Camp Gorebury

Chapter One

Xavier

June 1988

It is the middle of the night, and I am getting arrested by my dad.  He is giving me one of his classic, soul-crushing glares; a deliberate look that he is perfected, possibly with the help of a mirror, during his years of being an Indiana cop. The look is combined with the perfect dose of parental disappointment and is so effortlessly withering that I can actually feel all my hopes and dreams crumbling away beneath it.  

"Xavier," he says.

His voice is soft, but it carries easily through the late-night stillness.

"Give me the papers."

I glance down at the stolen files in my hand. Then I look back up at him.

Guilty as charged.  

"Before you arrest me, I just want you to know that I was trying to save the frogs," I blurt out.

"That is why I am here. That is why I broke into the school."

Dad doesn't speak.

His expression is unchanging, indiscernible. I am not even sure if he is arresting me- I thought he was at first, but now, as we stand here in silence, I have my doubts. He is wearing his uniform, which is never a good sign; he doesn't even look like my dad in it, too fancy and professional.

Not that I look much like him even without the blue suit. I got all of mom's red hair and brown-eyed genes and none of his black curls or dark stare. The only trait I share with both of them is my skin's tendency to go from bone-white to red as a tomato in the summer, no matter how much sunscreen I slather on. 

He extends his hand.

"Xavier. Give me the papers."

When I hesitate, he continues in an even sterner tone,

"Don't make me ask again."  

I hold out the papers, defeated, and he yanks them away. I watch him stuff them into his pocket and wonder if he even understands why I stole them- or if he even cares. 

So maybe he is arresting me. Or maybe he just hasn't decided yet, and he wants to draw out my misery- because honestly, even jail would be a better fate than this. 

An eternity passes before he speaks again.

 "Grab your bike and get in the car, Xavier. Now."

I unchain my bike from the fence and wheel it over to dad's standard-issue Chevrolet Caprice cruiser. There is so much s**t in the trunk already that I can barely fit my bike inside, but I can't complain- this is a small act of mercy coming from my father.

I don't have my driver's license yet, so the bike is my only way of getting around our small town. Without it, I am stranded.  

"C'mon, Xavier, hurry up. It is midnight and I don't want to keep your mother waiting. She is worried sick."  

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can I ride shotgun?"  

"No."  He never lets me sit shotgun.

So, I slip into the backseat instead and say, "What, you aren't going to read me my rights?" hoping that maybe he'll c***k a smile, but he doesn't even acknowledge the joke. 

His face is cold as stone as he just starts the car and shifts it into gear, easing us out onto the street. The neighborhood is still, motionless. The only sounds are the cicadas humming in the trees and the creek gurgling in the distance. For all I know, my dad and I could be the last two people on Earth.  I stew in the backseat, feeling oppressed by the sluggish silence. I have never minded living in such a small, sleepy town, but the quiet does have a way of burrowing under your skin when you are feeling restless. 

Hopelessly, I try to think of something to say to break the lull, but I have never been in a situation like this before and words fail me. I have never been arrested before. I have been sent to the principal's office plenty of times, but I am not a bad kid- I have never actually broken the law. I have been in trouble with my parents, but never like this.

What do I say? What do I do?  

"Your friend Lisa told me you'd be here," dad says quietly.

A pair of calloused fingers reach for the radio, and the tinny sound of Tom Petty singing 'Breakdown' begins filtering through the speakers, turned down so low that I can barely make out the lyrics.

"She told me what you'd be doing."  

"Lisa did?"

"Yes," he says solemnly. 

I sunk further down into my seat.

"F*ck."  

"Don't curse in my car."  

I want to say something snappy and rebellious like, well, ex-f*cking-scuse me, but suddenly I feel so tired. Just exhausted. And a little hollow on the inside, too. There is no space in me for arguing. Hearing dads say her name like that, Lisa, knocked all of the fight out of me with a single blow.  There is no sense in pretending, Petty advises, his soft voice as balmy as the summer air.

Your eyes give you away. 

No s**t, I think to myself. If there is anything this night has proved to me, It is that I am the world's worst liar. 

Dad asks, "Are you upset?"  

This strikes me as a stunningly stupid thing to say, and a very dad thing to say, too. My anger floods back just as fast as it left me.

"What kind of question is that? Of course, I am upset! My best friend just sold me out to my dad!"  

He gives me another cool look. Petty sings, we said all there is to say, but dad isn't done with me yet.

 "There is no need to be smart. I just wasn't sure if this was a surprise to you or not."

 Of course, It is not a surprise. I knew that telling Lisa about my plans was a bad idea, but I couldn't bear not telling her- she is my best friend. Or was. I don't really know how this, betrayal, is supposed to work.  And now Petty is singing about how It is all right, It is all right, but I know that It is not. Nothing about this is all right. I should have realized Lisa was lying when she promised she wouldn't tell. Or maybe I did realize, and I just ignored the inevitable and plowed onward anyways, blinding myself to the unstoppable truth.  So, It is not a surprise. But just because it isn't doesn't make this any easier to accept. 

Dad relapses into silence. After a few more minutes of this- driving slowly, cautiously through the neighborhood, stopping obediently at every single f*cking stop sign even though there is absolutely no one else on the roads- the song changes to a vaguely familiar tune, one that I am sure I have heard before, but I can't place.

Something by The Cure, I think.

"So," dad says, his low voice cutting across the mournful twanging of a solitary guitar, "you stole the papers."  

"I did."

"Did you steal anything else?"

"No."  "Break anything?"  

"No."

"Commit a crime other than trespassing and theft?"

I scowl at him. It sounds worse when he says it like that: trespassing and theft. So serious, when in reality it was just a little fiddling of the locks with the butt end of a nail file.

"No. I didn't."  

Dad sighs loudly, drowning out the radio for good.

"You are better than this, Xavier."

As if he knows what I am better than. I don't suppose Lisa told him that. 

It is silent again.

I hate silence.

“What time is it?” I asked my dad.

“It is two in the morning.” He responded.

Later than I thought.

"Doesn't your shift end at nine?"  

He sighs again.

I am so f*cking done with disappointed sighs. My dad sighs so much, in so many different emotions, you'd need a Sighing Dictionary to understand them all.

"Yes. It does."  

"Then why are you still in uniform?"

(Other than to use as it a scare tactic, of course. This is one-hundred percent psychological warfare.)

"It is always better to come prepared."  

What a non-answer.

"Does that mean you are arresting me?"  

"Jesus Christ, Xavier. You are sixteen. You are not being arrested."  

"Wow, I didn't know that people who are sixteen can't get arrested. And to think of all the other laws I could be breaking."  

"Xavier. I am not arresting you; I am just taking you home."  

You. Not us. I almost forgot that dad lives in an apartment downtown now, near the station; he lost the house during the divorce. (Semantics.) I continue to stew, aggressively reminded of the night I told Lisa about my plans-

"It is the worst idea I have ever heard," she said, "but I won't tell. It'll be our secret."

I think she actually believed what she said that night as we sat on her roof, sweating in the summer humidity and swatting mosquitoes away with brisk hands. So maybe it wasn't a lie- at least not then. I wonder what made her change her mind.  

"I just wanted to save the frogs," I say quietly.

 I don't know why I even bother to try and explain myself, but I feel like I need to. If not to dad or Lisa, then to myself.

"The renovation for the west wing is supposed to be built right across the creek, but that is where the frogs live, and I couldn't just let them die. The Northern Leopard Frog is an endangered species."

"Xavier," says dad, in a somber voice, "I know. Lisa explained everything."  

Something twists in my chest. I let out a sort of breathy, fake laugh and say, "Of course she did."

It is too silent again, and I am tired of thinking about Lisa.

"Does the school know yet?" I ask, just to get her off my mind. 

We stop at a red light and all I can hear is the thump thump thump of dad's fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He suddenly seems at a loss for words.  

"It wasn't a trick question," I tell him. 

He rolls down the window, but there isn't a breeze. Just the motionless, humid, summer air. It is probably hotter outside than it is in the car.

"I already called your principal," he says.

"He was asleep, so I left a voicemail. Told him to contact me in the morning."  

I swear under my breath.

"Of course, you did."  

"Don't curse at me, Xavier."  

I don't even know how he heard me, but I get angry- angrier- at him anyways.

"Oh, please forgive me," I snap.

"I am just a little upset at the fact I am going to be expelled tomorrow!"  

The light changes to green and the cruiser lurches forward.

"They won't expel you."  

"How would you know? You haven't paid attention to my education since kindergarten- you don't know a thing about my school, about those files, about Lisa, about anything-"

"That is enough, Xavier."  

I swear again, loud enough that he can hear me clearly, but this time he doesn't correct me. I see his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel though.  

"Schools ends in three days," I inform him.

Two, now, I guess since It is technically the morning.

"I have got final exams left; if I miss them I'll fail my classes. I could get kicked off the cross country team. And colleges..."

My heart sinks in my chest.

"I won't get accepted into any schools. Everything will be ruined."  

He is unmoved.

"This isn't my fault, Xavier. The only person to blame is you."

I feel out of control. Dizzy, almost. The car is going too fast, and everything is turning blurry around me. I can't get expelled. I won't make it to college if I get expelled... This wasn't part of the plan. I wonder if Lisa knew this would happen- I wonder if she still would've told dad if she knew.  

"Does mom know?"  

"I already called her."

"Is there anybody we know that you haven't called?"  

"I haven't called Henley."  

If anyone else had said that to me, I would have seen it as a carefully-crafted barb- but this is just dad, being his usual, oblivious self. He doesn't think too hard about the stuff he says- he just says.  For some reason, his ignorance makes me angrier than if he had mentioned my sister for the specific purpose of making me upset.

I scowl even harder at the back of his seat. I wish I had laser-vision, like Cyclops from the comics, so that I could bore holes in the back of his stupid, unfeeling head.

"I don't want to talk about Henley."  

"She is your sister, Xavier."  

"I know that. And I don't want to talk about her."  

So, we don't.

The air in the cruiser sinks back into a humid stupor, and this time, I don't try to break the silence.  We turn onto my street and we're almost home.

My home. Not his. You, not us.

Like I said: semantics. 

Dad pulls into the driveway, decides against it, and then backs out into the street. I don't think he has been inside the house since the day he packed his bags; I can't even imagine what would happen if he did.

 (Rivers would run backward. Crops would fail.)

He only left a year and a half ago, but you'd think he'd been gone forever- at least, That is how he acts about it. He has a place downtown now, a shitty little apartment that I have never actually been into. He has always been a messy person- It is one of the reasons he and mom broke up. She is a neat-freak, and he is a slob and neither of them wanted to change.

(Opposites attract, my aunts and uncles used to say. And get divorced, I wish I'd replied back.)

A light flick on in the upstairs bedroom. Mom's room. The curtain pulls away, golden light shining through the window, and I can see her face- all tight and sharp with worry. So similar to my own.

(I got my freckles from her. And the curly red hair.)

 She stares at us for a moment, and then the curtain falls back into place, and she disappears into the darkness.  

"You should get out," dad says quietly. 

But I don't, at least not for a moment. Because my gaze has suddenly become fixed across the street, at the periwinkle blue house That is completely identical to ours except for the color.

(Mine's a faded yellow. Needs a new paint job.)

he upper left window is blocked out by vibrant purple curtains with gold tassels- I helped Lisa hang those curtains up years ago. My gut twists painfully, and I allow myself three seconds of feelings before I turn away.  She promised not to tell- it'll be our secret. I should have known she'd lie. Lisa's like that- she'd rather lie than not follow the rules. She is a good student; she would never break into our high school to steal renovations plans and then get expelled three days before summer vacation. It is the worst idea I have ever heard- That is what she told me. It is probably the only truthful thing she said all night.  

"Xavier," dad says.

His voice is tense. He doesn't want to be around when mom arrives- she can be a force of nature when she is angry, and I am sure she'll find a way to pin this whole mess on him.

(Not that she won't kill me, too. I know I am a dead man walking.)  

"Xavier," he says again.

When I don't move, he gets out of the car and walks over to my door and opens it for me. I have no choice but to limp onto the cracked pavement and retrieve my bike from the trunk, but then, for a few dazed moments, I am stuck like that- just standing there, and waiting. And then, out of the blue, dad pats me on the back.

I jump, startled- he is not the kind to pat backs, or participate in any type of touchy-feely nonsense- and It is weird, but not as weird as what he says next.

"Lisa seems like a nice kid," dad tells me, as if he met Lisa yesterday, not ten years ago.

I don't know why he is talking about her- maybe he saw me staring at her window.

 (Like I said. Weird.)

"Don't go too hard on her. She did the right thing."  

"She lied to me. How is that the right thing to do?"

Dad opens his mouth to respond, but suddenly, the front door to our house swings open.

 Light spills out across the driveway and I hear mom call out my name- and then, before I can even blink, dad's buckled into his cruiser and speeding down the street. Gone.  

"Coward," I mutter.  

"Xavier? Get inside, right now!"  

I cast one last look at the purple curtains. I don't know what I am waiting for, Lisa, maybe. Her confession? Her apology? For the curtains to swing open and for Lisa to jump out the window, dash across the street with tears sliding down her cheeks, and beg me for forgiveness?

She would never do that. If there is one thing Lisa never does, It is say that she is sorry. Not when she thinks she is in the right.  Maybe she is right. Or maybe I am. I don't know anymore- I can't tell.

Everything is confusing now and all the lines of right and wrong have been blurred beyond recognition. It is all such a f*cking mess. I am such a f*cking mess. Everything, all of it, has gone to s**t now...  

"Xavier Black!" mom hollers.  

"Coming!" I yell back. And I turn away from the periwinkle-blue house, and the girl sleeping, unknowing, within.