[65—Trips]

Saturday, eleven AM and already it was hot enough to fry eggs.  We were down by the beach—a long way from the Park—cutting up drift wood and undergrowth along the edges of the Boonies.

There were fourteen of us in my squad, including Lunch.  She'd deputized Jared, our resident geek, and split us into three work parties of four.  The other two were assigned lookout—because you just never know—and to make sure we all drank enough water.

We'd started out before dawn, working our way into the bush, separating the useful wood, burning the rest.  We had a huge bonfire by daylight, and worked on our cache all morning.

Now it was time for siesta.

Working out in this hot, it made sense to cool down on the site before heading back to the showers.

I waded out to my knees in the water.  Keyla flopped on the ground, right beside me; I just wouldn't do that.  I wouldn't even sit on a stump, much less the sand or worse yet, a pile of dead leaves.  She was wearing shorts, too. 

She was out in the surf before long, rolling up her shirt and picking at her waistband and cuffs.

"This beach is terrible," she complained.  "Why the hell does it itch so bad?"

"Sea salt," I suggested, "sand fleas, diatoms, take your pick."

"It itches."

"Yes, it does.  That's why they told us to stay out of it."

"When?"

"This morning, plus the Lieutenant told us at the axe demo yesterday."

"Oh," she was still picking the cloth away from her crotch.

"So why do you think," I asked her and she gave me a look.  My squad-mates had already learned to flinch at my questions. 

Personal questions, especially about family and the past, were discouraged to the point of being forbidden.  But my question was about something that happened here, which made it fair game; it just happened to involve her sisters. 

"Why do I think what?"

"Why do you think Lunch separated you three into different teams?"

"I don't care," she said plainly.  "I mean, Geyla is okay, in small doses, but Reyla is just a stupid cow."

"But she's your sister."  Your twin sister who's two years older, but I can't ask you about that.

"She's a bitch."

That pretty much stopped any attempt at friendship dead in its tracks.

"Okay," I replied, trying to show I wasn't pushing.  It was time to get back to camp anyway.

"Let's go," I called to the rest of my teammates, "showers and lunch before you hit your cot.  Let's shake a leg; the truck will be here any minute."

***

We rode back to camp and got off at the Lunchbox and some went off to the showers.  There was no point racing to them, they'd be full for at least a half hour.

I threw myself down on my bunk, intending to bounce up in a second and write my folks.

I woke up sometime later, with somebody standing beside my bed.  The Sun's rays said it was past two.

"Dani."

It was Chibani, the big Indian kid in our squad.  He was shy and somewhat easily cowed.

The word was strange, I knew it from the trip through Oklahoma—it was spelled cepane in my Muskokee-English dictionary.  It meant 'boy' and was used like 'bubba' or 'buddy' in English.  He was from Florida, the original home of the Muskokee speaking Indians.

Chibani Sixkiller was huge, like he ate a Sumo wrestler and was 'strong like bear, smart like tractor'.  He could be quite intimidating, but was mostly quiet and introspective.  In the two days I'd known him, he'd pretty much told me his life story, his likes and dislikes, and all manner of details I neither needed nor wanted to know.

Of course, he followed me around like a puppy dog.

But he was great to have on my team; he could do three times the work I could, and he listened.

"What do you need?"

"Only, it's time for you to get up."

"Why," I asked, "what's on fire?"

He chuckled.  "Nothin's on fire."

"What are the rules?"

"No wakin' up Dani," he began...

"Unless?"

"Unless there is water rising faster than I can bail..."

His brow was knit with concentration.  This was taxing to him.

"Good, what else?"

"Fire that I can't put out..."

He was practically wagging his tail.

"And the last one?"

"Arter...artherial...spurting blood."

"Excellent."  I patted him on the shoulder and sat up in bed.  "So why did you wake me up?"

He was proud as punch.  You could see it in his eyes. 

His story was sad; he told me he remembered being smart, 'like everybody else' when he was a kid, but a subcranial hematoma, and a disregard for seatbelts, had rendered him simple.  You could scarcely see the scar over his left eye—his eyebrow covered most of it; neither could the doctors explain the extent, nor the exact nature of his injury. 

It couldn't have lasted more than a second—his mother had been adjusting the rear-view mirror and didn't see the other car until the last second.  She slammed on the brakes and dashed his forehead into the glove box.  The knob didn't shatter, but his skull did—a tiny divot of bone was driven into his brain.  Whether that caused the damage, or the subsequent surgery to remove it was never at issue; it was simply necessary to save his life, but it did scramble his brains. 

I gather he wasn't a Rhodes Scholar before the accident, but anyone who can survive that is a force to be reckoned with.

I never understood why people didn't like to work with the slightly slow.  They are almost always eager to please you, and they work very hard.

It may take them a little longer, but they'll get there.

"S-siesta's over.  It's time to go back to work."

Damn.  I'd overslept and missed lunch and a shower.  Oh well, nobody on the labor detail would complain.  I hadn't even taken off my boots before I crashed.

I hopped down and followed him out of the tent.

It was cooler at least.  The rain would come soon.

I could miss a meal or two and not break down, but it wouldn't do to skip my water.  I dropped by the mess tent and drank my quota.  I filled my canteens, and made sure Chibani did too.

***

We picked up where we left off, but the dirty work had already been done.  We fell to with hatchets and axes and by dusk, we had three ricks of wood, neatly stacked.

We closed in around our bonfires, laying out our tools where we could find them and stretched out the stiffness in the last long rays of dusk.

We were gathering up to leave when we saw a pair of headlights, coming down to the beach from the camp.

It was a deuce-and-a-half, with high sideboards.  We weren't expecting it; we'd come down in a pickup truck.

The Lieutenant and a driver from the motor pool were in it.

"There's crates and tarps," Nguyen yelled in a voice that carried like thunder, "in the back of this truck.  Get 'em off and get the tools and firewood on.  We got twenty minutes before it rains, and it's gonna be a pisscutter."

We scrambled to comply, but didn't get it done in time.  In ten minutes, we were soaking wet, and only two ricks of the wood was loaded and under tarps. 

"What about us," Lunch asked her.

"Troop 421 is staying out.  Emergency response exercise."

"What about the other squads?"

"They sent trucks to all of them.  We'll send out contacts after the worst of it.

"Right now," she yelled over the awful din of the rain.  It hit like a whip on the skin.  "Get some shelter rigged, and get the supplies under it.  We have ponchos, so hand them out too."

We only had tarps and rope to make one shelter, and not enough of either.

The ground was a hopeless morass and the beach was unthinkable.  Besides sinkholes and the waves, detritus was again being swept onto the beach from the jungle and out into the sea. 

It was months too early for a hurricane.  But the local almanac showed it rained plenty in January—at least what I'd call plenty.  It would dry out gradually until spring, then it would rain cats and dogs from March until November.  I just couldn't wait until the real wet season started.

We got everything to the top of a hill with lots of trees.

"Somebody get me an axe," Nguyen said, and held out her hand like one would appear.

"We don't have any," Jared told her, "you said to put then on the truck."

"And you didn't think to hold any back," she asked incredulously.  "Well, no doubt you'll learn next time." She raised her hand and yelled at the squad.  "You got machetes, right?"

We all did.

She turned to Lunch and said "okay, get 'em working on the shelter.  Don't clear out too many trees, or it'll become a mudslide.  Run a heavy line between two big trees, and string a peaked roof over it.  Remember to overlap the seams. 

"Use the hammocks to keep the perishables out of the wet.  Anyone who don't like it can sleep out in the rain."

"All right, you cretins," Lunch bleated without much enthusiasm, "you heard the lady."

An hour later we had a roof and a floor.  The floor was just rough logs laid out in rows across braces and staked down, but it was serviceable.  We added a layer of wet wool blankets, the one thing we had aplenty.

"Let's get them crates open," Lunch ordered when she got back from the rain. 

"Why," I asked her, "wouldn't the supplies be safer in their crates?"

"Not necessarily," she explained.  "They like to play games on these exercises.  They always give you mystery crates, and they're never labeled.  Repple Depple thinks it keeps us on our toes. 

"I think it's a bunch of crumby nonsense, but it is realistic.  There's no telling what we got there."

We had five crates, but only one was labeled—sliced peaches in heavy syrup.

One person had saved back her hatchet and we were able to get into the crates with it.

The first one contained two gross of condoms and feminine hygiene products.  The former could be used for waterproof caps, sterile mittens, prophylactic undersocks.  The latter would go into the medical kit.

The second was a Coleman gas stove with no gas.

The next two were care packages, like the ones Red Cross used to send to POWs.  Each crate held three identical kits, each containing a towel, a razor, a bar of army soap, can of Sterno, a tin of mystery meat, a pack of cigarettes with two books of matches, a small sack of flour and dried vegetables, a knife, fork, and spoon, a tin cup, tin plate, and a roll of toilet paper.  Two had a package of chewing gum and the other four had chocolate bars.

Then we broke open the last crate.  It was canned food alright, but only three cans were peaches.  The rest were sauerkraut, pork and beans, pumpkin pie filling, and creamed corn.  I would have bet my life it all came from a food drive.

The rain kept on and Lunch decided we should get the rest of the firewood off the beach.  We took turns, sharing the six good ponchos we owned with condoms on our heads to keep our hair dry, and brought of the bulk of the remaining rick before we were too exhausted to fetch it from the surf.

We laid down, drenched and panting, my team and Jared's, all too tired even to shuck our shoes off.

I woke up some time later, and realized the rain had slacked off.  Jared's team was up and tending the fire, but badly—our makeshift canopy was full of smoke.

"Jeezus, Jared," I coughed, approaching the fire.  It was under a canvas lean-to, which directed the smoke right into the enclosure; plus, they had put up a line of blankets around the perimeter, so the smoke couldn't get out.

"What?"

"You trying to asphyxiate everybody?"

"No, the smoke is keeping the bugs away."

"What bugs?  It's raining cats and dogs out there."

"I think you mean termites and bullet ants.  The insects don't like the wet anymore than we do.  I can't keep the creepy-crawleys off the floor, but a good head of smoke gets rid of the no-see-ums."

"No-see-ums?"

"Mosquitoes, chiggers, gnats, assorted other little bastards.  Those things will kill you in the tropics."

"How do you know that?  You're a boot like me."

"I grew up in Biloxi," he said nonchalantly.  "We have to give the mosquitoes right-of-way, and the fire ants are allowed to vote."

"Where's Lunch?  Did she ever find the Lieutenant?"

No one had seen her since the she'd asked about the axe.

"No, she's been asleep for three hours now.  But the Lieutenant has been found, or more correctly, the Lieutenant has regained contact."

"Where has she been?  And is that coffee?"

"Yeah, you wanna cup?  It's pretty bad."

"Would I?  I'd kill for chicory right now."

"This is worse, pencil shavings and old boots."

I poured myself a cup. 

"Where did it come from?"

"There's always coffee," he explained, "provided you don't ask where it came from."

"Why wouldn't I ask where it's from?"

"Because, I might tell you."

It was worse than he had insinuated, but I drank it all the same.  It was hot, and didn't taste like wet dogs.

It may have even kept me awake.

"So where is Nguyen?  Did she ride home with the trucks?"

"No, she's been at the other campsites, with the other squads.  She's been up all night, I think.  We had a runner come through a while ago, and brought us the coffee.  It's instant, but I traded two packs of cigarettes for enough to make a couple of pots."

"What time is it?"

"Who knows?  Around two, I think.  Dawn is a long way off yet."

"Wait, I have my watch.  It's 2:17.  You want me to relieve you at 3:00?"

"Yeah."

I set my alarm and crawled off to sleep, but I couldn't.  I guess the coffee was keeping me awake, but there could be more to it than that. 

I snuggled into the nearest back, shivering under the wet covers.

"Is that you Dani," asked a voice I recognized as Keyla's.

"Yes," I whispered into her ear, "do you mind if I spoon with you?  It's awfully chilly in the damp..."

"Go right ahead.  Grab a tit if you want, I wouldn't mind."

"Maybe I shouldn't."

"No, I'm just ragging, not hitting on you."

"Oh, I sometimes can't tell."

"So, do you have any sisters, Dani?"

"I have a sister, and a brother, both younger."

"Oh. I just have the two, but I think Ma and Pa want to try for more of us; Ma's been baby crazy lately.  They think they're failures after me and Geyla."

"Why?"

She rolled over to face me.  I could only see her by the light reflected in her eyes.

"Because we're not normal.  Unnatural, they'd say.  Look, I know we didn't exactly bond like soul sisters before, but I want you to know I'm not a stone cold bitch."

"Why would I think that?  Your sisters are not my business."

"I've been around them my whole life," she continued, as if she had to explain it to me, "and they're just like me, only better.  They're older, smarter, prettier, and get better grades.  Do you know what it's like to be the little trip?"

"Little trip?"

"Yeah; we're trips.  My folks had fertility treatments, and when they got lots of embryos, they had Reyla and Geyla and had the rest of us frozen.  They thawed me out later, because they thought it was cute.  I'd have been a twin too, or identical multiple birth—this whole trip thing gives 'twin' new meaning.  The word 'clone' would work better."

"So, what happened?"

"She died.  Nine weeks in, she just gave up and quit.  I spent the next two trimesters alone and the next seventeen years with those two.  Just as well—what other name rhymes with Keyla?"

She had bitter tears in her eyes.  I gave her my handkerchief.

"Sorry.  It must've been rough, growing up in their shadow."

"No, it was fine growing up.  We were best friends until I hit puberty.  I started liking girls, and that didn't sit too well with our religion.  When Geyla came out, they sent us all off to save-a-queer camp, Reyla too, to give us a good example and moral support."

"Ow.  So what was it like?  Compared to here?"

"This is much better here, believe me.  Though I bet Reyla thinks it's hell-on-earth.  When Geyla and I decided to cut our losses with the family and volunteer, Reyla had to come along.  We couldn't stop her."

"So your parents disowned you?"

"My parents and Reyla, which you'd think means she'd leave me alone.  But they didn't disown Geyla.  She's likes boys too, so they out hold hope that it's a phase and she'll get married some day.  They're forever trying to fix us up, all three of us, with pervy little church boys who only want one thing."

She dried her eyes and blew her nose.

"Thanks for the kerchief," she said, handing it back.  "I'm sorry for gushing like that.  I just haven't had anyone to talk to since, well, ever I guess.  I don't know what came over me."

"There are counselors here, like psychologists and such.  You can make an appointment to see one."

"Fine," she said, suddenly shutting down.  "Sorry to bother you."

"No, that's all right; I'm just trying to keep myself from getting in too deep.  If you need to talk, I'd love to listen, but you'd do better with a counselor.  Why not do both?"

"Do you mean that, Dani?"

"Sure, Keyla, we all need somebody to lean on."

"Thanks," she said, grabbing a quick hug under the covers.

"No problem."  She nuzzled against my neck.  "And before you ask, no you can't kiss me."

"Damn."