Camp Pleasant by Richard Matheson Page A

won’t
like
that,” he said mockingly.
    “Tell him to
sue
me.”
    I stopped in at my cabin and assigned Charlie Barnett to turn out the lights at nine. Then I put my arm around Tony’s shoulders and we started for Sid’s tent.
    Tony’s chest kept twitching with helpless sobs as he trudged along beside me and I felt his flesh trembling under my hand. I tried to ask him some questions but it didn’t work; he could hardly talk. All I got was a few shaky, pitiful sounds that made no sense.
    We met Sid just as he was coming out of his tent with a flash lantern to make his nightly inspection of the Senior Division.
    “What’s
up
?” he asked concernedly, seeing us.
    “Sid, you’ve got to get him back to me,” I said. “They’re gonna eat him alive in Mack’s cabin. I found him being choked to death by some little bastard and all Mack was doing was watching. They’ve probably been on Tony’s back all afternoon.
Look
at him for Christ’s sake!”
    Sid looked. He shook his head restlessly. “Bring him in,” he said.
    The only one in the tent was Barney Wright who was absorbed in a Spalding catalogue. We put Tony on Sid’s cot and Sid wrapped a blanket around his thin shoulders.
    “What’sa matter with the kid?” asked Barney.
    “He’s having it tough in his cabin,” Sid answered and, with a vague nod of his gray-haired dome, Barney Wright returned to his baseball illustrations.
    We sat on each side of Tony, watching him as he stared at the floor with bleak, hope-lost eyes. Sid tried to talk to him but all Tony could do was shiver and sob. So for a long time there was no sound in the tent but that of Tony and the flutter of turning pages in Barney’s catalogue.
    Finally though—how well I remember it—Tony reached up and wiped away tears with a grimy fist, sniffing as he did. I held my handkerchief to his nose and he blew into it weakly.
    “He’s gonna send me away again,” he said then, his voice hollow and spiritless.
    “Who, Tony?” Sid asked him.
    “My pa. He’s gonna send me back t’the stir.”
    “Why, Tony?” I asked.
    “‘Cause I ain’t doin’ so good,” Tony answered, a single tear appearing in his left eye and running down his cheek. I blotted it away. “He said I’d go back if I didn’t do good.”
    “Tony, no one’s going to send you back,” I said. “You’re all right.” “Naw.” Tony shook his head and there was on his face the most helpless expression I’ve ever seen on a child. “Naw. You don’t know ‘im. He’ll put me in the stir again.”
    “Why should he?” Sid asked. “You haven’t done anything.” “I hit ‘im,” Tony said, sniffing. “I hit ‘im and he don’t like that.” I couldn’t talk. I just sat there numbly, looking at Tony’s thin, despair-ravaged face, hearing him answer Sid’s questions. “Why did you hit him, Tony?”
    “‘Cause he hit my ma,” Tony said. “My ma and me was together when my pa went in the army. My ma worked at night and my Uncle Charlie give us some dough too.” “Didn’t your father send money?”
    “Yeah but my ma didn’t use none of it. She put it in the bank. She made enough dough at night. And my Uncle Charlie give her some dough too.
    “What happened when your father came home, Tony?” “He hit my ma and he hit me. He was always cursin’ and gettin’ drunk and hittin’ us. Ma cried at night. I could hear her, lots.” He shrugged, sniffed. “And you hit him,” Sid said.
    “Yeah. He hit my ma in the face and I hit him so he hit me back. Then I went t’the stir.” He bit his lower lip to keep back the sobs. “I’m g-goin’ back again. He’ll make me.”
    “No, he won’t, Tony,” Sid told him quietly. “We won’t let him.”
    “Ya can’t stop ‘im,” said Tony defeatedly. “He d-does what he wants t’do.”
    Later, Sid and I stood over the cot, looking down at Tony as he slept; looking at the tear-streaked cheeks, the light quiver of his thin lips. Then we went out on the