The Summer of '02: Camp Revisited

The Screen is black. Cut to our Narrator, whose name we have not yet learned, sitting in a huge, empty dining room. He looks about 23. He wears jeans and a striped polo shirt. Banners hang from the walls and the rafters of the room; each is scrawled with painted Hebrew Words and hand - prints indicating that the dining room is meant for children, either at a Summer Camp or a school. No other characters are in sight. The Narrator pours himself a cup of a red juice from a clear pitcher. He drinks most of the cup while staring into the camera.

Narrator: Two summers ago I was a counselor at the Jewish camp we all went to growing up. When I was younger, I didn’t want to go to a Jewish camp. I wanted to go to a sports camp, but my parents made me go because all of my family members went there and it would be a good chance to explore my Jewish roots. “Mom, learning archery is far more enriching than getting to know your cousins,” I’d always say. It turns out she had a bit of foresight. Today, I don’t even like archery.

He takes a final sip of his juice.

Narrator: Regardless, that camp gave me a lot, and I am thankful for it. I met my best friend there, and I got to second base for the first time in an amphitheater that was ironically donated by my great aunt and uncle. Still, I will always associate my time at that camp with a single act that occurred in the lone summer I counseled. Being athletically inclined, I volunteered to captain a color war team with my aforementioned best friend, David, and my promiscuous cousin Irene. We were assigned to the White Team, and our primary task was to coordinate some sort of choreographed skit for the opening ceremony. What we came up with turned out to be not so kosher.

Cut to the Narrator covered in white paint with fake blood stains on his torso and face. He is on the middle of the hill in an inner circle of five surrounded by a larger circle of children wearing white shirts, pants and white face paint. In the inner circle, there is our narrator, his friend David who is similarly decorated, his cousin Irene who is basically naked, two fat kids banging on snare drums. They dance around three benches pressed together in the form of some sort of altar, atop of which stands a three foot tall Statue that resembles a totem pole which alternates between dead wolves and Native American hunters. The Song Umnjonj' Awusitholanga by Ladysmith Black Mambazo plays very loudly. The kids act out the scene the narrator describes.

Narrator: We had all the kids on the white team with the exception of two boys with snare drums form a straight line and march in a spiral form around an inner circle that consisted of myself, David, my cousin Irene and the two fat drummers. I was basically naked covered in white paint and fake blood, holding a fake sword and a Native American Tribal Idol. My friend David wore a loin cloth and had painted himself completely white with the exception of two dark black circles under his eyes; David held a sword in his left hand and a stuffed pig in his right. There were the two drummers and Irene. Suddenly, when the entire team was in a spiral enveloping the inner circle, the music changed to the “Stamping Chords” at the beginning of the "Auguries of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls)” from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

The Music changes to Stravinsky. The Narrator screams violently and hits one of the young snare drummers over the head with the Native American Tribal Idol. Suddenly the rest of the kids get down on their knees and the Narrator ascends onto an arrangement of benches. As he stands fully erect, he raises the idol and the kids bow down in deference to the Native American God of Nature.

Narrator: Then David ascended with the pig, which we had unstuffed and replaced with ketchup and a tomato. I beheaded the fake pig and yelled violently as the ketchup shot forth from the neck of the pig like the ejaculations of a freshly dissected aorta. In a fit of rage, I reached inside the belly of the pig and removed its heart and bit out of it and licked my face as the juice of the tomato ran down my face onto my torso. The kids were now bowing violently and screaming as loud as they could. David and I were in tears, but laughing uncontrollably, as I reached and placed the pig's dismembered head atop mine own.

The Choral arrangement from Beethoven’s 9th plays. Cut to Petco. David and the Narrator point to a cage with two white birds. Close up on the Petco employee who looks visibly worried as David and the Narrator look visibly insane. Abruptly cut back to the Hill. Close up on David who is crying; smudged with his black face paint, his tears look like gray rain drops. He turns around and removes a shoe-box from underneath the altar of benches. David reaches into the shoe box and removes a dove. The Narrator reaches in right after.

Narrator: As I released my dove, it immediately fell dead, but David’s dove, his ephemeral embodiment of tranquility, flew into the dark night like a shooting star, only to die 30 minutes later. Turns out, we didn’t cage the birds properly.

It is now dawn. Close up on two dead birds next to each other on the hill. As the camera slowly pans out, we see the remnants of the ceremony: there is a bloody pig, one of the snare drummers lays concussed, our Narrator cries with his head in his hands. A female counselor stands next to the Narrator cursing at him, but all we can hear is the choral arrangement from Beethoven’s 9th. Fade to Black