At some point, my best friend Pud and I grew apart. I think it was when he stopped going to school in the 8th grade and took up staying at home and sleeping all day. Something he did for the next 10 years. I don’t remember at what point in my life, Eddie took his place. All I know is that it was a step up.
Ever see someone who is so pretty that your eyes hurt to look at them? That was Eddie. Eddie lived 8 houses down the street from me with his older brother Tom, younger sister Kim and mother Karen. Eddie’s parents were divorced but he never saw his father.His sister had a major crush on me but I could not return the affection because mine was on her brother. His mother could not stand me but then she couldn’t stand her own son. Eddie spent more time at my house that he did at his own. When we did go over to Eddie’s house, there was his mother ready to yell at him about some perceived infraction. I think it was because Eddie got all the good looks in the family. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, beautiful dark eyes, his siblings were the exact opposite.
Eddie was a shy sort, before he met me. after. not so much. In the sixth grade, I went out for the student council president and cajoled Eddie into running too. There were 6 open slots and there were 8 candidates. Eddie and I tied. There was a vote off and Eddie and I tied again. Instead of voting a 3rd time, the teacher made us co-Presidents.
We both went out for safety patrol and were assigned to the same team. We manned the crosswalk. That was the way our lives went. Until Sky-Y camp.
There were 6 cabins for the boys of various sizes. The girls were on the other side of the camp in what could only be described as dormitories. One large building with rooms on each side of a hallway with beds down the sides of the walls, it reminded me of those old movies of mental institutions. It was also where the nurse was stationed there.
Eddie and I had planned to bunk together. Just like home, I would get the bottom bunk and he would get the top bunk. We had it all planned. What we didn’t plan for was we didn’t have any say. The teachers chose for us. I was in cabin 6, the one farthest away from everything right on the edge of the forest. Eddie was in Cabin 3. I was not happy. Cabin 6 was all the geeks, dweebs, nerds and spazes. There was the Ginger kid, the kid with glasses, the fat kid, the ones with braces that covered his entire head like something out of sci-fi movie, the strange oriental kid that no one talked to but should have. It was a menagerie of bad kid movie stereotypes. And I was right in the middle of them and my best friend was in Cabin 3 with all the cool kids. All the cabins had a sponsor. The sponsor was a teacher or parent who lived in the cabins with the boys and took care of them. Cabin 6 didn’t have one. We were left alone. No guidance at all.
In hindsight, I understand why they did this. We were the group that the teachers didn’t worry about. We were the ones that took care of ourselves, we never caused problems, we were the “good” kids. Nurse Cammie was our unofficial sponsor. She would come in every night smelling of menthol cigarettes. Here raspy voice telling us all good night was welcome lullaby to those of us who, this was our first time away from home. But why was Eddie in Cabin 3? He wasn’t a threat. He was good kid. What kid who loved Bananas Magazine so much that he formed a fan club with his best friend couldn’t be bad… Could he?
The answer came on day 3.
We woke up early in the morning and headed to the shower. I dreaded the shower. The shower was outside There were 4 walls with shower heads coming off the wall every 2 feet. In the middle of the room was another bunch of shower heads coming out of it in a constant stream of ice cold water. There is enough trauma showering with your classmates, now imagine doing it outside with no roof. Add ice cold water, and boys of various stages of puberty, not a pretty sight. I always wanted to be first in, and first out. Get it done before you had to endure the taunts about being too hairy or about shrinkage. There were usually 2 or 3 other shy guys in there, no one threatening, but on this day there was no one. I showered, dressed and started back to the cabin, when I noticed all the kids gathered in the ramada where we ate dinner. They were talking about something. As I got closer they were talking about Eddie and Patrick, their parents had come to pick them up. The stories flew. They had been caught in the shower jacking off or they were caught in the girls’ dorms peeking or they had been out after dark. Something was serious, because Eddie’s mom had gotten off her lazy butt and driven all the way up to pick him up. I saw her car, his sister and brother were in the car and Eddie was standing beside it with his head down in shame.
Patrick’s parents were already packing him up and driving away. I ran up to Eddie and asked him what was wrong, without a word he turned around and got in the car and kept his head down, I just looked in the window and asked him what was wrong. That was when his Mom came up. She looked me straight in the eye and told me “Don’t bother coming around, he is going to be grounded for 3 months if I don’t send him to live with his father.”
After he left, I was sad. Me and my new band of rejects went back to our cabin. Everyone rehashed everything but no one really knew what happened and the teachers weren’t saying anything to us. I knew that it wasn’t anything sexual with Patrick because Eddie was the biggest homophobe ever. He refused to listen to Chicago because one of the band members put his arm around the others in a picture. The girls all loved him. Any of the sluttier girls would have shown him anything he asked. I couldn’t believe all the rumors and I was getting pissed off.
The day dragged on. We went on a hike and the most exciting thing we found was some bear tracks until one of the teachers admitted he had been creating the paw marks to make the trip interesting. That night we used the telescope to view Jupiter and then were sent to bed. When Cammie came in to say goodnight, I was standing on the porch staring out into the darkness. She put her arm around me and dragged me back inside. She said in what I think she considered a whisper, if you have any pot, get rid of it before the morning. I looked at her dumb struck. I knew what pot was. Hell I could tell you where the dealers were in the neighborhood, but it wasn’t something I had ever felt like trying so I just looked at her shocked. She patted me on the butt and sent me scurrying to my bed.
I lay awake wondering if that was what Eddie and Patrick had been sent home for. I woke up late the next morning. Mr. Avery was at our door and telling us all to get out. We lined up on the porch and watched through the window as if in a bad prison movie he bulled our cabin apart. tossing bedding and clothes all around. Of course he didn’t find anything, but he made a show of looking. I think it gave him a thrill to bully kids. He walked out, told us to clean it up and moved across to the compound to the girls’s dorms. I remember him being a dick, but a couple of years later, he would leave under less than optimal conditions when he had an affair with another teacher and his wife caught them.
Time heals all wounds, and when you are a kid and in a fun setting, things move in triple time. I soon forgot about Eddie and whatever sent him home. Camp continued, events were held, and he missed it all.
What Eddie’s mom had said was true. He was grounded for 3 months and got another month added to it when he ran away from home and came to my house. The original grounding was for pot. He had stolen some from his uncle and Patrick and he had snuck away from the cabin late at night to smoke it. Patrick was sent to a Catholic school and grew up to be a police officer. Eddie battled drug addiction all his life. We remained friends until freshman year of high school, when he found a group of friends who liked the same things he did. I moved to SO as my best friend and didn’t look back.
I was thinking of Eddie the other day, wondering what his life was like, does he still do drugs? I did a web search and found him. I might call him up one day, but there isn’t really any reason. I have my memories of the good looking kid who was my friend. I don’t need to know what bad he has done.
Next up: Victor
