A Letter from Camp

Dear Mumsy,

Camp Gooseneck is as wonderful as I could have ever imagined! How silly I feel that I was so nervous before. You were right, this is turning out to be the best two weeks of my life so far!

My counselor’s name is Chadwick and he is a righteous cool dood. He has curly hair and wears plaid pants and plays Sister Hazel songs on his acoustic. He says he doesn’t like to wear shirts because they stifle his nips. He says his nipples need to breathe or else they get dry and when they get dry they get cracked and when they get cracked they get chapped. He says if he showed up for lifeguard duty with chapped nappies, it would beget a pussy drought dryer than the Dust Bowl of the Dirty Thirties. I don’t know what that means, but I believe it. And Mumsy I must admit, his nipple breathing techniques seem to be working. They are the healthiest in the whole wide camp. With the circumference of a Sacagawea golden dollar, they are truly a sight to be seen. They are THE wonder of Cabin Apache.

Some nights Chadwick lets us sneak out and play pranks on those cuntdicks in Cabin Sioux. “Everybody knows that the Sioux are a bunch of sackless dickheads, who wouldn’t know a piece of pussy from a pile of hamburger meat if it smacked them on the chodeshaft.” That’s what Chadwick says. I don’t know what it means, but I believe it. Anywho, one night we painted our faces all camouflage-like and snuck down to their cabin and pissed all over their clothes and in their shoes and duct-taped this one codpiece named Jacob to his bed and put a plastic bag over his face until his eyes rolled back in his head and his breathing stopped while Tommy whispered “Don’t you ever let me catch you even looking at Cynthia Mossberg again, you pot-marked tampon string!” It was CLASSIC!

I made all my bunkmates friendship bracelets in Arts’n’Crafts as a symbol of our being bros and all.  We also made a blood oath that we would die for each other. We all pricked our fingers and rubbed our blood all together. Nothing brings a group of young men closer than rubbing their open sores together. Black Bobby wasn’t allowed to take part in the blood oath though, because Clarke said that if we caught any of Black Bobby’s sickle cells in our bloodstream, we would all turn black and we collectively decided that we’d prefer to be white. Nothing against black folks, you understand, it was just a personal decision. You know, you always hear that there is this hidden cost to being African-American. Whether it is the statistically lower pay or the higher rates of heart disease, HIV/AIDs, and diabetes or just the subtle everyday racism of the white hegemony. The only way to make it as a black in this country is to sell crack rock or have a wicked jump shot. I think I’d rather just stay white, thank you very much.

Last week, me and this girl named Sharon from Cabin Cherokee went on a canoe ride around the lake. It was a blast! We parked our canoe behind the big branch that hangs over the edge of the lake and she took off her bikini bottoms and showed me the little brown hairs she had sprouted on her hoo-hoo cooch that everyone in camp was talking about. She pulled out a baggie from her satchel and emptied it into a spoon. She dropped some lake water in and then used a match to heat up the bottom of the spoon. She sterilized her needle in the lake, after finding the biggest vein in my arm, and gave me a shot that she said “would make me forget about when Daddy would rub his zipper up and down my spine.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I believed it. We sat in that canoe for what seemed like hours, sipping from her canteen, listening to Break On Through by the Doors, and slobbering on ourselves. I don’t want to speak too soon, but Mumsy, I think Sharon might be the ONE.

There is a large creature that lives in the woods behind the ropes course. At night we hear his blood thirsty howls and the cries of children he has trapped in his forest cave. Camp lore says that he devours the souls of campers and  drains out all their blood and innards into a large gourd. Then he takes their bones and grinds them into a fine powder. Once the blood gourd has been brought to a steady boil over an open fire, he mixes in the bone meal and a pinch of brown sugar. Let that simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, just long enough for the flavors to really coalesce. Then let it cool for about 5 minutes to seal in the taste, and you are left with with what the counselors call Gooseneck Bloodmeal.

Chadwick says as long as they give the monster 3 campers from every camp session, his appetite is quelled long enough to prevent him from attacking the whole camp. It’s for the greater good he says. Campers should feel honored to be selected for the sacrifice. For the greater good.  It is through the spilling of their virginal blood that the monster is satisfied and lets us play capture the flag and go canoeing and have talent shows. For the greater good. Baxter Culpepper, from Cabin Chickasaw, went missing several days ago. The other campers and I have begun to speculate that he has been selected. Probably all that is left of him by now is a pile of hair and teeth. For the greater good.

But that was days ago. The creature is hungry again.His howls have been louder the past several nights. It’s about time for a new selection to be made. Oh! Mumsy, you will never guess what just happened. As I am writing you this very letter, a group of counselors in dark hooded robes have burst into my cabin. They are currently binding my feet and hands. I will admit, it does make writing this letter a bit more difficult. Now they have put a burlap sack over my head. I apologize if my handwriting is suffering, it is difficult to see with the sack and all. Now they are dragging me by my feet through the woods and chanting ominously. I must give credit where credit is due, it is sort a catchy little number. Well, the creatures howls are now upon me, so I must be going. For the greater good!

Give Papa and little Susanne my love! Ta-ta!

Love,

Pudding Dickenson

P.S. could you send me some of those toffies I like so dearly?

Faulkner’s Lost Short Story

I remember that summer with Quinnie. The sun came up early and hot and got damn near oppressive around noon time. When it got real hot, Pa would let me break. I’d go down and climb that lazy, sugar magnolia with Quinnie, just low enough to let those big umbrella leaves give us shade, but just high enough to feel the breeze come racing in every four or five minutes. I remember how her hair would wave in the breeze, like everything was in slow motion.

Some days, the afternoon rain would let up just soon enough to enjoy the cool evening air. Everything smelled sweeter when the honeysuckles were in bloom. Smell of damp honeysuckles after an afternoon shower still makes me think of Quinnie and her hair and how it would blow in the wind, like the entire world was in slow motion.

I remember some afternoons, stealing some of Pa’s sippin’ whiskey and putting it into Coke cans and going with Quinnie down to the creek. We’d talk about this tree and that one, and laugh and toss peanuts in for the fish. Her hair moved in slow motion. I’d roll up my pants and put my feet in, the water just cold enough for me to whince, but not cold enough to stop me from dipping my feet in to the ankles. Once the drinks were all drank and the sun had sunk down real low, we’d go skinny dipping. Then we would fuck on the shore of that creek like two beached sea turtles eager to get inside and move around in each others sea-pussies. I’d smush her face real hard down into that clay creekbed, so hard that it got all in her teeth. I don’t know why I did that. Then I’d pull out just in time, or so I thought, and splooge all over her back, rubbing in some clay, just for good measure.

I remember after a couple weeks, Quinnie came into the stable crying. She told me she was pregnant and that Pa said he didn’t want her anywhere around me anymore. She said that this was goodbye and cried some more. Little Jessie was born in March of the following year. He was retarded as an armadillo. Had teeth coming out of his mouth looking like barnacles or something. His spine was on the outside. It’s not supposed to be like that. I ‘spose it was because me and Quinnie were brother and sister and that our Ma and Pa were brother and sister and their Ma and Pa too, going back about 5 generations. Probably also explains why my eyes are so far apart and why Quinnie’s got two club feet.

We were all sippin’ Pa’s sippin’ whiskey one night after Jessie was born and just left him outside like on accident. ‘Spect the coyotes got him.

Sometimes on moonless summer nights, I lay awake and think of Little Jesse, all hunched backed, with his one good hand waving at me in slow motion, as if to say “Pa, it’s ok. We all get a little shitfaced on Pa’s good sippin’ whiskey, fuck our sisters, and end up losing our deformed little armadillo retard babies.” And seeing that makes me feel like I can take comfort in the fact that, at the end of this life, when I’m buried beside the very creek I used to play by, that I was a good man at heart and that I tried my very hardest each and every damn day to do the right thing. Now I’m going to go rape Quinnie and get drunk.

Concerning Cotton-eye Joe…

That dude has some serious problems. I’m not one to go talking about people like this, like a gossipy bitch or whatever, but that guy is fuuuuucked up.

He has cotton for eyes. Like in his eye hole.

Forget about his whole oral hygiene problem. That’s peanuts compared to what we’re talking about here. I can call Dr. Fitzhugh right now and we can get him some glow in the dark vampire teeth. Problem solved. But cotton eyes? I. Don’t. THINK. So.

Forget his illiteracy. Reading is pretty hard, I get it. Still trying to make it through the first Harry Potter book myself. Things are getting exciting though, he just got to some weird train station.

Really, it’s the whole cotton-eye thing that I’m worried about. With Joe, I mean. Joey Cottoneyes.

I mean, forget about the meth lab he’s got in the bathroom of his trailer. In his defense, he makes some pretty good shit. And maybe it’s not helping his oral hygiene situation but really, if you think about it, he is just trying to provide a service for his community. Supply and demand. I get it. That’s not his fault. If anything we should give him some slack for being a pawn in the capitalist system. Plus, he makes some really good shit.

And forget about his incestual relationship with his great-grandfather’s corpse. You’d probably do the same in his situation. That situation being- cursed with cotton eyes and having a thicker than average, perfectly trimmed, rhino cock.

And don’t even get me started on this whole “leukemia” kick he’s been on. I mean I get it, but really. Plus, I heard cancer tickles.

You know what, just forget it. It’s not my place to say anything.