Out From The Woods

Out From The Woods

A tale of Tom Thomson

By

Steven P. Ehrlick

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Steven Ehrlick on Smashwords

Out From The Woods

A Tale of Tom Thomson

Copyright © 2011 by Steven Ehrlick

The following publishers have given permission to use extended quotations from copyrighted works:

From "When I’m Gone", words and music by Phil Ochs, Copyright © 1963 BARRACADE MUSIC, INC. Copyright Renewed. All Rights Controlled and Administered by ALMO MUSIC CORP. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Visit: www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lawguy51

www.outfromthewoods.ca

Other books by the author: The Channel

* * * * *

The mystery surrounding Thomson’s death will never be cleared up. Was he drowned in the quiet waters of a small lake? A man who had paddled all over the Park, generally alone, in all kinds of weather, run rapids, and carried his canoe over rough portages and made his camp in the bush in wolf-ridden country? There were theories – suicide, heart attack, foul play, but the verdict was accidental Drowning – not very convincing; but with no evidence of anything to the contrary, it stands, and must be accepted.

A. Y. Jackson, Group of Seven, 1967

And so mystery laid its imprint upon the seal of Thomson’s death, - and the seal has not yet been broken. All that was earthy of Tom Thomson was lowered into a sandy grave in the country that he loved and the broken turf was covered with wild flowers. No one who knew Tom Thomson ever looked upon his face again. Legend in the north says that he still lies on the brink of the hill overlooking Canoe Lake.

Blodwen Davies, Tom Thomson Biographer, 1935

[Algonquin Park] is a cure for most real and all fancied ills.

Taylor Statten, Founder, Camp Ahmek and Camp Wapomeo, 1919

Prologue

Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, Ontario, October, 1956

Atop a small rise at the far western end of Canoe Lake grows a giant birch tree, dwarfing all others in the area, an ancient surrounded by new growth pine, tamarack and birch. The younger trees have capriciously sprung from seeds scattered on the ground; a random selection determined by the thrice blessed occurrences of nourishing sunlight, a spring not too wet, nor a winter too severe. The old birch has long ago passed these tests, having survived more than a century of the worst that Ontario’s seasonal elements can offer up, its gigantic branches the girth of a grown man, their weight forcing them to droop, the lower ones almost to the ground.

The tree had been saved from the loggers’ saw by a small picket fence surrounding it. Because, inside this enclosure, lying next to the tree, are two grave stones, one, a large inscribed slab of granite propped up by a pillow of rocks, a marker for a young man who died in 1898 during his first day of work at a lumber mill near by. The second grave is marked by a small tombstone, a young boy having succumbed to an illness in 1915, the son of one of the cottagers on the lake.

This consecrated patch of dirt is known locally as the Mowat Cemetery, named after a lodge which used to sit at the bottom of the hill before a fire destroyed it in the early 1920’s. The cemetery is makeshift yet holds a solemn majesty that manicured lawns and carefully planted flowers can never realize. Its very remoteness perfects its purpose and because it was the only graveyard in the area, Tom Thomson’s friends decided to bury him there, above the lake where he summered, in the area he had painted from spring to fall for the last five years of his life, cosseted by the wilderness he loved more than any other thing.

Twenty feet to the north of the picket fence a man with a shovel digs a hole, fueled by tales from his youth told around campfires by an old, wizened ranger, friend to the great painter. His grave is just to the north of the other two, he hears in his head while he digs, his friend and two others standing idly by, their energy and enthusiasm spent after hours of finding nothing. I don’t believe they ever took Tom’s body from Canoe Lake. And the man with the shovel is determined to turn the old ranger’s speculation into fact.

His shovel hits something. Reaching down he pulls away a disintegrating wooden panel and brings it out of the hole. One of the other men jumps in and reaches into the newly exposed end of a box. His hand returns with a bone, a human foot bone.

There shouldn’t have been anything buried in the ground but rotting wood. The day after Tom Thomson’s friends had buried him next to the giant birch, an undertaker had exhumed the body and placed it in a steel coffin for transfer by train to Owen Sound for eventual burial in the family plot in Leith.

There shouldn’t have been anybody in Tom Thomson’s first grave. But there was.

1962

I

My emergence from the cocoon of early childhood began when I first deciphered the benign tales told by my parents. There was no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy and bad things did happen to good people. Years later I would be encompassed by a slow-moving cloud, a dark shadow which grew and metastasized, mutated by events over which I believed I had no control, distorting my view of those I loved. I learned later to absorb betrayal, real and imagined, to befriend my disappointments in others and swallow it hard, like cod liver oil. But it was those first discovered untruths, freely provided by my mother and father, which first shook me to my core, and none more so than the lie my parents would never abandon me.

When I think of the child who morphed into a young boy, it is the living metaphor of a train station which crystallizes the moment for me. Union Station, situated across the street from its sister landmark, the Royal York Hotel, represented the defining structure of Toronto’s burgeoning position as a gateway to the post New World. Imagined by its architects in the tradition of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the building had served, for decades, as a way stop for immigrants arriving from countries left far behind, and, at times, as a departure depot for soldiers leaving for war; a hub of tracks, steel veins and arteries attached to the heart from which flowed the living vitality of this otherwise drab and conservative Canadian city.

I remember the sunlight streaming into the station this particular morning, through windows high above, celestial light beams illuminating a series of squares on the floor. Travellers passed through them like actors moving in and out of a spotlight. The majestic great hall of the building, with its coffered vault ceiling, manufactured a signature resonance – a mélange of excited chatter and pedestrian movement bouncing off its surface. The din of the place only served to compound the fear felt by an 11 year old boy who sat with his parents on a bench near the entrance to the station.

My focus was on a large group of children standing nearby, dressed like me, in white T-shirts and blue shorts, clusters of girls giggling, boys trading arm punches and elbows, some children crying and holding their parents’ hands. I was terrified at the prospect of getting on the train. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.

Please Mama, please, I don’t want to go, I pleaded.

Alex, we’ve been over and over this. You are old enough now to go to camp. You have school friends who have gone to camp, right? They didn’t die. They came back. You will too.

My mother was not naturally maternal. These words were meant to comfort me.

Besides, she continued, It will be good for you to be around Jewish children for a change.

Another cloud. Being a Jew. It didn’t connect for me, posited by ancient texts, written in a guttural language, a people forever defensive, insulated by a thinly veiled contempt for the non-Jew, always outside, window-shoppers in a Toronto barely aware of its invisible minorities.

We lived in Canada, in the pink part of the map. The Queen and the Union Jack were everywhere, except in our synagogue where the ubiquitous Star of David required our allegiance, carved into every pew and worn around the necks of well-dressed girls, the ones my age looking silly to me, their nylon stockings unable to hug their boney knees and skinny calves, flat-chested with smug expressions of adult emulation, who nonetheless provided me with a pleasant distraction during the otherwise interminably boring services. A Jew in Canada. I struggled to align myself with contrary symbols and cultures, none of which I wholly understood or embraced.

The previous night was sleepless, my heart audible as if residing outside my body. Disturbing questions only a scared child can conjure up swirled around me like mini dust tornados, each one threatening to consume me. Why do they want to get rid of me? Why two months? Why not one month? What if I wet my bed again? Who’s going to take care of me?

Sitting there the next morning, on the hard wooden, train station bench, while loudspeaker announcements echoed off every surface, I succumbed to the inevitability of my fate, and started to cry. I hid my face in the comforting darkness between my mother’s arm and breast. Giant sobs, hyphenated with exaggerated in-breaths, made my body shudder and heave, like the last gasps of a beached whale.

I loved the way my mother smelled, sucked in huge volumes of the stuff as she whispered into my hair, comfort things mothers say about writing letters and ski boats and the wonderful friends I will make.

A half hour later the train pulled out of Union Station. I had stopped crying once it became clear my future was unalterable. I was to be sentenced to two months in a place so far away, it took a train to get there. I had felt the eyes of other boys watching me - the mama’s boy grasping his mother in a relentless embrace. She had finally managed to pull me off her, giving me a shake and turning me in the direction of this unknown world. I had taken a few steps, dared myself to not turn back, and marched reluctantly forward.

No one sat beside me. I felt like the prize in a Crackerjack box, the one foreign item in a rolling container of sameness. Kids roamed the aisles with the frenetic energy of furloughed sailors, drunk with their newfound freedom, emancipated from their stultifying home lives with the promise of new adventure. Some of the campers sat high up on their headrests, girls mostly, on display, while others clustered in small knots, all chatting noisily with their high-pitched voices, my ears unaccustomed to the volume.

The train reached a steady speed. The city faded away as we headed north into cottage country. I sat by the window and stared out at the changing scenery. We travelled first through farming land and then wooded areas. The perfect rhythm of the train, the click-clack of wheels, began to soothe me. The passing scenery had an hypnotic appeal, and for the first time in days, I was lost in an inner sanctum of calm - no voices, no fears, no thoughts.

A boy plunked down beside me. His body was far too large for his age and his eyes knew it. He looked me over and the way he did it frightened me.

You’re new, eh? What’s your name? he asked.

Alex Cutler.

Cutler? What kind of Jewish name is Cutler?

I had no answer and said nothing.

Well guess what, Alex Cutler? I think you’re going to hate camp. I think you’re going to wish you never got on this train.

I looked up at this behemoth, at his apish grin, and felt something foreign rise up in me, a vital, dangerous thing which made me warm and somewhat dizzy.

I wanted to swear at him or hit him but all I told him was, I already hated camp. My reaction seemed to please him and he took off.

I was not too sure what had just happened. The girls across the aisle were whispering and glancing over at me. One was dark, with olive skin and long thin fingers. She had pretty eyes and a long slender nose. Her friend, on the other hand was pink. Pink everything. Despite the camp policy of white shirt and blue shorts, her shorts were trimmed with pink ribbon. She wore a pink hair band in her hair, which was reddish blonde, short, and curly. She had pinkish freckles and wore pink sneakers on her feet. I had never seen a pink girl before.

You’d better be careful, said the dark girl. She said the boy’s name was Kenny Switzer like it was supposed to mean something, as if Cassius Clay had sat next to me and I was too stupid to have recognized him.

He’s also the camp ass, said the pink girl, putting her hand up to her mouth, as if the swear word had escaped accidentally.

I returned my gaze to the window where the monotonous flatness of farmland had given way to exposed rock and a large, blue lake. I did not see the water thrown in my direction but the dowsing I received got my attention. Kenny Switzer hovered over me, smiling, daring me to do something.

I was frantically reviewing my potential responses, feeling the humiliation rise up into my cheeks, assessing and discarding a repertoire of actions, all of which I knew would end badly for me, when something happened, an event so improbable and life changing, it would be immortalized in my memory like a rubbing of a monumental brass.

A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed Kenny’s wrist, a strong hand, attached to a muscular forearm. It bent the camper’s arm back until the emptied cup fell to the floor. Kenny Switzer winced in pain. Fear replaced his smugness as he stared into the eyes of his captor.

My hero was a counselor. He wore blue jeans and moccasins on his feet. A thick, plaid shirt with long sleeves obscured a white T-shirt. He had dark, straight hair like mine, and stubble on his face. His eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen and even though he seemed mad, it was the lightness in his expression which made him menacing.

Not cool to piss off a tripper, Kenny. Unless you want to sit in the middle of the canoe on your next trip.

A tripper?

He released the boy and slid into the seat next to me.

You always make friends that easily? He asked me a lot of questions, about my family and what I liked to do. I was mesmerized by his kindness. No adult had ever talked to me like this. Or listened.

His name was Thomas Tucker and he was a canoe tripper. He told me about the beauty of Algonquin Park. He said it was a sin to be paid to do his job, which was to act as a guide for cabin canoe trips. He said he’d make sure I got out on a canoe trip with him. I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he said it was time to find me some friends.

We traversed between a couple of car links where the outside air smelled wet and sweetly pungent. It made me slightly dizzy as I dutifully followed behind him.

Thomas Tucker stopped suddenly. My nose knocked into his back. Grabbing my shoulder, he whirled me around to face two boys who sat in seats facing each other.

Marshall, Kevin…this is Alex.

With his strong grip he plunked me down next to Marshall, or was it Kevin. I locked eyes with the boy across from me then turned to the one beside me, and both had identical shocked expressions on their faces. When I turned back to the tripper, he was gone.

Which one of you is Marshall? I asked.

That’s me, said the one sitting across from my seat by the window.

He’s retarded, a strange, almost operatic voice, declared.

Marshall kicked the other boy. So what. I’d rather be retarded than deaf.

I stared in awe. I had never met a retard before. And the boy next to me, Kevin, his voice, it was alien and almost incomprehensible.

I turned back to Marshall. He had a long face and sad droopy eyes and there was white spit in both corners of his mouth. His hair was dark, crew cut like mine. He had long gangly arms and his movements seemed independent of one another.

"What’s wrong with you?" asked Kevin and I tried not to show my shock at the sound of his voice.

I tried desperately to think of some hideous thing about me.

I have flat feet, I said, because I knew flat feet kept you out of the army. It had to be bad.

Marshall has a flat head. You two must be brothers, said Kevin, which he followed with an exaggerated, demonic-sounding laugh. This only added to my discomfort as I failed to think his joke was very funny. And neither did Marshall.

Shut up, asshole, said Marshall.

Shut up and asshole in the same sentence. I’d spend a week in my room without my record player if I ever said those words, separately or together.

I have a halo nevus! I blurted out.

What’s that? asked Kevin, his eyes bulging.

It’s a place on my skin where I have no pigment.

Show me.

I lifted up my T-shirt. In the centre of my chest, where hair would hopefully one day grow, a small patch of bleached, white skin stood in high contrast to my dark complexion. It appeared as if someone had dipped their finger in white paint and touched me with it.

Coolio, said Marshall.

Okay, you’re in, said Kevin.

And with my brief demonstration of a trivial abnormality, I was accepted into…into…I didn’t know into what. Freaks Anonymous? Whatever it was, it did not come with a name. But it made me feel better and I was soon learning all I would need to know about camp.

The food is terrible except on hamburger day.

Jeff Bernstein’s scared of trees.

Hide your candy or the counsellors will eat it.

Get into the evening snack line early. They always run out.

Don’t take your bathing suit off in the shower room.

Try to get sick before a canoe trip then you don’t have to go.

What’s a canoe trip? I asked.

Oh boy, you’ve got a lot to learn, said Marshall, rolling his eyes until I thought they would disappear inside his skull. Lucky you found us, ‘cause you don’t know anything and we know everything.

Yeah, we know everything, chimed in Kevin, and the two spent the next minute kicking each other.

A canoe trip is something your parents arrange with the camp to punish you, Marshall finally said, when the horseplay had subsided.

"My mother always tries to scare me when I throw my Corn Flakes on the floor ‘cause I really hate them and she makes me eat them ‘cause they’re GRRRREAT! Yuk poo. I hate them. My mother, she says, ‘If you spill your cereal again, I’ll make sure you go on two canoe trips next summer‘ ."

What’s bad about them?

Everything, said Marshall. They make you paddle all day and the trippers are really mean. They yell at you, and you have to carry heavy packs across portages, and the food is cold and awful, and you have to sleep in tents, and there are bears, and it rains, and they still make you paddle. It’s the worst thing in the world.

What’s a tripper? I asked.

They’re slave drivers, said Kevin.

They’re slave drivers, said Marshall. They’re in charge. They can even boss your counsellor around, which is the only fun part. They’re all mean to me. Except one. The Friar. He’s nice to me.

He’s nice to me, too, said Kevin.

Who's The Friar? I asked.

You know, The Friar, Thomas Tucker, the guy who made you sit with us. The Friar says I can go on a canoe trip as soon as I pass my 300-yarder, Marshall added.

I thought you said they were awful. I thought you hated going on canoe trips.

He says that ‘cause he can’t go, exclaimed Kevin who then proceeded to laugh convulsively, making a noise which sounded like he was choking.

Well I’m going this year. I’m going to swim 300 yards and I’m going. The Friar promised me, he promised me and I’m going. And with his declaration completed, the two boys started kicking at each other again, and this time I joined in, our sneakers playing paddy whacks.

Over the course of the next hour, I learned a couple of vicious hand-slapping games whose names, if ever they had names, I can’t recall. And as the train continued its journey through Muskoka and the Haliburton Highlands, the extreme features of Marshall’s face seemed to soften, and the shrill sound of Kevin’s voice became more clear and evenly modulated. I slowly started to understand most of what he was saying. It was like learning a new language.

By the time the train came to a stop at Haliburton Station, I had a notion as to why the tripper had put me in this seat. I had made my first two friends - like he promised. And I hadn’t even stepped foot in Camp Highland yet.

II

Burt the swim instructor was huge, with a bulging chest and tight football-sized calves. He was golden brown from the sun which seemed impossible since there hadn’t been more than three or four warm sunny days during the first three weeks of camp.

It was frigid on the dock. Marshall’s chattering teeth echoed across the lake. There was something more than a mist and less than rain blowing into our faces. It felt like being spit on. In the distance I heard a rehearsal for the camp play.

"When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way…"

The play was called West Side Story. Two gangs at war for a few blocks of New York. Mock rumbles had become the latest free period activity. I was a Shark. It felt comfortable. Unwanted, tough, standing your ground. I could pretend to be an exaggerated version of myself. But not today.

The owner’s cabin hung over the lake on a steep cliff a few dozen yards away from the dock. Larry Douglas could normally be seen most days on his deck, overseeing his domain. Today though, even he had not ventured outside. The camp was deserted, campers curled in their bunks reading comics. The girls, who knew what they did on rainy days? No one wanted to be outside today.

Marshall and I had failed our swim tests. For three weeks we had been relegated to the white tag area, inside the H-shaped dock, a kind of purgatory, made all the more excruciating by being populated with splashing eight year olds.

How far is 300 yards? asked Marshall.

It’s not too far, Marshall, I said, lying.

There was a dull roar of a truck in the distance.

Thunder, said Marshall. Larry says we can’t go swimming when there’s thunder.

You guys ready or not ‘cause I’ve got other things to do, said Burt.

Burt stood half-way along the middle dock between the two sides of the H, holding onto a long, red-painted wooden pole as if readying himself for a pole vault. Marshall and I got ready to plunge into the deep end of the H. Our safe, shore-lined white swimming area was less humiliating when viewed from the red area. There was no buoy line to tell swimmers where the swimming area ended and the lake began, allowing the lake free rein to roll its waves into the swimming area. The open lake loomed large, limitless in its ability to conjure up visions of choking panic as I imagined myself disappearing below the surface. My entire body was shaking.

The water was an uninviting thick, greenish-black colour. A couple of dislodged lily pads floated nearby. Twelve lengths. The far dock, only 25 yards distant seemed a frigid eternity away.

The theory was this. In all probability, you would never find yourself more than 300 yards from shore on a canoe trip. I imagined the futility of being 300 yards from dry land, fully clothed, having swamped my canoe in a rough lake and pictured myself sinking helplessly to the bottom. But it was a camp rule. Your ticket to get on a canoe trip was the red tag.

The first half of the test was uneventful. Marshall looked ridiculous with his flesh-coloured nose plugs. A strap went around his head. His eyelashes, normally long and thick, had converged into star-points.

How many left? shouted Marshall to Burt.

Same as 30 seconds ago, Marshall.

The dock was quite elevated. I could only see Burt’s legs. His pole was dangling over the dock and I sensed we were being watched very closely.

Marshall reached the far end of the dock and grabbed a protruding support plank. He appeared tired and confused. Burt was imploring at him to let go. We had three lengths to go. I wanted my red tag but it didn’t feel right to leave Marshall behind

Come on, Marshall, I said. Just three more.

I can’t, said Marshall, weakly.

Come on, sure you can.

"I can’t!" he screamed back at me and started slapping the water. I swam close to him – I don’t know why – when he lunged at me and hugged me, pinning my arms to my sides.

Alex! shouted Burt. Swim away from him!

We both submerged. It was oddly peaceful for a moment, the surface receding in a way not natural. Marshall’s distorted face stared back at me, a portrait of sadness before adrenaline smeared panic across his face.

The effervescence of a body diving into the water distracted me. I felt a hand pull me away from Marshall and push me to the surface. I sucked in the first available air. Thomas Tucker, fully clothed, tread water next to me.

Finish your test, was all he said.

As I swam away I heard Thomas speaking to Marshall, his cool tone dissipating Marshall’s panic.

Do you like blueberry pie, Marshall? Thomas Tucker asked.

Yes. I like blueberry pie.

Well you haven’t tasted anything like my wild blueberry pie baked in a reflector oven.

I have a reflector on my bike.

I heard bits about bears and rapids and I thought I heard the tripper say something about a ranger. It was hard to tell what was being said with water in my ears.

Sitting on the dock, huddled in my blanket, I witnessed an animated discussion between the tripper and the swim instructor. It was windy and their words were scattered. Marshall had failed for sure. It was hard for me to feel happy, and when I did I felt guilty about it. Marshall wept quietly, shivering beneath his blanket, mumbling something about blueberry pie. I buried my head in my towel and tried not to think about Marshall. I did not notice the two men leaving the dock.

Hey. It was Thomas.

You both did a good job. I’m proud of the way you fought. So is Burt.

Marshall said, But I didn’t pass. I never pass.

Slowly, the tripper brought his hands out of his back pockets and in each he held a red poker chip, both with small holes drilled into them, through which a piece of string had been pulled through.

The Friar ceremoniously tied the medallions around our necks, then suggested we go run up to the camp office and show Larry what we had achieved.

III

The Trip Shed was hidden behind the back-split mess hall. I had wandered by it only once and it invoked in me the same ambivalent curiosity as did a mammoth culvert under York Mills Road near my house.

Six of us had volunteered for the canoe trip. We trudged up the camp road to the Trip Shed with the anxiety of new recruits entering boot camp. Uncle Larry – that’s what the camp director liked to be called – stopped us and filled our heads with visions of lakes and forests and promised a fellowship which would last a lifetime. And part of me listened and part of me stared at the white scar on the knuckle of Larry’s right thumb. My father had a similar scar.

During the winter prior to my first summer at camp, Larry Douglas had come to our house, slide projector in tow. Larry knew my father. From the war, Dad had said.

There was a wooden propeller blade in the basement of our house. It had no history, was accorded no respect, shoved as it was into a corner of the furnace room as if a perpetual truant. It was my dad’s and it was from the war. My dad never spoke about the relic or why it was there. He was in the air force. There had been an accident and he was almost killed. The propeller was our elephant in the room, daring you to notice it.

The camp director had active eyes and an infectious smile. I knew from my mother’s fawning and the pitch of her voice, she thought him handsome.

My parents argued the merits of their son going away for two months. It was if I was not in the room. My mother insisted I was too shy for camp, as if being introverted was some kind of disease.

Larry said, I assure you Pearl, you give us your boy and I’ll return you a little man.

I don’t want a little man. I want my baby.

My father saw Larry to the door, carrying the slide projector out to Larry’s Cadillac. I watched them, unobserved.

It’s good to see you again, Moshe.

Moshe. I hardly ever get called that anymore.

You and Pearl should come up to the cottage after camp. It’s been too long. There’s always a spare bedroom.

It’s a hard place to forget.

My father held his thumb in the yellow glow of the porch light, inspecting a straight scar on his knuckle. Larry mimicked my father, displaying an almost identical injury on the same thumb. Then they clanked their thumb knuckles together, like college students hoisting pints of beer.

Seems like yesterday, said my father.

I barely think about it anymore. And neither should you. Talk to Pearl. We’d love to have you.

Larry started to open his car door, hesitated, then turned back to my father.

Your son, he’s got spunk. I like him. I’m telling you Murray, two months at Camp Highland is exactly what he needs.

Don’t worry Larry, he’s going to camp.

The Trip Shed was shrouded in semi-darkness with dank, musty smells rising up from wet canvas tents and soiled back packs. My eyes, unaccustomed to the darkness, were unable to initially make out the figure looming at the back of the Shed. Smoke from a cigar hung easily in the air in long, blue tendrils. And chomping on a Colt’s white tip - my eyes beginning to adjust to the dim light - was Jungle Jay Schwartz, the elder tripper of a staff of six.

What do you jerk-offs want? asked Jungle Jay without bothering to lift his eyes off the Sports Illustrated magazine he was leafing through.

The six jerk-offs were Marshall, Ronnie The Athlete, Michael The Hairy Bear, one of two twins, Daryl, I think, or maybe it was Derrick, Simon, known as French Fry, and me.

Everyone called our cabin The Ward. We had a retarded kid, an occasional bed wetter (me), a deaf kid, a paranoid tree psycho, another kid who liked to play with matches, (he was believed to have burned down an outhouse the previous summer), an eleven year old sporting a moustache and public hair, a kid we called Scab because he wouldn’t leave his insect bites alone, twins who traded identities to mess with the counsellors, a weirdo who only ate French fries (and they let him) and one exception-to-the-rule normal, healthy athlete.

Mickey Lerner was in the infirmary because he wouldn’t stop scratching his mosquito and horse fly bites. We’d hear him at night, digging his nails into his arms and legs, moaning and scratching, moaning and scratching, until he had shorn away the scabs which had barely begun to form. His legs were hideous, a bloody patchwork of festering sores. His arms gave one the impression his favourite activity was running through rose bushes. He had scabs around his ears and neck. He was finally put in the infirmary, his hands wrapped in gauze for his own protection.

Jeff Bernstein scared me because I wasn’t a tree, which was the only thing that scared him. My brain was unable to properly process the way Jeff Bernstein roused a deep sense of foreboding in me. It was his eyes. They were manic and always searching, but for what? He cried himself to sleep each night and during the day, was constantly asking everyone, Will you be my friend? Will you be my friend? No you crazy freak! was the standard reply from my cabin mates. I usually got off the hook with, Sure. Jeff Bernstein was afraid of trees and somehow it made sense to me.

Jungle Jay was an imposing presence. The head of the tripping program had an old face; you knew what he would look like when he was 50 or 60. His large forehead was shiny with sweat-glued strands of blond hair stuck to it. His arms were as thick as my legs and his thighs were the size of my waist. He wore cut-off jeans, hiking boots, and a blue T-shirt with U. of T. emblazoned on it. I guessed he was in his twenties. There was a story about him carrying a canoe ten miles without stopping, except to light up another Colt while taking a piss.

We’re going on a canoe trip, Jungle Jay! Marshall said proudly.

That you are, Marshall. All of you, pick out a paddle…and don’t touch the axes.

You’re sure there’s a French fry stand at every portage, Simon whispered to Ronnie.

I told you there was, didn’t I?

As I wandered further into the shed I felt as if I had crossed a threshold into a kind of temple, a shrine to the warriors of the wilderness. There were racks of paddles on one side and piles of canoe back packs on the other. Highway signs were tacked to the walls and there were broken paddles nailed to the ceiling with names written on them with magic markers. Dry provisions stored in boxes were piled up high. A stand held a psychopath’s dream of axes, hatchets, and saws.

We moved towards the paddles stacked against the wall. There were dozens of them, different sizes, shapes, some relatively new, others looking like they had been used for jousting.

How do you pick out a paddle? I asked no one in particular.

Two more trippers entered the Shed - Ricky Wren Renovitch and Mitchell Dusty Gold. All trippers, it seemed, had to have nicknames. I found them all to be curiously unoriginal.

Wren, said Jungle Jay, show these morons how to pick a paddle.

Wren was not like Jungle Jay at all. He was short, not much taller than me, thin and very sinewy. He wore glasses with thick round black frames and had curly hair and an infectious smile.

Wren told us to never let the blade touch the ground and he said it in a way that made the infraction seem a sin. Sand can work its way into the grain and eventually the paddle will split. He told us to find a paddle tall enough for the blade to reach our chin but no higher than our noses.

Wren grabbed a paddle resting horizontally on two nails in the wall. The blade was hand-painted on both sides. He showed us how the tip of the blade came up under his nostrils. But I was not concentrating on the demonstration. I was entranced by the illustration on the blade.

It was a nature scene, a moose dipping down to drink by the edge of a river. There were lily pads in the still water and bull rushes extending from the shore. I could almost see movement, and yet it was not drawn like a photograph. It had broad brush strokes and dashes of colours. My eyes feasted on the painting.

I want one like you’ve got, I said, pointing at the paddle in Wren’s hand.

Jungle Jay started guffawing and when he was finished he said, Hey, at least the pisher’s got taste.

Undeterred, I repeated my request.

Wren said, Alex, if you want to buy your own paddle, you can get one at the Tuck Shop. But you can’t buy a paddle like this.

Why not? I asked.

Because Thomas Tucker painted this for me. First he taught me how to make a paddle, then he painted it for me.

The Friar painted it for you? I said, amazed.

Oh he painted it, all right, Jungle Jay piped in. But there’s no way he’s ever gonna paint one for you. There was something rancid in the way he delivered those words.

I’ll bet it costs a million dollars, said Marshall. A million, zillion dollars.

Can we make our own paddles, too? I asked.

Not at this camp. You have to go to Camp Ahmek to learn all that Indian crap, said Jungle Jay. He patted his mouth repeatedly, mimicking an Indian war cry.

Where’s Camp Ahmek? I asked.

You’ll see it tomorrow, said Wren. It’s on Canoe Lake.

You spoiled brats wouldn’t last a week at Ahmek, said Jungle Jay.

Why not? I asked.

Because it’s not a cushy camp like this one. At Ahmek, they take their craps out in the woods.

I pooed outside yesterday and got yelled at, said Marshall. Ronnie wouldn’t get off the pot and I really had to go.

The cabin fireplace is not in the woods, you moron, said Simon.

Shut up, French Fry! yelled Marshall.

I ignored the sniping and stared at the blade. I wanted one just like it more than I wanted a transistor radio. And I desperately wanted a transistor radio.

I was disappointed when I saw Dusty’s name next to our cabin number on the blackboard. Trips with him, I’d heard, were boring. I had assumed The Friar would take us. He had said he would on the train.

Our CIT, Stephen Tanner, showed up and got us packing our packs. The counsellor in training program was a conspiratorial practice endorsed by all camps to ensure a summer’s-worth of free labour from the previous year’s eldest campers - those deemed worthy of being paid nothing for the privilege of becoming probationary counselors.

Ronnie got the U-pack, the status knapsack. The camper chosen to carry it was deemed strong enough and tough enough to endure its weight. As I watched with no small amount of envy, Dusty helped Ronnie pack the six man canvas tent and mess gear into the large knapsack. A few of the larger cans were also placed inside, along with a large groundsheet. Dusty hefted it up with two hands and said, Yeah, about 60 pounds, I figure. Try it on.

Ronnie feigned nonchalance but their was no disguising the heft of the pack. He pulled the tump strap over his forehead and walked back and forth, declaring it a piece of cake. To us, it was an awesome display of strength and bravado.

The trippers were free spirits, unbound by camp rules and procedures. They were more akin to the kitchen and maintenance staff than the counsellors. When not on a trip, they came and went as they pleased. Their partner in crime, Jack the Truck Driver, was at their beck and call, and they often left camp with him while he ran the camp’s errands in Haliburton.

Jay, you seen Dusty’s leg? asked Wren.

Jesus Christ, Wren. It’s nothing. It’s healing.

You put an axe half way through your foot. I saw you getting dressed this morning. It’s infected. You should go to the infirmary.

You’re not my boss.

You’re off the trip, said Jungle Jay, and I want a note from the Doc before you go out again.

Dusty left the Shed, muttering unmentionables to himself.

Jungle Jay turned back to the blackboard. Sooooo, who’s the lucky guy now? Wren, the time off you asked for, it’ll have to wait. You’ve got B3 now.

I’ll take them.

We all turned to the entrance. He was in silhouette, standing on a slant in the door frame. I shielded my eyes, straining to identify the interloper, hoping my ears had heard true. And they had.

I don’t think so, Thomas, said