Playing Hurt

Clint

minor penalty





Call me crazy,” says Earl, owner of Lake of the Woods fishing resort, from behind the check-in counter. “I happen to think that a man on vacation wants … a vacation.”

I instantly feel deflated. I glance back up at the poster I’ve just thumbtacked to the wall of the lobby. It’s not a bad poster. In fact, I personally think the collage I’ve put together of the northern Minnesota landscape looks enticing. Whitewater rapids, kayaks on clear rivers, brown fingers of hiking trails—what could be better? Give me a week, I’ll give you the tools for the best body of your life! my poster promises. Lake of the Woods Boot Camp!

“It’s a good idea,” I say, trying to defend myself. But my words hesitate far too much to convey any real confidence. I clear my throat and decide to be more assertive. “It’s not like I’m forcing people into the gym. It’s intense outdoor activities—hiking, swimming, rowing—surrounded by our incredible scenery. Isn’t that why people come up here in the first place? For the scenery? You don’t vacation in Minnesota to be inside.”

“I dunno,” Earl mumbles. “Most people like a little leisure with their time off. Hikes are strolls here, Clint. Kayak trips are sight-seeing adventures, not races. Swimming amounts to floating on an inner tube near the dock. Vacation, son. Rest. Relaxation. That’s what folks come here for. You should know that by now. The men fish. The women make eyes at the tour guides.”

“They don’t ‘make eyes’ at me,” I say, as the door to the dining room flops open.

“It’s all right, Clint,” Todd says around an enormous bite of a sandwich that reeks of vinegar. “Not everybody can be the stuff of fantasy. Just a select few of us.” He’s not really joking all that much. Here we are, on our first day of summer work back at the resort, and already he’s walking around in a Lake of the Woods T-shirt that’s too small for him, displaying all those hours at the weight bench for the girls on vacation. Usually, we don’t get too many eighteen- or nineteen-year-olds here at the resort, mostly families with younger kids. But Todd’s obviously hoping for the best.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist and lets out a moan when he sees my poster. “What is that? What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s just an idea,” I say.

Todd shakes his head. “No, no, no—no more ideas. You’re blowing everything.”

“Blowing what? I told you, it’s just an idea.”

“No, no, no,” Todd mumbles, finally swallows. “Look. I can understand you working hard senior year. Making up for lost time, maybe. Okay, sure. But last year—you, me, and Greg, away at school. Didn’t even have to deal with being in a dorm—we had our own place. No parents. The perfect opportunity. And you studied. For God’s sake, who works so hard, freshman year of college? Huh? Do you know?” he asks, turning to Earl.

Earl just tugs on his steel wool beard, trying not to laugh.

“Really—who studies like that?” Todd shouts again, like I’m deaf or something. “You take—gym—you take—James Bond Movies 101—you take—freshman comp. Did you go to a single party all year, Morgan?”

I just stare at him. He knows I didn’t.

“You blew it. The freebie, gimme year. You blew it. And now, at the very beginning of the summer, when everybody takes a little breather, you’ve got three jobs?”

“I don’t have three—”

“Tour guide here at the resort,” Todd interrupts, holding up his index finger. “Working at Pike’s Perch,” he says, holding up his middle finger when referring to my parents’ restaurant. “And now,” he finishes, holding up a ring finger slathered in mayo from his sandwich, “that.” He points at the poster, then shoves the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.

“Maybe you’re spreading yourself a little thin,” Earl adds.

“It’s not like my folks pay me or anything,” I protest. “Working at Pike’s is just kind of like helping around the house. And some extra cash on the side would really help with tuition next year. Not to mention geology textbooks—those things aren’t exactly cheap. Maybe you guys could sign up for my boot camp. Help a guy out.”

“No way,” Todd says, shaking his head. “Huh-uh. I’m not contributing to this working craziness. Working, studying, jeez. And another thing—if your parents don’t stop bragging about your A’s to everybody at Pike’s, I’m gonna kill you. My parents eat in there.”

“What about you?” I ask Earl.

Earl grimaces. “I’d rather get a whoopin’.”

“I’ll get somebody,” I insist, laughing now. “You just watch.”

“Speaking of watches,” Earl says, nodding once at the old wristband I wear. Old-fashioned, I guess, but I've never been into cell phones, which seem to be the only way anybody keeps track of the time anymore. Besides, around here, cells never really work all that great. Shoddy reception at best. “Think you’ve got a hiking tour waitin’ on you,” Earl finishes.

I glance at my wrist, slam my box of stick pins onto the counter. “Bet you both a free dinner at Pike’s I get somebody before the week’s out,” I say as I rush for the door.

“Your folks sure aren’t gonna like you givin’ away their food,” Earl warns.

Todd laughs as he leans against the front counter, waiting, just like he always does, until the very last millisecond before heading out to his fishing tour. Which is just Todd’s style—he’s pretty much last-second about everything. Not that he’s some irresponsible moron; Earl wouldn’t let him get close to one of his launches if he couldn’t trust him. Todd’s just never been in a hurry in his life.

I’d shout some smart-ass stinger back at the two of them, but I’m already too far out the door for either of them to hear me.

Outside smells kind of swampy, earthy. It’s familiar, like I guess it should be; Pop started taking me here to fish and hike when I was barely out of second grade.

A white launch putters across the lake, leaving a trail of ripples behind it. Greg is onboard, entertaining a load of noisy tourists, baiting lines and telling wild stories of fish caught by other vacationers. “God, it was big as a whale!” I think I hear him shout. He’s really worked up today, probably just excited to be back at the resort, his voice carrying across the stillness of the water. He’s really putting on the works, priming his first group of tourists for their own Old Man and the Sea adventure.

Greg and Todd and this resort: my three oldest friends. Their faces fill Mom’s family albums, in photos of Fourth of July picnics and birthday parties. But everything changes. We’re not here just to play anymore. Greg and Todd and I have all passed every requirement and certification known to man (or known to Earl, anyway) so that we could work as the fishing guides. So that we could steer groups of tourists out into a lake that spreads itself so wide, it sometimes seems as big as the Atlantic. And while Todd and Greg only want to work on the boats, I’m what Earl calls the floater. I take up the slack wherever it shows up. Fish, sure, but also take the tourists out birding, or hunting wildflowers. We go canoeing. Ride ATVs.

It’s the second summer Earl’s given us these jobs. Sometimes I just can’t believe my luck. Little does Earl know, I’d pay him to work here.

“Come on, guys,” I say, waving at a clump of tourists gathered near the path behind the main lodge. They stop chattering long enough to look at my T-shirt, see the Lake of the Woods fishing resort logo embroidered across my left shoulder. They smile, one after another, realizing I’m the one they’ve been waiting on.

“Hope you guys all brought your cameras,” I say, holding the digital I’ve borrowed toward the sun. These people and I don’t know each other by our first names yet, not on this first hike of the summer. But we will. Soon they’ll be calling Clint! as they point out red blooms along the edge of the path, asking me what they’re called. By the time they leave, they’ll know all the Minnesota wildflowers by their first names, too.

My calves go warm as I start up the incline of the dirt path. The late May sun beats especially hot on the back of my head, making me feel wet behind the ears for leaving my Lake of the Woods ball cap in the lodge.

I pay close attention to my pace, making sure a chubby lady dressed in bright orange pants at the back of the group doesn’t fall too far behind. With every step, my old compass bangs against my leg, rattling around in the pocket of my shorts. Almost sounds like a giggle, the way the metal parts jiggle against themselves. Like the compass is teasing me—think you’re gonna to get lost on the same path you’ve hiked every summer for the past decade, Clint?

But the truth is, a weird sense of peace washed over me last week when I found my old Boy Scout compass.

“Come on,” Todd had shouted from the top of the stairs that led to my parents’ basement. “You said you knew where the tent was.”

I’d muttered under my breath as I picked up a dusty box. The cardboard flaps opened, letting Boy Scout relics—including my compass—fall onto a pile of family quilts.

I stared at it, turning it over in my hand, not really understanding the calm sensation that filled me just from holding it.

“Morgan!” Todd had shouted. “Come on! Losin’ daylight. Are we going camping or what?”

I’d dropped the compass into the pocket of my shorts before tossing the box aside. “This’ll go a lot faster if you two losers’d come down and help me look.”

The compass has weighed down the pockets of my hiking shorts every day since.

I take a deep breath of sweet summer air. Birds in the branches above me chatter small talk; ducks follow their mother down to the lake, single file. The clucking ducks remind me, a little, of the tourists trailing mindlessly behind me. They chatter to each other, none of them paying enough attention to their feet; I can hear their sneakers stumble off the edge of the trail every once in a while.

I glance over my shoulder at the first two people in line behind me. A father and daughter, obviously. I peg the dad for a runner. His daughter’s about twelve, wearing an awful pink Girl Power T-shirt and clutching her phone like it’s somehow going to save her from dying out here in the woods. She smells like grape bubblegum and the comfort of a childhood bedroom. She blushes when she catches my eye.

Even though I’ve tried to deny it, Earl was right about the making eyes junk. Every single summer, younger girls like this one get crushes. Blush at one guide, then another. Twirl hair around fingers, get all giggly.

Frankly, a crush from a twelve-year-old is just plain embarrassing. Especially with her father watching. But the occasional older girls who come to the resort have a tendency to get a little goofy, too. And I wonder, sometimes, what good a summer fling really does the girls who are old enough to have them. What good is something so short-lived it’s practically disposable? Throw-away love. Maybe it’s okay for Todd or Greg, but I don’t get the point.

I’ve just started to hope, with everything I have, that Little Miss Girl Power won’t spend her entire vacation traipsing around after me, when she glances at the trail ahead of us and gasps.

“Look,” she says, pointing at the tattooed tree. At least, that’s what we’ve always called it here at the resort. And that’s exactly the way it looks—like the body of some old heavy metal rocker. Covered in hearts and letters. Some painted. Some carved with pocket knives. Every summer romance that’s ever played out at Lake of the Woods has been etched into the skin of the tree.

She’s just the right age to be infatuated with the idea of love. To maybe even be infatuated with the idea of heartbreak. I think that sometimes, heartbreak looks adult to little girls like this one. Same as lipstick or high heels.

I look at the tree even though I really don’t want to. And I find it, instantly, like I always do every time my eyes hit the bark: Clint & Rose. At the bottom, near the thick, gnarly roots that poke up out of the ground. As I stare, I can still feel the tiny glass bottle of red model paint I'd held in my hand while crouching to paint our names down there. God, I was younger even than Girl Power back then.

Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. I miss you …

“You all right?”

When I turn, I realize the girl’s dad, the runner, is staring at me, eyes filled with worry. Kind of rattles me, makes me remember the time when everybody was flashing me that look.

Two years ago. Hard to believe days can stack up so fast, but there it is, just the same: the accident was a little over two years ago.

Suddenly I’m thinking about Rosie’s room, and the paperbacks she’d leave open on her bed, spines cracked and broken so they’d lie flat. I’m thinking about her singing at Pike’s during the dinner rush, with the half-assed “band” she’d formed with Todd and Greg. I’m thinking about the little white Miata she drove too fast. I’m thinking about the way she wore her black hair in braids even when she was too old for pigtails. I’m thinking about how fantastic it was just to hold her hand.

I’m thinking about the funeral, too. About the way Greg followed me across the snow-covered cemetery, all the way to my truck. Watched me swat away every I’m so sorry that came my way. Watched as I told my parents I wasn’t going right home.

“What?” I snapped at Greg as I unlocked my driver side door. We were both still in our black overcoats. Uptight wool things our moms had bought, insisting we’d need them for special occasions, that we were getting to the right age for them. We kind of looked stupid though, not really even like ourselves.

“You think I’m gonna crack or something?” I shouted at him.

Greg shrugged, his hands hidden in his pockets. “I dunno, man. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not. Okay?”

“It’s okay to—”

“To what?” I yelled, the driver side door of my truck screeching open in the cold.

“To—I don’t know—want to—scream—or something. I’m just saying—if you want to scream—”

“I gotta go to work.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Work,” I said again. “Inventory. Pike’s.”

“We just buried your girlfriend,” Greg said. “You can’t tell me your parents—”

“I gotta go,” I said, climbing into the cab.

I flicked the radio on and drove through the winter streets until I hit Baudette. When I got to Pike’s, I parked two spaces over from my usual spot and unlocked the front door of the restaurant, even though I always used to come in through the back. And I tossed my coat onto the first table inside, even though I always used to keep it on the hook in Pop’s office. And I swore that everything would be different. Where I put my shoes. What I ate for breakfast. Where I went every weekend.

Because if I changed every single thing I did, wouldn’t that mean I had a different life? Wouldn’t that mean that I’d feel different, too? I wouldn’t hurt so bad anymore?

I’d work. I’d work like I never had before. Starting with counting the jars of mustard in Pike’s.

“Sure you’re okay?” the twelve-year-old’s dad says again.

I pull myself back to the hiking trail. Everybody’s looking at me with that awful worried look.

Suck it up, I tell myself.

“Of course,” I answer, smiling at the entire group. “Fine.” By now, I’ve said it so many times over the past two years it’s practically a mantra. What’s done is done.

I hate that being here, remembering, has suddenly made me as tattooed as that tree. I figure I’ve got disaster and heartache written all over my face.

“Just feeling for the poor tree, you know?” I say.

“Yeah,” the dad agrees, snorting a chuckle as he glances back to the carved-up trunk.

His daughter cocks her head at me. When she catches my eye, she blushes again. Her thumbs jab her phone. She lets out a squeal of frustration when she realizes her reception sucks. I cringe as I lead the group up the hill.

We press forward. The sun shines down on us like she’s completely oblivious that anything bad could ever happen on the beautiful planet she lights every single morning.