[69—Troop 420]

Troop 421 was scattered out of all over this valley, split into squads, split into teams.

My team was camped in a saddle between two hills.  We'd left the Lunchbox behind in favor of six-man hexagonal dome tents, one per team.  They were space age, with ripstop nylon and fiberglass poles.  It was light, only twenty-four pounds, just six pounds split four ways.

And it was dry.

We had been learning; there was a smoky green-brush fire downhill both ways, to keep the bugs at bay, and a dry fire under a poncho, using the neck hole for a chimney.

We used ponchos and tarps as we could, mostly scavenged from the motorpool or other places they were not likely to be missed. 

None of us could pass up a good length of rope, or even stout cord on a bet anymore.  It was just too useful. 

But we had fashioned our home out of contraband tarpulins and natural woodland materials.  Admittedly, it moved every day, but it was ours.

Chibani had even thought to bring our Peace Flag, and a collapsible pole.  Don't ask me where he found them.

It was breakfast time, and my runners were just coming back from Troop HQ.  We were not soloing yet and had to stay within three miles of the main camp.  We'd get to bivouac by team as soon as one of us qualified in navigation, a class that didn't come until about week nine.

Chantré slipped out of the woods as silent as a panther, and shoved a round of cheese and four eggs under my nose.

They were kinda small, tetchy things, but I didn't look any closer.  Cheese and scrambled eggs would go well on leftover corn mush, sliced and fried.

Last week I'd been afraid to eat Guinea fowl eggs.

But this time, I was ready.

I couldn't think of a way to do milk out here, other than bring a goat.  But coffee and sugar were as near and dear to me as dry socks.  I kept all of that in a plastic bag inside a rubber-lined duffel.

I hung mine under a waterproof tarp, which I always carried with me when we left camp, as well as two ponchos, two cord hammocks, a hatchet, my machete, plus two canteens, fire and first aid kits, and whatever rations I could swipe from the mess hall.

I made sure my people were just as ready and we each carried a little bit more so that we could share some comforts of civilization.

I decided it was worth risking my Grip, and just a few tapes, because it was so damned useful.  My sister had made me a padded satchel for it, for travel, and it turned out to be very good at keeping the elements out. 

We found that fit nicely into a standard issue medical satchel, with a rubber lining sewn in.  Another satchel with four motorcycle batteries and a speaker amplifier we bought at the Tandy store in Cieba provided us with power and a PA system.

Now if only we could figure out how to make ice.

It is amazing how fast people can adapt to new things.  Not just environments, but people and institutions.  The Odd-squad was a team now, me, Chibani, Chantré, and Keyla, and we seemed to get along, at least in the field.  We'd been getting out in it nearly every day now. 

I'd seen a training schedule that called from hiking weeks 3-4 but we started at the end of week two.  I'd never walked so much in my life.

The last time I was back in, the doctor looked us all over; he said I'd grown a half inch and gained seven pounds since Offutt.

I let Chibini cook, because he was the best at it and didn't seem to mind. 

I gave him the eggs and cheese and he gave us back tiny cheese omelets with wild onions and spring potatoes, along with a slice of fried porridge with cheese and a mug of sweet hot coffee.

"You are a Godsend," I told him and he smiled like a puppy dog.

I turned on some Steppenwolf and we all sat down to eat.

"Do you think it's gonna rain," I asked the team.

"It's Puerto Rico," Keyla said, trilling her R's like a compasina, "It always rains here."

"Good point.  Is it gonna rain on us, in the next four hours?"

She wolfed down her food like a wolf, and pulled a cigaratte from her pack.

"How much marching we doing today, do you think?"

"I don't know Keyla," I was talking with my mouth full.  I didn't eat like her.  Apparently all people who have fast food experience can eat infinitely fast. 

"Maybe ten miles.  I think the Lieutenant wants to take us over that ridge."  I pointed to another saddle, even higher than we were.  It looked very distant.

She lit up her cigarette.

"Maybe I can help relieve the tedium, if you know what I mean."

She reached her fist out to Chantré and they bumped them, doing some kind of funky handshake.

There was that smell again, the one like alfalfa.

"Excellent," I told her, "we can use anything that relieves the monotony."

She passed the cigarette to Chibini, who took a bit drag and grinned.

"She'll work, innit?"

He passed it to me.

"No thanks, you know I don't smoke."

Chantré plucked it adeptly from Chibani's sausage fingers and drew on it for a long second.  The cherry glowed and turned to ash. 

She passed it to the right and let some of the smoke out.  She closed her eyes and coughed a bit.

I realized it wasn't an ordinary pickle.

***

We were all high, I admit it.  But I swear I never took a drag, of the first one.

Sitting under the canvas rooftop was like being in a smoke lodge.  You didn't have to inhale to get messed up.

I have no idea if it was any good or not, but every little thing seemed to be hilarious to me. 

I'd never been around pot heads before, at least not to the best of my knowledge.  I've known people to do some pretty stupid things at parties—maybe they were stoned.

Within ten minutes, the joint had burnt down to a roach and we we're all too wasted to move.  At least I was.

Chibini was crashed, leaning against a tree, watching the girls snuggle out of the corner of his eye.  He had a grin that wouldn't quit.

Chantré was kicked back too, Keyla's head in her lap.  Her shirt was unbuttoned and her undershirt pulled out.  Keyla was kissing her tummy.

I tried to look away, but my eye followed Keyla's hand, roaming up to Chantré's chest. 

She was wearing the wrong Troop pin.  Instead of a blue anodized-aluminum 421, she had a green 420.

"What's with the numbers," I asked them, pointing to her left breast.

"What's with the Twenty Questions," Keyla asked, looking up at me.  She was not amused.

"Your Troop badge, it says 420.  Did you find someone from that Troop and trade?"

"No," Chantré said distractedly.  Keyla was pinching a nipple and trying to undo her pants.  "There is no Troop 420."

"Why?  There's a 419."

"Because," she answered over deep breaths, "the Peace Corps is run by prudes who insist on ruining anything fun."

"I don't understand."

Keyla stopped and sat up. 

"Girlfriend, there is no end of things you don't understand.  Where are you from, Oz?"

"That's not fair," Chantré chided her, "she's been pretty open minded."

"Has she," Keyla withdrew her hand from Chantré's nipple.  "So you like Orphan Annie here cock-blocking us?"

"She's just curious."

"Then let her read a fuckin' dictionary and let us get laid."

"I'm sorry," I apologized to both of them.  "I just wanted to know why there is no 420."

"We just had 420," Keyla said and glared at me.  "Maybe we should just break camp and get on the trail."

"What do you mean, 'just had 420'?"

"She means," Chibini supplied from the sidelines, "that we just got high.  It's police code, 420 means marijuana bust.  Don't you know anything?"

"I guess not."  I was feeling a bit the outcast now, the uncool one who can't do anything right.

"I'm sorry, guys.  Chibani, sit up before you fall over and roll down the hill."

"I'm fine," he said and collapsed into a heap.

"Let's have some more of this," Keyla said, pulling out another joint.

She lit it and passed it to me.

If I didn't take it, I'd forever by the annoying little sister.  If I did...what was the worst that could happen?

I hit it and passed it on.

Five minutes later, we were back to where we started, the girls playing kissy-face in the broad daylight, Chibani watching them with a goofy grin on his face, and me, sitting against a sapling, stoned out of my gourd and contemplating the meaning of string.

It didn't take long for it to progress beyond just kissing.  Keyla had Chantré's shirt off and her hand down her unbuttoned pants and before I knew it, Chibani was coming alive.

"Can I watch." he asked the girls

"You are watching," Chantré pointed out.  Keyla took off her own shirt and sat on Chantré's lap.  They reminded me of Mary Jane and the Red-head, what was her name?

But he was all excited.  "Can I just sit over here and do what comes naturally?"

"Only if it involves touching yourself and not me.  You touch me with that thing, I'll show you something you never saw before."

"What is that," he asked, a smile on his face.

"The roots."

That changed his tune.

"I'm gonna just sit here and watch."

"Good idea," Keyla said and pressed her chest into Chantré's face.

She was still wearing her bra, the kind that fastens in the front.  Chantré rubbed her face in the proffered cleavage and—it must have been with her lips because her hands were gripping Keyla's buttocks—unhooked it.

The brassiere fell away and Chantré started sucking on Keyla's nipples.

Chibani nearly choked, stiffling a whimper.  I looked over to see he'd undone his pants and was holding his erect manhood. 

I'd never seen one before.  He was uncircumcised and fairly big—at least he looked so to me.  I watched him stroke it until Keyla moaned again.

She was leaning back on her arms, and Chantré was kissing her way down her tummy.  She moved back until she was resting on her elbows.

Chantré shinnied out from under her and took of Keyla's pants.

They were amazing to watch, Keyla so pale and Chantré so dark as to look like a bronze statue. 

Chantré stopped at Keyla's pubis and looked up at me.  She smiled and raised an eyebrow.

I'm pretty sure I blushed vermillion and shook my head.

She moved down a bit at pressed her lips into Keyla's pubic hair.

Keyla moaned, and Chibani sang out in ecstasy.  I didn't dare look.

"Hey Dani," Chantré asked from her new vantage point.  "Do you know why lesbians never use drag as disguise?"

"No," I said automatically, lost in the moment and unsure why it was relevant.

"Because, we all know what each other look like with mustaches."

It took me a second to see it.  From my viewpoint, Keyla's pubic hair gave Chantré the perfect handlebar mustache.

[68—Diver Down]

'H'okay," the handsome, and hands-on, gentleman instructor said to his Sunday class in, if not broken, then severely cracked English.  "H'look ober joor geers otra ves...one more time."

We'd been allowed to pick, from what was available.  Since this was a captive water dive, and short, we were only wearing one tank.

Because the dive was so shallow, there was no danger of the bends, and it would leave us able to make a free water dive later.

There were five of us, three American women and a middle age Jewish man from the Bronx.  I was glad he was there, as Ricardo, the owner's son, and our instructor for the evening was a bit...extroverted in his affections.

I'd dropped a weight on his foot earlier.

We all had on our aqualungs, with the kind of breathing tube that looked like a radiator hose, and buoyancy vests.  I wore a spring-style wet suit and weight belt with six pounds of lead.  Besides that, I had my fins in my hand and my mask and snorkel on my forehead.  I felt like a pro.

We all looked each other over, inspecting every detail—the class work taught us what to look for, and why—and then Ricardo inspected us all. 

He came to our Bronx champion and pointed out a broken strap on his fin.

"What am I, fuckin' Charlie Tuna?  I got fins now?  They're flippahs."

"No, Fleeper is dolphin, joo have fins.  Now go get new one or feex it."

"Blow it out yo' ass," the Bronxite offered and went back inside.

"We will get in water now.  Use giant-stride entrance."

I put my fins on and walked up to the edge of the water, balancing just so.  I tucked my arms up, gathering my dangly bits close, and took one giant step.

The water came up to meet me way too fast, and I was suddenly in a column of air bubbles.  I was relieved to find that I could still breathe.

Never hold your breath while diving; it was one of the rules.

I folded my feet under me and sank to the bottom, drawing in through my mouth.  It was like moving through honey, compared to being in lower gravity.

I reacted in every way with my surroundings like I weighed less, but that was an illusion.  I still felt Earth normal gravity pulling at me. 

Another diver came in to my left and another to the right a few seconds later.  I could hear their every move; I could even hear them breathing.

This was all wrong.  It was nothing like what I'd felt in orbit.

I got up and balanced on the tips of my fins, working some air into my vest.  I had to get the balance just right, so that when I breathed in, I started to float, and when I exhaled, I sank.  It was fiddly, but finally, I managed.

I swam around, trying not to knock into the other divers.  The pool seemed awfully crowed with six of us in it.  We practiced swapping mouthpieces, and buddy breathing, plus assorted tricks, like donning and doffing your gear underwater.  They didn't want anyone to get stuck, out in the real ocean.

I suppose it should have been liberating; it clearly was for the other students, but I couldn't help feeling disappointed. 

After an hour of short dives in the pool, we showered and started getting up gear for the afternoon's free-water dive. 

I considered begging off until the next Sunday—it was not like I didn't have the time—but prudence, and possibly too much caffeine, drove me to continue.

I just didn't want to chew two bitter ends in the same day.

***

This was better.

I was twenty-eight feet deep, according to my depth gauge, and I didn't feel a bit of the pressure.  We were about a hundred yards offshore, exploring a shallow depression.  This was a shore dive; we'd graduate to a boat dive later and in the evening, a night dive, if I decided if it was worth it.

It was so unlike zero-gee.

Still, I could get used to it.  Ahead of me was a carpet of leafy weed, swaying in the current.  There were little worms, or something, swaying just the same, and picking little tidbits from the water.

And it was all so close.  Something about the water magnifies everything, so you can't trust your instincts.  You can see it clearly when you're wearing a mask. 

But it was also so blue.  Even as shallow as I was, the red had been sucked out of the world. 

I looked around.  It was mostly a green fog in the hole, but the ocean to the east of us was blue unlike I'd never seen before.  It looked like glass. 

Vague shapes moved in the distance, but you could see the closer fish, flitting in and out, diving for cover.  I saw one I swear had eyes in the back of its head.

I heard a dull metal clunk and looked around to see two of my classmates trying to catch a ride on a sea turtle. 

The instructor dragged his buddy, the most voluptuous girl in the class, over to them.  He proceeded to chide them in sign language, and then reached for his slate and pencil.

I realized I wasn't with my buddy.

Always dive with a buddy; that was another rule. 

My buddy was Judah, the Bronx tourist, and he was nowhere to be found.

I started to go after him, but thought what if I get lost in that muck? 

I decided to get the instructor's attention. 

I took my dive knife—carefully oriented so as not to stab myself in the kidney— and rapped the hilt on my tank.

Ricardo came over.

He made a few hands signs, but they only frustrated me.  He wrote on his slate:

¿A donde eres tu pendejo?

Where is my buddy?

I waggled my hands and shrugged. 

We surfaced, all of us, and inflated our BCDs so we could rest.  We had to be nearing the end of the dive; it was only supposed to be twelve minutes long.

"Where was he the last place you saw him," Ricardo asked in Spanish.

"Over there."  Out toward the open Ocean.

It had been my business to keep an eye on my buddy, and I'd failed.  He was gone.

We formed a line and started heading east, coming back to the surface every two minutes.  We'd been in very shallow waters, so we could continue this for a while without risking the bends.

We proceeded seaward, spreading out slowly, looking for disturbances in the silt below and bubbles when we were on the surface.

We were about a half mile out when I felt something bump me.  I was only in about seven feet of water, but it was too cloudy to see anything. 

Whatever was down there was stirring up the bottom.

There it was again; I'd stepped right on its back.  I saw bubbles and Ricardo surfaced.

"I keep feeling something bump me."

"Was it rough?  Like sandpaper?"

"Why?"

"Sharks have rough skin.  Dolphins are smooth.  I can protect you if you like."

"I think it was rough."

Great, now we were gonna get eaten by sharks.

There was somebody just outside of earshot, waving madly.  We swam out to them.  It was the two women from our class.  They were treading water over a column of air bubbles.

"He's down there," the blonde one said and then dove.

I followed, ready for shallow murk.  Instead the ground had dropped away and the water was beautifully clear for tens of yards.

We went down slowly, carefully avoiding the coral and eels on the cliffside of the drop-off.  We were sixty feet deep, about three atmospheres.

Jonah was here alright, swimming with the fishes and trying to feed them his mouthpiece.  They would have been a ridiculous fit—the fishes were manta rays.

He was giddy as a school kid, swimming in a spiraling column among the lazy rays; they were six to eight feet wide, and from below, where I was, he looked like an angel, backlit by the Sun, swimming in a sea of devil fishes.

We finally got him to surface.

"Jesus," Ricardo complained on the way back.  "I've never seen anyone get narcosis so shallow.  And we weren't out there long."

"My tanks are almost empty," I told him.  "I had to fill my pockets with rocks to keep me from floating off."

"That's because you are a newbie.  You huff air like it was free."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I think so.  He hasn't been deep enough to worry about the bends.  I'm surprised he got narc'ed."

"Maybe that's not what it is.  He looks pretty happy to be alive.  Maybe he just had an epiphany."

"Yeah, maybe," he replied.  "I think I had one of those last week.  Don't eat the ovaries; they can kill you."

I didn't have the heart to continue when we got to shore, so I left before the boat came. 

I wasn't sure if it was for good or not.

***

I went back to the Lunchbox and typed a letter, to everyone, on my Grip.

Sunday, January 16, 1977

Dear Family,

I am writing to everyone as I am exhausted beyond my ability to describe and busier than the proverbial bee.

Week two of Camp Winsome was, if anything, hotter, nastier, and more tiresome than the first.  We started fire safety, which included a helicopter flight to the west side of the island to fight a forest fire.

We passed just a few miles south of Arecibo, but I didn't get to see the famous telescope.

They sure know how to wear you out here.  I'm so tired right now, I'm thinking of skipping my dive class, but if I get out there by noon, and don't drown because I'm so tired, I can get this out of the way. 

I've been taking SCUBA, it's mostly about pressure and Boyle's Law, and such, but today I get into the water, so wish me luck.

I'm starting to make friends in my squad, but almost nowhere else; we're just too busy with everything.  Besides firebuilding and fire fighting, they've been teaching us to live off the land, which right now involves gathering roots and fruit while not poisoning ourselves.

Next week we go out in the Boonies, hiking and camping, and they're going to teach us to fish.  By the end, they'll expect us to go out and live off the land for real.

I've gained four pounds since I've been here.  Most of the others have lost weight.

It looks like I'll be here until the end of March, if the bugs don't eat me first.

Love you all,

             Dani, who feels curiously small right now.