Some of the following is a lie. \u00a0I worry I am beginning to believe it true.<\/p>\n
_______________<\/span><\/p>\n July 20th<\/sup>, at around 10 p.m., maybe 10:15\u2014some of the papers say 10:30\u2014a fifteen-year-old boy drowned at my summer camp.\u00a0 His name was Jason Waxberg.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know him.\u00a0 That part is true.<\/p>\n The summer camp is in Decatur, MI, just outside of Benton Harbor, Portage, Battle Creek, and Paw Paw.\u00a0It’s made up of counselors from cool places like New Zealand, the UK, and Australia.\u00a0 The campers are a bunch of Jews from the north shore of Chicago.<\/p>\n I attended the camp because 1) I am Jewish and 2) my friend Jake went and said it was the shit.\u00a0 I started going when I was nine.\u00a0 I stopped going when I was eighteen.\u00a0 In between those years I checked off a list of things I pretend not to be proud of:\u00a0 Piss in the lake.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 Put toothpaste on my balls.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 Have an allergic reaction to toothpaste on my balls.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 Skip half of my activities.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 Shout, \u201cget some\u201d to my counselor as he\u2019s consoling a crying girl camper.\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 The list goes on.<\/p>\n I loved camp more than home.\u00a0 I loved my camp friends more than my home friends.\u00a0 Most of my friends stayed until their CIT (counselor in training) years because they loved camp more than home, too.\u00a0 They quit because they hated kids.\u00a0 But Jake, Chris, and I stayed for two more years.\u00a0 We quit because Jason Waxberg died.\u00a0 That is one of the lies.<\/p>\n We quit because we were sick of camp, because the kids began to annoy us, because it was time to grow up.<\/p>\n I taught waterskiing.\u00a0 Jake taught sailing.\u00a0 Chris taught both.\u00a0 We were all certified lifeguards.\u00a0 All took a swim test that I probably didn\u2019t deserve to pass.\u00a0 I finished the swim with a smoker\u2019s cough and an undeserved sense of accomplishment.<\/p>\n _______________<\/span><\/p>\n If you hear one whistle from the swim dock it means campers are getting in the water.\u00a0 If you hear two whistles it means campers are getting out of the water.\u00a0 If you hear three whistles it means there\u2019s an emergency in the water.\u00a0 It means run.<\/p>\n It was around 10 p.m., July 20, 2011.\u00a0 I was sitting with my camp \u201cgirlfriend\u201d\u2014my weekly make-out partner\u2014Megan, on the infirmary porch when I heard the whistles.<\/p>\n I ran through the driving range, the basketball court, the volleyball court, the ping-pong tables, the tetherball poles, the cabin area, and finally reached the lake.\u00a0 The lights of pontoon boats bobbed in the distance.\u00a0 The usual mix of Decatur fishermen, water-skiers, and tubers had all gone to sleep.<\/p>\n Waves crashed, muffling counselors\u2019 screams.\u00a0 The moon hung low\u2014an orange bully.\u00a0 I jumped in the water with my clothes on, noticing other counselors had theirs on, too.\u00a0 Thirty other counselors and I formed a wall on one side of the swimming ropes.\u00a0 The campers who were on this night-swim sat on the water trampoline nearby, watching.<\/p>\n We had done this drill before with a Pepsi bottle.\u00a0 Each counselor would spread across the swim area and dive down at the same time, feeling for the bottle.\u00a0 Then we would come back up.\u00a0 We covered most of the swimming area by repeating these dives, inching forward with each dive down.\u00a0 Not once had we found the Pepsi bottle on the first sweep through.<\/p>\n This time it was not a drill.<\/p>\n We dove down, swept our hands through thick sand and thicker seaweed, feeling for something, for someone, and came up together, all with nothing in our hands.\u00a0 We did this until we reached the other side of the swimming ropes.\u00a0 We were out of breath, helplessly looking for a fifteen-year-old camper, hoping we wouldn\u2019t be the one to touch him when we reached the bottom.<\/p>\n There were multiple dives when I couldn\u2019t reach the bottom, physically unable to swim deeper, scared I might not make it back up.<\/p>\n Chris touched Jason Waxberg.\u00a0 As did another counselor, who came up screaming, \u201cI grabbed his foot.\u00a0 He kicked me!\u00a0 He kicked!\u201d\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t bring him to the surface.<\/p>\n A search-and-rescue team was called.\u00a0 It took them ten minutes to find Jason Waxberg. \u00a0I remember his body when they pulled him out.\u00a0 He was blue, a pale, icy blue.\u00a0 The sky is sometimes this color, and when it is I try not looking up.<\/p>\n _______________<\/span><\/p>\n This was, for the most part, the story I told to my roommate freshman year.\u00a0 He sat on his bed leaning against the wall, his hand cradling his forehead, muttering, \u201cOh my God, oh my God,\u201d over and over again.\u00a0 After I told this story, our relationship changed.\u00a0 We were more open with each other; I began introducing him as my \u201cfriend\u201d instead of \u201croommate\u201d when family came to visit.<\/p>\n In reality, I was not in the water that night.\u00a0 Jake and Chris were.\u00a0 I was with my camp \u201cgirlfriend\u201d Megan, hoping she\u2019d finally give me head.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n But the second I heard there was a missing camper, I did run through the driving range, the basketball court, the volleyball court, the ping-pong tables, the tetherball poles, the cabin area, and finally reached the lake.\u00a0 They pulled Jason Waxberg\u2019s body out of the water the moment I arrived.\u00a0 He was blue, a pale, icy blue.\u00a0 The sky is sometimes this color, and when it is I try not looking up.<\/p>\n _______________<\/span><\/p>\n The story I heard, the story I often tell as my own, is Jake\u2019s story.\u00a0 He told me what happened minutes after getting out of the water.\u00a0 He told me while he hugged me, as his tears were on my face.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t even hear the whistles.\u00a0 I wish I heard those goddamn whistles.<\/p>\n I heard Jake\u2019s story so many times.\u00a0 I listened as Chris\u2014high and drunk\u2014cried and confessed his every thought during that night.\u00a0 I felt like I was there.<\/p>\n The second or third time I told Jake\u2019s story as my own, I told it to a girl I liked.\u00a0 This girl didn\u2019t like me; I knew that.\u00a0 No matter how many drinks I bought her at bars, the amount of time spent crafting text messages\u2014the feelings weren\u2019t mutual.\u00a0 But the second I finished telling her about Jason Waxberg, she looked at me with these brown eyes that said, \u201cfuck me.\u201d\u00a0 We ended up making out for a good twenty minutes.<\/p>\n If camp ever came up in conversation, if anyone asked why I stopped going back, I told Jake\u2019s story as my own.\u00a0 I began to believe it.\u00a0 I could see myself in the water, pushing myself deep, deep, deeper, praying to God I wouldn\u2019t be the one to touch the kid.<\/p>\n Jake called me recently to tell me one of his fraternity brothers went cliff jumping, hit his head on a rock, and was badly hurt.\u00a0 Jake was there, burst into tears the second it happened.\u00a0 He said it brought him right back to Jason Waxberg, he said he had to tell me because he knew I would understand.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t understand.\u00a0 Not one fucking bit.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t shared my fake Jason Waxberg story since.\u00a0 I still haven\u2019t told any of my college friends what actually happened.\u00a0 There hasn\u2019t been a good time.<\/p>\n _______________<\/span><\/p>\n Camp did not shut down afterward.\u00a0 In fact, not a single person left.\u00a0 But camp no longer felt like home to me as it once had.\u00a0 One of my best memories was when I was thirteen, our counselor playing Indian Moon <\/em>around a campfire.\u00a0 Our whole cabin looked at one another, eyes slippery, letting the fire\u2019s flames and strings vibrations fill the void of breath and whispers.\u00a0 Now, in the background of this image I sometimes see Jason Waxberg getting pulled from the water, limp and dripping.<\/p>\n The day after he drowned, and each day of camp after that, memories of Jason Waxberg were shared.\u00a0 A \u201cSmile4Waxy\u201d wristband was made.\u00a0 The young campers would ask questions like \u201cWhat color hair did he have?\u201d or \u201cWas he nice?\u201d or\u00a0 \u201cDidn\u2019t he know how to swim?\u201d<\/p>\n Camp counselors who tried to save Jason would talk with grief counselors as I helped kids get their skis on in the water, cheered them on as they stood up, told them how great they did when they fell seconds later.<\/p>\n Once camp ended, campers posted \u201cSmile4Waxy\u201d on Facebook every Wednesday.\u00a0 I look at all of these posts and force myself to smile.\u00a0 At first hundreds of these posts would accumulate\u2014only a few campers will post this status now, a few more will \u201clike\u201d them.<\/p>\n Jake and I visited camp on Fourth of July the summer after Waxberg died.\u00a0 I walked around with American flags tattooed on my arms, hugging old camp friends, lying my ass off to campers asking if I remembered them.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see anyone wearing \u201cSmile4Waxy\u201d wristbands.\u00a0 The campers who knew Jason Waxberg stopped going to camp\u2014they were too old, didn\u2019t want to be CIT\u2019s.<\/p>\n Jake and I walked to the lake; looked out at boats idling, their passengers drinking beer, ready to shoot off fireworks.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t bring up Jason Waxberg.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t bring up the nine years previous where we sat on the grass hill at night watching the fireworks or trying to sneak away from our cabin to get with girls who didn\u2019t really like us.\u00a0 We walked on the path past the lake and looked for more people to say \u201cwhat\u2019s up\u201d to until there was no one else worth seeing.\u00a0 We said thank you to the camp director for letting us visit.\u00a0 Then we drove home.<\/p>\n Some of the following is a lie. \u00a0I worry I am beginning to believe it true. _______________ July 20th, at around 10 p.m., maybe 10:15\u2014some of the papers say 10:30\u2014a fifteen-year-old boy drowned at my summer camp.\u00a0 His name was Jason Waxberg.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know him.\u00a0 That part is true. The summer camp is in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[24],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1E3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6327"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10572,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions\/10572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Anthony Walner<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"