Fertile Ground

Written in between gigs, influenced by own childhood and adolescence, Fertile Ground tries to capture the qualities of sleep away camp that have colored my life and closest relationships. The story follows three characters over two timelines, a mix of self-discovery, summer romance, and steep hills to climb.

Part 1:

1.

The road wound about the way a young boy’s mind might as he experiences it for the first time. Each bend a new pocket of wonder. What could hide in this here wood? Beyond the pines and rock formations. Where walking trails ended and muddy depths began. Depending on the boy, that thought is either one of great adventure or worry and for Mark Steiner, it was unquestionable worry.

What was out there, waiting? What vicious beasts? Serpents for sure. Monsters coiled under the tall grass. He had read in "A Young Scout's Guide to Wildlife" about the coral snake's red, yellow, and black rings, and how the sequence with which they appeared indicated how dangerous they might be. ‘Red touches black, you're in luck jack.’ ‘Red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow.’ Or was it the other way around? He was doomed. Mark imagined seeing even a non-poisonous snake and his throat clenched. He told himself then that he would not consider the Adirondack Black Bear and its massive paws.

This grizzly thought had, of course, passed through his mind on a number of occasions in recent weeks as he considered, in disturbing detail, whether his head or gut would be taken first. He must have conjured the image a hundred times, seeing it at dinner, the bathroom sink, the front school bus seat, his locker, and, most frequently, during recess. He was what the administrators called an "inside body," someone whose soft mitts were made for nestling beautifully bound parchment, not splintering equipment. His bespectacled eyes worked better reading context clues than curveballs. His favorite hats knew no clay, no grass, and certainly no tar. His standardized testing scores advanced him a single grade in elementary.  And when his peers flooded the schoolyard after lunch, forming circles around dead squirrels, poking them with sticks, hurling insults and red rubber balls at each other, jumping, running, and diving, dirtying their hands and knees and hair and faces, Mark stayed in. He searched the Internet on the library computer or sat quietly with any of the Harry Potter books, a series he had read three times over. Lately though, he'd searched for and read more about nature and wildlife than any one subject or any number of them combined.

Mark's thoughts shifted from outside the car to the cushioned leather seat he sat in. He felt a smooth draft coming from the back vents,(and something about the familiar, comforting smell of the interior of the car to bring the reader deeper in). These luxuries were fleeting, he knew. The winding road ticked another second off their expiration dates with each pebble they passed. Considering the finality of what lied ahead, his pores grabbed at the air conditioning and his pale rear clutched the tan interior; his cheeks embracing the cushion firmer and firmer still. Maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, his one hundred eighteen pounds could become one with the cushion, sink into it so far that he would live the rest of his days in this temperate safe haven.

"You nervous?" he heard his dad ask, watching him crane his neck backward as he spoke. With all of his being he knew he was. He could guarantee it. Because when he got nervous, Mark began to sweat at both of his temples, his lower back and his sternum, and experience life with debilitating intensity, familiar reactions he felt coming on now. He took in his father's face. The green eyes, combed hair, and half smile; something to say that everything was and will continue to be alright. Mark always found comfort in this smile, and so his brain began to function properly once more as he thought of a passable way to say that he wasn't nervous, even though, clearly, he was, and lying would only make it worse.

But as he opened his mouth to answer, the car stopped short, and he saw, as clear as the Appalachian sky, his dad's twisted form jerk forward and crash back. "I forgot this is a two way street," his mother murmured from behind the wheel, to no comfort to those in tow. The gravel that rolled down the mountain the road had been carved into, was that real or imagined?

"You okay, hun?" she asked as the sedan sat idle. Mark could hear and feel himself breathing deep. A massive truck inched past them, the driver offering a wave, and the whole while, Mark imagined the two tons of steel they were encased in careening over the road’s steep edge, down into the cavern below. As soon as the words "bear food" entered his thoughts, he shoved them out.

After a minute, Barbara Steiner stepped her foot back on the gas, reengaging the air conditioning's death clock. "I'm not nervous!" Mark blurted out, half remembering the question, half attempting to convince himself it was true. But his outburst went unheard, or upon utterance it had become a garbled mess, for instead of acknowledging it, his mother, in a single elongated high-pitched tone said, "We're alllllllmost theeeeere."

This “there,” was an inevitable fate that Mark had been coming to terms with since early March, when he and his mother had sat in Dr. Torissi's office discussing Mark's scraped right hand and badly bruised knee. To him, Brett Whitley’s “aggressive behavior and empathy issues,” as his red-haired therapist put it, was an issue needing personal attention from Brett and his parents. One day, at the librarian’s suggestion, Mark had gone outside to "enjoy the sun and the air a little!" He brought a book with and was reading in uninterrupted peace, bothering no one as far as he could tell. Why Brett had ripped the book out of his hand tossed it 20 feet and pushed Mark down as he went to retrieve it was not his problem. How could it be? But Dr. T and Mrs. Steiner agreed that Mark's needed friends his age, and the upcoming summer was the perfect time to work on both.

The road turned from asphalt to dirt and the blue BMW passed a small shack on the right, then a large wooden barn on the left. There was a man in a stained orange shirt, brown cargo shorts, a light brown beard, and eyeglasses waving them forward. He smiled at the car and Mark's stomach filled with dread. The car crept along and the forest receded showing a bright open field and a large black sign that read in yellow lettering "Welcome to Camp Birchenbeth," which Mark read and repeated in his head as "Camp Certain Death" once more.

2.

Waking up on a twin-sized cot amidst the forestation of mainland New York, in the brutal summer months when mosquitoes float in the air like beans in soup and clothing becomes less like drapery and more exoskeleton, had elements both easy and hard. If you were in a bedroom with air-conditioning, which Lucas Inkler was not, then maybe there was a chance your body could be fooled into comfortability and ease itself into and out of sleep. But without AC, as Lucas and the rest of the Camp Birchenbeth staff were, left only with a few measly box fans united in their attack, then you would awake in a pool of sweat, inexplicably out of breath, your sheets peppered with specks of dirt and twig.

For Lucas, the struggle was all too familiar and in a way comforting to the lithe young man. This was to be his ninth summer away at camp, his third as staff. Each year, he lived in a little musty wooden cabin like the one he laid in now, sleeping on an aluminum wire cot like the one he laid on now, contorting his string bean legs, like he was doing now. Fitting a second body on the three-foot wide, inch-thick mattress was an endeavor he only recently dared to explore, and he almost succeeded last night with a second-year Cubs counselor who was easy enough at first, but left things hard in the end. Once asleep, Lucas dreamed of going all the way with her, with anyone really, an easily imaginable fantasy for a young man like himself that was hard to visualize with precision. But sleep, that draining tease, only accepted him after he allowed the events of the impending morning to cycle through his head a good eight dozen times.

As the screech of his alarm sounded again, the red display blinking 8:07, he swung his wiry frame off the cot, punched down on the clock with his right hand, grabbed a towel with his left, slipped his feet into a pair of $0.99 flip flops, twisted his back, stood up, and then made his way briefly to the tightly wound and severely punctured screen door. The wash house he shared with other younger staff members was exactly 67 mulch-lined steps from Lucas's bunk, and in the time it took him to make those steps, he tried with all his early morning vigor to think about that second-year Cubs counselor.

His racing mind failed him, however. Instead, he continued his preoccupation with the mystery of the morning. Why had the Camp Director personally requested a one-on-one meeting? What could it possibly mean? Had the camp song birds sung of the near-boiling case of light beer tucked beneath his bed? Had Lucas's sterling camp run finally met its end? Or had it found its proper recognition? As a camper, Lucas Inkler was a 5-tool player; an athlete, an artist, a thespian, a conservationist, and an exceptional swimmer. In addition, he was as kind and charming as the humidity allowed, and this summer he was under contract for $500 to act as counselor for eleven preteen boys for two months. He had worked the math out in his head, accounting for 14-hour days, six days a week, and slammed an indignant fist when he arrived at a number less than 75 cents per hour. Maybe his sheer determination to be an overachiever had finally paid off, the cruel camp administrators realizing the error of their ways, and handing him a much-deserved raise or a hefty bonus. But then again, Lucas had never heard of the camp administrators ever doing such a thing, and no one, on this campsite or planet, thought as highly of Lucas as he did himself.

With his towel slung from a painted nail, Lucas turned the hot water handle 90 degrees to the left, the cold water handle 30 degrees to the right, stepped into the wooden shower stall and let the warmish water run through his flowing, dirty blonde hair, down his dimpled back, and to his wide, flippered feet. These were to be the few moments of pristine cleanliness he’d have all day and it was usually the case, he found, that cleanliness gave to clarity. What could Richie Frecht, the only standing Camp Director Lucas had ever known, the 6 foot 3 hulking mass of tender authority, the man with whom Lucas had only ever shared momentary handshakes and hi-fives, possibly want with him?

The question lingered in his mind as he returned to his bunk, his roommate, a climbing tower specialist from Nebraska by way of New Zealand, still asleep. It stayed there as he walked back through his unit, the freshness of the morning covering him like a veil, other staff members still mid toss and turn. It bounced around as he carefully walked down the weed-stricken hill that led up to his unit, the cluster of bunks known as Panther Territory. It dripped from the front of his forehead to the back of his throat as he walked the camp road to the Director’s House. And it twisted itself into a knotted ball firmly in the center of his chest as he knocked twice on the door.

Lucas saw the towering man approach through the screen door, unable to discern his expression through the mesh. "Lucas!” Richie said warmly, swinging the oak door open with one motion his tree trunk arm. “So glad you could make it."

Lucas dug his big toe into the ground and squeezed his thumb as he looked up at the mountain in front of him.

"Of course, Rich, how, uh, could I not?"

"Well, I know this week before the campers get here is important to the staff, and that you all want to sleep, more or less, your own hours while you still can, so I'm still appreciative that you made the effort."

Definitely not getting fired.

"My pleasure, really."

"Please, come in."

The Director’s quarters were a penthouse suite compared to the bunks. It had air conditioning, its own kitchen, cable TV, a full-sized refrigerator, and two plush sofas, one of which Richie directed Lucas to sit on.

"Are you hungry Luke? I just made breakfast; eggs and toast." Richie had never called Lucas by his defacto camp nickname, Link, but he occasionally shortened his formal first name a tad, for variation more than familiarity, Lucas always felt.

"Yes, please."

"I usually make myself breakfast before joining you guys in the dining hall. Just makes things easier. There's always some homesick camper, or some bad rash, or a counselor MIA, and these sorts of problems don't wait for you to finish your oatmeal, ya know?” He motioned backward every third second, dabbing at a pan of watery eggs as the toaster ticked. “They're waiting for me as soon as I leave this cabin, so if I'm going to eat, it's best to do it before."

Lucas was half-listening, half reading the scrolling news bar on the television mounted in the corner. He had been at camp, and orientation, for four days now, and though the counselors were permitted to have cell phones, they had to stay in the bunks during the day, and service signals were bad at best. If information was currency in the outside world, it was platinum plated in camp.

"But I'm sure you don't want to hear about all of that now do you? You're probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here this morning?" Lucas nodded politely, a mash of eggs and buttered toast filling his maw. A greeter’s smile stayed on Richie’s red face as he spoke. "Well as you know the campers get here in a few days and here later today, counselors will receive their group assignments. Now, despite what people may speculate, this is a serious undertaking for me and the other admins. A lot of thought goes into pairing the right campers and staff members together but it's just plain impossible to make everybody happy." Link gulped down as he anticipated the point. "It's a simple fact that some campers are tougher than others, and that as a result, some counselors have more...well...trying summers than others. And I know you've always been an exemplary camper and counselor, so I wanted to ask you a personal favor and also let you see your assignment before everyone else."

An artificial sweetener. A dash of enticement to counteract the slab of inconvenience. Link swallowed again, even harder, and took a sip from the orange juice that he didn't entirely remember asking for.

"Anything you want, Rich. You know I would do,” he swallowed a third time, something more than his breakfast going down with it, “whatever you need."

Rich clapped his hands together. "Great. So, so great, because we have a first-time camper coming and his parents happen to be good friends of mine. I went to camp with his father actually, Barry Steiner, have you ever heard of him? People used to call him Bear Steiner."

"I think so. I've heard he single handedly won the cup for his elective team. He's also pitched the only no-hitter in CBP intercamp history? I mean, it sounds kinda far-fetched, but I've heard that from a few people."

Richie let out a boisterous laugh and shook his head. "Yes. And we all had to live in his shadow. Well, me and Bear grew up together on these very campgrounds, and his son, Mark, will be joining us this summer for the first time ever. And…. how do I say this? Well…Mark... I just know that he’s going to be a tough one to get acclimated.”

"Ok, so he’s nerdy."

"No, well…. yes and no. He's into academics and science and things like that, but he’s limited in his.... social ability.” Richie paused for a moment, placing his plump forefinger across his face. “What's important is that Mark is coming here and we need to make sure he has a fantastic summer and from what I know about this year's Panther staff, you are the best man to help him achieve that. So whaddya say Link? Think you're up for it?"

The counselor’s ears perked up. It was a non-ultimatum. A lose-lose for Lucas and his ninth, glorious summer. If he accepted, he already knew he'd have to babysit this Mark kid the next four weeks. He'd have to psych him up to jump into the lake water and hold his hand when he took a shower in the spider-infested stalls. He'd have to rub his back when he went to sleep and coordinate alternatives to all three meals every day. He'd be so physically and emotionally invested in this kid that he'd finish the summer still a virgin and that, for certain, would leave him depressed. 

But if he said no, then the same uncertainty that haunted him the previous 12 hours would hang over him for four additional weeks. Richie would take his refusal as a personal insult, not only to himself, but to the camp, and to the legend of Bear Steiner. Word might get out that Lucas "Link" Inkler was not the camp mensch that everyone thought him to be. He was instead selfish and this one place where he thrived, this one place where he fit in and felt like himself, well, it would be ruined.

Lucas pointed at his mouth as he swallowed harshly, feigning comfort inauthentically. "Absolutely Rich. I can't wait to meet him."

"Wow. That's great Luke. So, so great. You're gonna love him. I've met him a few times and he's incredibly bright. A near genius, really. I think you guys are gonna have a great summer together. We'll meet about once a week to see how it's going, though I'm sure you won't have any issues. This is a great start to my day. Thank you for being so understanding.", Rich said with a smile as he reached out for a handshake.

“Not a problem,” Lucas replied as he grasped Rich’s outstretched hand. “It was,” he silently thought as he gathered himself off the couch to leave the cabin. The entire walk back to Panther Territory he tried to think about the second-year Cubs counselor. He tried and tried and tried, but could only picture the misery Mark Steiner was about to wreak on his summer.

3.

When Richie and Barry were campers, many starry nights ago, the Director's House was occupied by a man named Gordon Shultz, who claimed to have known the founders of the camp personally. Shultz served as Camp Director until he was 80, two years after the Board of Directors had voted to institute an age maximum for the position. The way he would tell it, and he would tell it often—at staff orientations and end of summer banquets and staff retreats, and finally, at his retirement ceremony, eyes more full with tears than the lake itself could be—during his first years on staff, he struck up a friendship with a man named William Beckman. To 99% of the campers and staff, Beckman was the nameless groundskeeper; a staunch man who kept the fields and lawns manicured for eight months of the year. He wore a large straw hat that blurred the upper portions of his face. Clear though were the wordledd gestures he’d make towards camp groups, a head tilt or brim touch, when a rare intersection took place.

Much to Gordon’s displeasure, campers and counselors alike began to trade rumors about the mysterious groundskeeper. Some said that the gardening gloves he wore all summer long hid massive wrench-like claws, hands he couldn't bear to look at in the light of day, lest he remember the atrocities he'd committed with them, the lives he'd taken. 

Others claimed different. 

As newlyweds, he and his wife had circled twenty acres in the Northern Hudson Valley with the mission to hike up and down every mountain. Inspired by the calmness and infinite potential of untouched nature, they began their quest, knapsacks stuffed with water-resistant, lightweight gear. They followed trail markers and made camp where all the local guides suggested. They had enough freeze-dried fruit and meats to last a week, and while Will had become an adept forager, his bride was ready to return after the third night. Will resisted. Nature's bug had broken his skin. The infinite unknown had captured him, like a delirious conquistador he needed to march onward, it was his clearest destiny. And so they started off that morning in opposite directions,, tears coating both of their cheeks, but for entirely different reasons. 

She returned home and assembled a search party. Neighbors and classmates linked together to comb the forest floor, flashlights scanning every emptied tree husk and leafy bed. But they never found him. “He doesn’t want to be found,” her father would tell her, but she couldn’t forget the butcher's son whom she’d met at a town dance when they were both 14. The way he cradled her in his long sinewy arm. She could never forget those arms, the way they would wrap around her near twice over. Arms that would sky rocket in science class whenever a volunteer was needed in chemistry. Arms that would stretch further than she could have ever imagined to grab tree limbs as if they were rungs on a ladder. That’s how he got his nickname, Birch.

 Despondent, she asked her father for one more request. Could he purchase a small parcel of the land and build her a cabin? That way, if he ever came back looking for her, he’d know she never really left. And with that, Beth Beckham had, unknowingly, started the camp. A second cabin built, and a wash house, and a mess hall, and through it all the question loomed: Would he ever come back?

And it was at this point the person hearing this story for the first time would ask the person telling it for the 100th if that’s who the groundskeeper was, really? Shoulders would be shrugged and all parties involved were told to stop making everyone else late. 

But for Gordon, who was a camp lifer, having registered his first summer at the age of 7 and returned to camp every summer since, the stories weren't enough. He knew every trail in camp and where they led. He knew every tale associated with every bunk and every resulting event that transpired after. He could walk through the camp Hall of History, and speak of the men pictured there as if he were their counselors. He believed that he was in love with camp on a spiritual level and felt a civic, no, religious duty to unturn each of its stones. 

And so in the summer of ‘46, an 18-year-old Gordon decided that he would make the kind of grand gesture that young lovers make to prove the seriousness of their love, and he vowed to uncover the real mystery of the Groundskeeper. He was insulted by the speculation that such horrors happened here, in a place that offered joy for so many, and he was positive that the truth involved a much sunnier story. 

So with punch-drunk courage, Gordon approached William one sunny summer day, when the groundskeeper was just finishing mowing the Junior side lawn, and extended his boney hand. 

"Gordon Shultz, pleasure to meetcha," Gordon would remember saying, jutting his hand over the podium or out toward the crowd of campers, assembled on the floor.

"Howdoyado? Will Beckman." Gordon would remember him responding.

From there, Gordon proceeded to list his camp credentials: 12 summers, 7 different units, bar mitzvah’d by the lake, three time Olympics champion. William listened closely, staring at the ground, nodding his head slowly in agreement. 

Seeing that he was exhausting his window, Gordon accelerated his speech.

"People are, sir, curious about who you are and I, personally, love camp and would love to hear whatever stories or memories you may have. I'm sure it's magical stuff."

William looked up. The brim of his straw hat tilted skyward. Gordon inspected the sun-soaked face staring straight at him. "Ok Mr. Shultz,” he said to him, “meet me at my cabin tonight after your kids go to sleep and I will tell you what I remember. You know which one it is? First one on the right on the road in."

Gordon thanked him very much and ran back to his unit. His group was ending their one-hour-pre-dinner-bunk-time-resting-period and he had told his sheepish co-counselor Bernard that he would resume charge by the time they had to leave. He crashed into his cabin, lunged for a pencil and the diary he kept beneath his pillow, and jotted down the first 30 questions that came to mind. When he hit the bottom of the fourth page, Gordon looked at his watch and realized that dinner started in 14 minutes. He ripped the pages out of the wire-bound book, folded them into his front pants pocket and began to herd his campers for dinner, which, considering what proceeded, was guaranteed to disappoint.

When dinner had finished, Gordon hurried his group through their evening activity, billiards and ping pong at the camp canteen, and rushed them into their pajamas with a quickness unseen at Camp Birchenbeth and uncharacteristic of the usually patient and attentive lead counselor. He tucked them into bed at 9:52, eight minutes earlier than was required, and told each of his 12 underlings that if they cooperated with this unjust tyrannical sentence, that he would double the rations they received at snack time for each of the next three weeks. This was an impossible promise to keep and he knew it. But as he told this lie, he also told himself that whatever William Beckman was to tell him would surely be sweeter, and that these and future campers would be far better off with untold camp secrets than an extra snickerdoodle. So he lied and zipped up his hooded sweatshirt and began walking, in the light rain, toward the groundskeeper’s cabin.

At this point in the story, Gordon would always pause, inhale, and continue as such, "As I walked down the camp road, I had no idea what I was in for. I had no idea how that man would forever change my camp experience and really make me the Camp Director that I am today." Immediately after he said this, he would look into his audience’s eyes and find the camper or staff member who was hearing the story for the first time. He would look directly at them and soak in their attention, bask in their growing anticipation. This, best friends Richie Frecht and Barry Steiner believed, was what kept Gordon telling the story every year, and with the same level of dramatization he had used when they first heard it. 

Gordon knocked twice on the cabin door, replicating the sound on his podium years later, and William answered not one second after. At that very moment, as the door jerked open, Gordon felt a sudden blitz of fear. What if all the stories were true? What if this guy really was crazy? A murderer whom he was now offering himself willingly to when he could have just ignored him? 

But William smiled and greeted Gordon and welcomed him in. He had just been brewing some tea, which he politely offered to his guest, and the two sat at William's small square kitchen table. This is where William explained how he really became the groundskeeper. 

When he was 20, he drove his beaten down Pontiac into town looking for honest work. His father had given him an ultimatum, join the military as he had, and his granddaddy had before him, or move out and make a man of himself some other way. Will chose the second option, heading as north as his rust bucket would get him. That just happened to be the town of Sugar Rapids, where postal clerks, bakery assistants, and sidewalk sweepers all told him about a camp that was starting up about two miles that way. He was assigned the role of groundskeeper on account of his work in high school, maintaining the football field grass, and while it wasn’t quite what he had imagined for himself, he accepted and was gracious to do so.

In the short course of a month though, he fell in love with the lake and its surroundings. With the sound of the wind brushing against the still water. With the crickets chirping, the frogs gulping up the muggy air each summer night. With the thought that he had forsaken war for peace and so the years went on and the camp liked the job he was doing, so he made that his life. By the time Camp Birchenbeth celebrated its 10th anniversary, he had accepted his fellow staff as a new family and he has been the groundskeeper ever since.

"What have you learned in the years since it opened?" Question number seven.

"I've learned a lot," William, and now Gordon, said. "I've learned that nature is unpredictable and can, at times, be cruel. I've learned that true peace is only temporary and that you have to cherish the moments you think qualify. And I've learned that in everything there is harmony." Gordon would sway his hands from right to left when he was telling this part, the true moral of this, his greatest story. "Every single living creature is a note, one note. You, me, the wind, the lake, the grass, the trees, the animals, the insects: we're all one single note. But when we exist together, when you dive into the water or lay in the field or have a dragonfly land on your palm of your left hand, then the universe is playing multiple notes at once. Several of nature’s beings are sharing the air and the earth and living in harmony. And that, Mr. Shultz, that I believe is the most beautiful aspect of camp, that children are able to live in harmony with one another and the natural home that we are all privileged to share."

As Gordon said these words, he looked back at that first year camper or staff member and gestured outward. "We are all notes living on the sheet music of the summer. Let's live in harmony with one another and write a masterpiece, for in camp, you never know who will change your life or make your summer or become your best friend. Approach your brothers and sisters in peace and understanding and we will all look back on this summer as the sweetest song ever written."

Barry and Richie, who were each entering their seventh summer at camp, having never left each other's side, threw an arm around one another right as Gordon was concluding his tale for what they guessed was the zillionth time, and said one after another, as they did each summer, “Barry on guitar." “Richie on the bass.” And not that they had any way of knowing, but in a way, the summer of ‘71 would be the most important summer in their lives, and it had everything to do with discovering and disrupting the harmonies in place.