This story was originally published on Wednesday, September 21, 2005.
As I write this entry it is now Fall, and Winter is not far away. It was hot as S all day today, but very soon you and I will have to bundle on layers of warm cozy clothing. When you’re wrapping up in your gay-ace scarf you’ll probably say “Ooh, it’s so cold out today. Oh my gosh I’m so cold.”, but you my friend, have never been cold. You’ll never know the cold that the poor bastards of troop 406 had to experience, and if you think otherwise then you deserve three sharp punches right in the face.
Although it was a troop of freaks, my Boy Scout troop never cut any corners when it came to roughin’ it. Troop 406 would go on a weekend camping trip once a month no matter what the weather. We’d hike through lightning storms, set up camp in hurricane winds, and freeze our nut sacks off at below-zero temperatures. We were involuntarily hardcore because the older men in the troop were hardcore. But the most hardcore part of our trips were the sleeping arrangements.
We camped in crappy, derelict army surplus tents made of green canvas and wood poles. They were already poorly designed enough to be rejected by the army, and they were riddled with holes. If it rained during the trip then you slept in a wet sleeping bag- without exception. On cold nights the freezing air would rush through the tent holes mercilessly. Your only escape was to curl into the bottom of your possibly wet sleeping bag and periodically come up to breathe the painfully cold air. It was so cold that you couldn’t cry about how cold you were because you didn’t want to ice up your face.
We were dumb ace junior high kids so there invariably were a large number of boys that didn’t pack the proper clothing for those freezing winter trips. There would always be one or two boys that only packed a t-shirt and would have to beg borrow and steal jackets from the other scouts. The cold often approached fatally hazardous levels. One scout went into hypothermia by sleeping in a frozen wet sleeping bag. Another scout, who happened to be mentally retarded, had to piss one night but was too cold to make the trip out of the tent. He decided to stay somewhat warm by sticking his D through the door slit and pissing directly out the tent, a wise move that we all pulled when necessary. At some point though he lost control of his D and he and his tent partner awoke the next day in a tent painted with frozen piss.
There was one boy in the troop who was used to being cold in the woods. His name was Frank, and he was a redneck. Frank was always doing bad stuff. He claimed to be a Crip. He was once escorted away by police from a canoe trip after he broke into the canoe company’s bus late at night and discharged a fire extinguisher all over the bus seats. His dirty ace wino dad drove an El Camino with a bed full of empty wine jugs which he generously offered to the troop for storing water and bug juice. He would sit at the camp fire late at night with us boys and tell filthy sex jokes and racist jokes that we didn’t understand, then he’d stagger drunkenly to the El Camino to sleep. One night I was telling my troop mates at the campfire about a schizophrenic man named Jim who lived in a storage shed in the backyard of my neighbor’s house. I told them how Jim would wander around the neighborhood whispering to himself all day, and come into random people’s yards to pet their dogs. He was crazy but harmless. Frank’s dad stared across the flames and told me that Jim was a psycho pervert who would rape me someday.
Frank wasn’t the only kid there with an unusual parent. James had a step dad who claimed to work for NASA, the CIA, and any other highly classified organization he could think up. If you were drinking a cup of water he would say he designed the cup, or if a Scout was tying his shoelace he would say that he was on a committee that was developing a new system for tying shoelaces. He drove one of those huge ace family vans with an overly plush interior, and a spare tire cover on the back that he said contained a parachute in case he drove off a cliff. I’m sure he didn’t believe these stories but I think he was so used to dealing with Cub Scouts that he didn’t know that teenagers wouldn’t fall for that S.
One cold ace night, James and his Cub Scout brother Eddie arrived at camp with their step dad in the jumbo NASA van. The two boys ate with the rest of us, they sat around the campfire with the rest of us, told ghost stories with the rest of us, and participated in the usual Scout activities up until it was time to go to sleep. “You boys come sleep in the NASA van with your cool ace step dad”, said their not cool at all step dad. The wind-chill dropped down to negative twelve. The boys of troop 406 laid awake that night in icy agony, fuming over the two traitors who were cozy and warm in their van as if they had never left home. Frank sunk deep down in his Nascar sleeping bag and plotted his revenge.
At the next Scout meeting we all joked on James for being a P. We called him a P and a van fag and whatever else thirteen-year-old boys call each other till we had thoroughly amused ourselves. Frank wouldn’t stop with the heckling though. “Hey you fat little faggit. You look jest like a stupid ace fag you little sissy fag all sleepin in a van like some kinda fag or sumthin. You aint nothing but a fat little P. Jest a fat little P”. It was obvious that he wanted James to respond with a comeback. James took the bait.
“Why don’t you go F your mom or something?”, James snapped back.
Frank sprung forward with the speed of a pouncing tiger and punched James three times, Three Times!, right smack in the nose. James’s only defense was to look like he was super sad that he was being punched in the face. That defense rarely works though, and James soon found himself in the hospital with a bloody broken nose. Frank found himself out of Scouts, and Three Happenin Guys found the inspiration to write the song Don’t Stop till It’s Broke…
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One, two, three
fierce punched to the nose
You can’t take these blows
One, two, three
fierce punches to the nose
Don’t stop till it’s brokeChillin at Scouts
Getting joked on
Tonights gonna be different
It’s fixin to be on
Someone smells stank
Could it be Frank?
His fists all tense like he’s chillin at the bank
James said “fool”
Frank said “you”
Next thing you know James is in a pool
of blood from his nose
Got punched like a straight up ho.Boy Scouts aint
what it used to be
Shoot step daddy said “Boys I got a parachute”
Workin for NASA?
You know you is a liar
Finna set it off
like a bon fire
that aint keeping you warm
Gotta sleep in the van
What you expect in this weather
Boy you think you get a tan?
Previously: Latrine Duty
