you a ticket home the day of the offense. No exceptions. The same
thing goes for sex, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to have sex with
campers or counselors watching. So, that's it."

A couple of kids were sent home the first day of camp when they were dumb
enough to smoke dope outside the dining hall where the "perfume" was
obvious to all. I suspected their getting caught was intentional since a
fellow who knew them said they had been sent by the parents as punishment
for smoking weed. There was alcohol around, but no-one got drunk and no-one
was open with it.

There certainly was sex or at least a lot of bragging about "getting some."
According to Walter, a fellow in my tent, he was "getting plenty" from
Martha. "Man, I can't fuck her enough. Three, four times a day and she's
still putting out for Seabury over in tent four."

One afternoon during a break, Martha walked up to Walter and said, "Hear
you and Seabury been fucking me. Came as a real surprise since I don't
remember it, but then given the size of your cocks, I guess it could have
happened without my knowing it." She was roundly applauded and Walter and
Seabury set new records for quietness for the rest of the camp.

I had an opportunity to lose my virginity to another man and was really
tempted. A really cute fellow in the tent next to mine asked me at supper
one night if I could meet him later. "I'd like to talk to you," he
said. "I'll meet you at Eagle Rock." Eagle Rock was a landmark for the camp
and we all knew where it was. "Say around eleven?"

I agreed, pretty sure what he was interested in "talking" about. I was very
careful to make sure my watch alarm was set, hoping no-one would hear it,
but knowing there was no way I would be awake at 11:00 without it. I
actually was, and turned off the alarm before it went off. I got up, walked
toward the toilet and, just before I reached it, turned and headed for the
trail to Eagle Rock. As I walked in the moonlight, I was hard one minute,
and wondering what the hell I was doing meeting a boy in the middle of the
night the next, with limp willie between my legs. I had been telling myself
we were both men, but Andrew was not only a year older, but much more
physically mature.

He was waiting for me just off the trail. I would have walked past him had
he not hissed at me. When I joined him, he grabbed my hand and pulled me
deeper in to the underbrush. I was very surprised to find a blanket spread
on the ground. He pulled me onto the blanket and immediately covered my
mouth with his, his tongue pushing its way between my lips.

"Whoa, easy there, Boy," I said, pulling my mouth from his. "Let's talk
about this."

"Your cock's not interested in talking," he laughed softly. I couldn't deny
I was rock hard and before I knew it, Andrew had pulled my shorts down,
uncovering my cock which was standing tall and pulsating with each
heartbeat. I was still kinda stunned and when he took my cock it his hand,
I reached out and grabbed his through his boxers, which was all he was
wearing. "Way to go, Marc," he said and started stroking my cock.

I pulled his cock from his boxers and started to stroke it -- something I
hadn't done to another since Adam, Justin, John and I had occasionally
stroked each other off. Justin! Suddenly the great feeling I was getting
from Andrew's stroking seemed like I was cheating on Justin. I argued with
myself that Justin and I would never be more than best friends and at the
same time that my virginity belonged to the man I loved, even if he never
claimed it. I had stopped stroking Andrew and, in fact, was no longer
touching his cock.

"Shit! What the fuck? I came here to fuck you or at least get a blow job
and you're not even finishing jerking me off. Some prick tease you are!"
Andrew was obviously pissed and, to tell the truth, I couldn't blame him.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm just an asshole."

"That's all I wanted, Dickhead," he said, "your asshole!" and slapped my
rapidly softening cock. It hurt like hell, but I could understand.

Two days later, Andrew was no longer around. Rumor had it he was caught
fucking one of the staff, bareback, and had given him a good case of crabs
and the devil only knows what else. Sometimes angels protect the stupid.

The last day of camp we were all asked to write one sentence about our
experience. "No other instructions, just write a sentence. There are
markers and newsprint...." everyone started laughing because the first
week, newsprint papered every tree around the common area -- instructions,
directions, duty lists, you name it, were placed on newsprint and hung
somewhere. As the group became more and more a group and learned what it
was doing, there was less and less newsprint. "Yeah, well, write your
sentence on the newsprint without your name and place it face down on this
table. They will be posted mid-afternoon and you're to read each sentence
and write the name of the person you think wrote it underneath. OK?"

I went for a walk in the woods, thinking back over the four weeks I had
been in camp. A lot had happened. The episode with Andrew had continued to
haunt me. Of course I realized I had escaped a pretty unpleasant situation
-- I could just imagine what Clarisa would have said had she found out I
had caught crabs, and make no mistake about it, she would have found out. I
didn't fear God knowing everything I did, but Clarisa seemed as all-knowing
and a lot less forgiving, especially of dumb things. I had certainly picked
up some skills, which I was not likely to put to great use in the
foreseeable future. I had learned how much doing something for some kids
who had little could mean to me who had everything. I had known, but had it
underscored, that men who try to be big cocksmen can be real shits. That
and a hundred things I learned. So what in one sentence? All the time I was
thinking back over the four weeks, I was also thinking about Justin and
that I would see him in less than twenty-four hours. Finally, I took the
marker and wrote, "It is all about loving."

I put my sheet on the table and, for some reason, started walking toward
Eagle Rock. I expected to see half the camp there, but found myself alone
-- or so I thought until I reached the top of the rock. Sitting there,
looking out over the valley, was Martha. I sat down beside her and we sat
in silence for some time. She finally turned to me and said, "I know about
Andrew. I know what you did was hard -- well, yeah, no pun intended -- but
you were right. I don't know who he is, but he is one damn lucky guy and I
hope he realizes that before it is too late for both of you." She leaned
over, kissed me on the mouth, gently, and said, "Yeah, he is one damn lucky
guy," got up and left. I sat on the rock for a long time, thinking about
what she had said, especially about hoping he realized....what? That I
loved him? That he loved me? I wasn't sure, but....

As I read the sentences, I was struck by two things: first, by the fact
that, had I not known otherwise, I might have thought we had been to
different camps; and second, I was surprised by how often I was sure who
had written the sentence. Seems most of the campers must have felt the same
way because there was amazing agreement among the names written below each
sentence. I was really surprised when I saw that, almost without exception,
my sentence had been properly identified.

The next morning we all gathered in the common area with our bags, ready to
leave for home. There was much hugging -- you can't work, eat, and sleep
with people for four weeks without coming to love them -- some more than
others, of course. We were given sheets with everyone's home address and
there were promises to write and to be back next year, but camp is a lot
like a summer romance. Martha did take my sheet, circle her name and
address and whisper, "Let me know."

Finally, the shuttle to the airport arrived, I tossed my duffel aboard,
kissed Martha and whispered, "I will." I was headed home to what I did not
know.

***

As always, special thanks to the Aussie and the Tarheel for editing and to
JT and Mike for maintaining websites.

Contact Sequoyah at sequoyahs-place@charter.net