Troop 83 (p. 3)
1 | 2 | 3 Mr. Andrews eased his body into his sleeping bag, careful not to wriggle too much lest he knock the leafy thatch of the shelter off. He reached up to pull the tarp that served as the door shut.
A crude accusation of incest in the Cardano household broke through the cadence of the rain on the leaves. Mr. Andrews groaned and stuffed his head into his pillow.
"McCloskey, cut it out!"
"Yo, Cardano, gimme those cards!"
With a growl, Mr. Andrews kicked at the bottom of his sleeping bag. He felt the wall jostle from his movement and the leaves slide off of the end of the structure.
Mr. Andrews squirmed out of his shelter into the rain. He quickly realized that he wouldn't need a flashlight to find the source of the problem. A splotch of incandescent illumination surrounded Cardano's shelter. McCloskey's round belly was silhouetted in the light.
Mr. Andrews stomped over toward the light. It was coming from an electric lantern set in Cardano's doorway. Ignoring Mr. Andrews's exhortation that smaller shelters hold heat better, Cardano had built a dwelling large enough for himself, McCloskey, and two other Scouts whose faces were hidden by the roof.
"This is my shelter, and these are my cards, so I get to make the rules!" shouted Cardano from the doorway.
"But you can't rip me off like that! I'm going back to my own shelter, you cheater!" McCloskey whipped a pack of playing cards through the door at Cardano.
"McCloskey!" shouted Mr. Andrews. "Stop playing around!"
"Yeah, pick those up, like Mr. Andrews said!" Cardano stood up and gave McCloskey's shoulders a shove.
"Now what's going on?" demanded Mr. Andrews.
"He's cheating!"
"I am not! You just suck at blackjack!" Cardano moved out of the shelter.
"What did I tell you about electric lights?" Mr. Andrews kicked at the cards. "This isn't Las Vegas. And McCloskey, if you're going to gamble -- which you shouldn't be doing on a Boy Scout trip -- you have to expect to lose."
"Yeah!" agreed Cardano. "See, Mr. Andrews even agrees with me."
"Shut up!"
"Make me, blubber boy!"
"Oh, that's it." McCloskey grabbed Cardano by the shirt and pushed him into the shelter wall. Sticks cracked, and leaves cascaded down.
"Hey, you're wrecking my shelter!"
Mr. Andrews grabbed McCloskey by the shoulder. "I'm tired of your fooling around. Can't you guys be civil for one weekend?" Why hadn't Jason stopped these two from going in the same shelter? It didn't seem like such a hard thing to do. Of course, it got harder if you had your nose in a book.
"Yeah, McCloskey, can't you be civil?" Cardano grinned at his fellow Scout.
"I was! But he won't play fair! Why does everybody always take his side?"
"I'm not taking Cardano's side," said Mr. Andrews. "I'm trying to teach you two how to get along. And yelling and throwing cards is not how Boy Scouts act!" He wondered where the boys had learned such bad behavior. He didn't remember his son having any of these problems. It occurred to him that he hadn't been in the troop when Jason was a Scout. Maybe such things were common back then.
"Neither is stealing my money!"
"You lost fifty cents!" Cardano turned to Mr. Andrews. "We were betting with pennies. It's not like I took twenty bucks."
Mr. Andrews scowled at McCloskey. "What is your problem this weekend? All I ask is that we have a peaceful campout. Can't you even handle that?"
"Yeah, McCloskey. What's your problem?"
"I didn't lose, you little snot!" McCloskey struck the shelter's ridgepole with one hand, knocking it up out of the crotch of the tree where it had rested. The sides of the shelter fell in with a whoosh. The other two boys who had been inside stood up and began to swat wet leaves from their coats.
"McCloskey!" Mr. Andrews stiffened his arms at his sides so that he didn't strangle McCloskey. "Go back to your shelter. I'll talk to you in the morning." McCloskey reluctantly complied. Mr. Andrews noticed that the other two boys had already scurried off.
"Look what McCloskey did to my --"
"I don't want to hear about it." Mr. Andrews shook his head. His hair was already soaked. He wondered why this kind of stuff had to happen to him. He just wanted a nice campout, where he could teach the boys how to be good Scouts. Jason didn't seem to want to cooperate. Then again, at least Jason wasn't destroying anyone's shelter.
He pushed at the rubble with one toe. "This is beyond repair. Get your gear together. You can squeeze into my shelter for now."
*** Mr. Andrews had to force himself not to rip Jason's tent flap open. He clenched his teeth as the zipper growled slowly around the doorway.
"Mr. Andrews! What's up?"
"Didn't you hear McCloskey and Cardano?" Mr. Andrews backed up from the doorway a bit.
Jason refused to be baited out into the rain. "No, what was going on?"
"McCloskey just destroyed Cardano's shelter!"
"So that's what I heard you bellowing about."
"Jason, you're on very thin ice here."
"Why, because McCloskey and Cardano are fighting?"
"Sure!" Mr. Andrews paused a moment to gather his thoughts. "I shouldn't have to be the only leader here!"
"Exactly. That's why you brought me. But my car is parked two hundred yards away. I can go home if you want me to."
"How about moving ten inches, so that book isn't always in front of your face?"
"Look, I'm failing this class and I have a midterm on Monday morning. If you'd like to take it for me, go ahead. But I don't have time to step in every time Cardano says something about ‘Goodyear McCloskey.' When I used to be in Scouts our campouts were fun."
"Exactly!"
"Are you having fun?"
"I'd be having a lot more fun if you'd help me keep things under control."
"Would McCloskey and Cardano?"
"Of course! What can be fun about fighting?"
"Something must be, because you're clearly trying to get into a fight with me right now. And boys pick on each other. That's just how the world works. You can't be their mommy."
"You're telling me what to do?"
"I'm telling you things so you'll go away and let me sleep. I am a leader here, not just a scout, remember." Jason leaned over and zipped the tent shut.
Mr. Andrews turned and kicked the nearest tree. How would Jason know how to deal with the Scouts? He hadn't been a father for twelve years, and a Scout leader for three of them. Maybe he'd change his tune when he was unemployed, divorced, and then McCloskey wrecked Cardano's shelter. He wanted to throw up his hands in an angry prayer. After everything else in his life went wrong, why couldn't this campout be right?
Mr. Andrews sank back against the tree, suddenly feeling drained. Questioning God wasn't going to do any good. A Scout is reverent, after all. The fact was that he was on the campout and that the campout wasn't going perfectly. And he was just driving himself nuts trying to fix it.
Cardano was in Mr. Andrews's shelter and Jason would not be happy about being disturbed again. So Mr. Andrews stood up and headed back to the gear stash near the fire circle to get a tarp. He would need a decent night's sleep if he wanted to restore his nerves.
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