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bed pissers and mad fuckers before/after Flotsam and jetsam: up at camp. I must have been eight or something. A kid peed his sleeping bag and was mortally embarassed. And I suppose, being eight, he should have been. It was the first night of the week and I didn't sleep a wink. First night in a bed, usually, I cannot sleep unless I pass out. Sometimes not even then. The counselor got up and took the kid to the showers, the sleeping bag to the washing machine, and I asked to go to the bathroom as well. Why not, needed the entertainment, and I had already read all the graffiti on the wall. And I remember the counselor staring balefuly at the washing machine as I walked by, the pisser chirping cheerfully in the shower, the counselors head still wrapped in sleep, and I realized that not everyone loved children, even though they were there. ---- I tried to be friends with this one kid in church school. He came from a weird family, but I tried. I went over to his house once, his name was matt, and I spent the weekend. Big nose, and a haircut like Moe, of the three stooges. I rode on his crappy snowmobile, and endured his weird abuse, finally deciding that there wasn't much I could do. He was reasonably popular at the time, despite, or perhaps because of his weirdness. He mocked me in front of some other kids once, sold me out. I pretty much gave up on him. I left the area and years later came back. His popularity had morphed into scorn, his weirdness changed to mental instability. The older kids picked on him, and it was all I could do to keep them off of him. If he was away for me for a moment that night, they came at him like vultures. I tried to talk to them, but reasoning with bullies sometimes falls short. "He's a fuckin' idiot, man." one of them said. Well, whatever. They wouldn't fight, and Matt, once again turned on me, sold me out, mocked me nastily in front of other people, girls. And I let the vultures have him. One night out of my life at a freakin' roller rink. Don't bite the hand that protects you. Just be my friend, dude. That's what friends do. But no. Neurotic. The sad scared lost look in his eyes right after the first one got at him haunted me for weeks after that. Now I hear he's mad, but that may be rumor.
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