Me, myself and Ty

The Smurfs almost got my ass kicked, seriously. As a result of the first day inspection at summer camp and a Smurf sleeping bag splayed on the grass for everyone to see I was instantly labeled as a fairy. It wouldn’t have been so bad were it not for the fact that is was Smurfette in all her golden haired glory emblazoned on the front. This did not bode well for the little towheaded blue-eyed boy who was a bit too emotional. In my defense it was not my sleeping bag. It belonged to my sister’s best friend Keisha. A girl whose family was strikingly similar to the Huxtables until they changed religions, started going by names that involved several clicking sounds and stopped talking to us.

They lent me the bag because I did not have one of my own. I never needed one before because I had never been camping. Had I known what lay ahead I would never have let Miss Plott down at the Boys Club talk me into it in the first place. She suggested to my mother that I might benefit from the social interaction with the other boys.

How fun it would be to go swimming every day, shoot bow and arrows, roast marshmallows, go on scavenger hunts and sit around bonfires. The one thing she forgot to mention was that the soul-less bastards who designed the campground forgot to make individual showers and toilets. Mind you I grew up in a house full of women and learned at an early age to cover my nakedness. One of my favorite childhood pictures is of me in the sink being bathed. Surrounded by sudsy water with my two little hands cupped over my penis I was a study in coyness and shame by the time I was three. I had no problem with the nakedness of women and saw it often but at some point I learned to be afraid of my own body and that of other men.

Ty was a short, fat black boy with a small afro and a big mouth. From the moment Smurfette made her opening day debut he was out to get me. Thankfully we were in two different troops and resided in two different cabins but every time I saw him he got in at least one or two good jabs. Not physical jabs but he had a very extensive vocabulary for a boy of five. I was a pussy, cunt, faggot, fudge-packer, ass-licker, bastard and the list went on and on. I didn’t know what half of these things were; after all we were only five. I did know what a bastard was and had been called one before. It was true though so what did I care?

Camp only lasted four days. It was four days from hell though. Most of my time was spent dodging my antagonist and avoiding the bathroom. On the second day we were required to shower. How in the hell was I supposed to shower with twenty other people in one big room? I will tell you how, in my underwear. That’s right, I walked in with my underwear on and quickly rinsed off while enduring the taunts of the other boys proud of their nakedness. The shower heads that lined the walls blasted out lukewarm water that quickly made my white Hanes transparent embarrassing me even more and causing me to run back to the cabin dripping wet with muddy feet.

I still hadn’t gone to the bathroom after two day and a half days. I was eating plenty and the cramps were starting to affect me in a serious way. The second night proved to be painful but there was no way I was going to crap in an open room with everybody watching. If anything I was waiting for a moment alone to scurry to the woods and steal some privacy. Never did that happen though because we were known mostly as problem kids from the ghetto and were not let out of sight for a moment. They don’t tend to let poor people have free reign anywhere, even in the middle of the mountains where the only things up for grabs are pinecones and deer droppings.

Day three should have been exciting but turned out to be excruciating. We got to take the canoes out on the pond and go on a scavenger hunt. It didn’t take long for the pond excursion to turn bad thanks to my canoe mate who thought it was funny to rock the boat and sent me over board into water. It seemed to go on forever but was probably six feet deep in reality and I was convinced there was something down there waiting to eat me so I flailed for my life. The pain in my stomach, made worse by my life jacket straps, hindered my doggie paddle and I was saved by a counselor with an oar. I was left searching for my inhaler and humiliated too early in the day.

Our troop was set to leave for about two hours with a small bagged lunch. We set off down a trail into the woods. I had never been on a scavenger hunt and would not make it far on this one. The goal was to perform trust-building exercises with the other kids in order to uncover a clue for the next item on the list. It was at a small obstacle course just after a rope climb that my stomach launched its un-ignorable revolt. Hundreds of punches to my abdomen is what it felt like. Tears began to stream down my face as I squeezed my cheeks and hobbled to the counselor and told him I had to go to the bathroom. I ran and ran amazed by my ability to find my way back through the half mile of woods while trying to contain myself. On sight of the campground I kicked into high gear racing to the lavatory building. There was a blindness to my mad dash as I ripped off my pants and plopped onto one of the many porcelain toilets lined against the wall. In what may have been one of the most glorious moments of my childhood, I let go. Wheezing and panting and smiling it was the singular moment of relief I had looked forward to.

That is when I heard laughing. Not just a giggle or a chuckle but a guttural belly laugh, the kind that involves uncontrollable bouncing jowls and makes your eyes water. My bubble had burst and my surroundings materialized once again. I looked over and perched like a gluttonous king on his own thrown was Ty, his robust chocolate thighs spread over the side of the seat. Where did he come from? How did I not see him? I don’t know and I don’t know. But there he was cracking up with his pants around his ankles. Empowered by my monumental release I spoke, looking past him at the tile wall sure of my impending doom,

-I couldn’t go with everyone else in here.

I had been caught literally with my pants down. Then a loud distinctive splash echoed across the room from his end of toilet row. On somewhat of a delay as though waiting for approval we both began to laugh uncontrollably at this. Moments later when our smiles had faded we began talking. Neither one of us had gotten up which kept us on the same playing field. Total exposure and total humiliation meant total understanding. After some time we found that we weren’t so different. Our families were exceedingly poor and we were both paid an allowance of food stamps. We were even both scared to poop in public. He was so embarrassed by his weight which led him to lash out at me. So it turns out while we both reacted to our problems differently we would discover that together we would find more fun in our commonalities.

We left the lavatory best friends. We had bonded over a turd and there was no going back. With him and his willingness to expose his oversize body beside me I found the strength to shower without my underwear the next day. Nobody made fun of me and while it would have been easy for the other campers to exploit the odd ebony and ivory couple in miniature that we had formed no one did.

So I guess that earlier when I said it was four days of hell I was telling a lie. There was one day and he was one person who looked and acted nothing like me but he understood me completely and we accepted each other for the dysfunctional five year olds we were.