by Asahel D. Church
2nd Place- 2017 Yorkfest Adult Literary Awards
I checked off each
item on Dad’s “Ultimate Camping List” as he arranged our gear in the back of
the Suburban. Matches, check. Sleeping bags, check. Bug spray, check. Hotdogs
for dinner, check… Waving goodbye to Mom, I had the strangest feeling as the
sound of silence engulfed me. With my father, it’s slim pickings when it comes
to conversation. Maybe that’s partly
because I am hardly sure of what to say. I’ve got a million thoughts running
around in my head, but I can’t seem to sort them out.
By the time we
reached the campground, dusk was coming on, so we hurriedly unpacked the car
and set up. “Where should we put the tent?” asked Dad. “This spot looks good.
What do you think?” I really couldn’t
tell if one spot was any better than the other. But the grass did look a bit
softer off to the left. I liked the way it seemed untouched. We put the tent
down right where Dad suggested. I looked for extra tent stakes, left by
careless campers before us. Dad had a rule; never leave a campground without an
extra stake or two.
It was too late to
make a campfire dinner, so we ate burgers at a small restaurant just outside
the state park. Eating out is a luxury in my family. I wondered where Dad was
getting the money. “Eh, we’ll put it on the plastic. I’ll just have to explain
to your mother later,” Dad said with a grin. I guiltily ordered the Double
Cheeseburger Deluxe and Dad didn’t seem to mind. On those rare occasions at
home when Mom couldn’t bring herself to do any cooking we go to Taco Bell. 89
cent tacos and one large drink. Mom brings small cups from home for the kids.
It’s embarrassing.
Back at the site,
Dad got the lantern started and began to read his Bible aloud. I felt the nip
of night air on my nose and watched as the moths gathered, burning themselves
on the hot glass while the Scripture filtered down through my consciousness.
Tomorrow night we would build a great big fire, and cook hotdogs and roast
marshmallows. I don’t like marshmallows actually, but the real fun is in
cooking them. Too far from the flame and they stay cold; too close and they
burst into flames. Kind of like moths, I thought.
We walked in
darkness to the washhouse. The air was now cold and the stars were gaining
strength. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see everything: the stirring in the
woods, the Milky Way glowing across the sky, the uneven rocks beneath our feet.
The
next morning I woke up alone, my face sweaty against the sleeping bag. The
campsite was deathly still except for the occasional drone of a cicada. The dew
was already burning off under the sun. Dad wasn’t in sight. Maybe he’d gone for
a walk, or to read, or to hunt mushrooms, or take a shower.
My father is the
pastor of the “little white church on the corner.” That’s what the neighbors call it at least.
But it’s not really small at all. Every summer, there’s a VBS (that’s Vacation
Bible School) during the week before the fourth of July. Last year a neighborhood
kid’s father accused me of ripping his son’s shirt during a relay race. That
was the only time I remember Dad raising his voice at me. “I know my son and I
know he can have a temper,” Dad huffed. That hurt. Maybe that’s why it sticks
out so much in my mind. Dad was stuck in one of those father-but-pastor
moments, and I was right there in the middle.
Dad isn’t always the pastor; sometimes he does
other normal things. One time he let me play soccer with the big kids. Dad was
the coach—he wore white shorts and oil-stained hand-me-down golf shirts. During
the scrimmage I got the ball in a breakaway. I sprinted towards the goal and
poked the ball with my toe. It rolled in slow motion past Joel Johnson, the
tallest kid on the team. I was so happy when everyone cheered. Actually, now
that I think about it, they might have let me score. I was really young then.
Dad suddenly
appeared in front of me, whistling. His face was bright and covered with a
healthy dose of white scruff. He had been at the washhouse, but of course he
didn’t shave. We cooked breakfast on the camp stove. “What do you want to do?”
Dad asked, as if it really was a question. We went on a hike, hunting for
mushrooms.
There’s always
mushrooms on these trips. “Ah-ah!” Dad exclaims when he identifies one,
pronouncing the scientific name loudly. There’s the Amanita, the Agaricus,
the Cortinarius…. I try hard to help
with the hunting, but mostly find what Dad called LBM’s -little brown
mushrooms. “Ooo- yeahhh,” Dad says, poking at the fungi with his shoe, “Some
sort of Conocybe…” By lunch there was
half a dozen mushroom caps, face down on white paper lining the picnic bench.
The spores drop overnight leaving a pattern on the paper. Each mushroom has a
unique mark.
The afternoon was
hot and Dad suggested that we go swimming at the pool on the other side of the
park. I felt bad because I knew how expensive it was but Dad insisted. I got
into the water slowly, and then let myself drift down to the bottom. You have
to let the air out of your lungs or you won’t sink. It’s sort of odd. The
simple act of breathing suddenly becomes all you can think about. I had to keep
coming up for air.
In the shallow
end, kids were playing catch with a foam ball. Dad swam out ahead. He likes the
water when it is very cold. I feel like going to the pool with friends makes
the cold water feel ok because you run around. The pool was full of people that
day but nobody I knew of course. Dad wasn’t really other people.
-->
That night we made
a great big campfire. The light from the flames made a cozy circle. When we got
too hot, we could run off into the cool darkness. Dad showed me how to draw
words and pictures in the air with a stick that had a coal on its end. He stood
far away from the fire, out by the edge of the campsite. I tried to guess what
Dad was writing, but I had no idea. “My turn, my turn!” I insisted. I made
figure eights over and over again. Later, we stopped putting wood on the fire
and let it die down. It was getting late. We walked to the washhouse to brush
our teeth. My feet were heavy on the gravel path. I don’t remember falling
asleep.
Suddenly I was
awake. Dad was whispering for me to look out the front of the tent. “Psss!
Look! We have a visitor!” he whispered. A set of beady eyes shot back at us,
caught in the beam of Dad’s flashlight. There were other eyes in the woods too.
“What’s that noise?” I asked nervously. There was a thump, and then the
occasional sound of crinkled plastic and another thump as the cooler lid opened
and shut. I thought it was best that we just stay in the tent, and Dad didn’t
get up. He knew there wasn’t much of a point—it was pretty much over.
The raccoons had
eaten most of our breakfast. A trail of half eaten hotdogs disappeared into the
woods. It was alright, since we were headed home anyway, but Mom would be
annoyed with the waste. I helped pack up the campsite. In the process we found
four extra tent stakes which was more than a little bit lucky. So we had done
pretty well this time.
As we finished
packing up, I thought about having to start school again. Being homeschooled, there isn’t even the anticipation of a new
teacher or seeing friends. I would
daydream over my math lesson all morning, and Mom would yell and threaten to
send me to public school. That was a completely idle threat.
I was looking
forward to getting home. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the camping trip. I just
wondered why I felt so familiar but strange at the same time.
“How did you sleep
last night?” Dad asked cheerfully.
“Pretty good,” I
mumbled.
“After the
raccoons went away I heard a much larger animal moving around in the
bushes.”
“Really? Well,
maybe it was a bear,” I said. I was hopeful that I might have a
good story to boast to my brothers
about.
“I’ve heard that
there are some small black bears around this area.”
I wondered about bears in the
woods. I wondered what I would be when I grow up. Most of all I felt this
undying need to thank Dad for taking me camping but I just didn’t know how. In
my family, love is always understated.
The ride home was
long and silent. The white stripes flashing and the drone of the old Silverado.
It was just me and my dad. Everything felt fine.
