Take a walk of fire, feel my pain. On a walk of fire, get inside my brain. This walk of fire, proves life’s no game. Can you walk through fire, won’t be the same. Will you walk through fire, or steal the rain? Some won’t walk through fire, despite the gain. I have walked through fire and felt the strain. Shall we walk through fire or in sloth remain? Try to walk through fire and then call my name. If you can walk through fire will you still be sane? It’s hard to walk through fire, stay straight on aim. You need to walk through fire, let your fear be slain. Do you feel the fire or only shame? Try to light the fire and burning embers tame. I feel the fire, not to complain. Alive into the fire, a negative refrain. Passion is the fire, flowing through my veins. I see your face, I’m so glad you came. To fan the fire, love things mundane. Above all respect the fire, and doubts restrain. (opening Poem)

The hot summer day was well underway by the time Nick Andrews returned to the camp from his lunch break. Kids ran up to him, greeting him excitedly, some latching onto his hands and all of them wanting his attention. He loved and admired their sweet sincerity, always feeling flattered when they clamored for his attention. He’d worked every summer here, as a counselor for the YMCA, since the summer before he began high school, five summers ago.

It had been the most satisfying job he had ever had to date. He’d only ever done stocking for two of the local grocery stores and flipping burgers for fast food places. It always made him happy to come to work, because everyday something different was going on that made him glad to be part of such a great bunch of kids. This year he actually held the title of assistant camp director, but only knew it from the increase in his paycheck.

He’d been thrilled this June, when he reapplied for the counselor position and was asked to help direct camp activities. With only a few weeks left of summer, things were still going great. He’d already worked with Gary, the camp’s director for several years during his time with the YMCA. Nick was glad they had previously achieved such a good working relationship, because it made things so much easier.

Nick was also very grateful Gary had been so open to his suggestions over the last few years before this promotion, since every one of them had improved the quality of day the kids would have. He felt Gary respected him and knew he had every reason to, because Nick worked really hard to make a positive environment for these special children. He knew how important summers were to kids and was glad to play a small role in making these kids have fun.

It was nice having outings to go on, but for him, the real fun was here at the elementary school cafeteria and playgrounds. This coming Thursday was a roller-skating field trip. Once a week there was a different trip planned. They’d sing songs on the bus rides making the rides more fun for everyone. Most of the outings were big gatherings of all five YMCA camps, for which there had to be signed permission slips for insurance purposes.

The gaggle of kids enthusiastically pulled him along into the cafeteria, all talking at once. Nick felt the familiar euphoria he embraced gleefully at having so many kids excitedly expressing such positive feelings towards him. He truly believed he was making a difference in their lives and saw the evidence all around him. Gary waved to him as he entered, smiling broadly.

Obviously grateful for his timely return, which over the years was one thing they were both predictable about. Both were easily irked by other counselors, who were less disciplined in their use of lunch break time. Although Nick wasn’t the one who’d talk to the offender about it, nor did he want to shoulder that unpalatable burden.

"Hi Gary! Made it back just fine with a couple minutes to spare." Nick jokingly remarked. Making an exaggerated gesture to his wristwatch, while the children who had led him down the steps, to the cafeteria, hopped off to find a game to get into.

"Glad to hear that Nick! I was just about to send out the search party!" He was laughing and winked slyly. Nick joined him, along with seven or eight of the kids already sitting with Gary.

It was bound to be a easy afternoon, because the two other counselors were outside hosting games. Nick had waved to them on his way in from leaving his baby blue, Dodge Dart Swinger in the parking lot. He casually panned round the room to the various artworks tacked to several corkboards hung about the walls of the cafeteria, admiring their imaginations. He enjoyed seeing their unrestrained creativity shine in their artworks; whether through crayon drawings, or through the "sand" paintings that were made with chalk colored salt shook over a glue drawn outline or poured in colored layers into a clear container.

The greatest part of camp, besides the weekly trips, was definitely the arts and crafts for sure. Nick wished he could’ve had a nice camp like this one to go to when he was younger. He recalled his days at camp, in a different light than the one he saw this camp with. There had been a lot more kids, for one thing. It was also more structured and stringently enforced. His former counselors were not nearly as nice as the ones who worked for the Y.

He remembered there were always some kids sitting bored, waiting for their "time out" to get over with, so they could rejoin the rest of the group. Emphasis had been on physical activities back then, rather than the more quiet artistic crafts or exciting outings. One thing he’d learned, was how to make yarn wrapped god’s eyes, as they were called. He had the kids here make them bigger and better than the ones he had brought home from camp to give to his mother.

He was very impressed with the way the YMCA handled Ozona Fun Club, even though it was the smallest of their five camps. He had loved it from his very first year as a counselor five years ago. He’d made minimum wage back then compared to the $5.50 an hour he now earned because of his experience and hard earned reputation. He’d used the earnings from his first summer working here to buy a portable radio & tape player.

He had been so proud of it, taking it everywhere with him, except when he went back to school. The following year he brought his "boom box" to the camp, using it to entertain both himself, the other counselors and the kids. All the while, saving for a car stereo to embellish the great gift his parents had given him, the big, blue Dodge.

He had many cherished memories of time spent here and was certain that the kids left here with more than just a few memories of their own to treasure throughout their lives. He’d known many of these kids from previous years and had been delighted when many of their parents had also liked the camp enough to sign on for another summer. There was no doubt that he’d definitely made good impressions on the parents, getting compliments from the office staff anytime he went by to pick up supplies. They would always tell him how nice it was he was still with them.

He felt very proud of his positive reputation here with everyone, kids and adults alike. He was constantly looking for new and unique things for the kids to do with their time here; from new, cool games, to interesting crafts. For Nick, his summers as a counselor were special times. Despite being fully qualified at age nineteen, to be the director of the Fun Club, he was content acknowledging his secret desire to go to college and pursue becoming a teacher.

Perhaps even trying to get a coaching position, once he had the degree he needed that would get him in the door. For now he was more than happy to let Gary handle the directorial duties, while making his $5.50 an hour, without having the paperwork, his admitted weakness, burdening his time that was better spent interacting with the kids.

He always appreciated it when Gary would go by the office and as a courtesy, pick up everybody’s paychecks, saving them all an extra trip. Whenever Gary was off camp grounds, Nick felt free to figure out what activities to move on to next, and the kids always had suggestions for him. If he had to go by the home office to pick up art supplies or replacement playground equipment, he found it rather mundane compared to the action and excitement the camp had to offer.

There was no doubt about it, he and Gary had things well in hand here, going above and beyond what other camps offered in terms of encouraging creativity. Looking around the cafeteria, Nick felt his sense of responsibility, almost a paternal response, swell with pride from a job done well. He enjoyed the fruits from the labor of love that made this job mean more then just a means to a financial end. It had become, almost therapeutic for him, in the way it helped ease his own personal struggles with his own strained parental relationship with his father.

Letting out a sigh, Nick saw through one of the many cafeteria windows, the smiles of delight on the kids faces, telling him that the game was still going strong, so he decided to remain inside to help kids here with crafts they were working on. They were using wooden dowels to make gods’ eyes with and lots of colorful yarns. It was a camp favorite among the kids and they all made at least two or three a summer.

A little girl named Lucy came over, shyly asking Nick to help her make some tassels for her cute red, blue and purple god’s eye. All the kids loved to add tassels but not all of them could make them neat enough to want them on their project, so the counselors were always nearby to lend a hand, making the tassels he or she needed to complete their project. Nick remembered seeing the counselors refuse to help when he’d gone to camp years ago and it had really incensed him. He couldn’t see how anyone could be so insensitive to a plea for help from a child they were being paid to entertain.

"Here we go Lucy, let’s sit and tackle this together. I need your help too," Nick chuckled brightly down to her. He gladly took the bright blue yarn and the slightly worn, cardboard cut-out used to fashion the tassels with, from Lucy’s dainty outstretched hand. Then he began to firmly wrap it with the yarn.

"Thank you Nick. Do you think my mommy will like it?" The little girl smiled expectantly and Nick nodded, grinning his approval at her, knowing she needed to catch a compliment from this question, "You’ve done a great job so far. Let’s see. How long do you want your tassels?"

As she indicated with her sweet little hands, answering his question, he remarked silently to himself how different things were for children her age. How they were still building confidence through dealings with peers and testing the waters with adults. Not once had a counselor ever treated him as respectfully as he treated these kids, but he took pride in helping their fragile self-esteems flower.

After a few minutes they had almost finished one tassel and Lucy clapped her hands excitedly, gleefully showing her appreciation of Nick’s efforts. It made him feel glad once again that he had this kind of job which made him feel so damn good about himself while allowing him to serve a higher purpose and become a good influence on the people he interacted with.

He couldn’t imagine any other job he would ever love as much as this one, with one exception being Fatherhood. He handed Lucy a tassel in progress to hold, while he tied the middle up with a long piece of yarn that would also be how the tassels were attached neatly to the ends of the dowels. Next he picked up a tiny pair of children’s scissors, and handing them to Lucy, had her cut the yarn on each end of the cardboard template to finish the tassel. Toning down his enthusiasm, he watched little Lucy happily concentrating on the task.

Nick firmly held the soon to be tassel, for her as she used her chubby fingers to work the awkward scissors. After a few more minutes of cooperation there were two neat tassels ready to be attached to her god’s eye. He was gratified to be so instrumental in making the young girl’s day. Always impressed by the way the kids got so much enjoyment out of small, easy to do crafts, he smiled broadly and asked her to use the scissors again while he held the final tassel in progress for her.

"Do you like how it is turning out Lucy?" He asked.

"Oh yes Nick. Thanks to you it is the prettiest god’s eye I ever made!" Her grin warmed his heart and Nick found himself confronted with his desire for a family of his own.

"That’s great to hear, Lucy. I’m glad I was here to help out. I really like the colors you chose, very pretty combination," Nick smiled a bright white grin that he felt so sincerely he was embarrassed two tiny tears slipped from his eyes, which he quickly wiped away as if they were drops of sweat, hoping no one noticed.

He dreamt of someday knowing what it felt like being a parent of a wonderfully curious child, and enjoying the satisfaction a parent experienced when making their child happy. He looked forward to the pride, he figured other parents must feel, from having little endearing art projects offered from a happy, well adjusted child who looked up to their parents as their protector, provider and ultimate teacher.

Even though he was very glad his parents could afford to send him away to California to go to his parents’ former college, the football scholarship he’d been offered to go to Tallahassee and play for the Seminoles. It was nothing to sneeze at when it came to planning for college and how he would provide for his family of the future. He wanted to stay in Florida in the worst way and wished his father could try to understand that. Nick was realistic about the slim chance of his father ever approving such a course of action, because he firmly believed the only way to the best jobs was to go to one of the best schools. Nick tried unsuccessfully to stifle a sigh of regret that he might have to go through with his plan ‘b’ to maintain his goal.

When there were three neatly trimmed tassels altogether in a row, sitting on the table, Nick had Lucy hold the god’s eye while he attached them to the wooden rods. Soon she had a finished art project to take home with her at the end of the day that he knew she would enjoy for a long time to come. Her eyes gleamed with happiness as she went to go show it to a few of her friends that were playing outside. He stood, stretched and then sat down on the small stage reminiscing, feeling butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

He smiled to himself knowing how much he loved these kids, feeling privileged he could be a positive influence in their brief childhoods. He was hopeful to someday find the right girl to settle down and raise a family with. He dreamt of showing his own children how to make fun art projects he’d learned in his times here with these kids. He fantasized sometimes that he had a cute kid of his own to teach and play games with. Nick truly believed he would make a great Father someday for some little girl or boy.

His reverie was gracefully interrupted by sweaty, noisy kids returning after the red rover game. They were all laughing and joking about the fun they’d had outside, reminding him of the zoo animals they’d visited this summer in Tampa and how the animals chittered, making loud noises as if posturing to each other, boasting through their playful deeds.

The two counselors made their appearance, each lightly tooting on their whistles, hanging off strings around their necks, to calm the kids down long enough to move things on. One glance at his water resistant watch, told him that it was almost squirt gun water fun time. He stood up from the stage, unable to keep from doing a little posturing of his own as Nicole; a young buxom, sixteen-year old, part-time counselor, put up her hands, cheerfully giving the kids the options available to them for the remainder of the day.

"You can stay inside to play board games, cards, work on any unfinished projects you wish. You can get changed and come out to the hill for the Wet Banana water slide, or if enough of you want to play on the play ground we can have a group there too." After everyone raised their votes for the water slide, Nicole laughingly sauntered off in the direction of the equipment closet, which also housed the camp cleaning supplies, to retrieve the beloved yellow, vinyl slide.

Nick was glad there were four counselors now, instead of three like they had in previous years, not only had demand for the Fun Club increased, but because it helped to keep things going smoothly around camp. Having four counselors on hand during the main part of the day made it possible for a larger variety of camp activities, so that more could be going on at once since there was more supervision.

It gave all the counselors more freedom to make things more enjoyable. Just like Nicole was able to go get the slide, Carl, was able to get the kids started in the ritual of lining up to take turns changing into their bathing suits, while Nick and Gary supervised the other children. It usually required as much time to get everyone changed, as it took to set the slide up, but today was especially sweltering and most of the kids already had their suits on in a vain effort to keep cool. Some were even working at filling up the plastic squirt guns at both water fountains.

Nicole was not only the youngest counselor here, but she was the only girl on staff at the Fun Club. There were many other female counselors at the other camps, but it didn’t matter one way or another as long as she was good at her job. Having carefully observed her interactions with the kids, he’d been impressed by her ability to keep them happily excited with the activities or games, as well as her uncanny ability to keep up such a high level of enthusiasm for whatever activity she was promoting to them.

Then of course there was her strange sense of humor to contend with that he gathered was a result of her youth. He had to admit she was funny and struck him as a very positive, optimistic, animated young lady. She was a lot of fun to watch as she went through the motions of hosting a group of kids and Nick had to work at not indulging his male tendency to admire any attractive female form in close proximity.

He had been telling himself that at the upcoming water park trips this year, if Nicole were to take off her shirt and reveal her ample chest clad only in a bathing suit top, he would be polite enough to evade his gaze from the temptation of looking upon his coworker in something other than a professional manner. Bringing himself back to the present, he saw that the kids were getting geared up outside with the water guns. The giddy shouts and squeals of delight reminding him once again, that he was here for them, not to daydream.

All the kids really enjoyed playing ‘hide and squirt’ with the water guns. Before the banana, that had been about the only way to keep cool. He watched Nicole walk over to the man-made hill that the nearest wing of classrooms was built upon. She rolled open up the beloved twenty-foot long, bright yellow plastic water slide. He tried not to stare at her as she kneeled to inflate the base of the slide that would soon hold a small pool of water in which to break the momentum the sliders would build up on the small hill.

His attention was drawn suddenly to Carl, who waved, "Have a good one Nick. See you tomorrow."

"You have a good one too Carl. Take it easy," he said, hoping it hadn’t been blatantly obvious he’d been undressing Nicole with his eyes, as he watched Carl heading out for the day. It was his turn to leave early and tomorrow would be Nicole’s turn. Since they both worked only part-time they alternated days to split the hours more evenly.

He admired her slender figure and youthful good looks, but already had a lovely girlfriend named Leslie Parker, that he liked very much. He’d purposely distanced himself from Nicole, afraid that looking at her, thinking about her or even talking to her would be betraying Leslie. It had been a weird feeling, and one he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind. So he chose to speak to Nicole only when he absolutely needed to, and then only about work. He could only hope she didn’t find him too rude because of it, but his relationship with Leslie was more important then possibly offending a attractive younger woman by not appearing to notice her distinct feminine charms.

He imagined he looked quite tense whenever she was near. He was grateful many times, for the privacy his sunglasses offered to him outside, where he could observe her performance without endangering his front of indifference towards her tanned skin and sun kissed blond hair. There was little doubt in his mind that had he not had a girlfriend, even being nineteen as he was, he would definitely ask her out to a bite to eat and see if anything kindled between them.

He was almost relieved that he didn’t have to face being rejected by such a vibrant young lady. He briefly remembered how afraid he’d been of Leslie rejecting him. He’d brazenly faced that fear, because they’d met in a public restaurant and had he not acted so courageously, he knew she would have been quite content to leave without turning to grin farewell. He grinned stupidly for no real reason other then he wanted to appear sanguine, even though his emotions were wildly racing from thoughts of Nicole and Leslie.

He sighed remembering the joy the slide had brought for the kids. He allowed himself a few moments to appreciate just how dramatically the slide had improved the quality of fun available. There were four other camps open through the Y this year and two of their outings were to the two other camps that had swimming areas. A few years back Ozona had no such aquatic offering for its kids.

That is until Nick had gotten tired of seeing the kids so hot, with no real way to cool down and have some good old water fun. After one exceptionally frustrating day at camp, he went to one of the big chain toy stores, immediately buying a ‘wet banana’ water slide upon seeing it. He imagined how happy it would make the kids to use, along with thirty some squirt guns he picked up for the camp and one hefty automatic water gun for himself.

The next day, when he’d brought them all in, Gary wasn’t sure it would be a good idea. But after seeing how happy the kids were sliding down the man-made hill on the bright yellow plastic, he quickly reimbursed Nick, complimenting him for his ingenuity and on his initiative. After that things seemed to go much smoother for both kids and the counselors. They were some great pictures from that first year the water fun had come to the Ozona Fun Club. After trying it out, Nick had to admit sliding down the hill was great fun. He made an effort to get the kids laughing by going down it making funny faces and loud noises similar to theirs.

Although in his enthusiasm he hadn’t noticed until he’d gone home and showered that he’d bruised his hips black and blue in his excitement. It amazed him that it was so easy to get them all laughing. Because of his experience, he knew which buttons to push to get the best response. Nothing had compared to how wonderful it made him feel to do something unexpected for them and he had made it a quest to try to outdo the success of the slide. He felt he’d come close to it when he’d organized a lip synch concert for them last year. He enjoyed the pursuit of trying to outdo himself, but still felt he hadn’t come up with a way to upstage the slide. He sighed knowing that this summer wasn’t spent yet, even though he wasn’t sure what could possibly top the success of the slide.

When all five of the camps got together for outings it was great to see the kids socializing, as well getting to see some of the other counselors, whom he rarely saw except on these outings. The favorite of both kids and counselors were the two outings to the water parks, one to Adventure Island, the other to Buccaneer Bay. The two water park trips were saved for the last week of camp, making the last week was so much fun no kids were willing to miss out.

Nick had good memories of every Adventure Island and Buccaneer Bay trip they had taken. Like everyone else, he looked forward to them, even though it signaled the last week of camp had arrived. Sure, small mishaps and delays inevitably happened, like a kid getting on the wrong bus and having to do a re-count of kids till it was figured out, but all things considered they were the best trips that imaginable.

Today was no surprise that most of the kids had opted to play with the squirt guns and on the wet banana. Nick saw little Lucy nearby and suggested she join the wet fun, it was evident she was eager to but not sure she wanted to risk getting wet. He could see her bathing suit was under her cute summer dress from the white string that tied into a bow at the back of her tiny neck. He hoped it wouldn’t take her long to decide he was right and go outside. Right now was water gun time till the banana was set up. He laughed as Lucy tossed her white and yellow polka dotted summer dress on the table bench by her art project. It was her turn to grab a full water gun and join in the fun.

She squealed in surprise when she was squirted right after exiting the cafeteria and returning fire, Lucy squirted some of the kids she thought she had a good chance of hitting, evoking delighted squeals of surprise from her victims as cool water met overheated skin. He saw much to his pleasure, that he had been right, as Lucy was deemed by her victims as the most viable target. He laughed with them as Lucy squealed from her shower of streams of cool water by the other kids who were participating in the shoot out.

Looking away from her Nick thought about the four unfilled applications sitting on his dresser at home for big out of state colleges, and how much it meant to his parents that he go to one of them. He wanted to tell them of his desire to go play for the Seminoles on the scholarship he’d been offered; but upon bringing up the idea, his father, almost angrily dismissed it as out of the question, leaving Nick wondering why because it was his life they were talking about after all and besides, why did where he went to school matter more then his commitment to go to school or that it was an athletic scholarship that would get him there?

Sighing heavily, he tried forcing his thoughts off of the fact that this was his last summer with the Y regardless. Shipping out for school to some unfamiliar state or whether he started college, moving out of his parents’ house would be coming quickly enough. Nick would be staying in Florida near his familiar surroundings, but the time had come for him to say good-bye to the Y. He hated the fact that he couldn’t come to an understanding about the college issue with his father, and his patience was wearing thin at having to listen to his father’s admonishments against staying local, on top of hearing him saying how football wouldn’t get him a good job.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be difficult as he had been accused of, he just wanted to go to a school within driving distance to be close to home and all his friends. He ran a hand nervously through his thick, dark hair as he slowly came to realize that he was more then capable of handling his own decisions without his father trying to manipulate him into bending to his iron will and it honestly didn’t matter if he made him understand or not. There was no way he was going to turn down that scholarship.

The kids who had their suits already on, were running around in the courtyard just outside the cafeteria. Their rambunctious water gun carnage was highly contagious and had Nick’s mood not been as dark as it was he would have loaded his automatic water gun and joined in. Soon all the kids had changed into their bathing suits and had left their towels neatly outside on the stone picnic tables as they always would to avoid getting the slick linoleum floor inside the cafeteria wet where accidental falls were desperately avoided.

However, on occasions Nick had to mop the entire cafeteria, he enlisted the aid of the "CITs," which stood for Counselors in Training. He had grown fond of several of the older girls and boys and had been happy to see them return year after year for more Fun Club fun. After watching them and helping to make their camp memories wonderful, Nick had promoted them to the CIT status and relied on them for small things, like hosting a game when the kids were in smaller groups. This year there were only three of them left at camp.

Nick had never been disappointed in their enthusiastic efforts to be of service to the counselors and other younger kids. It felt almost like a extended family with them being akin to younger brothers and sisters. He had been glad he’d taken the time to take treat them to a special Saturday get together for lunch and a drive by the beach. He smiled at the memories of that afternoon only two weeks ago, recalling the salty breeze as it had whipped through the car.

The kids hadn’t all been able to come, in fact only two could; Michael Warner, a fourteen year old Nick had known for three summers now and Rachel Edwards, a sweet thirteen year old girl, who was wiser than her tender age implied. It had been unavoidable to keep from telling Michael about the fact he smoked cigarettes, when he had unexpectedly appeared while Nick was cleaning the bathrooms.

Michael had understood, confessing that he liked the taste too after trying them with a few of his school friends and at a later time had joined Nick with one he had brought in himself, shocking him to see how the youngster hadn’t gagged or hacked upon lighting it. Nick had told Michael he didn’t approve of smoking, but that he wouldn’t tell on him, if Michael would keep his secret from Gary or any other inquiring mind. He had been relieved upon hearing that Michael was not smoking every day as Nick needed to, and encouraged him to quit before he got addicted to the blasted things. Rachel knew Nick’s secret too and was as good at keeping quiet as Michael.

That wonderful afternoon together had bonded them all in a way that showed when interacting in the company of the other kids. They had a few inside jokes and things were routine to a degree, but when Nick did things to break the routine like mopping the cafeteria floor; Michael and Rachel were right at his side enjoying the fun of sliding on your knees on a wet towel across the long slick linoleum floor.

The radio booming and usually most kids gone, or outside, they used two mops between them to get the job done, while still having a good time. That was a great thing he believed he had helped them learn; even though you are doing a job, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy it while you give it your all so you had a reason to be pleased when you finished and could stand back to proudly admire your efforts.

Nick believed that was what made things happen in life; unfortunately when facing his father he found himself unable to make his wishes heard. It was as if he couldn’t find words to accurately justify his reasons for wanting to remain local instead of shipping out to California or one of the out of state colleges, without coming across as a coward.

And because he had a good idea of how his parents felt about the topic, he felt it was a no win battle for the time being. He was still trying to think of a way to get what he wanted without being made to feel ungrateful or patronized any further. He knew he could take advantage of his offer to play football and hold a job to share a place with another college student. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the hard work it meant if he had no choice but to go that route, it was just that he’d much rather do it with the blessings of his parents.

Even the thought of going away out of state, as his father had been pushing for, was repulsive to him. He could not for the life of him understand the reasoning behind him saying the bigger state colleges were a better opportunity, other then possibly that they had both gone to a big college in California. Nick had been lucky to postpone going back to school for this one year, using the excuse he wanted a break and he anguished over the image of the four applications to different universities across the United States.

He wished his stubborn father could understand and respect his desire to stay local, but so far he had not listened to one word on the subject. His father, before leaving for this latest business trip had even gone as low as suggesting Nick was afraid to leave home and take responsibility for his future, which had gotten him quite steamed. For now it was all he could to keep his mind on the present. He kicked himself mentally for ruining his mood when he had so wanted to just forget about it and play with the kids awhile; instead of letting himself get caught up in emotions he had no time for or keep up trying to think of how he could make his wishes understood.

He tried to find courage to box the whirlwind of despair and anger the images of a large state college and his father’s inflexible attitude invoked. Failing miserably, Nick was craving a cigarette in the worst way and knew he could sneak one only when he did the bathrooms. He had one on his way back from lunch, but all this thinking about the college dilemma had left him stressed out and antsy. He still didn’t want Gary or any of the other counselors knowing that he smoked, just in case it was slipped in front of his mother at some point.

Nicole appeared gesturing to the kids that the water slide was all ready and they immediately bee-lined for the little hill they loved to slide down so much. After signaling to Gary, letting him know it was bathroom time, Nick made his way to the storage closet to get the few cleaning supplies he would need to do the bathrooms, as well as the paper products he thought for sure would need replacing again.

He grinned at a few kids on their way to join the others already at the hill and then he walked through the open bathroom door, cigarette cupped in his hand along with his disposable lighter, just in case there was one last child to catch him smoking. After he could see no kids remained in the bathroom he lit the cigarette drawing deeply on its hot harsh smoke wishing he could draw more then despairing emptiness and bitter disappointment from it.

This camp brought out the best in people, he thought to himself, quietly recalling the carefree manner of both Gary and Nicole. Slightly envious of how they both were enjoying the afternoon in the company of great kids; all ready to have fun, while he wasted his time caught up in his stupid personal problems, too preoccupied to have fun, but fine for mindless cleaning such as this. He drew again on the cigarette, letting it hang limply from the side of his mouth, like he’d seen his mother do before when her hands were busy.

He wiped down the tiny urinal with a skillful gloved hand, smiling at how easy this part of the job was besides being perfect moment to grab a quick smoke on the sly. Most of the time he didn’t mind this part of the job like some of the other counselors did. Because of that he knew he had gotten a reputation as a go-getter, which he valued and believed had been part of the generous raises he had received during his years of summer employment with the Y.

He was a little ashamed that he couldn’t get his father to agree to use the scholarship to help cover college, but he believed he would find a way to convince him or at the very worst, he would move out and go live with his buddies Saul, Pete and Todd, while going to a small Junior College. Nick had drank his first taste of alcohol with these buddies, had tried grass and even picked up the nicotine habit from them. He enjoyed getting wasted on weekends and considered himself normal in his recreational experimentations. Saul was old enough to buy beer and was the one who always bought their beer and other alcohol. He even got cigarettes for them when the clerks would hassle Todd or Nick for ID before they were eighteen.

Usually when they would get drunk, it would be over at Todd and Saul’s apartment, where Nick would stay overnight to avoid driving or getting caught by his parents for drinking. Pete sometimes picked Nick up and they both would crash out on the living room floor, on its pleasantly multicolored sculptured carpet, carefully avoiding the few beer stains in it that stank of old parties.

The sofa they had was a old beat up sectional pit style, which had most definitely seen better days before it was donated to the thrift store Saul had bought it from and its faded print was a ugly floral pattern, resembling hibiscus or perhaps even roses. But Nick had never slept on it and wouldn’t want to, since he knew how bad it reeked just to sit on.

He enjoyed playing video games with his friends while they slammed beers and no one gave a second thought to the ancient pit and it story of stench. Pete, Todd and Saul, had already talked about the four of them getting a bigger place together. Nick would go to college and split a room with Pete, who also would be in school as well as working. It was not as nice as staying at home was of course, and he wished he could settle this silly argument and resolve things peacefully.

Either way as he finished the second toilet, he knew sadly, that it was his last year here with this great bunch of kids. He would miss them all and hoped they each made their dreams become reality. He wished he could work as a full time counselor all through the year, but taking another deep puff Nick remorsefully admitted to himself although it would be nice, there was no possibility of it happening. Since school was the main event and even the part time after school programs were not enough to support himself on.

He wished he had the gumption to stand up to his father and explain how he longed to be a teacher. He truly believed he would make a good one, but he had to somehow break it to his father first, because he wanted him to become a lawyer or to get into management classes to get him into a good company like his father was in. All Nick wanted to do was make enough money to live on, without his work taking up all his energy, like his father’s job took all his time.

Nick remembered how hard he had tried to convince his dad to let him have this year long break and tried to imagine himself getting his father to agree to let him stay home to go to school in town, but try as he might he just couldn’t see the man compromising. He checked the paper products, replacing the ones that were close to empty. He would check the toilet paper two or three times a day depending on if one of the other counselors beat him to it, using these quiet moments to ponder his problems and smoke in peace.

He chuckled to himself over the irony of his relationship with his father, as the man had always been far too busy to be concerned about Nick with such fervor at any other point during his life, even at the height of his athletic achievements, his father had been only a passive influence, because his business trips would consume his time. If that was what going off to California to get educated had done to his father, Nick wanted no part of it. He had always resented him for his ludicrous attitude about sports and his incomprehensible lack of support, but had long ago given up arguing about it with him.

Nick had started smoking at fifteen, but so far his parents had either not caught on or figured he would get tired of it on his own and quit. They were both smokers, but it seemed like his mother smoked heavier than his father. Or maybe it was that his father was away from home for much of the year on business trips. Leaving his mother alone to take care of Nick and his sister Laura, so because he was around his mother more, his impression was that she was the heavier smoker. He couldn’t imagine his mother being ignorant to the stench of smoke in his clothes, especially on weekends when he and his buddies got together for a drinking and smoking binge.

Laughing to himself again, Nick dropped the dead butt into the child sized toilet, flushed it, and exhaled the last drag from it with far too much enjoyment. He went to the sink smiling at his happy reflection, while washing his hands before locking up the cleaned restroom and moving on to the next one. His thick dark brown hair was hanging in sweaty matted curls on his head from the heat of the bathroom, and yet he stayed a moment longer gazing at himself in the large mirror. His reflection exuberated his strong conviction to stay true to himself and not to cave into his father’s unrealistic demands. His confident gleaming smile was the epitome of youthful, athletic prowess in it’s early prime.

Flexing his biceps and posing for himself, he giggled knowing how much Leslie liked it when he flexed for her. She had told him that she adored his big strong chest and liked to lay her head on it after they had sex. He imagined what he must look like to her as he held her sweetly and whispered softly of his love. He felt like he was on top of the world and now that this bathroom was nice and fresh he stole a quick glance of his retreating behind as he shut the door, taking a deep breath of fresh air that was noticeably a few degrees cooler then that in the closed bathrooms.

He was in excellent shape from years of working out in the school gyms with weights as well as having a weight bench at home to use during the hours school was closed. It had given him superior reflexes and a heightened sense of balance he knew how to put to good use on the playing field. But every now and then he liked to admire his body just to appreciate the power over girls he seemed to possess. He wasn’t conceited really, just pleased he had such a nice physique and brilliant smile.

On the way to the second set of bathrooms, through a division of the buildings where the classrooms were, Nick saw that the kids were thoroughly enjoying the water slide. He couldn’t stop himself from watching as Nicole bounced about, gaily hosting the slide activities, using the hose to keep everyone cool and the slide slick. He looked away quickly with heated embarrassment, and hurried to the second set of bathrooms noting that the door was closed, which struck him as rather odd.

Knocking three times, he announced his intentions of entering. Since no one answered so he opened the door and walked inside. The air of the bathroom had the distinct odor of kid sweat and other tangy, earthy odors far less tolerable then sweat. As he tripped the door jam keeping the door open, he glanced at one of the toilets that would need a little extra cleaning since one of the kids seemed to have had an unfortunate fecal mishap. He laughed to himself, figuring that was the motivation behind shutting the door on the unattractive, stinky display. He laughed again wondering why no kids had come up to him complaining about it yet.

He smiled at the child’s attempt to clean it, that had only served to really smear feces all over the black toilet seat. Deciding to don both gloves this time, Nick generously sprayed disinfectant over the bowl and seat. While he waited for the spray to loosen the mess he used his right hand which was still momentarily glove-less and popped a breath mint to help him ignore the smells of the area before resuming his cleaning duties, such as they were. He grinned to himself, still feeling pleasure from the tremendous success of his four year old water slide suggestion that was as significant now as it had been the very first time it’d been set up.

The image of Nicole holding up the hose to keep the slide wet, was fresh and he smiled thinking of how nice it was to make kids happy with something as simple as water. He acknowledged to himself dangerously, once again, that despite Nicole being so extraordinary, he was already involved with Leslie, or he wouldn’t have hesitated to ask her out, let alone let one of his mental day dreams run it’s course.

If he hadn’t felt Leslie was worth risking rejection for, he would never have had the courage to ask her out. She was tall and thin, resembling one of the supermodels he saw advertising lipstick or clothing in magazines his sister and mother read, only she was more voluptuous. With light green eyes and the most gorgeous auburn hair he had ever seen up close. He adored the gentle waves that Leslie encouraged to frame her delicately featured face. And the smell of her was intoxicating, like softly scented roses from either perfume, soap or shampoo; he didn’t care about the source, only that Leslie made him think of holding, and kissing her pouty full lips. Just being close to her was exhilarating.

He was working up a fresh sweat and drops fell down his face and from his ragged hair leaving tiny wet spots in the slightly dusty floor, that shadowed his movements. Holding his breath, he attacked the first disastrous toilet that now smelt strongly of disinfectant. It wasn’t as nearly overpowering as it had been when he’d entered, and Nick quickly used some paper towels to wipe away the memory of a poor kid’s excremental explosion, trying not to guess which kid’s lunch hadn’t agreed with him as the soiled paper towels disappeared down the swirling cyclone of water brought on by his quick flick of the handle. He left the first stall satisfied in it’s cleanliness and moved on to the second one.

He thought of Leslie and how lovely she was and how he definitely couldn’t wait to see her tonight. He kept thinking of her while he cleaned the second less dirty toilet, and never stopped smiling even though the smell of the disinfectant was getting to him. They had met at one of those twenty-four hour restaurants that served sandwiches and breakfast at all hours. He remembered how excited seeing her had made him. She and Nick both were with friends, but immediately Nick had been so smitten by her amazing beauty he’d forgotten to feel anxious, shamelessly going right up to her with all the confidence he’d built up over the past and after introducing himself he’d asked to sit down.

She must have liked him too, and since he’d been dreaming of finding a beauty like her since he was fifteen, he was very happy to be dating Leslie now going on over seven months since they officially had their first date almost a week after their fateful meeting. He had flashed his baby blue eyes seductively at her, betraying his interest, making certain to keep his attention directed only at her. He politely answered her friends’ curious inquiries as to the status of his friends at the other table before he’d invited Leslie and all three of her friends to come sit by them at their bigger table.

Once they had formed one group and settled after introductions, Nick boldly asked for her phone number offering his in return. He’d been overjoyed she’d been so receptive to his advances, and had felt substantially braver than he had before when approaching girls. Sports was one thing, he knew what his abilities were on the field, but the uncertainty he felt whenever a girl was involved left Nick quite unnerved and fighting an image of himself floundering in uncharted waters. He was relieved that Leslie found him attractive, because she’d agreed to be his girlfriend after several romantic dates which delighted him. Even though he’d been sure she would accept there was always that chance she could refuse. Ever since then they had been very close, but sex had only recently become another aspect to their relationship.

He believed in safe sex, insisting on using a condom every time no matter what in spite of her assurances that she’d taken care of it. He’d been a virgin and content to remain so until Leslie had come into his life. She’d confessed that she’d had several other lovers before Nick, surprising him a little, but he wasn’t really concerned with her past now that she was his girlfriend, it didn’t matter. He counted himself as lucky to have such a great job, lovely girlfriend, and bright future ahead of him, even if he was having trouble getting his father to support his choice on where he’d go to college. He knew he was very lucky.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that by even thinking about Nicole, or other women he saw while they were out, was somehow belittling to the great relationship he had been building with Leslie and he opted to just talk to Nicole as casually as he could without letting himself actually look at her too long. She was a pretty petite blond, very attractive, and eerily reminiscent of a previous girlfriend who’d also tempted him to become sexually active before he’d been ready. He’d wanted to try to stay away from becoming sexually active out of fear of possible consequences exploding in his face.

Even so, with all of his feelings aside, he was glad to have Nicole here at the camp, because he admired the way the kids really related to her and her flair for keeping them happy left him almost jealous. He hoped she would be back next summer even though he wouldn’t be, since one thing the kids had all appreciated so much about Nick, was that he’d come back every summer since starting. It had made them more then just passing ships in the dark, it had made them friends and to a kid a familiar adult in authority was better than having to get used to new counselors every year, liking them and then never seeing them again.

In his time here he’d seen so many counselors leave and some before the end of the summer because they weren’t able to handle the pressures this kind of job demanded. He remembered the first night after his first day as a counselor and how hard it’d been for him to try to get the voices of the kids out of his head to relax and sleep. In the end he had dreams about the kids and the camp, figuring it’d just gotten into his blood and eventually he would get used to it, just like he had gotten used to performing the mindless tasks of sanitizing the tiny bathrooms or doing his tedious yet invigorating work-outs.

Going to the little sink he wiped it with the disinfectant spray, shining it and the counter, along with the shiny stainless steel fixtures. Next he thoroughly washed his hands, opened the roll of paper towels, then lightly misted the mirror with glass cleaner. Again, admiring his appearance, Nick made a few different faces at himself, pondering Leslie’s thoughts about him and whether she felt the love that was blossoming between them like he did. His heart raced thinking about tonight’s upcoming encounter.

Nick tied up the bag of garbage and letting out a sigh of accomplishment he left the bathroom, cleaned and deodorized for the following days fun. He found himself eager to get back to the kids now that he’d taken a chance to have a cigarette while thinking some more about his present worries, but he went to the last bathroom. He opened the door to the last bathroom to be greeted by a empty, but less odoriferous room and put the disinfectant spray and glass cleaner on top of the paper towel dispenser out of the kids’ reach and then he checked the paper in the stalls.

He was pleased, as he replaced the empty roll with the last full one, that he’d brought just enough toilet paper with him and then he opened the paper towel dispenser checking on its’ level. He put in the rest of the paper towels he was still holding and was ready to get back to the kids. He was glad to waste time in here since he couldn’t stop from day dreaming of his fair skinned beauty, who was, he hoped, thinking about being with him as well. He dashed to the dumpster to ditch the small bag of garbage that would completely free him up now so he could rejoin the other late afternoon camp activities.

He walked through the tiny courtyard area that was between the cafeteria and some of the school classrooms. It was a really delightful school with its varieties of foliage, concrete tables and benches. He wished he’d gone here as a child because it was so aesthetically pleasing, not that San Jose hadn’t been a nicely laid out school, but there was a certain charm to this school that San Jose lacked. Making his way beside the cafeteria he awkwardly offered to relieve Nicole from outside duty.

She offered a sweet, sincere smile of gratitude, but told him she was fine, still having fun and unless he needed her elsewhere she wanted to stay. Nick laughed, agreeing with her that this was the best part of the day for them all, and he sat down on the hill a few feet away, close enough to be involved, but far enough away that he was able to stay dry.

After a few minutes had passed with lots of boisterous flights down the plastic slide, little Lucy came up to him. On a hunch he asked her if she felt like she was getting burned and when she nodded, he stood back up telling Nicole he was going back inside. He tried to avoid making eye contact with her for too long in case his eyes betrayed his secret feelings which he wasn’t even comfortable admitting to himself that he had.

Walking with Lucy back to the stone tables where some other girls and boys were already drying off while quietly playing card games. He felt grateful for the shade provided by the tall oak tress and admired the way Lucy hopped right up taking a place by the group of girls. He smiled as Lucy joined them in the next hand of cards. He heard their joyous laughter ringing through the open air reminding him of birds chirping gaily when greeting the glorious morning sunrise. Still smiling broadly he walked over to peek inside lunchroom where Gary was still sitting with a small group of kids who had not felt like getting wet or would rather sit and play cards or one of the board games that were lying on the tables.

All the kids knew that after 3:30 when water time was in full force there was only one bathroom open and Nick headed there again, without disturbing Gary who obviously had everything inside under control. Some kids got picked up as early as 3:00 PM anyway so it only made sense to close the other two restrooms and so far it had never presented a problem.

Each set of bathrooms had two toilets and two sinks; it took about ten minutes to clean the whole restroom, toilets, sinks and the easiest part, the floor was done once a week using the same long hose with the addition of a sprayer nozzle to wash any dirt and small paper bits that he missed when he swept. Even though he knew it looked good to his superiors that was not why he did this part of the job without having to be asked. It was because he believed it was very important to keep the tiny toilets nice and clean for the kids, as well as setting a good example for other counselors who felt they were above cleaning the tiny toilets.

Nick got a real kick out of playing with the kids and helping them to feel good about themselves through bubbly positive encouragement he so freely showered them with whenever the opportunity presented itself. He took advantage of moments where he could make a difference in a kid’s life or their self-image by simply offering them reassuring words and helping them realize how they could utilize their full potentials. He didn’t feel he was anyone special, just someone who gave a damn about the effect he had on a young child’s life and took great satisfaction from their happiness.

He rounded the corner and again entered the only open bathroom. Smiling happily at his reflection in the mirror, he was relieved this restroom still only needed minimal attention. Walking over to the slightly spotted mirror, he picked up the bottle of glass cleaner and spritzed it at the lower half of the mirror, reminiscing about the great times he had here with these kids. Like the fun lip synch concert they’d put on last year for the fun of it.

Nick had gotten special permission, to bring in his home stereo to use for the effects so the tapes and records the kids brought from home that they wanted to use to lip synch to could be played over his big speakers. There were kids that had wanted to do some performing, and those that didn’t want to get onstage were quite content with watching the excitement from the lunch tables that had been set up for them to sit at.

Once he had fully explained it to the kids the buzz flew all around the camp about who wanted to do what songs. Even the CITs’ had songs they particularly wanted to do. Nick had anyone interested in using craft time to make cardboard instruments and other props. Everyone had enjoyed the excitement as it built up over the week ending in the Friday concert. Nick had brought some props of accessories like belts, bandannas and several concert tee shirts from some of his favorite bands as well as music to use with his "Cool Crew" air band made up of CITs Rachel, Michael and Bridgett.

They had kept a lid on things as much as they could considering the walls had ears; wanting to make a tiny rock type atmosphere they had conspired secretly to get costumes organized, the other kids were all excited at the chance to mimic their musical idols and each filled out a entry blank stating their choice in songs, and whether or not they owned it on tape or record.

Nick thought about how he had to sell the idea to Gary to get him to give it the all clear; explaining that he hoped more than just a few kids would be interested in participating and how he hoped to make it a week long event by using some craft time to make cardboard instruments, souvenir tickets for the kids to all keep as well as ballots to vote for their favorite performers.

The concert had been a wonderful way to get the entire camp excited about music, performing and who would win the contest; for which the prize was a brand new bigger squirt gun, one like Nick had that had two water clips for extra ammo to minimize reload time. Looking at his reflection in the sparkling mirror, Nick admired his air of self-confidence and his bright blue eyes dazzled with inner light from memories of the concert.

Feeling happy Nick flew through the rest of his cleaning duties in the final stall and glancing at his watch, he saw it was almost 4:00pm. Which meant water time was almost over and just about time for Gary to head home. Nick left this bathroom open for any kids who had to use it before they were picked up, whoever was left in charge was responsible for locking it up and nine times out of ten it was him anyway.

He rounded the corner and saw that now there were about twenty kids drying off outside playing board games or cards. He grinned at their happy tan faces, greeting them warmly, asking who wanted to go in to start a coloring project or maybe some other type of project.

"Okay, who is ready to go back inside and start a sand painting, or god’s eye? If your not still dripping wet and want to play one of the other board games, Gary has them set out already so pair off and have fun. Anyone for crafts, supplies are still out on the far tables."

There was some small discussion between some kids and several kids got up, anxiously walked into to the lunchroom, heading towards the long tables where they would sit to do crafts, because it was the only place you could leave a project that needed to be finished later.

Others stayed planted to the stone benches where they sat, happy to just continue with the games they had going which left everyone content. He was gratified to see such order where he knew there easily could have been chaos. The fact that the kids had so much respect for the camp and the camp equipment, as well as the counselors was as obvious to him as the nose on his face.

It was no surprise really, because all the kids were respected here, and time-outs were very rarely necessary when just talking things out between kids worked just as good or better. In his head were the echoes of the past concert with Gary, using a guitar as a prop doing the haunting classic "Time In A Bottle," by Jim Croche. He could still feel the rocking rhythms of Def Leppard, Ratt and Chicago that he and the "Cool Crew" had performed for the rowdy bunch, and it left him smiling.

The photo album he and the CITs had put together the following week, showcasing the week long event was camp property. It was kept here for the kids to enjoy, even though Nick had paid personally for the photo developing and duplicate copies so that each kid got one or two pictures to remember the fun they had over the summer with their camp friends. He knew he’d always treasure the photo album he’d made for himself, which had older photos from earlier years in addition to the concert ones.

It had been his crowning success to date and had given Gary confidence in Nick’s abilities to improvise, as well as a chance to admire his creativity and dedication. He knew that it showed how much he loved this job. He tried desperately to hide how sad it made him to think of leaving it after this final summer was gone. Forcing the melancholy thoughts from his mind, he focused on the kids around him and how he’d been important in making their summers more memorable. He really liked Gary and with his help they’d showed the kids that they had no reason to be jealous of the other camps that had swimming areas.

Before the addition of the banana gave them a reason to bring a suit, towel and smile, it hadn’t been as easy to keep them happy. There was a small price difference in the camps with available swimming and those that didn’t have it on site, due to higher insurance costs and the three extra counselors each park with water was required by the Y to have to help prevent mishaps, as well as to deal with more kids that came for the swimming.

It was not the only factor that he knew the parents considered, however, by choosing one of the three other parks, they were avoiding a potential accident and bad news. Distance was also another important factor for the parents. The Ozona camp was the smallest camp with its forty-five campers, and four counselors, which could also have made it more attractive to certain families in closer proximity to it.

Looking over to the man-made hill where there were a few kids helping Nicole shake water off of the yellow slide, Nick walked over towards them. He smiled and knowing it was now quarter after four, cleanup time and as good a time as any to send Nicole on home. She smiled and saying that as soon as she had the banana away she would be history. "Wow, do they love this thing or what?" she marveled while she folded the slide.

Nick agreed whole heartedly, laughing with her a moment, a little too loudly, "See you tomorrow Nikki. Great day today, hope tomorrow is even better!"

She smiled back warmly and he had to look away before he admired her pretty straight white teeth too long and fell into a fantasy about her. It was strange to have guilt not over a done deed, but merely the acknowledgment of a possible deed. Shaking himself mentally, trying to forget the young counselor, he headed back to the other kids inside the lunchroom.

Kids were everywhere putting things away, and a few were saying good-bye as they gathered their things to go home. Nick noticed the CITs all sitting at their usual table and went over to join them. He swallowed hard trying to keep his mood light, but when Nicole slinked in a few minutes later, letting them know she was heading home, Nick felt his mind tossing around possibilities, all the time denying his true feelings for her, even the though the truth was that he fantasized about her very much.

Her long blond hair was radiant, making her very appealing to him, exaggerated in his mind by that extraordinary resemblance to that former girlfriend he’d been very attracted to. He had been sorry to break up with her, despite her apparent shallowness and preoccupation with her appearance. When she’d, told him it was over one day before school as he walked up to her locker to meet her, she claimed shamelessly that she’d found someone else and that was it.

He had not been at all surprised when she broke up with the next guy two weeks later, or when she repeated this pattern for the rest of high school. Even though Courtney had been a bit lacking as a girlfriend, and at the time he was a sophomore and hadn’t known the difference, since he never had time to look deep enough to notice. She had come back a year later trying to get back together with him and he hadn’t given her the time of day, still hurt over how rudely she’d left him in the dirt.

Nick knew now a pretty outside didn’t mean there was a nice personality to deal with; selfishness, shallowness along with many other bad traits were a dime a dozen. He knew his attraction for Nicole had to do with how good she was with the kids and since he always saw a smile on her face, it definitely made her more attractive to him. She’d been a volunteer with the YMCA last year but at a different camp, she had been at the larger one at Brooker Creek that had over sixty kids along with about seven counselors. It had been her first year. Nick had been fascinated by her youthful beauty, when they had met at the group gatherings, but hadn’t known her well enough to ask her out, let alone do little more then politely introduce himself.

After Nicole had gone with a quick wave, Nick observed how the crowded lunchroom became much less noisy as over half of the kids had left by 4:30pm. He or Gary usually stayed at least till 5:30 PM sometimes later if there were still kids waiting on their parents to be picked up. Since Gary was in as early as 7am because they were half a dozen kids that needed supervision that early, Nick would usually take over in the last hour or so when there were about a dozen kids plus Michael and sometimes even Rachel, who stayed until about 5:20 PM depending on how the traffic was.

Parents would pre-arrange approximate drop-off and pick-up times when they signed their kids up for the camp, so it could be determined how early Gary had to be in. Each camp could be on different hours, open earlier or later than Ozona, but that was all done at the YMCA office when kids registered for camp, and it was up to the office staff to do the scheduling.

Everyone left had settled into small groups playing quietly as Nick’s radio was heard in the background. Grinning Gary came over to Nick, "I am going to go on now Nick, see you tomorrow, great job today." Nick knew he would soon be on his way home, eagerly smoking his next cigarette with his radio blaring hard rock tunes.

"Sure Gary, I can take care of locking up. See you tomorrow!" Nick assured him brightly. And with a final wave Gary disappeared into the parking lot. Two of the CITs were left at the table listening to the radio, sitting with him, talking together and playing cards, while kids steadily left as their parents appeared to retrieve them.

Forty-five kids was not as much as the fifty-five to sixty kids that the larger camps had; but Ozona was as popular as the bigger camps, holding its own as a viable option to the others, and since it was a great camp to work for, there were always more people requesting it then available positions. As Nick saw three more kids off, he made sure they took the finished crafts with them, then he resumed playing cards with Rachel and Michael, because Bridgett was usually the first one to leave.

At this time of day it was just a matter of waiting patiently for the day to end since there really wasn’t even enough to time to begin a craft. It seemed like the days would slow down after 4:45pm, dragging on for what seemed like forever. Nick felt like running to his car and going to grab a fresh pack of smokes because he was getting low and hated the idea of not having any cigarettes, even though if that were to happen, he knew he could always take a few from his parents. He had even swiped a whole pack one time, replacing it when he had gotten paid and could afford to.

Nick enjoyed making money and took great pleasure in his collection of comics and records. He would add to it every chance he could, ordering imported records and rare singles from some of his favorite musicians through a local record store. He had a good reputation there and when he needed them to hold an order that arrived before he had the money to buy it, they didn’t give him a hassle over it like they easily could have by making him prepay for orders in the future. He grinned to himself as he tried not to gloat over having two cards left in his hand, ready to call out, "UNO!!" Both Rachel and Michael laughed when a minute later Nick won the hand. They put the cards up and moved over to the stage, which was another favorite place in the lunchroom to roost.

He looked around the cozy area that five hours ago had been in total chaos. The kids did a great job of cleaning up the toys, games and art supplies, in part to Nick and Gary’s efforts to teach them how much nicer things stayed when you took good care of them. Nick had quietly observed some of the veteran Fun Clubbers, telling to the newest campers, how much better it was for everyone to keep stuff organized, which made him feel so proud.

They could leave their unfinished artworks on several of the cafeteria tables to dry and stay clean until they were ready to finish them later. The best part of seeing them all make things, was the excitement it gave them to take these things home with them and watch as they showed off to their parents as they left camp. It always warmed his heart to see that kind of display and that the kids felt no shame in showing their feelings of pride and accomplishment. It was so gratifying to have one of the kids flash him a brilliant smile and give a big wave as he or she was leaving. It always made him go home with a smile on his face, and feel like hugging his mother moments after getting home.

By 5:00 PM there were usually only four kids left and two were brother and sister that left together. But after the last child had waved farewell, bouncing off to their waiting parent, he did a final check and locked the open bathroom, before taking one last look around the painfully quiet room. He finally locked the cafeteria doors around 5:30 PM counting himself lucky again, that he could leave now. He was eager to get home. He was ready to jump into the shower to get ready for his date night with Leslie, for dinner and the movie that he planned to take her out to.

He walked over to his car, opening the door with ease and stood there, a lone figure in a deserted parking-lot, waiting for some hot air to escape his car so that he could drive away without suffering too badly. He enjoyed the view the parking lot offered of the playground and the hill where the kids had so much fun; the portable classrooms that were great for hide and seek, and the basketball court where they could play various games like kickball, horse, dodge-ball, or just shoot some hoops. Then sighing with the satisfaction of a job well done, Nick placed his tape player on the back seat along with his tape box and lit a cigarette before getting into his slightly aired out Dodge.

The real cooling off happened when he would swing by the Dunedin causeway for a quick joyride, the crisp sea air would blow wildly through his hair, refreshing him. But tonight he was in a hurry to get home so he cut his habitual cruise out of his plans. Florida heat during the summer was so intense that he liked to leave his windows rolled down, with the two wing windows aimed right at him, letting the air flow through to help cool off the interior. It was perfect and he loved to feel the wind roaring in his ears while his music competed for his attention.

As he sat down on the beach towel covered vinyl driver seat, turning over the slant six engine with a quick turn of his wrist. He grimaced upon hearing a song by Nazareth, as his radio screamed to life, bringing up images of a recent party where he’d overindulged himself with peppermint schnapps and made the unfortunate mistake of giving in to pressure to eat pizza when he’d long passed the point of pulling it off successfully. As the singer screamed about messing with a son of a bitch, he eagerly popped the Ratt tape in and cranked the volume over to his usually jamming level. The song "Your in Love" began the tape, which he had rewound before leaving in his portable tape player radio and Nick sang along with it during the drive back home.

It was two songs later as he took out a breath mint and made a right turn onto his street. He lowered the volume, popped the tape out, pulled his car up to the house and shut off the Dodge. He heard the dog barking already and knew the little coffee colored Chihuahua his mother had named Mitsy, was ready to jump all over him. He would much rather have had a bigger dog, and had he been consulted he would have said so, but Mitsy had grown on him over the years and now Nick wouldn’t trade her for a Labrador no matter what.

He tried to make a bee-line for the bathroom wanting to freshen up from his recent brush with stinky delicious smoke, but the dog caught him and followed making little barks of joy. Trotting overenthusiastically behind him, shaking not only her rear as she wagged her tail, but her whole back end from side to side, shook as she was always so excited to see him. He thought to himself how happy he was to have such a good life and hoped he could get his father to agree to the logic of letting him go to school here instead of insisting on his going away.

It would weigh heavily on his mind until it was settled and Nick was not about to take "No," for an answer this time considering he was the one whose life they were talking about running and he had prepared to make a stand. He knew it wouldn’t be easy to work to support himself staying in an apartment, but he knew it was better to do that then leave all his friends and the area he had grown up in when such an opportunity had been offered to him here, where he wanted to be.

He washed his hands, face and brushed his teeth before going to see where his mother was, guessing that since his father was not due back in town for another week that his mother would probably be fixing dinner about now. She was in the kitchen and his younger sister Laura was no where to be seen. She was only sixteen going on seventeen. Nick figured she was over at her best friend’s house, maybe even for the night, because she had been having friends stay overnight since middle school.

His mother looked up from her cutting board smiling pleasantly at him and said, "Leslie just called a few minutes ago, poor dear didn’t sound like she was feeling well. She said she wanted you to call her as soon as you got off work." He wondered what would make Leslie call and make his mother get the impression she was ill.

"Thanks Mom, I’ll go give her a call right now." He grabbed a can of soda from the refrigerator and headed back towards his bedroom, grateful that Mitsy had stayed in the kitchen more interested in her water bowl for the moment.

He was put off by Leslie’s shaky voice answering the phone after two rings, "Leslie? Are you okay?" he asked full of concern.

She asked him to come over now as he was because she needed to talk to him about something important, "It doesn’t matter about going out tonight, I really don’t feel up to that anyway. But Nick, please come right over. We need to talk."

He hung up the phone curious as to why their date was suddenly called off. Feeling his sense of foreboding growing exponentially, he racked his brains trying to think of what she could possibly want to talk about unless it was to break up with him. He would be a little sad to lose her as his girlfriend, but he knew if he wanted to he could have a new one within a few weeks. Maybe he’d even ask Nicole out if Leslie did indeed break up with him for another guy, which he thought bitterly, probably was the case here and Nick had no intention of letting Leslie think she got the best of him.

After showering and changing his clothes, because he had no intention of rushing over to her house like a love smitten puppy, Nick casually told his mother that he was leaving to go out with Leslie. His fifth to last cigarette calling to him from under the front seat of the car, to come hurry up and light it as if it possessed the power to ease his nerves and restore his former confidence. He cranked over the Dodge and feeling brave Nick lit the cigarette while he waited briefly for the engine to warm up, justifying to himself that his mother was too busy to worry since she wasn’t aware of a problem.

His mind raced with possibilities as he finally left the driveway and headed to Leslie’s house which was about a ten minute drive. He drank a long slug of soda and then he put the can back in the holder so he could rewind the Ratt tape enough to hear his favorite song that summed up how he felt about the weird summons from Leslie. "Lay it Down," was the title. He hoped Leslie would do exactly that when he arrived because the suspense was bothering him and if breaking up was her intent then he was ready to get over with it.

She must have been waiting in the living room, because he had not even turned off the car before she was outside on her way to meet him. Nick was immediately struck by her strange appearance. She had absolutely no make-up on and he was too surprised to say anything but hello. She came over to the passenger side of the car, she reached in, popped the lock and opened the door. He could see she was making an effort to smile, but it was obvious to him that she had been crying, the wad of tissue she held was also a indicator of her true feelings.

It struck him suddenly that maybe someone in her family may have died and that was why she was so upset. If that was the problem he would feel so stupid for letting his imagination make him think she wanted to end their relationship. He felt so awkward just having to sit there waiting for her to speak, fighting the urge to reach over and hold her hand, after being so intimate only days ago that her head rested on his chest as they had spent another enchanted evening together.

She opened her mouth and suddenly he had an idea of the problem, "I went to the Health Dept. today,"

He gulped and nodded. He was scared now of what was to come, was it disease? He hoped it wasn’t, and her next words didn’t leave him feeling better. In fact her confession left him sick, "There’s no easy way to tell you this Nick, but I am pregnant."

Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks, and her normally beautiful face was a mess of red blotches from crying. "Oh Nick, what are we going to do about this?" she whined.

He swallowed hard knowing this could be resolved by getting married and giving up on college, which would understandably upset both of their families. This was not the news he had expected to get, and the shock was great as he tried to imagine how it would be to be a parent at his age. He had used condoms and was still halfway thinking he had misunderstood her, "You mean you had a test done and they said you were pregnant?"

She tearfully nodded. Even though Leslie had used a diaphragm in addition to Nick using condoms, they both knew neither was 100% effective. He cynically wondered if she’d had some one-niter without protecting herself and was only pinning it on him because of convenience. He took a deep slug off the near empty soda can and grabbed for his fourth to last cigarette, desperate for something to do with his hands besides looking at them dumbly.

"Nick we are in front of my house! Don’t you think you could wait to do that till you leave?"

He was taken aback by her cross voice and chastising words as well as being offended by her confidence that he would be leaving shortly, but he could not stop himself from smoking. He didn’t even apologize, he was far too upset to care if her parents saw him smoking now. Leslie had dropped a huge bomb on him and he needed to collect his thoughts.

There was no shame in that, he thought unhappily to himself, feeling more miserable then he had ever, ever felt in his entire life and if she didn’t like it that was tough. It was obvious Nick was pretty shaken up over her announcement. He tried to keep his hands from trembling so violently that the ash of his smoke would fall off, although he’d pulled from it too hard, too quickly and the red hot tip was extremely long for any ash to fall from which meant the cherry red end would fall off onto his lap before ashes could.

He guessed he had angered her by not putting out the smoke, but he didn’t care. This was the biggest problem he had ever dreamed of facing and the only proper thing to do seemed to be getting married even if he was not truly certain he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He took a deep breath and rose to the unspoken words he needed to utter.

"We could get married Leslie," he tried not to let his feelings show, though he felt certain she had to be able to tell he was not wanting to use that option, "Is that what you want?" She asked back, her voice indicated she’d seen his reluctance.

He half hoped she would say no, and she did vehemently stating that she knew it was because of the pregnancy and not a desire to share his life with her. He wasn’t surprised since they had only been seeing each other for just over seven months. He sighed, at least relieved to hear she wasn’t after marriage.

"I would only want that if you could honestly say you wanted to marry me before you knew I was pregnant, and of course, I know that you can’t. We both know nineteen is too young to be raising a baby." Her voice took on an icy, sarcastic tone and suddenly he knew what was coming next as if reading a bad script for a cliché filled television after school special.

She had already planned to terminate the pregnancy and he puffed hard on his cigarette thinking that abortion would upset him as much as marriage or adoption. "Why would you even tell me if you were planning to get rid of it? Huh? What’s an abortion cost? Couple hundred? Huh? Is that why you told me because you want me to pay for it?"

He was angry now, unable to think straight, feeling so repulsed by her presence that he felt like viscously shoving her out of his car, "Or do you have a crazy notion to have it and give it away? Huh? Would you really do that Leslie? Hmm? Are you that cruel you’d tell me I Fathered a baby and yet be dead set on aborting it?" He was not sure he cared to hear her answer but his anger demanded one as he angrily flared his nostrils brazenly at her, feeling like throwing the eighty bucks in his wallet at her like she’d thrown this surprise at him.

"I, ..I don’t know why I told you," she stammered. "I wish I hadn’t now! I wish I would have just broke up with you and dealt with it by myself." Nick stifled a cynical remark, settling on just snorting to show his disbelief at hearing her say she wished she’d kept it to herself. He tried to keep himself from visualizing hurting her in some way but seeing her crying infuriated him more then if she’d have stayed calm.

Her hands flew shakily up to wipe the next wave of tears that flowed down her cheeks and her voice took on a defensive tone beyond sarcasm, "I don’t think it is any of your concern now Nick, silly me thinking you were a great understanding boyfriend who would stick by me no matter what decisions had to be made. Thanks for your pathetic show of support Nick!! I could and have gotten better from strangers!!" At this point her voice had elevated to yelling because she was so upset.

She jumped out of his car ripping at the gold chain around her throat hatefully, her face wrinkled in rage when she turned throwing the necklace, that was now as broken as their relationship, angrily at the floor of his car and then she slammed his heavy door as hard as she could. He had bought it for her birthday two months ago, and she yelled loudly, "Don’t you ever call me again you pathetic loser!!"

He cackled evilly saying, "Don’t worry, you shameless witch. I won’t."

She ran up to her house crying and he cranked the car over and huffily speed off, only not before tossing his cigarette butt at Leslie’s clean white driveway. It missed the drive and fell in the thick St. Augustine grass of the yard near the edge of the drive, all he could see of it was a trail of smoke as it rose from the grass that hid the dying butt from view. He felt like screaming as he glared at the gold chain curled up on the carpet in front of the passenger seat, his brain on fire with images of babies and he tried not to hear their uncomforted cries since he knew there were so many abused children who grew into abusing adults.

He knew there was so much misery in the world and hated the ugly truth that if he tried to be a Father to this baby, he wouldn’t be able to support it in a stable manner, working dead end jobs with no chance for real advancement. His hopes of building a life first dashed by failed birth control, supposing it had been him who had Fathered it. His father was right about one thing, college gave you the ammunition you needed to get the good jobs to support your family.

As he raced over to Todd and Saul’s place he fought off the onslaught of images trying not to think of how awful it was that Leslie had to go through this by herself. He felt badly as his anger stewed while the air rushed over him through the windows, wishing he’d said things differently instead of being so angry with her. Even though he didn’t think he loved Leslie in the long term way that would lead to marriage, he was glad he wasn’t forced to find out.

He parked the Dodge and walked up to their apartment door, knocking a few times. Todd answered just about a minute later and immediately asked Nick what was wrong. Once he was sitting in the living room, a smoke hanging defeatedly from his limp lip, Nick briefly relayed the break up to him, minus the pregnancy part and Saul, commented coolly, "Sounds like it’s time for a beer run bro’. You’re probably better off without the bitch."

"Yeah, I bet you’re right Saul. Women are so tough to figure out anyway. Now your dog, there’s a friend for life," he forced a small unenthusiastic laugh.

"Here man, go get us something stronger then beer eh?" he said pulling a ten and a twenty from his wallet.

Saul said he would go get two bottles of rum and some soda to chase it with. Then he stood up to leave, promising a quick return. Moments later, it was just Nick and Todd, while they waited for Saul to return from the liquor store. Nick was sick to his stomach over the idea that he had been part of creating a baby, or what would be if allowed to finish growing and enter the world. And try as he might he, was unsuccessful in keeping the horrific images and imaginary cries from torturing his heavy heart.

They watched a bit of television while they waited and Nick used the phone to let his mother know he would not make it home for dinner. "Yeah, I just left Leslie’s and am over at Todd’s now. But really, I’m okay. Just didn’t want you to worry, Mom."

She sounded concerned, "Oh Honey. If you need me, I’m here. You want me to hold some dinner for you for later, just in case?"

"No, I am going to hang out over here tonight so don’t worry. We’ll get a pizza or something," he felt bad leaving her there alone, but he really didn’t want to be home tonight.

He told her he would explain in better detail tomorrow, but that he had broken up with Leslie and was most likely going to call in to work. He told her again not to worry because he was staying over here at Todd’s tonight and was relieved that she let him go without further explanation. He was so thankful he had such a great Mother who understood enough to know when he needed to have his space; he knew not all parents were this way and because his father did a lot of traveling in his sales job, having to go to product conventions, or to meet big clients, he usually only had his mother to deal with.

His father had provided a great home for them of course, and claimed he had tried his best to be there when he could. He’d always felt secretly that his father’s heart was not into being active in his children’s lives. Nick knew he had missed more of his little league games then he saw and the trend hadn’t improved as Nick had improved in sports. Although his father professed his pride in his son’s athletic achievements, he never seemed to be present when the really great plays happened and it felt so hollow having to relay them to him over the phone or at the dinner table once he had returned to fill his shoes as Father.

Nick had grown used to basing his desire to excel purely on bettering himself rather than pleasing his father a long time ago, not giving it much thought until recently with all the talk of college. He felt his stomach twist in regret at the lost relationship he and his father never really had. He wondered if the college issue was really a last ditch effort of his father’s to exert parental control that he could not accept having lost so long ago.

Excusing himself Nick went to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water feeling numb from head to toe. It was as if something in him had temporarily died of sadness and shock. The very idea that there was a tiny embryo inside his former girlfriend that might have half his genes made him sick to his stomach.

He couldn’t stop himself from gazing at his languid, lifeless reflection, not recognizing himself from the happy smiling guy of hours ago at camp when he had last really looked at himself. His eyes were apathetic and looked half crazed, like he was ready to go off on anyone. He felt like he’d just dove off the deep end, afraid he might cause or pick a fight just to get hurt, because he hurt and felt like he deserved to be hurt over the agony just beginning to assert itself into his being.

His hair was windblown and even though he had a comb in his back pocket, he had no desire to perform the minor grooming ritual. He eyed the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, wanting to light his next to last one right now. He resisted only because he was not near an ashtray and hated to use sinks or toilets when he wasn’t planning on flushing. His reflection seemed to mock him from the mirror and Nick wondered if he would ever regain his feeling of self-confidence. It really wounded him deeply to think that he had just been day dreaming about having children without knowing the bombshell Leslie had planned on dropping on him.

He stood there at the sink lost in a sick masochistic, self-flagellating fantasy of holding a crying baby that would never know the light of day, while the full irony of the day’s events continued to taunt him sadistically. He was absolutely sick that this had happened in spite of the fact that they had taken precautions. Now that this had happened, totally validating his fears of exploding consequences, Nick knew it would be a long time before he felt like taking this kind of risk again, since this time the choice was out of his hands.

Part of him knew that he hadn’t been even close to considering marriage before today and was relieved to be let off the hook, except that it meant the pregnancy more than likely would not be allowed to flower. He was so saddened by this that he had to force himself not to cry any tears, because he knew it would not be just a few that would come. The listless blue eyes, usually sparkling and bright, looked back at him uninterested, full of bitter harsh criticisms and undeclared "I told you so’s."

Suddenly he broke away from his trace-like gaze making his way to the towel hanging half on the rack, where he dried his hands. Somehow he heard the front door close over the loud racket of the television and assumed it was Saul back bearing soda and rum. That is when Nick realized that he still hadn’t gotten a new pack of smokes. He threw his hand up to his forehead, chastising himself grimly, for letting the opportunity to get Saul to pick them up for him go by. He took one last long thoughtful look at himself, before turning off the light intending to leave the bathroom, feeling like he had lost a best friend, while the memory of his happy reflection still tormented him.

Even though he knew it was Leslie’s right to choose to end the pregnancy or possibly chose to continue the pregnancy and offer the baby for adoption, didn’t mean he had to like it. Maybe getting married would have only complicated their lives worse then just dealing with a minor loss now and both going their separate ways. He didn’t know and at this point couldn’t care having lost already Leslie, because of his insensitive, thoughtless behavior.

Nick felt despair rearing its ugly head as he wiped a single tear that had somehow managed to squeeze through his tightly guarded exterior. He felt a whirlwind of emotions bottling up inside himself; from suppressing his relief at the marriage scare being over, to the horrible guilt he felt over being relieved with such news that she had already made her choice and finally, the unanswerable issue of whether or not this was a birth control failure or her failure to use it in the heat of the moment with some other guy. All these things weighed heavily on his overburdened mind.

He wanted to scream, giving in to the urge to do crazy things, but knowing that Saul was in the other room with a fresh bottle of rum, elected instead to go quietly into the living room and proceed to get wasted. He didn’t want to face the fact that this was over and done with before he had a chance to bond with the baby, even though rationally he understood that if they had decided to get married and by some act of fate Leslie had miscarried the baby, it would’ve been so much worse.

He felt like he was losing his mind even if he still had control, nothing in his experiences had prepared him for this kind of dilemma and he was overwhelmed at the very least, nearing total devastation at the very worst. As if to reassure himself in some sadistic way, he silently rehashed some statistics he’d seen somewhere. About how young parents who were unprepared for the full weight of raising a child, usually ended up hating each other, if they stayed together long enough to get that far and he knew that was no way for an innocent child to be brought up.

He knew he would certainly hate what unanticipated Motherhood would undoubtingly turn Leslie into, without question. Especially since neither one of them had wanted this to happen and had both used birth control methods to prevent such an occurrence. The fact that she’d been so aggressive about getting him in bed; despite his eagerness to take a chance that their precautions would work, coupled with her apparent willingness to end the pregnancy, showed him that she was as scared as he was of the full consequences of unwanted parental obligations and responsibilities for a child they both would of course love and provide for at the sacrifice of their own needs sometimes.

He’d been certain she wanted money to pay for the procedure to keep it secret from her family, but after the blow-up earlier he wasn’t sure she would accept any money now even if she wanted to. It was such a shame to end their relationship on this note since they had been so attracted to each other. From the moment she’d sat in his car an hour ago, it seemed like they could not go back to just going out anymore. He knew he had fantasized once, about what being married to Leslie would be like, but in no way did the fantasy resemble the reality of what could have happened had she demanded his support and marriage were to ensue. He hated the relief he felt over having so narrowly averted disaster.

Grasping the brass door knob in the darkness, he enjoyed its coolness against his warm hand as he forced himself to mechanically turn the knob opening the door revealing the loud television and the bright light of the living area as it spilled onto the tile flooring of the bathroom. He felt numb as he walked out to rejoin Todd and Saul, without thinking about his problems, only a big glass of rum and soda was he wanting to ponder at this point.

He heard them laughing, remarking about the music video that was on now, playing a little too loudly even for Nick’s taste, as the bass was making the wimpy television speaker distort the music. He was greeted by Todd who promptly jumped up placing a ready made rum and cola in his hand, inviting him to sit on the sofa next to Saul, who Nick quickly thanked. Grateful he was nice enough and old enough to buy the rum for them. He felt his tumultuous emotions boiling below the calm surface of his facial expressions and he faked a smile as well as the enthusiasm he didn’t feel for the strong drink he began nursing into oblivion.

He felt as if his very essence had been assaulted, and as he choked down more of his drink, he wanted a cigarette in the worst way so he lit his last one up. He and the guys had picked up a habit somewhere of calling the first one they touched in a pack a wish cigarette, flipping it upside down so it was always the last one they smoked as they would meditate on something they really wanted to come true.

They had a similar ritual with the longest french-fry they found in their fries, deeming it the "wish" fry as they would eat it last, contemplating a wish they wanted, the catch with this ritual was you had to be quiet until someone talked to you first. Not feeling like his normally jovial self Nick’s first thought as he lit it was, "Please let me find a way to get over all of this sadness I feel." And he made it a silent prayer, almost turning it into a mantra for the duration that he smoked this particular cigarette. He forced himself to gulp down the rest of this drink and followed Todd to the all in one kitchen/dinning area to get a second one going.

They’d had so many drunken escapades together that Todd knew when Nick needed to talk, and respected when he did not, just like Nick’s intuition told him when Todd or Pete needed a friendly ear to hear them out. That was the greatest thing about his friends; that they all respected each other enough to not offer advice unasked, unlike some people who just couldn’t wait for someone to have a problem and be in need, real or imagined, of advice. He laughed at himself as he ran his chant through his mind some more, surprising himself at how easily he was beginning to cheer up.

"Please, oh please help me deal with my sadness," he felt the rum beginning to hit him. He lightheartedly asked Todd if he could spare a smoke as he inhaled deeply on the one in his mouth smiling wryly at him, almost teasingly.

"Don’t you have one going now buddy?" He laughed back at Nick as he let the ice cubes he held fall into the glass making lots of tinkly sounds as they bounced around in the empty glass.

"Yeah, I do, but what I meant to ask is, do you feel like playing cards a bit and then maybe going to the store for some smokes to pay you back for the ones I haven’t bummed off you yet?" Nicked smirked, feeling his numb mind easing its denouncement over his lack of self-control in having sex with Leslie in the first place. His problems seemed further away from him as the rum relaxed him.

Todd had a way of getting his mind off of heavy thoughts and it had always been like that since they started hanging out over ten years ago. Back then the worst problems he had was missing his father and dealing with his sister Laura. Mostly the pain he felt at his father being gone, or working so much, led him to seek out companionship from neighborhood kids. That had been when he’d met Todd and then Pete. They would pretend that the home-made box cars were real race cars, shoot hoops in front of Todd’s house or other neat fun stuff that boys at that age enjoyed, always having a terrific time whenever they got together.

They had spent every summer they could together, having wild adventures at some of the local parks where there were playgrounds, tennis courts, ball fields and lots of other kids to mess around with. Todd had been lucky back then to have a portable radio that they brought with them everywhere, sometimes they used to go on what they would refer to as "a wander," where they had no particular destination in mind and went out walking or biking just for sheer pleasure it brought them. They had met Saul on such a wander and had been friends with him ever since.

They would talk about girls, their parents, other kids and anything they wanted to. They particularly enjoyed going to evening baseball games until all of them joined the local little league team. Nick counted himself lucky to have met Pete and Todd when he did. They’d even become blood brothers one evening as they "camped" out in Nick’s nice backyard. They roasted marshmallows and had the ritual graham cracker, chocolate marshmallow treats along with telling each other really scary stories.

They all discovered smoking together and now almost everyone that was in their circle was a smoker. It seemed that by imitating their parents somehow they felt more in control of their lives. Which was a strange contradiction, but since their parents were the authority figures in their lives from which rebelling had been inevitable, they would smoke, drink, even curse to sort of pretend they were the adults and no one could tell them how to act, or that they were not allowed to stay out late or overnight sometime they really wanted to. Being a kid had been hard on Nick without having a real relationship with his father to build from. He had been jealous of Todd’s father who had been around, and had even taken them all out to the amusement parks in Tampa a few times.

Nick wished he could change the failed relationship he and his father had, but wasn’t optimistic of a sincere turn around this late in the game. He crushed out the butt of his wish cigarette in the kitchen ashtray, brought back to the present when Todd handed him a fresh drink which was his third now since he’d greedily guzzled the second while standing here reminiscing. He felt pleasantly lightheaded as he followed Todd back to the worn out, scuffed up table in the dinning area where they’d always play cards or other games like "quarters," which was their favorite drinking game. Nick was glad he had devoured a big lunch as the second drink he’d guzzled in the kitchen was starting to kick in and he plopped into one of the four beaten up chairs.

He almost cheered up, but still felt the cold, cruel reality tearing at the fringes of his mind, trying to seduce him into irrational thoughts again. He was getting a good buzz, and as he tried to concentrate on the hand of five card stud he would rather have called a foot, because he had absolutely nothing playable this round, he realized, much to his dismay, that he already wanted another cigarette.

He quickly asked Todd for one, smiling gratefully as he passed him one from across the table. Todd didn’t bat an eye as he laid his hand down showing he had three of a kind, all kings with a wild deuce and Nick figured out why he had had such a terrible hand, all the great cards were in front of Todd.

"Hey man, save a little for the fish eh?" Nick laughed at him as Todd used the moment to gloat, "Wouldn’t think of it Nick. How else am I going to get you back for the last time we played for money and I lost ten bucks?"

He laughed showing off his great white teeth that were perfectly straight like Nick’s since they’d each had braces as young teens. Each had suffered the similar pains and humiliations that all brace wearers suffered. It really wasn’t fair how much weight people placed on how you looked. Especially when the offending characteristic was actually changing the shape of another, such as the case with braces on one’s teeth and only a temporary inconvenience. But Nick knew he was just as guilty as everyone else, because it had been Leslie’s looks that had first interested him at that restaurant.

He was glad the one thing his father had passed on to him was his good looks. His father had thick dark hair and the same strong facial features that Nick knew had attracted not only Leslie but many other girls to him. He never consciously tried to use his looks to get things or favors from women, but he never refused a compliment when it was offered. Always thanking the person who gave it figuring that it was better to be polite rather then act conceited and egotistical, like he was above their compliments or something.

He had seen many people make the wrong choices in his observations of social interactions during his life and had learned you got more with true sincerity then falsely sugar coated deceit. He glared down at his horrible hand that wouldn’t even qualify as a foot and since he had yet to win a hand, he felt defeated even before the last cards were to be seen. Todd was waiting to deal out the last three cards and he jokingly asked, "Hey you still with me Nick-o?"

Nick nodded, wanting to finish the hand of seven card stud and wishing he had a better hand. Suddenly an ace was showing in front of Nick, like a gleaming ray of hope that all wasn’t lost and he had a chance of winning this hand, because one of his down cards was also an ace down making him have two pairs ace high now. He gulped at his drink again wishing that it could remove the memory of his last conversation with Leslie; but he knew better, her words would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he couldn’t deny that he deserved it after how awfully insensitive he’d been to her.

If she hadn’t been so lovely, he wouldn’t have been so entranced by her. But then he also would never have even thought that there could be any chance she’d have been in some other guy’s arms and gathered that was just one of the consequences of being an attractive girl. He puffed impatiently at the cigarette in his mouth as he flipped over his cards, anxious to see if he had beaten Todd who had a pair of jacks showing. Todd, who turned out to just have that pair of jacks, cursed under his breath obviously annoyed to have his winning streak finally broken.

Nick grinned broadly at the win crushing out the butt into the half filled ashtray, thinking how much he wanted his own pack of smokes so he wouldn’t feel so bad if he indulgently chain smoked, as he had a habit of doing when he had things on his mind and a few drinks under his belt. Nick laughed saying it was about time he won one and then Todd was laughing with Nick as he got up to refill their drinks while Nick shuffled the cards for the next hand. He hoped that he won at least one more hand since out of the ten or so hands they had played the past hand was his best one.

He was a graceful loser of course, because he enjoyed cards, knowing it was all luck of the cards and getting them in random order meant no one could be assured of winning all the time. He fantasized of going to Vegas someday to play cards, slot machines and maybe even go see some real Vegas shows. He thought the glamour of the town was seductive like the exotic appeal of the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands. He tried to concentrate on the hand as he dealt it but he was disheartened by the king of clubs he dealt Todd, who upon seeing it after he handed Nick his drink, put on his poker face and casually lit a smoke which told Nick this one was all Todd’s.

Even though it was his fourth drink, he felt compelled to guzzle it too, almost as if he was chasing away his demons through indifferent, drunken enthusiasm that led to the inevitable drunken crash where blessed unconsciousness would relieve him from his anguished, broken heart. He gave Todd the "puppy" look, silently begging for another smoke. Nick waved him off when he suggested to him that maybe he ought to save a little lung for later, "You know how we turn into smoke stacks when we drink to get drunk bud. Tonight is a get drunk as a skunk night!"

He knew from Todd’s attitude that he was only half serious because he tossed a fresh smoke over to him before he had even finished responding to his comment. Nick felt his motor skills being affected by the alcohol as he sluggishly tried to deal the next cards that only further improved Todd’s standing by giving him a nice king of diamonds to go with the first.

After the loss Nick felt his perspective descend back to its former grimness and he sarcastically told Todd to deal away because he felt lucky. When Todd ignored the remark, Nick knew he’d been out of line just like he had earlier with Leslie, but just like then, he just couldn’t bring himself to apologize.

He noticed Todd seemed to be slightly apprehensive and he hoped it was because his hand was not a good one and not due to anything Nick had said. The last thing he wanted to do was to put his best friend off and offend him when he needed his company so badly. He kicked himself knowing that it was how he’d been acting that had thrown him off. He couldn’t blame him in the slightest since he hadn’t told him the details about the break up and knew he was going to have to soon since he was just about numb enough that he thought he could talk about it without loosing control, or so he at least hoped.

All at once he realized just how things had changed drastically since they were carefree kids having summer fun together, all the grown up worries and extra responsibilities were sometimes more than nineteen year olds were prepared to deal with. Somehow Todd seemed to rise to the challenge of living on his own just fine even if he had no steady girlfriend.

Paying rent and other bills was one thing, but he knew Todd would be as shocked by his news of Leslie’s condition as he himself had been. But that didn’t comfort him nearly as much as the idea that he could get it off his chest and contemplate his next move or if there even was a next move; the point was he would no longer be carrying the knowledge of the painful situation alone anymore.

The ice in Todd’s glass suddenly shifted, the sound catching him off guard and he was unable to stop from jumping in response to it. He wished he could have been more considerate of his friend’s feelings before offending him and Nick felt the knife of guilt twisting in his abdomen painfully, wrenching him as punishment for being so jumpy. After three more hands he crushed out the current dead butt he was still clinging to for wont of filling his right hand with purpose, feeling pretty frustrated that Todd was kicking his butt so badly tonight.

He already missed the feeling of holding a smoke in his itchy hand, even though he usually waited fifteen to thirty minutes between them. He hated how he would chain smoke when he got drunk, but he consoled himself by promising to buy a pack soon to get a few smokes beyond those he had borrowed so far, back to Todd, who laughed as he pulled out one more without Nick having to ask, that’s how good of a friend Todd was to him and just how in tune they were with each other.

Nick got up offering to go make the next round of drinks and had to focus on making his hands obey his mental commands to hold the glasses without dropping them. He also hated the annoying way drinking left him feeling so clumsy, but at the moment it beat feeling the insanity that lurked just below the surface of his calm exterior. He grabbed Saul another beer from the refrigerator and delivered it to him after putting the drinks he had made for himself and Todd on the table.

Saul hadn’t felt like playing cards with them and while Todd shuffled the cards to deal the next hand, Nick was blown away by Saul’s boisterous laughter as he handed him the uncapped bottle. The image of a full sink of dirty dishes still fresh in his mind along with the slightly rank odor freshly tanging his nostrils, Nick went back to the game of cards but couldn’t stop himself from thinking about Leslie again, and how bad it would’ve been had they decided to jump into marriage.

Suddenly he wanted to get outside in the worst way instead of continue the game. There was a gas station up the road from here and Nick felt certain they could walk up and back without incident. There was no thought in his mind to even look at a car while semi-intoxicated, let alone contemplate driving one. He really needed to talk to Todd about the situation and get it off his chest about how upset he really was. Nick hoped once he’d told him that he would understand and forgive his earlier sarcasm that he really hadn’t meant to come off as harsh as it must have.

Nick laughed uncomfortably, "So, you win again. Man, you’re kicking my ass bad! I think we better get moving and get some back up smokes soon since you’re running low. You up for a wander to the Jet-Go?"

Todd gave him a funny look, saying cheerfully that Nick was just afraid of getting his rear beat worse then he already had in the last five hands of cards since his one and only single victory, "You can dish it Nick, but man, can you take it?"

"Yeah, on a good day I can take almost anything, but tonight I am not my normal self, man," Nick sighed heavily.

He was really anxious to get outside and on the way to getting more cigarettes. He knew his drink might be a bit watered down by the time they got back but he really needed to talk to Todd. Then they were saying good-bye to Saul as he was getting involved in another sitcom and that freshly opened bottle of beer. He waved to them as they left and asked them to pick up some chips or pretzels.

The cool evening air greeted them with the twilight, making things appear strangely crisp and because the sun was almost down there was still light out, but without the intense heat that was the scourge of Florida summers. In forty minutes the sun would dip below the western horizon making for some of the most breathtaking sunsets ever photographed or enjoyed in person. The fresh air revived Nick from the brink of distress he’d felt sitting at that old familiar beaten up table with thoughts of Leslie and how hurt she must be.

This summer had been very dry and it had rained very little. Tonight the air was full of fragrant flowers blooming on several nearby giant magnolia trees, their thick fleshy blossoms exuding a familiar scent Nick had grown up loving. He was warmed by the alcohol and walking had only intensified this feeling. Still his heart remained coldly numb, despite having the lovely fragrant air tantalizing his nose, purging the memory of the recent unpleasant nosefull of disgusting dirty dishes and bringing back memories of wanders past.

He still felt that seething anger and nagging despair trying to overcome his improved disposition, so he decided to break the ice slowly. They talked a little about the old days and by the time Nick finally asked Todd some rather personal questions about his past girlfriends and whether or not he had ever considered marriage, he was not at all surprised when Todd stopped walking to grab Nick’s arm questioning him about Leslie.

"Are you trying to tell me you asked Leslie to marry you or something Nick?" Todd’s voice was full of concern.

Nick said calmly, "I am getting to a point buddy, but marrying Leslie isn’t it, even though I wish it was."

Todd looked understandably confused and when Nick cleared things up by telling him the whole story Todd totally agreed with him that he was in a bad situation. Nick sighed and wished he could go back make it up to Leslie, but he knew it was due to the alcohol he felt like that. His rational mind was temporarily out to lunch, otherwise he’d have no problem admitting that the relationship was definitely over. He took a deep breath and sighed before going on.

"I can’t see why she even bothered to tell me Todd. I am really upset and I was afraid she was going to tell me she had VD or something. She looked awful and I was not even thinking about pregnancy since we’d used plenty of protection." Nick’s shoulders were sagging as the memory of the pain Leslie’s words had brought him.

"She was the first girl I ever went all the way with Todd. And now I wish I hadn’t. It’s such a terrible feeling to know that moments of fun can cause such gut wrenching agony. It seemed like she was going to ask me for money to pay for it and not that I wouldn’t have given it to her, but I felt like that was all she wanted from me. She was the one who seduced me and even told me not to worry about using a rubber, but I was not having any of that." Nick shrugged and felt as if he would start crying at any moment.

"Did you tell Leslie she was your first?" Todd seemed to hope for a negative response from his tone of voice, as if it would have been a victory for the redhead to know she’d deflowered the quarterback of the Clearwater football team and he reached over to Nick’s shoulder, giving it an encouraging squeeze of support.

"No. Thank God. At least I didn’t let on like I’d never done it before. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke man. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?" Nick hoped he wasn’t prying to deeply, but since he’d just poured out his heart to him, he hoped it would be cool.

"Well," Todd swallowed and was obviously unprepared for the question, "Yes, I have. But I don’t brag about it like some guys would. You know? It aint an ego trip to me. I was sixteen and this girl was willing and all. So, being curious and quite attracted to her I went for it."

But nothing became of it. We never had a relationship or nothing and she treated me like a ghost whenever she saw me after that. I enjoyed yeah sure. But other then one other time with another girl a year later, that’s the whole of my experiences. Sounds like you and Leslie were rather active, if you know what I mean."

Nick nodded and tried to make his voice sound stronger then he felt, "Yes, we were real sexual at the end of things. I mean this last month we were together like every weekend and she seemed to really get more out of it than I did. Kinda felt like she was more experienced then she’d let on."

Like how she touched me and stuff like that. It bothered me a little that I wasn’t her first. But I guess that was just my ego," he snickered trying to come across more joking then serious, although he meant every word.

He was still angry at her for telling him when she had already decided on what she was going to do about it and then for not understanding his shock since they had taken precautions. He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she might have cheated on him, forgot her diaphragm and just used her relationship with him to blame it on. He had no idea and hated that he’d never find out. Left carrying such a heavy load of guilt around because of how he had acted towards her and for thinking that it was possibly another guy’s and not really his merely fueled his despair.

"You know, it makes me wonder if she didn’t go out one night and find another guy to jump and see if it was worth leaving me or something. You know how good looking girls can be. Remember that girl from high school? Courtney, that I saw for all of three weeks?"

Todd nodded, "Yeah she was hot, but man she had nothing going upstairs but peroxide. She did you a favor if you ask me." He laughed nervously, still visibly shaken up over the news and asked, "Hey man, you sure you’re okay? Talk to me Nick."

"Yeah, but just finding out about it today, well it hurts pretty bad to think that I know she has planned to end it. But Todd, I feel kind of relieved by knowing I won’t be expected to sacrifice my dreams and goals for a mistake that we took triple precautions to prevent. Rubber, gel, diaphragm and still she says she got a positive test. I hate to think of what we both would have become had we gone the other road."

"God Nick. I just don’t know how that would make me feel. I wish there was something more I could do for you bud," Todd sighed.

Nick replied, "Yeah, well besides listening to me like you have, there’s one more thing. Get me wasted tonight and park my carcass on your bathroom floor when I pass out so I won’t have to crawl to the porcelain throne!"

When Todd stayed quiet not even attempting a laugh after such a serious revelation as his best friend’s girlfriend being pregnant and totally set on terminating it, Nick decided to confess a little bit more of his anguish, "But seriously. It’s okay. She’s going to handle it and that’s how she wanted it. Why she even told me is what I can’t understand. At work today I was just thinking about how nice it will be to have a family and play with my future children. You know?

And then to have Leslie say she’d only want to marry me if it was what I’d been thinking before her notification that Fatherhood might be knocking on my front door. I just wasn’t prepared to deal with that now at nineteen. I offered to at least and she flat out refused and from there it got ugly. I suppose it’ll get easier to deal with as time goes by, but I am still stinging from it. I just hate to think what life married to her would’ve been like with a young baby, and then there’s the months up until the baby would’ve been born to consider," he sighed deeply feeling his guilty conscience nagging at him with thoughts of that life that might’ve been.

Todd looked deadly serious and paused before he responded, "This just isn’t your day Nick. I don’t know how I would feel if I was you. I am really glad I don’t have to find out what it would do to you too man. Things happen, at least she is scared enough to be realistic about things. You both have college and careers to start. It would be the end to life as you know it for sure."

Nick nodded, remembering how things had been when his sister had been brought home when he was three. He thought of Todd’s younger brother Eric who was ten, the youngest of four kids and the spitting image of Todd and their father with bushy blond locks that were almost platinum during summer months when the exposure to sunshine increased. Chaos ruled in the Lewis household and unless a special event was going on they had always been either at Pete or Nick’s because they had each only had one sibling. Pete had an older brother, Jerry who was a little closer in age to Pete than Laura was to Nick.

After a brief silence Todd gave Nick’s shoulder another squeeze and suggested they give Pete a call to see if he wanted to join them in a game of quarters or poker. Nick agreed, thanking Todd for listening to his problem with Leslie, feeling a little better now that he had told his best friend, who’d reached out offering his unconditional support to Nick no matter what. That was the nature of true friendship and as they puffed on their smokes, they resumed walking at a relaxed pace.

They were pretty close now to the store and Nick told Todd he would go call Pete as he pulled his wallet out in order to give Todd some money for smokes, but Todd put his hand over Nick’s saying, "They’re on me tonight buddy," his voice expressing his grave distress over Nick’s situation. He was deeply touched by his friend’s offer and yet he felt uneasy accepting it.

He was so moved by his friend’s gesture that he had to swallow hard to clear the lump that had formed in response to his appreciation of their friendship, "Thanks man, I really feel relaxed because of the rum and there is no way in hell I am going in to work tomorrow. The Fun Club will have to go one day Nick-less."

He laughed a bit and continued on, "I want to drink my ass off with you and chill out awhile. Maybe play some more cards or something. Anything to forget about this problem for awhile."

Todd told him he was there for him no matter what remarking, "It’s a shame about this Nick, I know you were really attracted to her, man she was a gorgeous chick! But this does change things, maybe with time she will want to see you again. Just because she told you off today don’t mean she feels everything she was saying. I mean you sound less angry then I imagine you were at the time she told you, right?"

Nick grinned and nodded, ignoring the chills running the length of his spine, feigning hope he couldn’t feel, that maybe Todd was right, "Well I’ll go give Pete a call and see if he can swing by in time for a round of quarters. See you in a minute Bro’."

As he headed over towards the pay-phone, he knew he’d lost her for good since he hadn’t been able to recover his wit fast enough to consider her feelings and deep down he admitted it all had to do with her appearance. If she hadn’t been so gorgeous every other time he’d seen her, he wouldn’t have even considered the fidelity question and even if they had a so called relationship, he reasoned with himself that either one of them could have been with other people sexually, although the very idea made him sick to his stomach.

He had felt love for Leslie, but he recognized it as the familiar puppy kind like he felt for every pretty girl he got to know. With that thought he suppressed an urge to cheer up and think of his freedom beckoning him to follow his instinct and pursue Nicole to see how things went with her. He could acknowledge a potential but at this point he couldn’t give any mind to it while he was finally beginning to unwind as best as he could through the haze of smoky nicotine and alcohol. He’d have to deal with the mental barriers he’d placed to prevent from thinking of her that way, when and if the time came.

He’d been so off guard and confident that it was not pregnancy Leslie had wanted to talk about to him, that he’d been caught in sort of a mental loop, unable to break through the anguish her words brought his heart. He felt that damn lump trying to reassert itself again as the image of her freshly showered make-up free face, streaked with red blotches from her grief stricken crying assaulted his mind.

He wished he could have thought of something better to say, forcing himself to be more comforting to her; who still had to undergo the procedure to end the pregnancy, and since she had to bear the shame in explaining her plight to her mother or someone else who she hoped would help her, Nick felt even worse as he imagined her mother’s reaction to such an announcement.

He felt so terribly guilty for how cold he knew his blue eyes had been and how he knew she hadn’t really deserved his anger. He knew it was himself he was angry with for giving in to her charms and desire for her to love him more then her previous boyfriends. He’d seen red when she was going off on him for suggesting marriage. At the point he went off on her about telling him at all, he had imagined her yelling at the potential child there were arguing about.

Fighting with him for custody; basically being a total and complete witch about things like so many other women chose to make things extremely hard on the man and the children after a divorce. He had hoped at that moment, that his glare would make her violently ill as if calling down the wrath of God, but now he was ashamed he had wanted to hurt her back for something she had not asked for and probably hadn’t wanted to deal with any more than he did.

Feeling the full weight of his insensitivity threatening to make him weep if he lost control for even a second, he was suddenly fighting off tears again. He felt lower then he had ever felt in his life; even lower then it made him feel when he had won the state football championship for his team, running several touch downs, all without his father there to witness and show how proud it made him to see his son at the high point of the last, most important game of his senior year. At least he was not going to have to explain to his family he had to get married and totally forget about college.

Tossing his but