Janet Keiffer

Drawing by Judith Wolfe

Janet Kieffer /

Wormwood

Adam bounced awake to the roar of a Homelite chain saw. He sat up on a rough wool blanket on the top bunk bed.
"I am building a house with God as a foundation!" the pastor shouted. He revved the chain saw, held it over his head, and kicked open the door of the cabin. He stepped inside.
"What's he doing?" Jeff shouted from the bed under Adam's. Adam could feel Jeff sit up. It jostled the bunk.
Big Freddie, the cabin counselor, stirred in his isolated bed. He wrapped himself in his sheets like a mummy and rammed his head under his pillow.
Outside, a dwindling rain and some vanishing lightning signaled the end of a mountain thunderstorm. The lightning flashes illuminated the pastor's face. He was wild-eyed as a Dickens ghost. His glasses were fogged. Tufts of his hair were blown back by wind through the window. Curtains thrashed with extended tassels so electric they resembled the pastor's hair.
After he exited, still yelling and revving the Homelite, a small voice from a corner said: "He does that every year. He thinks it's a hit. Every year I"m glad when I get to go back to sleep. Welcome to bible camp, boys."

"What brings you to Camp Rockwood, Adam?" said the pastor. He had thick, styled hair today, stiff on the very top of his head.
"My mother wanted me to go to camp," he replied. "I've never been to camp before. She said this one wasn't too expensive. She thinks I'll learn a lot at camp, about science and ecology." There was the sound of snapping twigs behind them. Adam turned around to see who it was, but no one was there.
The pastor pursed his lips. "Does she," he said. He clasped his hands behind his back as they walked down the path to the dining hall. Large tree roots formed a sort of natural stairway down the path. "And what does your father do?"
"Drinks scotch, mostly," said Adam. "He lives in New York." A chipmunk skittered across the trail.
"Well Adam," the pastor said, "your mother is right. You will learn a lot here."
"Yeah. I didn't know this was a bible camp. I thought the name sounded kind of Indian. Native American."
"Camp Rockwood is a Christian camp," said the pastor. "But at the same time, it has kind of an Indian ring, you're right."
When Adam and the pastor turned the corner into the dining hall, a small boy with red-gold hair came out from behind the chokecherry and followed. His eyes were so blue they glowed. A Clark's nutcracker followed him in the tree branches overhead.

Big Freddie strung a bow and showed Adam how to aim and shoot at a photo of President Clinton, which was tacked to a straw bale about fifty yards away.
"You want to hold your breath for a second, while you aim and let go," said Freddie.
Adam whizzed an arrow over the President"s head; over the bales completely. "Who's that little red-haired kid?" said Adam. "In our cabin."
"Ronald," said Big Freddie. He picked up another arrow. "He's here every summer, all summer. He's a great challenge for us, and at times we wonder why Jesus sent him to us."
Adam sent an arrow into the left ear of the target. "But didn't his parents send him to you?" said Adam.
"He gets sent here by the state," said Freddie. "By the Department of Family Services. We offer to take kids like that." He positioned an arrow on the bow and pulled back on it. When he let it go it speared into the president"s nose. "Got him," he said.

"I feel I must share with you a little about Ronald," said Pastor Bob, the next day. He closed his New Life Bible and laid it gently on the dining hall steps.
Adam was a little disheartened. They had been going over some things in Genesis, about how God was so amazing that He had created the earth--no, the whole universe, in a day's time. Rabbits, wind, crickets, everything. Owls, thunder, the moon. He did this for man.
"Ronald," Pastor Bob went on, "was not blessed with a stable home life. He lives here during the summertime, and during part of the winter. And unfortunately--" here he paused deliberately "he was also not blessed with , oh, certain functions of reasoning that you, and I, and the other boys have. Do you understand?"
"You mean he's retarded," said Adam. Just then, he looked out over the lake. On the other side he saw Ronald's tiny figure jumping over some rocks at the mouth of a cave, waving his hands in the air.
Pastor Bob took a deep breath and creased his brow. "Well, I wouldn't call it retarded, exactly. But he's just kind of off in a world of his own. There are certain things he'll just never be able to understand." Red ants were gathering on the toe of the pastor's right boot. There was a food stain there that looked like jelly. "This doesn't mean he's a bad guy or anything."
Adam was encouraged. He fingered the sleeves of his camp T-shirt. "He's hanging out with Christians," he said anxiously.
"That's right," said Pastor Bob. "You know, your mother would be amazed at what you've learned already." He smiled.

Ronald dragged Adam outside in the middle of the night and pulled him by the arm up the mountainside. He stood in a clearing and held his fragile hands up to a sky saturated with so many stars that they sparkled his copper hair. "Look Adam!" he said. "It's the Pleiades. You can only enjoy it for a couple of nights this time of year. Pastor Bob won't show you, so I thought I would."
"Why won't Pastor Bob show me?" said Adam.
"Wormwood," Ronald said.
"What?"
"He doesn't think it has anything to do with God," said Ronald, "It's not one of those things God gave us to use. You know." As he said this, glittery stars fell through the sky behind his head like tracers from fireworks.
"He can't see the scales on a fish and the feathers on a bird. He just doesn"t see it." He spun around looking up at the stars, making himself dizzy. He fell on the ground. "The Pleiades," he said, as a matter of fact. "It's a star cluster."

In the dining hall the next morning, the children ate pancakes and potato pancakes and bacon. The potato pancakes were last night's mashed potatoes, fried. Adam dumped syrup on it all.
All the boys were fidgety, especially the older ones, almost into their teens. Pastor Bob's wife had come for a visit. The boys stared at her dark, black-lined eyes and her short blue dress, particularly when she got up to get some more pancakes for Pastor Bob. She had billowing, bleached hair past her shoulders which she flipped around with jerks of her head. She smiled constantly.
Ronald sat across from Adam, curiously watching Pastor Bob and Freddie at their table. Freddie nervously stroked a two-morning shadow of a beard as he talked to Pastor Bob, who frowned as he speared pieces of bacon with his fork.
Ronald reeked of pine sap, which made for an eclectic assortment of breakfast scents at the table. He had pine needles in his hair. "They're arguing again," he said. "Pastor Bob will say that I shouldn't come back next year because I create problems, and Freddie will say that I have to. Then Pastor Bob will remind Freddie to clean the latrine. It happens every year."
Adam could feel Pastor Bob looking at him. When he turned to look back, Pastor Bob's frown turned into a grin, and he waved.
Adam talked out of one side of his mouth as he chewed. "So do you want to come back?"
"Yeah. I didn't used to want to, "til I started noticing things, but I want to now. I didn't used to want to," he repeated. "They always talked about my problems and that made me feel bad."
"What things"" Adam watched Jeff waving to the pastor, holding his New Life Bible.
"Things. All kinds of things. The Pleiades, the lake, the bugs that eat the birds when they die. The sap on the trees, the water spiders on the lake. You know."
"No," said Adam, self-righteously. "I don't."
Ronald brushed some of the pine needles off his head. "You don't?" he said.
"No."
"Oh. They said I was subversive. The subversive apostle. But there's a lot to discover." He took a sudden interest in something outside and ran from the table.
Adam was afraid of him, and wondered if subversive had anything to do with the verses in his New Life Bible. He decided to ask the pastor the next time they could talk, and just the thought of this made him feel better.

It was time for devotions. Thirteen boys walked to the campfire single-file behind Freddie. The boys had devotions every night, but not every night entailed a campfire, and Pastor Bob had built a Big One. It was built like a teepee, and was about the size of a teepee, and as it blazed sparks flew into the air. A night bird screeched in the distance and the fire crackled and spat, and shoes crushed tiny rocks on the ground . Girls shuffled in from their side of the camp laughing quietly and staring with wide eyes across the rising firelight.
Pastor Bob was already there. He had on some kind of a robe and held his New Life Bible, and he held a staff.
"Toss a couple more sticks on," he said to Big Freddie.
Freddie mouthed something but the words didn't come out. Then he said, "I'd really like to do the hell devotion this time."
"You can do it next time. Just throw a couple more sticks on the fire."
"That's what you said last time." Freddie looked at the ground, shaking his head. He had a hand on his hip.
Pastor Bob clapped Freddie on the back. He shook his head and laughed in merriment as if to smooth Big Freddie's ruffled feathers. Then he began devotions.
"Many people ask me about hell," said Pastor Bob. "And make no mistake folks, hell exists. It says so right here in the Bible. Here's what it says. It says Angel Number Three blew his horn, and a mammoth wicked star started falling from the black sky. And after that it flamed up real big like a gigantic torch, and it fell on a third of all of the waters on the earth. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the water, because it was made bitter. And then a little later it says Angel Number Five blew his horn, and a star fell from the sky to the earth, and he was given the key to the shaft that leads to the bottomless pit." Pastor Bob stopped reading to throw in an aside: "This is hell, folks," he said. "And it says he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and smoke like furnace smoke came out, and the sun and the air were black. Black--can you believe that? But that's what's going to happen. And out of the smoke came monster locusts with the powers of scorpions, but they were not to touch the people with the stamp of Jesus on their foreheads, only they were to get everybody else."
Adam looked around at the other boys. Jeff's eyes were riveted to Pastor Bob, and his mouth was open. Ronald was on the edge of the woods with a blanket and a pillow and was eating something from a paper bag. He stretched, lay down and closed his eyes.
"And if you're not hanging out with Christians, guess where you're going, folks?" Pastor Bob asked his young congregation. "You're going right where those unenlightened people are going. You're going straight to hell. It says so right here in this book."
Right then the teepee fire collapsed with a great whooosh; sparks flashing and spiraling upward into the dark. The children sat back a little. It was a magic moment.

After a picturesque picnic on some rocks, Pastor Bob took the boys fishing. Freddie sat around and scowled as usual, picking at his fingernails with a Swiss army knife.
"For we are fishers of men," said Pastor Bob, reeling in a carp. "The way the apostles were. Because that's what we are now," he said, winking at Adam. "We're apostles."
Adam started to grin at him, feeling the pull of God"s will to serve and convert others to the truth as God had revealed it to him through Pastor Bob. But then he felt a stronger tug on his line. He surely and steadily reeled in a fish.
It was a bass, with a spiny dorsal fin and a very scaly exterior. Adam held it in his hand and its gills heaved and fell. Its eyes were milky buttons. It flopped in alarm.
A rustling of blue spruce branches and needles caught Adam"s attention, and he looked and saw Ronald peering out from among them. His hair shone like a halo in the sun that cascaded through the spruce's branches; his blue eyes were accentuated by the color of the tree.
Ronald pointed to a raven that had landed on a log that spanned the stream. It looked at Adam with a jerky movement of its head. It looked at the fish, and then back at Adam. Then it preened its scaly breast feathers with a wide beak.
Pastor Bob held his arms out in supplication, still talking. "We must all be fishers of men, no matter what it takes. Do not be so in awe of the works of God around you that you do not see what His works within you can do to help others to see the light..."
Big Freddie yawned and stretched. He stood and meandered toward the woods. Ronald pointed to the raven again and nodded. Then he pointed at Adam's fish. Adam gasped. He looked at the fish. Its energy was almost gone. The tail flipped sporadically, raising scales like the feathers on the breast of the raven.
The big raven raised its predator wings and dropped from the branch. It grabbed an open can of Vienna sausages from their picnic in its beak and rose into a cloudless sky.
Adam ripped the hook from the mouth of the bass and tossed it back into the stream. It swam into dark circles of green rock and hid there. When Pastor Bob looked to the heavens for answers, still talking, he eased over to edge of the woods, and then disappeared with Ronald among the pines.

They crossed through shady places carpeted with pine needles and came to the bright dryness of a small canyon. Pine seedlings had sprung miraculously out of sheer rock, and Ronald pointed these out as they went. The wind picked up and ruffled his hair each time he emerged from a crack or a cranny; the main arm of the canyon was like a wind tunnel.
But an eerie noise, almost indistinguishable from the breeze itself, came from upwind. It sounded a little like a tormented animal. The boys faced eachother in alarm.
Ronald shrugged and gestured for Adam to follow him.
They had only gone about fifty paces, tripping over rocks and disturbing dust, when the direction of the sound changed. It appeared to be coming from a greener recess to their left.
The sound was not an animal in distress. It came from the pastor"s wife, Mrs. Bob. She was in the nook of the canyon with Freddie, who had her backed up against a rock wall and had a hand up her short blue dress. She moaned and squealed and made all kinds of noises, her blinding blonde hair a mass over her face. He had his face buried in her neck, and her head careened back and forth. The boys ascended a steep slope of pink rock to hide behind a boulder and watch. They stared in fascination.
Mrs. Bob subdued her groaning slightly, and Freddie unzipped his pants, and that would have been the beginning of something if it hadn't been for the snake. It was a rattlesnake and blended in with its surroundings so ingeniously and so perfectly that the boys would not have seen it lying still if they'd been looking straight at it. It's colors and markings were identical to those of the surrounding rocks, grasses, trees, and dry dirt. The boys noticed it because it moved. Mrs. Bob and Freddie were of course not looking, but noticed the snake when it started the low rattling sound of the twitching of its tail.
"Sheeit!" said Freddie. He leaped away from the rattler and ran back down the canyon, kicking up clouds of dirt that the wind whisked away.
Mrs. Bob, on the other hand, was paralyzed. She stayed backed up against the rock, her hands pressed against it, staring with make-up blackened eyes like silver dollars at the snake. Her lips were pressed in a straight line.
Ronald scooted down the steep rock on the butt of his jeans. "Mrs. Bob!" he said.
She looked up with a horror that was worse than that of seeing the snake, and then she watched the snake again. The snake was in the sun and not rattling much, only from time to time.
"Move away from him, but move very slowly the first few steps," Ronald said. "He"ll try to jump at you if you move around close to him."
Mrs. Bob stayed glued to the rock.
Ronald moved quietly through sprouting trees and mazes of rock until he overlooked the snake and was about five feet above it. He picked up a heavy, oblong stone and dropped it on the animal, smashing the middle portion of its length. The head and tail protruding from either side of the rock twitched frantically with a hissing sound.
Mrs. Bob was crying. She pulled herself away from the rock finally, and stumbled back down the canyon to camp, the skirt of her blue dress a little wrinkled and covered with dirt from the scuffle.

They didn't see her again until the next day, the last day of camp, when the buses came to take the campers back to town. She was standing with Pastor Bob and had her arm through his, and since they were going back to town too, she wore some very high heeled red shoes. She nodded as Pastor Bob gave the boys some last instructions in apostleship. Big Freddie loaded sleepingbags and backpacks into the opened sides of buses.
Ronald wasn't going back to town on the bus. The state was supposed to pick him up separately and take him to a foster home somewhere. He sat on a rock wall that surrounded the dining hall, dangling his slender legs. Adam approached him and nodded to Mrs. Bob. "Did she say anything to you?" he said.
Ronald looked down at her there, standing on the road. "No," he said. "But she might later on. I'll be back again, next year." When Adam's bus left the camp he was still sitting there, gazing up at the sky and the trees in the mottled sunlight, sniffing the cool mountain air.

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