Chapter Six
Another Thursday full of conference calls, action boxes about websites to visit, 1-800 numbers to call, and discussions about whether the word effusive was too highbrow for the “regular American readers” of the financial services magazine printed on thin matte paper that made it look like less of a magazine and more of a coupon circular. Another day of fiddling with the itchy wool band of his pants and smelling other people’s lunches, of talking to the clients on the phone and watching Jake bullshit to the publisher.
Charles stepped outside a few minutes before the people from Back to the Land were due in the office, coming to look at the lineup they’d put together. He sat down on the bench in front of his building and watched the regular string of the lunchtime crowd walk by. Men in suits, women in suits, teenagers in Phillies caps, workers in jumpsuits, and a tall, beautiful woman who looked a little like Joanna. The Back to the Land people would be easily identifiable, he figured. They’d look like mountain men, ungroomed and burly. They’d have the same smug, serene look on their faces that Buddhists did—their lives fixed to a very different set of priorities than the rest of the world, their minds and bodies trained to withstand things mere mortals couldn’t bear.
Was that what possessed someone to join Back to the Land—a righteous quest for purity? Did they laugh at all the regular folks who functioned on high fructose corn syrup, twenty-four-hour-news outlets, and allergy medications? Would they snicker at Charles when he walked into the room, sensing that he had never built a fire or pitched a tent? Would they know that he was a little afraid to pitch a tent, certain he would do it wrong?
He’d tried, once. When Charles was in eighth grade and Scott was in sixth, their father proposed a camping trip in the Poconos. It was the first trip of its kind, and their father had bought an industrial tent, big enough for three people. He wanted to practice assembling it in the backyard before they set out, and he had asked Charles to help. Charles was delighted to be included, but as hard as he puzzled over the instructions, it just made no sense. He couldn’t figure out which posts went where. “Come on,” Charles’s father goaded. “What do we do first?”
The directions shook in Charles’s hands. The pole he held slipped from his grip, clattering loudly to the ground.
“Just give it here,” his father said, his voice ice. He yanked the instructions from him and picked up the post. When he glanced at Charles again, there were blotches of red on his cheeks and his neck. Charles backed away slowly, his heart a jackhammer. It was ten steps to the side door of the house.
His father didn’t summon him back. After a few minutes, Scott emerged up the driveway—he’d been playing basketball with friends. The two of them built the tent together; Scott understood the schematic right away. The worst part was that Scott, the younger brother, stepped inside halfway through to see if Charles wanted to help, which Charles saw as pedantic and condescending. Scott didn’t want Charles to help any more than his father did. As Charles peered out the window at the two of them easily building, their rapport light and easy, he knew exactly what the camping trip would be like.
The next morning he told his mother he had a fever. She reached out to feel his forehead, but he caught her eye. Understanding flooded her face fast, and she patted his hand and turned. “Charles is sick,” she announced at the breakfast table. “You boys will have to go camping by yourselves.”