The Overbearing Camper

Most believe that God is just God — he’s always been God and always will be. Gods actually serve individual terms, like presidents, except a God’s term lasts one generation, or thirty years. Young Gods are told to lay low, to spend time among humans in order to better understand them. One summer the current God, while still a child in our terms, enrolled at Green Diamond Baseball Day Camp, where I was head instructor.

We didn’t know it at first. On the first morning, a boy, plain looking except for bright red hair, stepped off the bus holding a small knapsack and surveying the grounds just like any new camper.

Then he yelled: “I am the eventual Ruler of the Universe! I’ll be designing my own schedule, which will include two lunch periods on certain days!”

James, my junior counselor and just about the nicest guy in the world, crouched to the boy’s level. “Well,” he smiled, “we’ll have to see. What’s your name, fella?”

“I already told you that,” said the boy. Then he looked more directly at James, whose hair suddenly burst into flames. The boy giggled as James was doused with water and rushed to the nearest hospital. James lost most of his hair. From that point on, God called him Calvin, a play on the world calvous, which, he explained, means lacking all or most of the hair on the head. He had an amazing vocabulary. God could play ball exceptionally well. He would pitch a no-hitter every time out, and his skill was surpassed only by his mean streak. Once, he let another camper make contact with one of his pitches. The ball sailed toward the outfield fence as the hitter, astonished, flung his bat aside and started running to first base. But then the ball stopped on its arc, reversed direction, and flew back into the infield, where it dropped harmlessly into God’s glove. God loved this. The batter erupted into tears and ran from the diamond. He locked himself in a portable bathroom for nearly an hour, refusing to come out unless we promised to transfer him to another cabin.

It was about a week later that the camp bully, a twelve-year-old named Sandy Henry, decided to challenge God. “Hey, Jerk-o!” Sandy shouted God’s way.

God was walking with his cabinmates toward their next activity. He turned to Sandy. “Are you addressing your ruler?”

“I’m addressing a fat sack of shit with fire for hair!”

God did have a little tummy, but when you’re destined to oversee the whole universe, you start big and grow fast. He attempted to explain this acceleration to the others once, something about exponential development and never possessing an intrinsically numeric age. Like I said, he was more intelligent than your average kid.

God shook his head at Sandy.

“Whassamatter?” Sandy said, hands on his hips. “Little fireball scared? Too scared to do anything about —”

Just then Sandy disappeared. No pile of ashes, no puff of smoke — just disappeared. God regained his place in line and continued toward Arts and Crafts. His cabinmates, having gotten used to this kind of thing, barely noticed. In truth, most of them were happy to see Sandy Henry gone.

It wasn’t as easy reasoning with Sandy’s mother. I overheard Wes, the camp director, speaking with her on the phone that afternoon. “If you’d just listen for a moment, please, Mrs. Henry, just calm down and I’ll explain the situation...” There was a pause, then Wes, in a quiet voice, said, “I’m very sorry, but Sandy was obliterated by... well...God.” From outside the trailer I could hear Mrs. Henry’s voice. It shouldn’t have been funny, but it was.

Sandy turned up in his own backyard the next morning. Both his thumbs had somehow been fractured.

In private Wes told God that, if these shenanigans were to continue, we would have to contact his parents (or whomever. It was never really determined what kind of family he came from. He’d just hop off the bus every morning ready to set someone’s hair ablaze.) God replied: “You seem unconvinced of my powers. Your camp has a very positive reputation around the province. You wouldn’t want that reputation somehow...damaged, would you?"

To reinforce his warning, God threw a historic tantrum three days later. One minute I heard his counselor tell him he was batting out of order; the next thing we knew, a cluster of clouds near the horizon raced toward a spot above the camp, then the bottom edge of several clouds converged into a funnel. God’s face seemed calm, his features still. The funnel gathered quickly, started whipping around, and suddenly a twister was whistling through camp. Campers and staff scrambled around like ants as the twister ripped through a trailer, spraying chunks of metal everywhere. You could hear the grass being snatched and spewed into the air as if the twister was a great crazed lawnmower.

God could be a real pain in the ass when he put his mind to it.

It’s fair to say that I studied kids. Before this particular summer I had been named Counselor of the Month several times. So, after God had provoked the cabin transfer or outright resignation of seven different staff over the first three weeks, Wes approached me.

The unit I headed was older than the one in which God had originally been placed, but we assumed he could fit in with senior campers. That is, he could terrorize kids of any age equally well. I told Wes I’d accept God into my cabin. I believed that all humans were good inside; and if regular humans are, then the original God must have been, and if He was, then Gods—in-Training must also be.

God was transferred the following Monday, which was also the day of an overnight. We didn’t bother asking for a permission slip from his parent or guardian. God made the mistake of forming his first mischief into a practical joke, and he was clearly disappointed when I only laughed and told him I admired his creativity.

James, who had taken to wearing a baseball cap at all times, and a girl named Pippa, who was in a different unit, had discovered an attraction at some point under the July sun. So when they walked off together toward the forest late that evening, no alarm went off — they were nice kids, and anyone who has it in them to ruin summer romances doesn’t belong at day camp in the first place.

At the side of the path, God lay in waiting behind a row of trees with several other campers to whom he had revealed the idea.

Once James and Pippa, strolling hand in hand, appeared on the path, God climbed a medium-sized tree. He had gathered dozens of crab apples in one palm, a thing you’d have figured to be impossible given the size of his hands, but it was as plain as day, a tower of little apples in his palm rising nearly a foot.

James and Pippa stopped, grinned at each other, and leaned close.

“Listen to them, whispering their little endearments,” God murmured to the puzzlement of the others.

The first crab apple grazed the brim of James’ baseball cap, twisting it around his forehead. He and Pippa, startled by the whizz of the apple’s flight, separated. Then James was pelted in the side — and you may not think a crab apple hurts, but God didn’t throw all those no-hitters with an average arm.

James was bombarded by crab apple after crab apple, so fast you could hardly see them. Pippa had no idea where the apples were coming from or how to stop them. James tried to reach up toward her when another pellet came zinging out of the trees and broke his index finger with a loud crack.

To God’s satisfaction, James and Pippa fled. The following morning God stepped off the bus, elbowed James in the side, and said: “Hey, Calvin, how’s the sex life? Ego a little bruised?” He chuckled throughout the day about that. It wasn’t unusual for him to draw out one of his own jokes. The meaner the joke, the longer he’d chuckle.

Except around Tracey, an exceedingly pretty fifteen-year-old new to the staff. In her company, God would take great pains to appear kind. Once, at swim period, he told her: “The idea of sunsets was mine, at the risk of immodesty. I suggested they would enhance the diverse beauty of your world. So were canaries — my suggestion, I mean.”

“You’re a cutie, God,” Tracey smiled, and tousled his hair, which had changed during the summer from bright red to a light auburn shade.

You could tell that God was upset about Tracey’s indifference. Each swim period he would name some creation that he had been responsible for, and Tracey would just tousle his hair and giggle, “You’re a cutie.”

So it was a crush. It took me longer than it should have to figure it out. I knew I had it right one afternoon following the crab-apple incident. God was walking along and smiling at Tracey when he tripped on a root and stumbled into a rack of aluminum bats, bringing them crashing down on him. He was mortified.

Once, Tracey was walking by God’s cabingroup on their way to a strategy session. He murmured, “Has ever a more pulchritudinous creature graced the universe?”

“No, God,” one of his cabinmates said. “Now put your eyes back in your head and get a move on.”

“More like a hard-on,” said another boy. God didn’t even notice the remark.

“Also, you might wanna speak English every now and then,” muttered the first.

God’s eyes only followed Tracey all the way back to her cabin. His eyesight was unbelievable. “Tracey,” he said dreamily. “So gentle, so lovely...Tracey.”

“Now he’s a poet.”

“Christ, I’m gonna puke.”

On one particularly hot morning, Tracey wore a lime bikini instead of her usual red one-piece. When God saw her it looked like he’d been hit by a truck. His jaw dropped. He became very quiet. Then he said: “Ho-ly shit,” which was unexpected, because he didn’t swear a lot for a child that age. Of course, when he did swear, boy, could he swear.

I decided God wasn’t all that different from other kids (except he could throw the ball about a mile farther — literally). He really just wanted attention. Granted, he had more unusual ways of getting it than most kids, but to my thinking he was only a boy with lots of energy and ordinary interests — watching the female counselors change, for example, or catching insects for the purpose of killing them — while possessing a few notable talents. (Periodically he would give telekinetic exhibitions, which would spook the other campers as well as their counselors. He was also already fluent in forty-six languages. These were interesting feats, but I’ve still yet to meet a showman like a nine-year-old camper named Peter Lipkus, who could stuff four nickels into each of his nostrils and keep them there.)

God fit into my cabin without much of a problem. Then, as he began to see less of Tracey, who had transferred units for August, his immaturity returned. A camper would argue a strike call with God and the bat would disintegrate in his hands; if another camper was in the portable bathroom when God also had to go, the door would suddenly swing open, revealing a naked bottom; or at the end of swim period on an especially warm day the water would start thrashing about for no reason.

Soon his mischief became intolerable. Something had to be done.

I proposed a challenge to God. I would hit five consecutive ground balls. If he fielded them cleanly, he could behave however he wanted. If not, he would have to play by the rules like everyone else.

My logic had to do with his early stage of Godness. I had always believed quickness was the most important ability in a ballplayer. Although he would someday be omnipotent, omniscient and ubiquitous, at this early stage there were still things he was unable to do, things he didn’t know, and, most important, he could only be in one place at one time.

He accepted the challenge — told me, in fact, that “challenge” was a funny word for such a task. Maybe I should have asked him to breathe five consecutive times, he chuckled. This particular chuckle lasted the whole afternoon.

On the morning of the challenge, my unit, as well as several others, including Tracey’s, gathered to watch. I placed God about one hundred feet away. Justin, one of my campers, stood beside me holding a baseball in his glove.

“Ready!” I yelled. Justin handed me the ball, and I sent the first grounder. I made it a pretty easy one. God fielded it and tossed the ball back in to Justin.

The second one I stung a little better, but kept it straight. The ball clipped along toward God, bouncing over tiny clusters of grass as it went. God fielded this one easily, too, then threw the ball back to Justin with extra force to show off.

I thought I had hit the third one too hard and too far to God’s left. Evidently the ball was moving more slowly than I thought, because he had time to execute a dozen back-handsprings before scooping the ball from the grass. The loud cheers from the crowd didn’t help my confidence any. Then he nabbed the fourth one — a blistering shot that struck a pebble and leaped up a few feet — by launching his glove into the air and capturing the ball like a tiny satellite. The crowd applauded this one even more loudly.

I had one grounder left. Justin flipped the ball to me.

As I tossed the ball up, Tracey said something to her co-counselor. It was only later that I learned this. God was the only one who could hear her at the time.

“I wonder why everyone is cheering,” she said. “I don’t find this such a big deal.”

In my effort to hit the ball hard I overswung; it bounded slowly along the grass, no faster than the second grounder.

But God flubbed it. His glove and bare hand came together awkwardly on the ball, which squirted onto the grass. He jogged over to me, grabbed my hand and shook it energetically. “I guess it’s your victory. Consider me the most invisible of campers from now on.” He rushed over to where Tracey stood.

“I lost!”

“Yeah,” she said. “That last one was maybe a little tricky.”

“Not at all. I misjudged the ball. I played that baseball as poorly as it could have been played!”

Tracey’s confusion matched by my own. “You’re not upset?”

“Upset! This was just a game — a game time will not remember! The only thing that could upset me would be your distress! Such games have no meaning! Beauty as yours has meaning...indeed, shapes the very meaning of the universe!”

Tracey leaned over and tousled his hair. “You’re a cutie,” she said. With that she was gone, ushering her campers away to lunch.

It was then I realized God’s motive for botching the grounder. It was at the same moment, as he watched her go, that I first experienced sympathy for him.

He plodded toward the cabin. His cabinmates tried to cheer him up, but it was no use. Soon he was walking alone.

The final two weeks of camp were calm other than the normal things. Campers could swing without worrying that the bats were going to crumble in their grip; visits to the portable bathrooms were made with confidence; kids stayed in the water long after the final whistle of swim period.

And the last few minutes, as always, were like the first few: campers and staff mingling around the buses, not wanting to say goodbye. The difference between those first and last minutes is the difference between a still photograph and moving pictures — the first day’s nervous quiet transformed into an endless sequence of hugs and tears; words of friendship and camaraderie; longings to renew the months, intimate, languorous months which have flitted by in little more than an instant; and at the last, wistful goodbyes, eased by promises to stay in touch.

God approached me, smiling. “I’ve enjoyed myself.”

“The pleasure has been all mine — mostly,” I said. “Hey, think you can do something about this weather? Too much rain for August, I’d say.”

“In time.”

He walked toward Tracey.

“Take care, God,” she smiled. “See you next summer, maybe.”

His voice was small. “I shall...be watching you always.” As he turned in the direction of the bus, she kissed him on the cheek. His legs went all at once, but she caught him under the arms. He stood back up and said, “You didn’t call me ‘cutie.’”

“It’s a bit childish.”

His hair was already becoming flecked with silver. I looked at James, standing between me and Pippa, his index finger in a splint. We all smiled as God climbed the steps and disappeared onto the bus.

In the Western sky, late on a summer evening, a star of unusual brightness hangs above the horizon. It appeared twenty-four years to the day — nearly one generation — after a small God bid his farewell to an exceedingly pretty young girl at day camp.

This I know because I discovered the star.

In the years before that, while I was still a student, I would look up to the sky each night between the first of July and the thirty-first of August, throughout every summer. I don’t know what I was looking for. I only know that I sensed, long before completing degrees and starting to research the heavens, that someday our universe would experience a change in its design.

Light from the sun takes a little more than eight minutes to reach Earth. The next nearest star to us sends light across the galaxy one moment that we don’t see until four years later. This new star simply appeared one evening out of perfect blackness. In every manner of speaking it is a phenomenon, resisting every form of measurement. Its distance is unknown. Its size and mass cannot be determined. Its chemical composition is a puzzle to us. It shows no movement relative to the other stars. But most baffling is this: the star appears on the first evening of every July, then disappears again two months later.

Many theories, none satisfactory, have tried to explain the star since I discovered it ten summers ago. My colleagues don’t understand why I’m not frustrated by this.

You see, this brilliant star is not mystifying to me. I know its origins — they are of sentiment, of sweet remembrance, and have nothing to do with the normal laws of astronomy.

On July the first, God slips a necklace over his head. A single gem hangs from it. When August is over he places the necklace in safekeeping, then takes it out again at a point that to us represents a passage of ten months.

I can’t share these thoughts with my colleagues, of course. Most rational astronomers would argue the suggestion that God wears a diamond two months out of every year.

Normally, stars are named by the people who discover them. I declined this honor, requesting instead, and given permission, to name the star Tracey.

Eureka Literary Magazine 

Back to article listing

I.J. Schecter
43 Park Hill Road
Toronto, ON M6C 3N2
(416) 803-9847

© I.J. Schecter 2003