Camp Merry Wether
I am fourteen when my parents send me to sheep camp. My mother drives me there in our family minivan. They have signed me up because someone at the plant recommended it. Their co-worker claims it was the best summer of her son’s life.
My parents are perpetually distracted and are therefore susceptible to all sorts of unsolicited recommendations and subliminal advertising. Our home is filled with bargain-priced kitsch that once made someone else’s life a little bit easier.
When my mother finds the entrance to Camp Merry Wether and reads the sign: “We turn kids into shepherds,” all she can say is, “Are you ready to become a shepherd?” In two hours, she has a hair appointment in Lansing. A friend has recommended a stylist-alchemist who has promised to turn my mother’s hair from straw into gold.
“I mean, I don’t think my hair is straw,” she says, “so I can hardly imagine what he’ll do with it.”
We make the turn and coast down a long driveway. Trees lean over us. We reach the main buildings. Cars clog the parking lot. Sheep loiter in a nearby field.
“Well, here we are,” my mother says and drops me at registration.
Some of the parents stay until the flocks are determined. They sit on aluminum bleachers and fight to keep their children interested as hundreds of sheep parade by in front of us.
A boy named Cooper befriends me; his family adopts me. His mother shows me a stash of junk food inside a duffel bag. This, I learn, is Cooper’s. It’s contraband. It will be confiscated in a few hours, but for now, it is enough to bond us.
The sheep flow by, and we are forced to choose. Some of the other campers hop out into the show ring and examine teeth, haunches. I laugh, but Cooper says, “It’s not a bad idea.”
To our left, a woman has struck up a conversation with Cooper’s mother. Her boy, we learn, is Mason. He’s younger and won’t talk with us. It becomes clear that he is different. She talks about him as if he’s not standing in front of her playing with her sundress. “If he can learn to take care of something else, maybe he’ll feel empowered to take care of himself,” she says.
Together, we look at Mason. His fly is undone, but we pretend not to notice. He continues playing with her dress. Mason’s mother is lean and bronze. Everyone watches Mason swing the hem of his mother’s dress from side to side. This is a moment of great possibility, but the camp director interrupts and asks her to help pick sheep for her son.
There are thirty campers. We each get ten sheep and a color. I am blue. I watch as the counselors spray a single dot on the rump of each of my sheep.
After they are done, I am given a moment with my sheep. I step among them. I feel as though I should say something inspiring to establish rapport, but they seem indifferent. Instead, I stroke their wool, which is coarse and dirty.
Quickly, we acclimate.
The camp population splits between four groups: religious zealots, disciplinary problems, children of professionals and intellectuals, and second-generation ag kids. I loosely belong to the last group. My parents both grew up on farms, left the land, and remember it more fondly than they should. But that’s not why I’m here. And I find that I don’t have much in common with the professional children—the offspring of parents who, when faced with the choice of sending their children to be astronauts, botanists, or musicians, chose to send them to be shepherds. I have never been a child of opportunity.
Even so, most of us came here because our parents didn’t know what else to do with us, but Ronnie is here on scholarship. He wrote an essay that paid his way, and as an additional bonus, he gets to take home a flock at the end of the summer. Never mind how they’ll get them home. His mother drives a Taurus. They live in public housing.
Few talk to Ronnie, and even fewer talk to the zealots. I try even though the zealots cloister themselves in the far cabins and reflect on their experience every night. They have requested this arrangement.
Sometimes, for fun, I ask them about the more troubling aspects of the camp. They have answers for everything.
Their ringleader is Harold. He intimidates the rest of us if only because he has an adult name. Once, at a dinner where we were deprived of silverware and given mismatched kitchen equipment instead—it was supposed to emphasize the importance of having the right tools—I tried to steal his turkey baster. I expected him to be angry, but he gave it to me with great flourish and offered me his wristwatch also.
The other zealots watched and whispered among themselves.
“I don’t think time matters here,” I said.
He smiled, and for a week, we were friends. Then one day, while we were making barbed wire sculptures in crafts, he stole my hot glue gun, and I swore at him.
On the third day, Cooper’s flock wanders out into the neighboring interstate during swimming. It could have been anyone’s, but no one can stay without a flock. The director suggests that it’s a lesson, albeit a difficult one. He urges us to take our charges more seriously.
“If your flock is restless, you may not get to swim,” he says to scattered groans. They send Cooper home with a complimentary wool blanket from the camp gift shop.
This happens at breakfast. Cooper sits down next to me. He says, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone into the deep end.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I say. “That’s a nice blanket.”
The dining room has been silent since the director’s announcement. The food is on the buffet, but no one moves. “Come on,” he yells. “Don’t be sheepish!”
After breakfast, I find Ronnie crying in our cabin. Due to the loss of Cooper’s flock, they’ve rescinded his reward flock.
“What was your essay about?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
“They want to give me a blanket instead,” he says.
“I know, I know,” I say.
After Cooper leaves, I pay more attention to my own flock. And even though the sheep constantly underwhelm us with their intelligence, I am determined to shape them up.
My counselor, Jeb, a retired rodeo clown from Detroit, tries to discourage this. He says, “They don’t like to be fussed over.”
I ignore him and begin taking them on walks in my free time. I herd them down the lane, past the last “They poop it, you scoop it” sign. I employ Pepper, the camp border collie, to help manage the wanderers. He’s well-socialized with sheep, but at the director’s suggestion, I’ve added a goat to my flock to calm them. It helps. Pepper often gets excited and barks at empty trees.
At night, I try to keep my sheep from being involved in the camps games, but it happens by lottery. The first night, we play rodeo, and my sheep are chosen. The camp director’s children ride them into the ring, waving their cowboy hats. We laugh at this. They are little showmen. And then each cabin chooses a cowboy to go into the ring to round up sheep. My cabin chooses me. For legal reasons, we must wear old football helmets and shoulder pads. We look like third-string kickers.
The director calls, “Ready, set, wrangle,” and we charge into the ring. Behind me, my cabin chants, “We are. Montadale.” It’s our cabin name, but I imagine it’s a prep school.
I circle my sheep. They look more confused than scared, and somehow, they let me round them up. I remain calm and chase them toward the corral well ahead of the others.
Around the campfire that night, I am a hero until the director tells us that the night’s game was a lesson in a sheep’s personal space, something he calls “the flight zone.” I was good at the game, but he tells us what we did tonight is something we should avoid in the future.
“What about your children riding the sheep?” I ask.
“Clearly that’s different,” he says.
A few nights later, we play “Plunder!” a modification of capture the flag where we sneak through the night and steal from the other’s team’s flock. We are wolves. We are barbarians. We wear dark clothes and paint our faces with mud.
The game seems vaguely paramilitary, which wouldn’t be strange except that the camp is not without enemies. The summer home of the Association of Leftist & Friendly Adolescents for the Liberation of Farm Animals—ALFALFA for short—has their camp on the far side of our lake. We have heard that they sometimes sneak over during the night, but we are soon taught to keep vigilant watch. And we erect electric fences to keep them away.
In order to keep the sheep away from the electric fence, we take them on a field trip to the fence immediately after they are shorn. “When their coats are full,” the counselors tell us, “they don’t feel a thing.”
I call my parents after a week.
“Do you have a girlfriend yet?” my mother asks.
“Mom.”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to tell your mother.”
“Are you coming for the final show?” I ask. It’s five weeks away.
“Sure, sure.”
In the background, I hear the TV. She laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, honey. Let me get your father.”
Later, when I get back home, I’ll discover their new addiction is a show called Sunday Circular, a locally produced cable show during which a panel of experts guides you through the mountain of ads in the weekend paper and discourses on instant rebates and clearance sales.
But today, in the void of time when the phone rests on the kitchen table, I don’t know what to imagine.
My father finally comes on. He says, “Hey, bud. What’s new?”
I tell him I have a girlfriend.
“Well that’s great,” he says. “Just don’t take any of it too seriously.”
“I won’t,” I say, “I promise.”
Of course, I don’t have a girlfriend. There are only two girls at the camp: Theresa and Pam. Quickly, they become Mary and Fat Mary. And we don’t have much to do with them. My parents don’t know this.
They come to anatomy with our cabin in the mornings. It sometimes feels like a reprise of sex education. We learn about breeding, about how to maintain the virility of rams by shaving the scrotum and fertility of ewes by keeping them from clover. The vocabulary for much of this is spectacularly vulgar, but we don’t giggle. The camp secretary, Jean, runs the class like a busy restaurant. She carries a staff and jabs the animals to point out everything from sexual organs to mutton cuts. The sheep take it. We take it too, filling out quizzes when they are pressed before it.
One day, after we’ve been discussing nomenclature, Thomas, one of the professional kids, raises his hand and asks, “Did you hear the one about the ewe that called off work?”
When everyone is silent, he continues. “She told her boss she was feeling under the wether.”
Jean is silent. Everyone is silent. And while I feel bad for Thomas, I can’t bring myself to say anything to rescue him.
The camp itself has been through several incarnations. Originally it was a cattle ranch, but somewhere in the ‘40s Quakers bought it and turned it into a summer camp. We still use their cabins and sometimes find their modest graffiti high on the rafters, “Derrick loves Jesus” and “God was here.”
Camp Merry Wether was founded after the area’s Quakers stop having kids. The director arrived and established an endowment for a summer camp that would teach men how to become shepherds. The Quakers misunderstood his intent, believing it to be analogy. They sold. Flocks were purchased and Camp Merry Wether was christened.
The chapel has become a game room, but its walls are lined with large “Shepherd of the Summer” portraits. Sometimes late in the evening, I play foosball and study them. Most of the pictures are of robust farm boys who kneel beside sheep and hold ribbons, except for Mr. 1993. He looks nothing like the others. He holds a staff and crosses his arms. He looks off camera and smiles down toward the exalting masses. Some days, while the others run after the ping pong and foosballs, again and again, I stare at the photo. I admire his staff and imagine he carved it in crafts. I look to his benevolent smile and wonder what strange and heroic challenges he proved himself equal to.
Starting midsummer, we all take our sheep to pasture on Fridays. We camp out all weekend.
The first time, we are all nerves and adrenaline. The world is big, and they’ve spent the week reiterating its dangers. We have asked questions, but it’s not enough.
I ask, “What does a wild cherry leaf look like?”
Thomas asks, “Why can’t we leave the sheep here?”
Fat Mary asks, “Do sheep really eat litter?”
Harold asks, “Will you all watch my other sheep if one of mine runs away?”
“You’ll have your questions answered soon enough,” the counselors say.
The pasture proves to be a smorgasbord of activity. This is where the counselors cut loose. They tell us to let our sheep run freely and we do. We set up camp on the hill and practice the laissez-faire method of shepherding. We watch as they carpet the neighboring hill and pick through the grass, their color dots barely visible.
Officially, we are off the camp property. The counselors decommission themselves. They send out for energy drinks and processed sugars. They leave the sheep in our care. We play cards. We place bets. We use our staffs for a game of impromptu golf. When someone returns with supplies, we have a milk drinking contest and Mary wins.
We don’t have harps or poetry, but there is plenty to do.
Mason, meanwhile, has found a field guide to edible plants, and even though he sometimes ignores his sheep, he can tell the difference between wild leek and marjoram.
Ronnie climbs a tree and trains a pair of binoculars on the far side of the lake. “It’s reconnaissance,” he says. “We need to know where the danger will come from.”
But we don’t know. During the night, there is a commotion and the sheep start. We find them on the other side of a nearby ravine, but several are missing. The counselors cross-examine the night guards and determine that they were passed out in a sugar coma.
I lose one sheep. Ronnie loses two. Thomas clings to five, what they’ve told us is the minimum for the sheep to demonstrate flocking behavior. Harold and his followers have lost one each.
Mason somehow keeps his original ten.
“This is terrible,” Jeb says. Thomas is one of his favorite campers.
The zealots have already gone in search of their sheep but will return tomorrow empty-handed.
Back at camp, activities are suspended. The director gathers us in the game room and gives us a lecture about responsibility. He points to the pictures on the wall. “Being a good shepherd is about a lot more than popularity,” he says. I follow his gaze and imagine he is saying something about Mr. 1993. “It’s about cunning and fortitude and the ability to remain conscious through long hours of incredible boredom.”
He paces the front of the room.
“And this isn’t school. Nine out of ten is not a good score. It’s failure.”
We all look down at our boots. We have come straight in from the pasture, and it is clear someone has stepped in something.
“Counselors,” he says, “do you have anything to add?”
Somehow, they have escaped blame. After all, they are not the shepherds. They were never given colors.
“Tomorrow, we’re bringing in a set of bottle lambs. Starting with Montadale, each cabin will take turns bottle feeding them every four hours.”
Then he adds, “Don’t screw this up.”
And so for the next two weeks, we work to feed the bottle lambs. At first, some of the guys find them cute, but we soon discover otherwise. They smell like overripe fruit and constantly soil themselves. And although we know that their long tails are natural, we are relieved when the counselors wrap them with rubber bands and they fall off.
I volunteer for night shift. The others pawn their responsibilities off on the Marys, so that I’m stuck working with them in the middle of the night. Neither are attractive creatures, but under the heat of the lamps, conversation becomes inevitable. I relearn their names. Mary becomes Theresa from Kalamazoo; Fat Mary becomes New Zealand Pam. New Zealand Pam says, “Back home, the sheep outnumber the people twenty to one.”
Together we mix the formula for the lambs. Together we gag at the smell. Together we recognize that the cups in the dining hall match the ones that come in the formula.
The lambs, meanwhile, mass together in the corner of the pen, terrified. We pry them out one by one and give them the bottle. New Zealand Pam begins singing. No one says anything, but I think even the sheep must recognize its beauty.
With two weeks left, I call my parents again. I catch them on their way out of the house.
“We’re going to see your grandparents tonight,” my dad says.
“Great,” I say. “Are you coming to the final show?”
“Of course, champ.”
“I think I might win shepherd of the summer.”
“Great. Anything else?” he says.
“Is Mom around?”
“No, she’s already in the car, but I’ll tell her you called.”
The sheep continue disappearing. Except for Mason, we all lose at least one more. Thomas loses two more and he is sent home. Surprisingly, I miss him. I approach Harold to help me organize a search party, but the night before we are to set off he has a dream in which he finds the missing sheep reclining with bears and lions in a paradise of green. It sounds like the sort of Eden I remember seeing on the front of a Jehovah’s Witness brochure during my parents’ religion phase, a time when they deregulated the subject and heard offers and recommendations from people at the gym. One of the personal trainers, it turned out, was a Witness, and he came over for dinner several nights, leaving tracts on the furniture like bread crumbs.
I tell Harold about this.
“But I’m not a Witness,” he says. “Sometimes the Lord speaks to me.”
And despite my protests, the expedition is canceled.
We go to pasture again a week before the show. We are more careful now. We pitch our tents among the sheep and keep alert for the sounds of distress. We are prepared for invaders. We expect disaster.
During the night, we awake to find that New Zealand Pam and Theresa from Kalamazoo are gone. We struggle to understand. They have left their bedrolls and supplies, but there are no signs of struggle or notes explaining their departure.
We search the area before returning to camp. The director has little to say about our most recent mishap. He has stopped shaving and now carries a tennis racket instead of a staff.
“There are some who are not strong enough for the challenges of shepherding,” he says. “And today we have seen that.” He reads this like a prepared statement.
The counselors nod. They are tired. In the bathhouse, I overhear some of them talking about the magic one-week window.
Without the girls, the camp seems to disintegrate. We all lose more sheep. We grow apathetic. It has become clear that either Mason or I will be crowned “shepherd of the summer.” But all I can think of is New Zealand Pam’s singing.
During my final phone call home, my parents sound tired, but they assure me they’re still coming.
“How do we get there?” my mother asks.
“Mom, you brought me here.”
“I know that, but I’m choosing to wash the day from memory in light of that day’s hair appointment.”
“Uncle Jimmy’s into selective amnesia now,” my dad says.
My mother says, “It’s not a myth.”
I sigh. I tell her to look the directions up.
“Something wrong?” my dad asks.
“No, everything’s as it should be,” I say. “Shipshape.”
The day of the show, I wake up early and go for a walk. The sky glows grayish white. The sheep are still penned in the paddock in anticipation of the show. I walk toward the game room for another look at the shepherd of the summer portraits, but there’s a new lock and bolt on the door. It hasn’t been there all summer.
I walk down to the lake. The morning mist billows off it like smoke. I sit on one of the overturned rowboats that we stopped using after water samples were returned from a state lab. I look across the lake to where I know the ALFALFA camp must be, and I try to imagine New Zealand Pam and Theresa from Kalamazoo relaxing in an Eden on the other side of the lake. But I can’t.
And so I return to the cabin. Mason is already up doing his morning calisthenics. He looks decidedly fitter than when he arrived.
I say, “I need your help with something.”
He doesn’t question me. He follows me to where the sheep are. Even though the show is to begin in an hour, no one is around.
“This is the last day of camp,” I say.
He nods.
I ask, “Do you know how to pick a lock?”
He nods. “I just learned the other day.”
While he works, I climb over the fence and step out among the remaining sheep. They are restless and agitated, so I sing, “Bo, Bo, Black Sheep.”
They calm. They seem larger and dumber than yesterday, more desperate for leadership. I call out to Mason. I think about asking Mason why none of his sheep have run away, but it seems unprofessional. Instead, I ask, “How much longer?”
In response, he flips open the latch.
The parents are arriving as we lead the sheep up the driveway. Our sheep force their cars off the road and onto the grassy shoulders. Our sheep flow around the cars like water. The parents sit in confused silence, as though they’ve made a wrong turn and wound up in some other future at some different sheep camp.
Mason cajoles the stragglers. He’s good at it and calls the sheep by name—something I’d never considered. Meanwhile, I lead. Behind me, the bottle lambs fall over themselves in an effort to keep the pace.
My parents are parked under the “They poop it, you scoop it” sign. I don’t catch their attention, and for a moment, I slow our pace. They look up eventually, but at Mason rather than me. Halfway down the lane and we are near the director’s house. Again, I slow my pace. I realize I am looking for someone to stop me, to say this can’t be, to judge the rightness of this action. But no one does, and so Mason and I drive on, and when we reach the end of the lane, I stop and force the sheep onward into a world far wider and lonelier than they can imagine.