The Paddock Review

That night, Scotty couldn’t sleep. He tried out various positions, but none of them availed. At three in the morning, which he could just make out on the moon-reflected dial belonging to Shlomo’s collapsible shell clock, he was noon-hour wide awake. The red dye in dinner’s bug juice acted as an unprescribed amphetamine. By the time he finally dozed off, it was six-thirty, and everyone was up. His exhaustion brought with it a clumsy fumbling ineptitude. Somewhere between shedding his pajamas and donning his underpants, there was a fleeting second of revelation–an unmistakable exposure that revealed the “naked” truth Scotty had been carefully concealing from everyone in the cabin. But that concealment ended when pink and pudgy Malcolm Berman, who had become a bit less pudgy and more physically mature in the last few weeks, pointed his finger at Scotty’s presently vulnerable organ and blurted out, “Look at Malnick’s baby wee-wee”.

 

Scotty’s face turned red as he grabbed a towel from his bureau and hurriedly wrapped it around him. He closed his eyes and tried desperately to keep tears from escaping, which proved impossible. Then, after he wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand, he finally went about the mundane business of dressing. Half the boys had already left for Shacharit service, and then for breakfast. Scotty walked out of the screen door and into an iron-grey morning. He had no intention of joining anyone doing anything, let alone going to services and breakfast. He had no appetite for either. He walked off unnoticed and headed for the camp entrance. He had no specific plan in his mind. He only wanted to leave this unpleasant place.

 

When he reached the Camp Chalutzim sign at the entrance, he paused, like a collared dog restrained by the shock of an invisible electric fence. Hesitantly, he summoned up the courage to walk through it. Once he did, he didn’t experience liberation, which he had expected. And there was no electric shock. Instead, he sensed fear. He had broken out more than he had broken through. And he was sure to get caught. But he had come this far. Civilization lay in the distance. The ribbon of highway awaited him. On this two-lane road–with signs of the hidden poverty Shlomo referred to all around him–he could see an old gas station in the distance, and on the other side a greasy spoon of some sort, with a half working red neon light flashing above it blinking Open, Open, Open. But he had no change in his pocket to purchase anything. And anyway, he had a more important goal in mind–home.

 

He’d been walking for maybe a half hour when it finally occurred to him that he would never reach his warmly carpeted bedroom this way. He had never hitchhiked. That was for the older more experienced teens, the kind that enjoyed playing hooky from school. But if he was to navigate the miles and miles and miles it took to arrive at home sweet home, he would have to travel by something faster than his Keds. He had been warned by both parents about the dangers of hitchhiking. His mother even related the story of a boy who was stabbed a dozen times by a wild-eyed teen driver, and left on the side of the road, only to be run over by another speeding driver. He doubted the veracity of the account, but it did achieve its effect at the time. He chose to ignore it now. He worked up the courage to tentatively stick his thumb out.

 

It didn’t take thirty seconds for a gleaming new 1963 black Corvette Stingray to pull over just ahead of him. A window rolled down and a head stuck out, cigarette in mouth.

 

“Get your ass in here. I can take you as far as the highway, maybe thirty miles.”

 

Scotty hadn’t really expected things to develop this far. But this was the highway to home, and the car was headed the right direction. Still, he wished the driver were a bit more mature. But he couldn’t say no now.

 

He walked back and waited for the shotgun passenger to get out and let him in the red leather back seat. There were two other boys back there. Once he was seated, the car took off, wheels skidding on the graveled berm as it gained traction. Right away, Scotty could sense that the name of the game was scare the stranger. 

 

At seventy miles-per-hour on the straight road, the driver took his hands off the wheel. Scotty could see slower moving traffic in the distance. For the second time– the dire situation with Billy Bittner being the first– Scotty the agnostic prayed that he would live through this frightening situation. No sooner than he began to move his silent lips, he could hear a siren build to a crescendo. A police cruiser outgunning the Corvette pulled alongside them, its loudspeaker demanding, “Pull over!” The corvette slowed down.

 

“Get out, all of you! Turn around and put your hands on the car. All right. Let me see your license. Where are you all from?”

 

The driver smirked as he handed his license over and turned around. The cop shook his head and muttered.

 

“Temporary. It figures. This isn’t your first run-in, is it?”

 

After a pause he shouted, “Is it?”.

 

Finally, the driver whispered, “No sir.”

 

The cop went back over to the cruiser and grabbed the police radio mic.

 

“Ralston, car one-two-eight.”

 

A crackly voice responded with barely intelligible words. Then he responded, “Roger on that”. Then the radio responded again with more barely intelligible words. The policeman turned to Scotty, realizing he wasn’t from the area.

 

“Where are you from?”

 

“Um…the camp.”

 

“The Jewish one?”

 

Scotty felt embarrassed about his Jewish identity, but he couldn’t very well deny his religious status–at least in these parts.

 

“Well?”

 

“Yes, sir. Camp Chalutzim, sir.”

 

“Well, what the hell are you doing out here?”

 

Scotty chose to remain silent, which would not become the law of the land until two years later. The policeman was about to insist that he explain himself, but then changed his mind and turned to his radio instead.

 

“I got a kid from the Jewish camp here on Highway marker twenty-eight. Tell someone to come get him.”

 

He turned to Scotty.

 

“Okay. Get in, kid.”

 

For the next awkward ten minutes, Scotty sat in the back seat of the police cruiser, feeling like a felon. Finally, Igor pulled up in his 1955 Nash Rambler. He slammed the car door and walked briskly over to Scotty.

 

“What you doing here? Shlomo will be very mad. Yes, and Rabbi Malmud will be very mad also. No. He is nowvery mad! I hear him earlier shouting some not nice things. Maybe he will even send you home from this place.”

                              

Scotty could hear his own silent thoughts scream, Good! Send me home. The policeman, however,seemed impatient to get on with his day.

 

“Are we finished here?”

 

“Yes, we finish. I take him back to Camp Chalutzim.”

 

“All right. You do that.”

 

He turned to Scotty and pulled all the rank he could, knowing that he didn’t have the authority he claimed. But he had made big claims before with truant children, to “scare” them into behaving, and that was the authoritarian voice he had used.

 

“If I see you out here again, I’ll take you into Juvenile detention and lock you up until your parents come and get you.”

 

All Scotty could think as he got in Igor’s car was, it’s better than the prison I’ve been at all summer.

 

 

 This chapter is from the book Late Bloom Summer by Michael Robert Wolf (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/late-bloom-summer-by-michael-wolf/