Thursday, September 24, 2009

A week's too long to do any one thing.

“C’mere a minute.”

Not very eloquent, but he was not a very eloquent man. He was a simple man who dressed in flannel and played in a going-nowhere band with his buddies on the weekends. But he mostly smiled and was always nice to me when I was a guest in his home. His eldest son and I were best friends, so I was there often. He wasn’t smiling now.

I don’t think he grabbed my arm, but he might as well have. He led me to a far corner of the park. Away from my friend, away from the rest of his family, away from my comfort level. This was the first time all week I had seen him like this. I was a guest on his family’s vacation and had apparently done something terribly wrong.

“If you ever put your hands on my son again…” He searched for an ending. Then he just looked at me.

What I thought was normal, boyish horseplay, I was now seeing through the eyes of a father with a skinny, not terribly popular son. A father who had obvious marital problems. A father who was trying to use this weeklong getaway to reassure his life. A father furious at a 12-year-old boy who was ruining everything.

He got a bit of control over himself. It might have been due to the fact that I looked like I was about to cry. Most 12-year-olds do when confronted by an adult.

I looked around for help. Off in the distance, my best friend had his back to us. He was mad too, but he’d get over it the way kids do. And this man’s wife? She was 200 yards away on top of a picnic table, puffing a cigarette. She looked at us, half disgusted, half disinterested, and then averted her eyes. It seems like every memory I have of her on the trip is this one.

“He’s half your weight. And there you are, tossing him around like a doll.” He started to get mad again. Maybe a camping trip wasn’t the answer to all of life’s problems. Certainly not when you bring ill-behaved guests along. But I might remind you, I was 12. And just discovering girls and myself. It was all adrenaline, all the time. And yes, there was a girl I was trying to impress by wrestling my best friend who clearly had no chance.

But I was wrong. And it’s an odd thing being scolded by a parent whom isn’t your own. Especially when you realize he or she is right to do so. I went from scared to sympathetic to ashamed in a minute flat.

“And for you to pull his pants down…” Now he was getting very mad. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. The whole trip. The whole family. The whole marriage. I could see it. Could he?

“Sorry,” was all I could muster. It was over. The sun was setting. We’d return to the campsite for an uncomfortable evening by a campfire that this August night needed no part of. And I would go from ashamed to angry. “Wait until I tell my dad,” I thought. “Who does this guy think he is?” And “It’s not my fault Andy wasn’t wearing underpants.”

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