Camp Pleasant by Richard Matheson

menacing voice as he got up, “I’ll beat ya
brains
out!”
    He leaped for Marty and I grabbed him in mid-air, hearing Marty’s returned challenge, “You’n what
army
!
“
    Tony kicked and flailed in my grip, his face twisted with mindless fury. “I’ll cutcha heart out!” he screamed at Marty. “I’ll cutcha goddam
heart
out!”
    “Tony!” My roar echoed off the ceiling and, I guess, deafened him since I shouted it right into his ear.
    He looked up at me, breathing hard.
    “Tony, stop it,” I said. “Stop it. Calm down.”
    “No kike bastid is gonna—”
    “Tony,
shut up
!
“
    His mouth clamped shut into a living scar.
    “You like to be called a
wop
?” I asked angrily. The tensing of his face and body gave me my answer. “Well, Marty doesn’t like to be called a kike either.”
    “He made
fun
o’me,” Tony said through gritting teeth.
    I looked at him for a solemn moment.
    “If he did,” I said then, “it’s just because he doesn’t understand.”
    Later, I took Tony and his belongings to the new cabin and he never said a word through all of it. He walked beside me and obeyed orders and hung up clothes and made his new bunk. But he never said a word.
3.
    Bob and I had been down in the lodge rehearsing a one-act play. We quit about a quarter to nine and Bob went to Ed’s cabin to play some cards, I headed for my cabin.
    I was about halfway to the ridge on which the senior cabins stood when the sounds reached my ears—scraping shoes, groaning bedsprings and the excited encouragement of boys. I don’t know how I knew, I just did, the second I saw that the fight was going on in Mack’s cabin. I darted up the rest of the hill and into the cabin. As I entered, I saw Tony on the floor, struggling futiley while another kid—I didn’t know him— had his arm around Tony’s neck and was squeezing, gasping harshly—
“Surrender? Surrender?”
    Tony could hardly breathe. There was a babbly froth of saliva running across his chin, his lips were drawn back tautly over his teeth. There was blood seeping from beneath the bandage on his wrist and hand. But he wouldn’t surrender.
    Sitting on a bunk edge, enjoying his ringside seat, was Mack.
    “For Christ sake!” I exploded and, bending over, I wrenched the boy’s arm from Tony’s neck. Immediately there were cries of
“Hey, whattaya doin’
!” and
“Get outta here
, this ain’t your cabin.”
    The boy tried to kick Tony but I shoved him away and he went sailing into two of his buddies, the three of them landing in a heap on the floor. Tony tried to crawl after him, his face still deranged, but I dragged him up by his good arm and held on to him.
    “What’s the
matter
with you?” I asked Mack, furiously. “You know damn well he’s got stitches in his wrist!” I held up Tony’s hand. “Look! It’s starting to
bleed
again!”
    “He started it,” Mack said casually. “He wanted t’fight.”
    “And you let him!”
    “None o’ my business,” said Mack. “If the little wop wants t’fight, it’s his business.”
    “That’s fine,” I said.
“Great!
You’re gonna help him a lot, an
awful
lot.”
    “Look.” Mack got up, the casual look fading from his face. “You run your cabin your way. I’ll run mine
my
way.”
    “Tony’s wrist is in bad shape!” I said. “You had no right to let him fight!”
    “Look.”
He came over to me, truculent-faced. “He
asked
for it. Nobody did a thing to ‘im.”
    “I’ll
bet,”
I said, feeling beneath my finger tips the terrible shaking of Tony’s arm.
    “Look, you wanna start trouble?” Mack asked.
    “Not right now, Mack,” I said coldly. “I’ll take a rain check on it though.”
    “You got it, boy,” Mack answered. “Any time.”
    “Come on, Tony,” I said.
    “I don’ wanna,” he muttered brokenly, but I don’t think he even knew what he was saying.
    “Where ya think you’re takin’
him
?” asked Mack.
    “Out of here,” I said.
    “Big Ed