A Description

The convening of birds, the slate steel sheet of water at dawn, a thousand shining quartz eyes watching, leaves waving greetings, the surrender of rotted wood, the intrusion of weather – good or bad, the whisper of water against an evening shore, the tight knot of stillness, a loud silence. The waiting wilderness.

Canoe Camp is a story about seventeen-year-old Will’s travel through the wilderness and through the personal pain, self-accusation and secrecy of his past. Will has kept secrets a long time. When his mother was living, he had hidden the turmoil and pain of his home from the world. Whenever possible, with the exception of his competitive swimming, he pushed the world away. Her unexpected death, and subsequent events, changed everything in his life.

Reluctantly returning to Camp, assigned to a group of other campers, some familiar some unknown, he fiercely tries to maintain his isolation, putting himself at odds with the group’s need to work together. He counts the days until he will be able to leave. But as he is drawn into the demands of the trip, and the group slowly pulls him from the barrens of his isolation, it becomes clear to Will that he needs the others and they need him.

He suddenly finds himself requiring strengths he had forgotten and leans on the others to get through a dangerous challenge. The end brings new recognition and awareness.  The author is an experienced wilderness canoeist who has led numerous canoe trips in Northern Minnesota, Ontario, and a 42-day canoe trip in Canada’s Northwest Territories. He still takes canoe trips with four old friends he’d first canoed with decades ago. He is also an old wood canvas canoe enthusiast. For him, an old wood canvas canoe is an endowed object, being more than simply a canoe, but a member of the team.

The Prologue

Perhaps if he’d not been so good at keeping secrets, even from himself, things would have been different, would now be different. There were secrets everywhere, like trap doors hidden in the floor, the walls, the ceiling. He didn’t know the location of them all. They burst open unexpectedly, dropping burning surprises, demanding attention as only exposed secrets can do. Doors need closing and Will closed doors constantly. Even now, from this distance, four months later, an unexpected door opened. He could see that night, and the next day, unfold, like watching a video, on demand. That night. The secret that night was a small one, seemingly harmless, at first. Will should have known better.

He could still see it. The nurse in green, her white coat flapping like a large bird trying to get lift, a stethoscope collaring her neck, walking toward him, her eyes locked on him, like a tight-rope.

She wasn’t a nurse.

“Will, we spoke when your mother arrived, do you recall?” She had said. He sat on an orange

upholstered chair. She sat next to him, turned toward him. “I am Dr. Known, one of the emergency room physicians. When your mother arrived she was in a high degree of distress – her blood pressure was low, heart rate almost imperceptible. Her condition had the indications of a pharmaceutical overdose. At that time you weren’t sure what medications she might have taken. Do you recall that conversation? The paramedics had brought pill bottles they’d found in or near her bed. From those we had an idea of what we were dealing with and why. She had ingested a large amount of a variety of strong drugs. It was touch-and-go. Drugs in that combination and amount cause catastrophic damage. In extreme cases this can include the shutdown of vital organs and systems. And death.”

Dr. Known, Will’s bridge between the known and unknown, paused. As if getting ready for the next part, the last few steps. Will hadn’t yet known the weight of the words she carried. “I am very sorry to tell you that this was one of the extreme cases. She did not survive. We did all that was possible. So much damage done before she hit our door. Perhaps if she’d gotten here earlier.”

Perhaps if she’d gotten here earlier.

Then she’d said something about waiting and a social worker on the way. Who should they contact? Did Will have relatives to stay with? Will had had nothing to say. He had to keep that door closed. He wouldn’t tell that he could have gotten home earlier but had stayed out with his swim team friends. He’d been at another swimmer’s house, a group of them getting haircuts for the section meet from one of their dads. He’d only been a half-hour late. He’d thought that it wasn’t like she was going to know the difference. She’d been harsh with him earlier, critical that he had let her miss his meet. Will hadn’t been able to get her to understand that she hadn’t missed it, it hadn’t happened. He knew she would miss it, she always did, but technically she hadn’t done so yet. The conversation had been harsh. He hadn’t been in a hurry to renew it. He’d been with friends, who had no idea about his home life because he kept that door closed. Will recalled how quiet the house had been. He’d gone upstairs and listened. He’d heard her slow breathing. “I’m home,” he’d said.

Nothing.

She ignored him often. Nothing new. “I’m going to get ready for bed,” he’d said.

Nothing.

He’d brushed his teeth. The haircut reflected in the mirror was short, and goofy. When he went to the State meet next week, after he qualified at Sections, tomorrow or the next day, he’d shave his head. Talk about goofy.

He’d been bothered by the silence. He’d stepped into her room. “Mom?”

Nothing.

Her slow breathing stretched darkly in the unlit room. He’d known his resting heart rate, but what about his resting breathing rate? Hers? He’d slowed his breathing down to mimic hers. It was as if holding his breath. He touched her leg. She didn’t stir. “Mom?”

Nothing.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t respond. He shook her gently, then more vigorously. He’d called out.

Nothing.

He’d reached for the phone. The rest was a blur. Paramedics arriving. Up here, he must have called out. Paramedics not able to get a stretcher up the stairs with the sharp turn in the old house. Paramedics carrying her down the stairs seated in a wooden chair, her head bobbing in the descent. Onto the stretcher. The fast ride in the ambulance front passenger seat. The outside lights melting from the heat of the speed of the ride.

Arriving. People rushing. Being guided into a bright room, four chairs waiting. An orange chair. Questions, and small answers. More waiting. Dr. Known’s presence, then disappearance. Waiting. No social worker. Needing to sleep.

Leaving without telling anyone. Taking the cab home. Setting the alarm. Oversleeping. Rushing to school. Winded. Missed the cut-off from present to absent. Late enough to be absent. Late enough. Mr. Barnes, the Athletic and Activities director telling him that he could not swim that night because he was absent. But I am here now Will had said. I’m not absent, Will had said. I have to be able to swim, Will had said.

“Not going to happen,” Barnes had said. “High school league rules say ‘no’. Perhaps you should plan better next time and get to school on time.”

If he had gotten home sooner. If he had gotten to school sooner. It had been too much, all the doors closing, the wrong doors.

Will wasn’t a breaststroker whose strength was in the explosion of their arms forward. Will had had his own strength. When he shoved Barnes in the chest, the obese man staggered back into the bramble of chair and table legs. His arms flailing with nothing to hold on to. He’d fallen hard. Will hadn’t meant to push Barnes, he’d meant to push back the walls closing in on him. Will’s blurred recollection of that happened after. Security and police and suspension. County protective services, a social worker, foster home. Wedged from his patterns. All of his carefully built doors dismantled. Her house foreclosed on, his things packed away at a distant relative’s garage. Sessions with Mike the Psych. All this obscured by the burning memory of the document that should have remained a secret, even to him, but there it was, a school social worker’s assessment, on social media telling a secret, welfare, and another secret, unknown father, and a vague but absolutely clear reference to his mother’s prostitution charges dropped. She’d kept her secrets. He hadn’t known them. Now more people than he could count did. Who had done that, and why?

Somewhere in there a funeral. Will so angry, she’d been replaced by a new shame, once she’d been the shame, now he had his own, was his own. His job had been to protect the secrets and somehow, he’d failed at that. But whose job had it been to protect him from the secrets?

Available through Amazon or read it for free online at: MN Writes, MN Reads – Canoe Camp (biblioboard.com)