Читать книгу Mormon Mayhem - Keaton Albertson - Страница 7

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. -Scout Law

Beginning in childhood, every male member of the Church is strongly encouraged to take part in Scouting, first as a Cub Scout and then as a Boy Scout, working their way toward achieving the highly sought after rank of Eagle Scout. Without questioning this tradition, I began my path toward Eagle Scout as a child just as my two siblings did before me. Both of my older brothers were involved in Scouting and my father became a Scoutmaster after helping out with the local troop for a period of time. I found that the Scouting experiences were overall quite rewarding. However, my personal enjoyment did not derive from the organized merit badge meetings or group activities at yearly Scout camps. Rather, I viewed Scouting as a means to a much different end.

By tagging along with my assigned Scout troop through all of their various camping excursions, I was afforded travel and opportunity to investigate the surrounding wilderness for insect specimens to aid in my collecting hobby. As an incidental aside, I learned important camping and wilderness survival skills that I thought would prove useful to me as an adult if I ever decided to endeavor on such entomological fieldwork activities on my own.

Most organized Scout camps have itineraries packed full of learning experiences and recreational events surrounding the acquisition of merit badges. Thus, not only are organized Scout camps fun, but they are a highly efficient means of obtaining the needed merit badges to quickly earn the various ranks toward Eagle Scout. Since my personal objectives in attending the organized Scout camps pertained to my own agenda of catching insect specimens, I earned the needed merit badges prior to attending camp, as to free up my time to do what I wanted outside of the structured events.

I earned the Insect Study merit badge within the first day of my advancement from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. From that point forward, I earned several merit badges a month, stacking them up as quickly as I could. By the time that my first week-long summer excursion at Camp Maple Dell came along, I had earned many more merit badges than any other Scout member in my troop, given my age. Thus, as I had already earned the merit badges that were offered through the various activities at camp, my itinerary included a whole lot of personal insect collecting, together with some standard mischief.

When I first arrived at Camp Maple Dell, I began assessing the terrain for potential sites for insect collecting. While the other Scouts were getting excited about the upcoming activities being discussed during the orientation meeting, I was busy investigating the trail map for places to seclude myself away from the rest of the troop. Later on during that first afternoon, I set off hiking on my own, with jungle net in hand. I was soon joined by Dirty, who demonstrated just as much disinterest toward attending the merit badge activities as I did. The only difference between us was that I had already earned the merit badges prior to camp and Dirty was just plain indifferent toward the whole affair, having attended camp for nothing other than recreational purposes. I was not opposed to having Dirty join me for my personal entomological fieldwork, as he was quite entertaining to have along and very useful in helping me locate and capture specimens. We spent the remainder of the day and early evening netting moths in the forest, gathering beetles up from the underbrush, and swatting dragonflies along the banks of the pond.

As nighttime set in, Dirty and I returned to camp and sat around a small fire that we had made for ourselves away from the main troop. Two other associates of ours, Kmart Cowboy and Fire Crotch, joined us. Dirty had been good friends with Kmart Cowboy for several years; they were neighbors and had been in trouble together long before I became acquainted with Dirty. I had not directly interacted with Kmart Cowboy prior to Scout camp, as I had only heard stories about him from Dirty concerning their former exploits together. Given his previous criminal history with Dirty, however, I trusted Kmart Cowboy by proxy. Fire Crotch, on the other hand, the second young man who joined us around our nocturnal blaze, was largely unknown to me. His long-haired, stoner appearance suggested that he was mischievous but he did not have much of a reputation for being a troublemaker.

“Have you guys ever smoked grass?” Kmart Cowboy asked, as the four of us were all intently staring into the flames of the campfire, entranced by the beauty of the burning wood.

“Dude, I don’t do any of that drug shit,” I haughtily replied. “Drugs are for fuckbags who try to feel better about their worthless lives. You think I’m some type of loser or something?”

“No, man, he means grass as in real grass,” Dirty clarified.

“Like lawn grass?”

“Like this kind of grass,” Kmart Cowboy said, pulling up a lengthy reed from the ground near his tent. He placed the grass stalk into the fire and let it start to burn. Kmart Cowboy then removed the stalk from the blaze, blew out the flame, and placed the other end to his lips. He inhaled the gray smoke through the semi-hollow stalk. The end of the grass stalk smoldered and grew a deep red color as Kmart Cowboy forcefully sucked air through it. He immediately began to cough.

“What the hell?” I asked in amazement.

Dirty snatched up the grass stalk from Kmart Cowboy and took a toke, followed by a gasp of air. He then joined his friend in coughing.

“You guys are fucked up,” I said. “Why the hell are you smoking grass? You can’t get high off a damn reed.”

“Yeah, but it feels good!” Kmart Cowboy claimed while clearing his lungs.

“It sort of tickles,” Dirty added.

Fire Crotch suspiciously remained silent throughout this affair.

“You want some?” Kmart Cowboy asked the silent Scout, offering Fire Crotch a fresh grass stalk.

“Have you tried smoking a barky?” Fire Crotch dismissively retorted, his eyes remaining fixed upon the fire.

“What the hell is a barky?” I inquired.

“Shit yeah, I’ve smoked a barky before!” Kmart Cowboy replied, neglecting my question.

“No, I mean a real barky,” Fire Crotch stated.

“Is there such thing as a fake barky?” Dirty rhetorically asked.

“Is someone going to tell me what a barky is?” I demanded to know.

“You know, a barky!” Kmart Cowboy stated, looking at me. “You roll up some dried grass, leaves, and tree bark into some paper towels like a big cigar and smoke that shit!”

“Are you serious?” I probed.

“That’s not a real barky,” Fire Crotch stated in a monotone.

“Then what’s a real barky?” Dirty asked, quickly becoming impatient. “Tell us.”

“I’ll show you,” Fire Crotch replied, standing up from the campfire. He began walking off into the darkness. “I’ll be right back.” Moments later, Fire Crotch returned to us, carrying with him a roll of toilet paper that was mostly diminished. He proceeded to unroll the remaining sheets of wipe from off the tube and then stuffed them inside the cardboard cylinder. Fire Crotch then searched the ground and selected from it various items, subsequently stuffing them into the hollow cylinder as well. He gathered up small clumps of dry weeds, wood shavings, and pieces of horse feces that he found along a nearby trail. After having all of the ingredients stuffed inside the cardboard tube, Fire Crotch placed one end of it near the campfire. It quickly ignited. He retrieved the cylindrical object from the fire and blew out the end that had caught aflame. Once it began to smolder, he wrapped his lips around the opposite end of the cardboard tube and inhaled deeply. The contents of the toilet paper roll burned slowly, much like an oversized cigar, with the exception being that the tube contained Utah horseshit rather than fine Cuban tobacco.

We all stared at Fire Crotch in amazement as he sucked in a couple of long drags on the toilet paper roll. “Now that’s a barky,” he hoarsely stated, pulling the tube away from his mouth so that he could talk.

“Fuckin’ hell, man!” Dirty exclaimed.

“I’ll be damned!” Kmart Cowboy said.

“You’re smoking horse shit,” I stated blandly. “Horse shit.”

“Yeah,” Fire Crotch replied. “It adds flavor. You all want some?”

“I don’t know,” Kmart Cowboy stated. “Here, Dirty, you try it.” Kmart Cowboy grabbed the barky and passed it over to Dirty. Without hesitation, Dirty snatched up the barky and tugged on the far end, deeply inhaling the smoke from the smoldering equine feces. I shook my head in disgust. Abstaining from usage of the illicit feces, I soon after retired to my tent to allow my three comrades to smoke the remainder of the barky in peace.

The following morning, Dirty advised me that our troop was scheduled to take part in a zip-line activity. He convinced me to attend this event with him, together with the rest of our troop. I agreed, thereby suspending my insect collecting for the morning. While walking toward Scout Lake, the large, onsite reservoir at Camp Maple Dell, Dirty explained to me exactly what a zip-line was.

“I’m telling you, man, you’re going to love this,” Dirty commented.

“You keep telling me that, but you never explained exactly what this shit is all about,” I said. “And it better be good because I’m missing some primetime bugging right now.”

“It’s fun, you’ll like it.”

“What the hell is it?”

“Alright, look,” Dirty explained. “You know that big ass lake they have down the hill?”

“Yeah.”

“They have a cable wire that goes all the way across it. They have a pulley system with handle grips attached to the cable. You start on the high end over by those trees.” Dirty pointed toward a wooden platform constructed near a thick tree line. “When it’s your turn, you grab hold of the handle grips and jump off the platform.”

“Are you nuts?”

“No, man, just listen,” Dirty continued. “Your weight will carry you down across the cable, clear across the lake to the other side.”

“No way…”

“Yeah, it’s damn fun. You’ll like it.”

“How the hell do I get off that fuckin’ thing once I’m holding onto the handle grips?”

“Well, see, that’s the only problem,” Dirty explained. “You have to let go at some point and you fall down into the lake.”

“Dude, I can’t swim!”

“I know, I know,” Dirty said. “But don’t worry, you can hold on all the way to the other side if you want to.”

“And then what?”

“Well, there’s a tree on the other side where the cable’s attached. You can either catch yourself on the trunk or jump off right when you reach the shore.”

“That’s insane,” I said. “If I don’t bail off into the lake and drown, I’m going to crash into the tree.”

“Well, you could jump on land if you want to.”

“That’s a pretty high wire,” I said, near the contraption of reference.

“Let’s just go watch some other people and you can decide from there.”

I accompanied Dirty over to the zip-line platform and observed half a dozen other kids taking part in the activity. They were clearly having fun. Once the pulley system was drawn back to the platform, the next person in line would grab hold of the handle grips and step off the planks. They would slide at a sharp decline toward the large lake and then let go of the handle grips half way down the zip-line. After splashing into the lake, the kids were seen swimming to the opposite shore. Wearing a lifejacket was mandatory, regardless of the age or swimming skills of the Scout. Dirty eagerly got into line and I hesitantly stood behind him.

“Man, I don’t know about this,” I said to Dirty, as I watched several other kids zip-line down into the lake ahead of us.

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“I’m not a pussy,” I said to Dirty while waiting in line. “I can’t fuckin’ swim.”

“You’ll get a lifejacket.”

“A lifejacket isn’t going to help me swim,” I pointed out.

“You can dog paddle can’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the lifejacket will keep you floating,” Dirty said. “Just dog paddle to shore. It’s not the far off—maybe like twenty feet.”

“I don’t know, man. I’ve been through this shit before. I damn near drown several times when I was younger.”

“Well, choose for yourself,” Dirty stated. “But I’m going for it. I’ll see you at the other side—unless you’re too much of a pussy.” Dirty was next in line. After placing on a lifejacket he stepped up and quickly snagged the handle grips of the pulley system. Without any delay, he bailed off the wooden platform and soared down the zip-line. Moments later, Dirty released the handle grips and fell into Scout Lake. I stood on the platform in trepidation as the pulley system was retrieved back to the supervising staff members.

I was offered a lifejacket and hesitantly placed it over my torso. A few moments later, the pulley system reached my position and the camp staff instructed me to hold on until I was well above the water, as it was unsafe to release the handle grips too early, due to the fact that one might careen into the forested shoreline down below. I looked down from the platform and saw a collection of bed mattresses laid across some of the tree stumps that were left behind after the launching area had been cleared. Several moments passed and I realized that I was taking far too long to jump off the planks. Dirty had already made it to the opposite side of the lake and was seen waving at me, cursing, and taunting me from afar.

Mustering my courage, I grasped hold of the handle grips and ran the short distance off the wooden platform rather than merely stepping off the edge. “Ooooooh Shiiiii-iiiiiit!” The zip-line dipped slightly under the stress of my body weight and I saw the surrounding trees whiz past me in a flash. Seconds later, I was above the surface of Scout Lake. The tree that secured the other end of the zip-line was fast approaching and I quickly decided to take my chances with drowning rather than smashing into its trunk. Releasing the handle grips, I fell into the water. I immediately felt something tugging at my legs once I broke through the surface of the lake but proceeded to dog paddle in a frantic manner toward shore, the lifejacket providing the majority of my buoyancy. Panicking, I followed the sound of Dirty’s cursing voice toward land.

Once reaching the muddy lakeshore, I looked back at who or what was seemingly pulling on my legs from the depths of the waters. I discovered some lengthy marsh plants wrapped around my calves, seemingly having been uprooted from my flailing legs.

“See, it was fun, wasn’t it?” Dirty asked me, while helping me stand.

“Dude, them plants tried to kill me,” I said.

“I felt that shit too,” Dirty commented. “It freaked me out for a little bit.”

“I told you I ain’t no pussy.”

“I know, I was just fuckin’ with you,” Dirty said. “That was pretty brave of you to do that without knowing how to swim. Good job.”

“Thanks. Let’s go catch some bugs now. Fuck this shit.”

Soggy and stinking like lake scum, Dirty and I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding the other scheduled activities and isolated ourselves away from the troop. We occupied our time by hiking through the surrounding mountainsides, capturing butterflies in the forest glades, turning over stones in search of beetles, and sweeping the bushes for bugs.

On our walk back to camp, I stopped to bust a dook in one of the many outhouse units found amongst the trails. While inside the confines of the small restroom, Dirty climbed a large tree that was found growing along the forested path. He scaled across a lengthy limb and began dropping sticks down the exhaust vent of the outhouse unit that I was squatting in. As the seconds ticked by, Dirty began dropping sequentially larger items down the exhaust vent until he had finally clogged it. His laughter could be heard momentarily. Then it stopped altogether.

After pinching off a fecal loaf, I stepped outside the outhouse unit and found Dirty sprawled across the crux of the tree that he had climbed. His legs were straddling the bifurcated trunk, his body contorted in a bizarre position.

“Come on, man,” I said to my devious friend. “It’s getting dark and I’m hungry. We need to make it back to camp.”

Dirty moved his mouth in a speaking motion but no words were uttered.

“Seriously, man, stop messing around,” I said. “We need to go.”

Dirty moved his arms slowly in an attempt to push his body away from the tree trunk. He appeared weak and was unable to dislodge himself from the crux of the tree. I began to realize that he was hurt.

“Dude, are you okay?” I asked, walking closer to him. “What the hell happened?”

“I… fell,” Dirty mumbled.

I assessed the situation and determined that Dirty had fallen from the upper branches of the tree from where he was positioned while busily clogging the exhaust vent of the outhouse unit. He landed in the crux of the tree, straddling a large limb between his legs. “Damn, dude… can you get down?”

“It… hurts… bitch.”

I set my collecting equipment on the ground and proceeded to help Dirty out of the tree. He moaned, holding his crotch. “Did you smash your sack or what, man?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

“I don’t know…” Dirty replied. “I can’t feel anything.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I need some help,” Dirty stated.

“Okay, can you walk?”

“No,” Dirty replied, hunching over and clutching his stomach.

“Alright, sit down here and I’ll go get somebody.” I helped Dirty sit down on a nearby bench and then I ran off to the First Aid Area. After finding the on-duty staff member, I ran back with him to where I had left my wounded friend. Together with the staff member’s aid, we helped Dirty limp back to the Medical Center, which, fortunately enough, was fairly close by.

I waited in the Medical Center lobby area and read some poster diagrams about hemorrhoids while Dirty underwent an examination by the on-call nurse. Nearly half an hour passed before Dirty eventually came limping out of the backroom, followed by the male practitioner. “He’ll be just fine,” the nurse said to me. “He’s just going to be a little bruised for awhile. Shouldn’t cause any problems if you want to walk around or play sports. Just be careful next time.”

“So he’s fine?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a little sore,” the nurse replied.

“Are you sore from smashing your sack on that limb or from what your new nurse friend did to you in the back room there?” I asked Dirty.

“That’s not funny, man.”

“Well, you were back there all alone with him for nearly an hour,” I pointed out. “Did it take that long for your examination or were you enjoying his manly hands cusping your nuts?”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Pick a spot—you’re all ass.”

Dirty lunged at me with a swing. I stepped aside, just as he grabbed his crotch in pain.

“Now who’s the puss?” I taunted him.

Returning to camp, Dirty told his tale of busting his nads on the tree limb. He left out the part about why he was up in the tree to begin with. I personally theorized that he was trying to spy on me while I was evacuating my bowels but I did not share this belief with the other Scouts.

I was awakened the next day by Kmart Cowboy yelling into my tent. “Hey, get up! My dad found a badger!”

I hurriedly got dressed and followed Kmart Cowboy outside of my tent. His father, one of the Scoutmasters of our troop who worked in unison with my own father, was seen standing beside a garbage sack that he had elevated off the ground with a rope. A small mammal was spotted running through the underbrush, darting away from the garbage area. “Was that it?” I asked Kmart Cowboy while pointing at the fleeing animal.

“Yeah, I think so,” he replied. “Hey, dad, was that the badger?”

“Sure was,” Kmart Cowboy’s father asserted. “Don’t go over there. Those things are mean.”

Kmart Cowboy and I remained in camp as instructed. We woke up Dirty and proceeded to have breakfast. After we finished eating, we decided to go looking for the badger, despite our Scoutmaster’s admonition to the contrary. The three of us gathered up some large stones for hunting purposes and investigated the area where the badger was last seen.

“Hey, what are you boys doing over there?” Kmart Cowboy’s father asked us, after he observed the actions of me and the other Scouts for a few minutes.

“We’re just looking for the badger,” Kmart Cowboy replied.

“You don’t go looking at something with rocks in your hands. Get back here and leave that animal alone! And put those rocks down.”

My friends and I dropped our rocks and proceeded to mill around the camp for the rest of the morning. “Man, I wish I had my rifle or something,” I said, after nearly an hour of being bored. “We could go blast that badger. I haven’t killed anything in about a week. It don’t feel right.”

“I tried bringing my pellet gun,” Kmart Cowboy reported. “My dad wouldn’t let me, though.”

“You can’t have anything like that here,” Dirty advised. “They’ll take it from you if the staff find out.”

“I brought my sling-shot,” I confessed.

“Yeah, I got a wrist rocket too,” Kmart Cowboy avowed.

A brief pause followed and then Dirty said, “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Squirrel hunting,” Kmart Cowboy stated.

“Where’re we going to do that?” I inquired. “There’re staff all over this place.”

“Let’s just wait for the morning merit badge activities to start and then we’ll hike out of here,” Kmart Cowboy suggested.

“Okay, where’re we going? Dirty and I explored all of the surrounding areas when we were out looking for bugs. I don’t remember seeing any squirrels around here.”

“We can go to the pine forest,” Kmart Cowboy said.

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a couple miles north of camp. There’s a trail that leads right to it.”

“And there’s squirrels there?”

“Oh, shit yeah! Lots of them.”

“Well, then, let’s go hunting,” I said. “Let me get my tool.”

I returned to my tent and located the slingshot that my father had made for me during the prior deer-hunting season. As he had done as a child, my father selected the crotch of a willow tree and cut out a Y-shaped pattern from the forked branches, the base of which was used as a grip and the two branching legs as supports. After he whittled the willow crotch to the desired dimensions, my father fastened a very thick rubber band to each of the leg supports. He then secured a piece of leather to each end of the rubber band, making a pouch with which to hold projectiles. Although the makeshift slingshot did not look like much, it could easily outperform a professional wrist rocket if used correctly. I snatched up the slingshot and stuffed it into my rear pocket. I then joined Kmart Cowboy and Dirty on the perimeter of our camp. Fire Crotch had since joined them.

“Can I go with you guys?” Fire Crotch asked me as I regrouped with my friends. “This merit badge stuff is boring.”

“Sure,” I said.

“We aren’t going to be back for awhile,” Kmart Cowboy pointed out. “And we have to be a little sneaky so we won’t get caught leaving the troop together.”

“That’s okay,” Fire Crotch replied. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Let’s do it then,” Dirty remarked.

We waited until our two Scoutmasters were busy speaking with the other kids in our troop before we made an exit from our campsite. Once the two men were out of sight, I left the perimeter of our camp, together with Dirty, Kmart Cowboy, and Fire Crotch.

To reach the trail that lead to the pine forest, we had to circumvent several of the initial campsites that formed a perimeter around Scout Lake, the central landmark of Camp Maple Dell. After nearly half an hour of hiking through the surrounding mountainsides to avoid contact with other Scouts, my friends and I found several of the remaining camps abandoned. This saved us time in reaching the trail, as we could then walk the main paths through the empty camps and not have to worry about being detected. Finding the abandoned campsites also provided opportunity for looting, one of my favorite pastimes.

“Damn, check out the size of that grub box!” Dirty stated, rushing over to a large, wooden box that was positioned atop a table in one of the rival troop’s campsites. We all quickly infiltrated the site and began looking through the available equipment and belongings of the other Scouts.

“I wonder what they have in this thing,” Kmart Cowboy stated, examining the secured padlock that sealed the grub box.

“They must have stashed all of the food in that box over there by you guys,” Fire Crotch announced, as he was looking through the rival troop’s camping equipment. “I can’t find anything over here!” He next began rifling through some of the surrounding tents while my other two friends and I explored the main eating area.

“I’m kind of hungry,” Kmart Cowboy said, as he continued to examine the grub box. “How are we gonna get this thing open?”

“Look out!” I warned, stepping toward the grub box with a large stone in my hands.

“Whoa!” Dirty called out, moving aside.

I brought the stone down hard upon the padlock, smashing the hinges of the metal striker. Lifting the stone again, I struck the metal hinge repeatedly until it separated from the wooden box. With the padlock still secured, the metal striker was dislodged from the lid of the grub box, allowing the chest to be opened. A multitude of food supplies was found inside. “Take what you can, fellas!” I yelled out. “It’s feasting time!” The three of us began to vulture sacks of chips, snacks, and other goodies from the grub box, stuffing the stolen food items into our pockets and immediately consuming what we could not carry. “There’s going to be some hungry motherfuckers coming back from a hard day’s work of merit badge activities tonight!”

Dirty began laughing so hard that he had difficulty eating the stolen food. He nearly choked and had to stand up from where he was sitting at the picnic table to regain his composure.

We all shared laughs in between healthy mouthfuls of Scout sustenance. Meanwhile, Fire Crotch continued to search through the surrounding tents, assumedly pocketing whatever treasures that he came across.

“Let’s get going,” I suggested, after the three of us had finished binging on the liberated snacks for several minutes.

“Where the hell did Fire Crotch go?” Dirty finally asked, looking around the campsite.

“I’m right here!” Fire Crotch responded, as he emerged from one of the nearby tents, empty-handed.

“We’re leaving—come on, let’s go!”

Seemingly disappointed, Fire Crotch ran up to us and we began marching out of the rival troop’s campsite together, eating the remains of the looted grub box storage as we trudged along.

“Where did you guys get all that stuff?” Fire Crotch asked.

“While you were dicking around inside those tents we cleaned out the grub box back there,” I replied.

“Did you guys bogart everything? Is there anything left?”

“Nope,” Dirty stated, stuffing his face with some trail mix.

“You have to be up on things when you’re with us,” I stated. “We move pretty quick. There’s no time for waiting around.”

“Yeah, what the hell were you doing in those tents anyway?” Kmart Cowboy asked Fire Crotch. “Did you find anything good?”

“I was looking for some toilet paper,” he replied. “I have to shit.”

Kmart Cowboy ceased his march up the trail. “Well, shit then!” he said.

“But I didn’t find any toilet paper back in the camp,” Fire Crotch pleaded.

“So what? Use some leaves!” Kmart Cowboy commanded. “Hurry up!”

“Shit, damn, hell, fuck, son of a bitch, bastard, bloody puss,” Fire Crotch cursed, stepping away from the group. We all turned our backs on him to give our comrade some privacy to defecate. While we waited, we continued to consume some more stolen food that we each had stuffed inside our swollen pockets. Moments later, Fire Crotch called out from behind us. “Hey, guys! Look!”

I turned around and saw Fire Crotch’s bare ass no less than five feet away from me. His pants were pulled down around his ankles and he remained standing, only slightly bent over. The moment my eyes met his pale white buttocks, Fire Crotch squeezed out a gooey, green swath of fecal matter that resembled a stream of mulched avocado.

“Oh, hell no!” I repulsed.

“Oh God!” Kmart Cowboy responded.

Dirty swiftly cowered away as well. “That’s fucking gross!”

Fire Crotch offered a healthy laugh as the semi-solid fecal stream parted from his rectum and splashed upon the ground, making a pie-shaped formation. He pulled up his pants somewhat, allowing himself to walk in a wobbly manner, and wandered back into the campsite.

“Where the hell are you going now?” Kmart Cowboy called out after him.

“I need to find something to wipe my ass with!” Fire Crotch replied.

I stood in the middle of the trail with Dirty and Kmart Cowboy, revolting in shock from the foul nature of the incident. Seconds later, Fire Crotch rejoined us. He was seen walking up the trail, wiping his ass with a pair of underwear that he had salvaged from another Scout’s tent.

“Can’t you do that back there?” Kmart Cowboy yelled at him.

“What?” Fire Crotch asked, as he continued walking toward us with his hand up his crack. “What’s the big deal?”

“Why don’t you go behind the trees or something?” I said. “Damn!”

“You guys act like a bunch of pansies,” Fire Crotch stated, while hobbling up to us, still wiping his brown eye as he came forward. “Haven’t you ever seen a man wipe his ass before?”

“Not like that I haven’t,” Dirty conceded.

Fire Crotch dropped the confiscated pair of underwear that he had used to clean himself. “Much better,” he said, buttoning up his pants.

“Hey, you know what would be really funny?” Dirty stated. “—If we put those shitty drawers back inside someone’s tent.”

Kmart Cowboy started cackling.

“That would be pretty gross, man,” I said. “Let’s do it!”

Dirty found a long stick from the nearby woods and used it to pick up the soiled underwear from off the ground. He then gingerly walked back into camp with the brown-streaked drawers hanging from off the end of the stick.

Fire Crotch rushed into one of the nearby tents and produced a pillowcase from within. “Let’s put it inside this pillow case!” he suggested.

With the skill of a surgeon, Dirty guided the stick into the open end of the pillowcase that Fire Crotch held in his hands. Dirty then scraped the soiled undergarment off inside the pillowcase and withdrew the stick.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Kmart Cowboy stated with a loud tone.

“That’s pretty funny and all but we’re wasting a good resource back there,” I stated.

“What do you mean?” Dirty asked.

“Well, Fire Crotch left a nice pile of mulched shit back there on the trail. Why don’t you scoop it up and put that inside the pillow case?”

“Dude!” Dirty snatched up the pillowcase that contained the soiled underwear and ran back to the sultry fecal pie that Fire Crotch had dumped upon the trail. He then began to drag the stick through the excrement, attempting to comb as much of the substance as he could into the pillowcase. Due to the near liquid consistency of Fire Crotch’s greenish excrement, the operation proved messy and quite awkward. I became impatient.

“This isn’t working,” I said, walking off toward a different tent. “I got a better idea.”

“What are you going to do?” Kmart Cowboy asked from behind me.

“I’m going to do this the proper way,” I replied. I entered one of tents within the camp and zipped myself inside. I then pulled open one of the rival Scout’s sleeping bags on the ground, dropped my pants, and pinched a moist and meaty loaf inside its downy interior. After wiping my ass with a shirt that I found inside the tent, I threw the cloth inside the sleeping bag and zipped up the package of neighborly love. Once I repositioned the sleeping bag back to its original position, I exited the tent to rejoin my friends. Dirty was seen depositing the shit-filled pillowcase into an adjacent tent. I started to laugh uncontrollably, impeding my continued gait up the trail.

“Dude, check this out,” I said in between bouts of amusement. “Those idiots are going to come back to camp all tired and hungry. They’re going to find their camp raided and their grub box empty. Then, after a long day of merit badge work and foraging for food out in the forest, one of them kids is going to go inside his tent and crawl into his sleeping bag. He’s going to find himself a warm present inside! It’s going to get all over his legs! He’ll be crawling out, smelling like my shit! Then what’s he going to do? He won’t have a sleeping bag to stay in and he’s going to have my dookie all over him!” I nearly broke a vein in my forehead from laughing so hard.

After another half an hour of hiking along the mountain trail, the four of us finally reached the pine forest. The place was like nothing that I have ever seen. Large pinion pines canvassed a glen for what seemed like a mile or so. The ground was flat and even, completely blanketed with fallen, browned pine needles. There was no underbrush or other forest plants of any kind at the base of the pine trees. All that could be seen were the tall trunks of the pines amid the flat ground that was covered with spent pine needles.

It was strangely quiet. The tops of the pines reached above us nearly one hundred feet into the air. As we walked further into the forest, I immediately spotted flashes of red coloration. Several Catocala moths flew between the bases of the pine trees. They displayed their aposematic coloration and then disappeared once more as they alighted upon a neighboring tree, shielding their red hind wings with their mottled forewings that resembled the texture of the pine bark.

We all relished in the calm serenity of the pine forest as we began to walk across the bed of needles upon the ground. Although we were alone, we spoke quietly.

“This is cool,” Dirty commented in a near whisper. “It’s all peaceful and quiet.”

“We should have came here sooner,” Kmart Cowboy mentioned. “It’s really nice up here.”

“I should have brought my net,” I added, watching the Catocala moths continuing to flee from our penetration into the woods.

“I could have shit behind that tree over there,” Fire Crotch said, shattering the moment of serenity.

Several minutes passed and then we heard the chatter of squirrels from up above us in the branches of the pines. Kmart Cowboy secured a steel ball bearing inside his wrist rocket, while I reached for my handcrafted slingshot in my back pocket. Before I could find an appropriate projectile on the ground to launch from my slingshot, Kmart Cowboy had fired off a round at a squirrel in a nearby tree. The squirrel instinctively climbed higher into the pine and rested atop a branch, protecting itself from any objects being slung at it from below. Kmart Cowboy and I bombarded the creature to no avail. It clung to the branch and did not move.

After we eventually gave up on the treed squirrel, Kmart Cowboy and I tracked other game but experienced the same disappointing outcome. Each squirrel that we attacked displayed similar behavior. The ones that would not outright escape by jumping between the high branches just simply clung onto a thick limb to protect themselves. We quickly grew weary of the hunt and retired near the perimeter of the pine forest. The four of us sat down on the ground near some scruffy bushes to rest for a while before making the hike back to our camp.

“Do any of you guys have wet dreams?” Fire Crotch abruptly asked us, once we all began to relax on the ground.

I was alarmed by the intrusiveness of his question. “What the fu—”

“Why the hell do you want to know about that?” Dirty interjected.

“I don’t know… I was just wondering.”

“Oh, come on, guys,” Kmart Cowboy said. “You know you all have wet dreams. If you don’t then that means you’re playing with yourself too much!”

“Dude, that’s not my thing,” I asserted.

“Yeah,” Dirty halfheartedly agreed, looking somewhat ashamed of himself.

“Whatever!”

“So you have those kind of dreams?” Fire Crotch asked Kmart Cowboy.

“All the time, dude!” Kmart Cowboy replied. “I had this really weird one the other night. I was dreaming about having sex with a whole bunch of different girls. Girls from school and everything. After each time I had sex with them, I would take a lock of their pubes to keep.”

“A what?” I asked.

“Their pubes,” Kmart Cowboy repeated.

“What kind of sick shit—”

“Do you know how you tell what color a girl’s pubic hair is?” Dirty interrupted.

“How?” Fire Crotch inquired.

“Look at their eyebrows,” Dirty stated. “A girl’s pubes are the same color as their eyebrows.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said.

“It’s true for me!” Kmart Cowboy claimed.

“Me too,” Dirty stated.

“Well not me,” Fire Crotch reported.

“What, you got black pubes or something?” Dirty asked Fire Crotch.

“No, he doesn’t!” Kmart Cowboy said. “He has fire red pubes just like what’s on his head. He’s a fire crotch!”

“How would you know what color his pubes are?” I asked Kmart Cowboy. “Did you keep a lock of his pubes after you gave him a butt slushy last night?”

“Look at his eyebrows,” Kmart Cowboy replied. “You got fire pubes too! You’re a fire crotch just like he is!”

“Nah-uh, look!” Fire Crotch exclaimed. He stood up and quickly dropped his pants again, exposing his genital region to us once more. A patch of fluorescent-colored pubic hair could be seen poking through the central region of his groin.

I looked away, again appalled by Fire Crotch’s boundless behavior. “Dude, I don’t wanna see any of your god damn junk!”

“What the fuck?” Dirty cried out, staring at Fire Crotch’s man minge.

“Does that shit glow in the dark?” Kmart Cowboy asked, laughing.

Fire Crotch pulled up his pants and sat back down upon the ground. “I told you guys.”

“I guess that rule only applies to girls,” Dirty said, “because he don’t have bright orange eyebrows.”

“Man, you guys are all fucked up,” I said, while gesturing to the different individuals whom were seated around me in a semi-circle. “You all sat around and smoked horse shit out of a barky the other night, you have dreams about collecting pubic hair, and you freely expose yourself while taking a shit out on the trail and then you want us to see your sausage! You guys are freaking me out, man. I can’t deal with this shit. I mean, dropping a load inside someone’s sleeping bag is one thing. But at least I did it in private. You just squirted out fecal matter in front of everyone. Well… that was pretty funny too but what I’m saying is—” My monologue was interrupted by a large pinecone falling to the ground in the center of our seated circle. I looked at the fallen cone and then immediately tilted my head upward. There were no pine branches immediately above us. “What the hell…”

“Where did that come from?” Kmart Cowboy asked.

“That was weird,” Fire Crotch added.

Another pinecone fell to the ground near us, this one having a much different trajectory than the first. I followed the path of where it came from with my eyes and witnessed two persons huddling behind the row of scruffy bushes near where we sat. A third pinecone fell and I could clearly determine from where I was sitting that the two persons were lobbing the objects over in our direction. Kmart Cowboy and Fire Crotch had their backs toward the bushes and they did not see the two strangers hiding in the foliage. They became scared and stood to their feet. As soon as a fourth pinecone found its way over to our circle, both Kmart Cowboy and Fire Crotch bolted off in different directions, screaming.

“Where are they going?” Dirty asked me.

“Dude, there’s two assholes hiding behind those bushes,” I told my friend. “Get yourself something and let’s jump ‘em.”

Dirty and I looked along the ground and quickly located some sizeable pieces of dead wood that could be used as clubs. We grasped the weapons and proceeded into the bushes, ready to pounce upon whoever had disturbed our secluded discussion. Motioning toward each other without speaking, Dirty and I neared the two individuals who were crouched in the foliage. We then raised our clubs and stepped out into the open on either side of the two persons.

“Hey!” one of the men called out, raising his arms above his head in self-defense.

“Watch out!” the other said, while standing up and stepping aside.

Dirty and I immediately recognized the two persons as our Scoutmasters: my father and Kmart Cowboy’s father.

“Oh shit,” Dirty mumbled, dropping his club to the ground.

I tried to conceal my club behind my body and then tossed it into the bushes beside me.

“You boys thought you made it out of camp clean, didn’t you?” Kmart Cowboy’s father asked.

“Yeah, well, um…”

“We knew where you were going,” my father said. “We followed you all the way here.”

Dirty and I looked at each other in panic, apparently both thinking of the previous raid upon the rival Scout troop’s campsite.

“We lost you for a little bit back in those other campsites but we knew where you were heading,” Kmart Cowboy’s father avowed.

I let out a sigh of relief. My father and the other Scoutmaster apparently walked straight to the trail leading to the pine forest and did not circumvent Camp Maple Dell as we did. Thus, they consequently did not witness us raiding the other campsite or see Fire Crotch defecating on the trail.

“So what were you boys just talking about?” my father asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Dirty replied. “Kmart Cowboy was just telling us about some dreams that he had.”

“Yeah, we heard that part,” Kmart Cowboy’s father stated. “But then it got quiet and you started laughing afterward. What was your other friend doing?”

Dirty and I looked at each other again, searching each other’s face for a viable excuse. “He was just telling us some jokes,” I lied.

“Well, we probably need to have a little discussion back at camp about some of the things we heard you boys talking about,” my father stated.

“Where did them other two run off to?” Kmart Cowboy’s father asked.

“They must have got scared,” I replied. “I guess they thought you were someone else. They took off running that way.”

“We’ll go find them,” Dirty suggested.

Dirty and I quickly turned away from our two Scoutmasters, thoroughly embarrassed over the fact that they had both earjacked our nasty conversation. We briskly walked in the direction of where we saw Kmart Cowboy running. “Son of a bitch, dude,” Dirty commented as we started walking through the pine forest toward the direction of where our compatriots had ran. “I can’t believe they were there the whole time.”

“Well, they didn’t hear everything,” I pointed out. “They wouldn’t have been asking us questions if they heard everything. We weren’t the ones talking about that nasty shit anyway. Kmart Cowboy had his pube-harvesting dream and Fire Crotch was the one showing his little dick to everyone.”

“You think they heard my eyebrow theory?”

“Oh, yeah, they probably heard that too.”

“Dammit.”

Kmart Cowboy suddenly appeared from behind the trunk of a large pine. “Tell me that wasn’t my dad back there,” he said, his voice straining.

“That was your dad back there,” Dirty stated.

“And mine too,” I added.

“Oh shit!”

“They heard everything,” Dirty remarked.

“Yeah, they know all about your pube dreams now and my old man wants to have some words with us when we get back to camp.”

“Fuck me!”

“Where’s Fire Crotch?” Dirty asked.

“He’s right here,” Kmart Cowboy replied. “Get out here!” he yelled off into the pine forest.

Seconds later, Fire Crotch appeared from behind another pine tree several yards away. He walked over to join us.

“We’re so busted,” Dirty announced to Fire Crotch.

“Isn’t that you guys’ dads?” Fire Crotch asked, squinting past us to see our two Scoutmasters that we left behind near the forest perimeter.

“Yep!” Kmart Cowboy responded.

“They’re probably waiting for us to walk back with them,” Dirty stated.

“Let’s ditch them,” I suggested.

“How?” Kmart Cowboy asked. “There’s only one trail out of here!”

“They’re old,” I pointed out. “They won’t be able to keep up with us. Let’s just walk back there and get on the trail. After we get hiking, we’ll just speed up and leave them behind. I don’t want to hear any lecture about pubes, man!”

“Okay, sounds like a plan.”

The four of us momentarily returned to where our Scoutmasters were standing. As we had plotted, we began the return hike back to our camp, following the main trail. We walked in pace with our Scoutmasters for one hundred yards or so and then gradually began walking faster. After several minutes, we substantially increased our pace. Within a short amount of time, the two Scoutmasters were well behind us, out of site along the various twists and turns of the hiking trail.

As we carried on down the trail at our brisk pace, my three comrades and I largely kept silent. Few words were uttered between us during the return hike and we soon reached the peripheral campsites of Camp Maple Dell. Once we re-entered the campsite areas, we encountered two staff members who were walking near the main lodge. They were in the midst of an intense conversation and were speaking loud enough to clearly be heard.

“That entire grub box was nearly destroyed,” one of the staff members said to his companion. “They must have taken a week’s worth of food out of there. So it wasn’t just one kid.”

“I’ve been working here for thirteen years,” the other staff member commented to his pal, “and I have never heard of someone going to the bathroom inside another Scout’s tent. I mean that is just downright foul.”

“There were two tents, Jim.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“There was that pillowcase found in the red tent and then the brownish tent had someone relieve themselves inside that poor kid’s sleeping bag.”

Dirty and I looked at each other with restrained laughter while overhearing the verbal exchange between the two staff members. Kmart Cowboy and Fire Crotch both hung their heads and looked at the ground as the two men crossed the path in front of us. The staff members took notice of us as they walked past, paused, and then abruptly halted.

“Hey, you boys,” one of the gentlemen addressed us. My comrades and I instinctively kept walking, acting as if we did not hear the man’s voice. “Hey, can we talk to you boys for a minute? Hey!”

Fire Crotch finally looked up and stopped walking, causing a chain reaction for the rest of us to stop walking as well. The two staff members slowly neared our small group, looking us over in a suspicious manner. Dirty and I stared at them carefully and prepared to run.

“What were you boys doing out that way?”

“Just hiking,” Kmart Cowboy quickly replied.

“Oh yeah? Where are you getting back from?”

“The pine forest.”

The two staff members looked around, glanced at each other, and then continued. “Were you boys alone all afternoon?”

“No,” I said. “Our Scoutmasters were with us. They followed us to the pine forest and are right behind us up the trail there a little bit.”

“Did you boys walk through any campsites on your way to the forest?”

“No,” Dirty adamantly replied.

“What do you have there in your back pocket?” the staff member suddenly asked me.

I did a mental assessment of my person and of my belongings before I responded. I was relatively sure that I had discarded any wrappers or empty bags of stolen food items and I knew that I was not currently carrying any uneaten snacks in my pockets. Unsure of what the staff member was referring to, I played oblivious. “What pocket?” I asked.

“Your back pocket,” the staff member repeated.

Dirty’s eyes darted over to me and he strained himself to look at my backside without moving his head. A worried expression crept across his face.

“Hand it over,” the staff member said, extending his empty palm.

I reached toward my back pocket and found my homemade slingshot. Being somewhat relieved that there was not a stolen bag of Doritos sticking out of my pocket, implicating me into the campsite raid, I retrieved my slingshot. I reluctantly handed over to the staff member the weapon that my father had crafted for me and then realized that being found with the stolen items might have been a lesser punishment.

“You know that you boys aren’t supposed to have these.”

“He has one too,” the other staff member stated, pointing at Kmart Cowboy.

Kmart Cowboy immediately handed his wrist rocket to the man.

“You can have your Scoutmasters get these back for you before you leave. Please keep in mind the rules and regulations of Camp Maple Dell while you’re here.”

“Yes, sir,” Fire Crotch responded.

“You boys best be on your way back to your campsite; there’s some thieves roaming about stealing food and causing mischief.”

I raised an eyebrow in mocked surprise. “Really?”

“Yes, but don’t you boys worry. We’ll sure blue find them. Nothing gets by us up here. Ain’t that right, Jim?”

The other staff member confidently nodded his head in response to his companion’s remarks.

“Okay, well, we best get back to camp efore someone steals our stuff, guys,” I said to my compatriots.

“I hate thieves!” Dirty added while shaking his head in disgust.

The four of us separated from the staff members and began walking toward the smaller trail that led toward our campsite. As we walked away from the two men, we began assessing what had just taken place.

“I thought we were busted for sure!” Fire Crotch stated.

“Yeah, no shit!” Kmart Cowboy agreed.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t search us,” Dirty said, pulling out several bags of cookies from his shorts. “I’d have a hard time explaining where I got these from.”

“What the hell do you still got those for?” Kmart Cowboy asked.

“I was saving some for later.”

“Share the wealth, man,” I said, snatching up one of the bags of cookies. I began eating some of the sugary yum-yum’s and then reflected back upon my slingshot being confiscated. “I better get my shit back,” I stated. “If they don’t cough up my slingshot before we leave I’m going to break into the lodge and take it back myself.”

“My dad’s going to be pissed for me taking my wrist rocket here,” Kmart Cowboy stated.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I consoled, “and it actually might help us out with an alibi.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you’re definitely caught for something, you might as well use a lesser transgression to cover for a larger one. Like, we’d be in deep shit if we get caught for raiding that other campsite. But our Scoutmasters know we were up to no good so we have to come up with something. So, instead of getting busted for the campsite raid, we substitute hunting squirrels. Either way we’re in trouble for something but the slingshot offense is less serious than shitting in some kid’s sleeping bag. So we’ll just assume guilt over sneaking out of camp to go hunt squirrels in the pine forest. And then we won’t be suspected for looting those other Scouts’ food and whatnot.”

“That’s pretty smooth,” Dirty commented.

“Thank you. I take pride in my work.”

Surprisingly, after returning back to camp, my father made no mention of the conversation that he had overheard in the pine forest. I received no lecture of morality from him, which I normally had to suffer through whenever my father caught wind of me speaking of inappropriate topics. I later figured that my father was uncomfortable with the prospect of having this discussion, as he had put it off for the remainder of our stay at Camp Maple Dell. I was hopeful that he would forget all about the occurrence and move on.

Prior to leaving summer camp, my homemade slingshot was returned to me and Kmart Cowboy was given back his wrist rocket. I secured my insect specimens and packed away the rest of my gear. Just as I was preparing to leave camp with the rest of the troop, my father pulled me aside and broached the topic of the impending morality lecture. “When are we going to have that discussion about what I heard you boys talking about out in the forest?” he asked.

I knew that my father did not really want to deliver this lecture and was only going through the obligatory motions of his priesthood duties. Thus, I decided to give him an out. “We already did,” I responded. “Remember?”

My father furrowed his brow, thought for a moment, and then said, “That’s right, we did.” To this day, no such discussion has ever taken place.