Camp Pleasant by Richard Matheson

chicken out,” Bob said. “But I think he’ll do it.”
    “It is a role he was born to,” I said.
    “Gawd, can’t you just see him in a tee-shirt full of holes?” Bob word- pictured. “His belly overlapping the belt of his low-slung trousers, a soda bottle in one hand, a sandwich in the other, ranting—’Get in high gear, get in high gear!’?”
    “Can see,” I admitted and a laugh most uncharitable ballooned above our booth.
    We were discussing the possibility of setting up a stage by pushing together the square dining-hall tables when a young man leaned over our table.
    “Pardon me, fellows,” he said, “but are you from the boys’ camp?”
    We looked up. He had brown hair slicked down carefully, a red silk sport shirt, camel’s-hair jacket over it, a cigarette inserted in a dark holder completing the picture.
    We told him we were from the boys’ camp.
    “Do either of you know Merv Loomis?” he asked then.
    “Yes, we know him,” I said.
    “Do you know where he is tonight?”
    “In camp, I imagine,” Bob said.
    “Oh.” The young man straightened up, visibly crestfallen. “Well,” he said, “I thank you, gentlemen. If you see Merv, would you—oh, well, never mind.”
    “We see him every day,” Bob said. “If you want us to give him a message….
    Eyebrows raised, drooped. “Well,” he pondered gingerly a moment, “just tell him that Jackie was asking for him, will you?”
    The young man smiled pleasantly, turned away and walked down the row of booths.
    “Sure thing, Jackie,” I said to the air. “We’ll tell him.”
    Bob and I exchanged a look. “Ooh, mama,” he said.
    I blew out breath slowly. “Let’s not think about it,” I said. “We’ve already decided we don’t care about Merv’s personal life. As far as I’m concerned, that still goes.”
    “I know.” Bob pressed out his cigarette, a worried look on his face. “It’s disturbing, though I guess I never really thought about Merv that way. I guess I was always so much on the defensive against the attitudes of guys like Mack and Ed that … well, that I never stopped to think they might be right.”
    “No.” I shook my head. “Even if Merv is a homosexual, Mack and Ed are not right.”
    Bob nodded concedingly and we skipped the subject, returning to the discussion of the Counselor Takeoffs.
    Two hours later, when we reached the camp, even the occasional appearance of the moon between cloud rifts had stopped.
    “You going to bed?” Bob asked me, as we entered the camp grounds.
    “I guess so,” I said. “Why?”
    “No reason. I … thought we might have a game of chess before bed.”
    I shook my head. “Not tonight, Bob,” I said. “I don’t want to take the chance of seeing Fat Eddie’s porcine face any more today.”
    “Okay,” Bob said.
    It was he who saw the flashlight down on the dock as we started over the log bridge. He called my attention to it and we both stopped to look.
    “I wonder what’s going on down there?” he said. In the night air we could hear a faint sound of voices. They sounded angry.
    “Let’s go see,” I said and, without another word, we recrossed the bridge and moved slowly down the hill. We could see the flashlight beam wavering back and forth down there and, as we drew closer, we saw who was standing in the light of it.
    “It’s Merv,” Bob said quickly. “Oh, my God, he’s—”
    Naked. He was standing on the dock boards looking as outragedly dignified as he could wearing only lake water on his body. Bob and I stopped.
    “—expect me to believe
that?”
we heard the voice of the man holding the flashlight. Ed.
    Bob and I moved out of the open and into a dark clump of trees near the lake edge.
    “Why
shouldn’t
I go swimming when I choose?” Merv was asking in a failing belligerence.
    “Nobody goes swimmin’ without nothin’ on in
my
camp,” Ed answered roughly, obvious satisfaction in his voice. “No use arguin’ with me, Loomis. You’re through.”
    A