Happy Camper 2
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2006
All
the week before Alex is to leave for nearly four days of weekend
sleep-away camp, Jill tells everyone how I'm worried. She tells how
I'm upset, how I'm scared he'll get up there in the woods among
strangers and burst out crying, how he'll be left to bawl for hours
while we get him back home. How I'm worried that Alex, at scarcely
40 pounds and at a tender 7-and-a-half years old, just isn't ready.
How I imagine we'll get the call about Sunday morning.
Jill says good-bye to him. At the door of the bus,
I prepare to board with him and escort him to his seat, cuddling him
until they order me off. I'm prepared to do this. Instead, at the
sight of the stairs of the bus he snaps free of my hand and bolts
inside. I see him take his seat, and watch us impassive through the
tinted glass until it's time for the bus to pull out and the big
front door hisses shut.
Jill turns to me. Her cheeks glisten in the light
of the streetlamps. "My bear!" she sobs. "My little bear! I asked
him for a kiss goodbye, and he said 'Kiss good-bye!' and ran onto
the bus! My little bear."
The little bear is off on his first nights alone
and away from us without being in a hospital. We bought him a turtle
suitcase - spotted by Aunt Julie in a shop near her office - and the
night before her BREAKDOWN Jill spent labeling shirts, snow boots,
tiny underwear, and everything else in permanent fine-point black. I
photocopied his Tom and Pippo books in case any counselor can
spare a minute to read to him. We packed three sweats and four T
shirts (labeled!), Zip-Loc Baggies for dirty socks, two binkies, the
metal cups from which he must drink his nightly medicines. When the
turtle was stuffed, the rasp of the zipper cut right across a period
of our parenthood.
The next night, I misjudge when we're supposed to
show up at the community center at 103rd and Columbus Avenue, and we
have to kill an hour. Alex keeps pulling me toward the center's
door. Ned wants to throw his hat up in the air and catch it. We line
up to check in with the camp director and the nurse. "Okay,
problem," says the director, looking at our carefully labeled
baggies of Topamax and melatonin. "We can't take these unless
they're in a medicine bottle." We say Alex loves saltines, and that
we've brought some. "If you've got saltines, I'll take'em," the
director says. I think he looks like a warm version of Steven
Spielberg.
There are large boys going to camp, goliaths
who've been going since Alex was still fed through a J tube. All the
moms who are dropping off their quiet, rocking, huge sons say the
kids love the camp, and having been sending their kids since they
were nine or ten. No mom we talk to started sending their kids at
age seven.
One big boy shakes my hand with a feather grip.
Another, Robert, seems to have made himself an honorary counselor.
He sort of takes Alex under his wing. Robert talks a lot. Alex still
pulls me toward the center's door.
All of a sudden the bus is pulling away. I see
Jill's shining cheeks, and I see Alex in the bus window. He is just
looking. I see Robert in the seat behind him; Robert's jaw is moving
incessantly, probably with advice and encouragement for Alex, who
appears to pay no attention.
Ned, Jill and I eat dinner in a Chinese
restaurant. I check my cell phone frequently to make sure it's on.
It is. No calls. We sleep well, mostly because lately Alex has been
regularly busting in during the wee hours. From a neighbor we borrow
floor mattress for Ned, so he can sleep in our room.
I call next morning. "Is Alex curious by nature?"
the director asks. "When he runs away, is it just to run away or
just to run? Will he stop?" He had a couple of "emotional moments,"
I'm told, but mostly he's just curious. It's frigid, so the camp is
indoors this time. The director says Alex is tossing balls in the
gym.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" I ask Jill half-way
through that silent Saturday. "No despairing predictions," she
requests. What happens if one of us just needs reassurance? I ask.
I call twice Sunday. The first call, they say he's
doing well. The second call, I leave a message and forget about it,
and when they return the call that afternoon while Jill and I are
out (at bars!) and Ned is home with the babysitter, we get scared.
Jill hugs the cell phone to her ear, then I see her give one crisp
wave of her hand. He's okay.
Monday comes. So does the bus, a few minutes late,
and again I see Alex, the same expression on his face, through the
tinted glass. He doesn't seem to see me until I leap up and down and
wave my hands in front of his window, then I see him wriggle out of
the seat and bolt for the door.
He's home. We speak to a couple of counselors who
worked with him. He bit a kid - not hard - over a toy, and ran
around a lot turning out lights. "He's very independent," notes one
counselor. He is. Now more than before.
Copyright 2005 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
