Camp Elsewhere

By David Alan Brown

There’s more to staying sober than not drinking.

After 17-year-old Nora smashes her car into the neighbor’s Winnebago during a blackout, she knows she can’t drink anymore. She misses the last semester of high school to undergo treatment, joins AA and is under constant surveillance by her mother.

Depressed, stuck and cynical, Nora enrolls in a summer self-discovery retreat only to meet her roommate, Racheleen, a poster girl for sobriety and everything positive. Expected to climb rock walls with a smile, meet and greet the rest of the outcasts and, worst of all, open up in group, Nora can’t possibly see how she’s going to make it through let alone get beyond the first three steps.

Wandering the woods during “introspective time” she spies a skinny-dipping counselor from a camp for sick kids across the lake, only to actually meet him face to face the next day. Nora is inspired and suddenly her attitude takes a sharp turn. She finally feels ready to take that moral inventory, admit her wrongs and change her character. But when she finds out Nick has a backstory as well, one that feeds right into the tragedy that led to Nora’s drinking, a relapse comes calling. And when her friends admit there was more to her accident than Nora knows, she is pushed over an edge she promised she’d never go near again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Alan Brown
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311709608

David Alan Brown

An author of non-fiction, young adult fiction, stage plays and more, David Alan Brown earned his BFA in Film and Television, with a writing emphasis, from New York University. He has worked with young people in leadership and personal development for many years and travels as an inspirational speaker. His play Lily’s Blue will receive its World Premier at the Alleyway Theater (Buffalo, NY) in February, 2018. It was included in the Landing Theatre’s 2015 New American Voices Reading Series and was a semi-finalist in Kitchen Dog Theater’s 2014 New Works Festival. In 2009 The Manhattan Theatre Source chose It Is What It Is, a full length drama, for its Playground Development Series. His comedy shorts have been performed by The Actor’s Project of New York and Frogs With Fangs Comedy Troupe. He is the published author of two nonfiction books (The Self-Help Paradox and Answer The Call), and has also written a YA novel, numerous short stories and freelance journalism through American Media Distributors. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and daughters.

Book preview

1.

Nora was having so much fun! She loved parties and she especially loved this party. She didn’t care if she would remember any of it tomorrow or that her stick-in-the-mud friends were huddled in a corner ignoring her. She was having a blast. They had all arrived about an hour ago, around midnight, and now the party was in full swing. She had a drink in each hand, her eye on three different guys and was heading for the dance floor.

She didn’t know who was hosting, but the house was amazing. The kitchen had an actual beer tap coming out of the refrigerator door and there were bars both upstairs and down. All three were in full use and nobody enjoyed working them out more than Nora. Her laughter, her mood, her dancing and her attitude were all fueled by the alcoholic delights she had been consuming steadily since they got there. She had shifted to drinking just because, which preceded the point where she drank because she couldn’t stop.

She didn’t want to stop. She felt wonderful. She lunged into the formal dining room. There was no food on the table, only about a hundred yellow plastic cups on one end and a rather large girl sitting in a yoga pose on the other. She laughed at the female Buddha and rubbed her belly ferociously. Nora knew this would bring her good luck. The girl didn’t say anything, but shot her a meaningful look. Nora took this in and laughed more. She moved on with a resounding slap on the girl’s back. The Buddha girl winced and shrank back in disgust. Nora didn’t notice.

She was temporarily mesmerized by a collection of beautiful crystal in the curio at the end of the room. She pressed her face against the glass, absorbing the glow of the lights inside, and became fascinated by a tiny etched bowl. Around the rim was a row of animals, two by two, winding their way into Noah’s ark. She counted the elephants and lions and birds until her breath fogged the glass. She figured there must be a way into the cabinet. She was eager to play with the delicate figures inside. When she reached for the knob a stern looking college girl smacked it away.

Ouch! she said, with a pout.

Go away, little girl. That’s not for you, the coed snapped.

Nora slunk out of the dining room and into the living space, a huge sunken area with a wall of windows looking out to a lake beyond. The room was full of bodies sitting, standing, laying, walking and dancing. They were all beautiful, as far as Nora was concerned, and she wanted to give each and every one of them a hug. She started with the boy closest to her, a compact wrestler with a crew cut, who seemed eager to be part of her fun until Nora burped loudly in his ear. As he pushed her away, her laugh split the noisy party and he turned to go. She dismissed him and drifted backward until she bumped into someone else.

She turned to apologize before realizing it was a tall lamp, one of two on either side of a beautiful side table. Almost saying you’re sorry to a lamp was hilarious and she nearly fell down laughing, but caught herself on the table, knocking a book onto the floor. She picked it up and put it back, which knocked off a small glass apple. She wanted to bend over again to get it, but her head was still spinning from her first trip to the carpet. She wasn’t sure what to do.

Fortunately, her friend Leah arrived just before she decided to kick the piece under the table with her foot. Leah is smart and silly and amazing at gymnastics.

Hey! Nora practically had to shout to be heard over the music.

How are you doing, Hon?

Nora loved that Leah was always watching out for her. She joked inside her head about how everyone has to watch over her, because she is so short. That made her giggle and then laugh. She couldn’t answer for a minute or two.

Isn’t this great?! God! I love parties.

Yeah, Leah said, skeptically, Great. She looked at Nora with concern, but didn’t say anything else.

Nora yelled, I’m going to go dance!

Wait-, but it was too late. Nora was a few feet away and, in this room, that was enough to be out of range. She’d already pushed two people, leaned on a third and stepped on the ankles of a couple making out under the coffee table with just their legs sticking out. That’s kinda stupid of them, Leah thought, and gave Nora a pass on that one. She looked around for her group, hoping someone else was on the way to run interference for their friend. Where was Cam? Or Ellie?

Nora finished the drink in her right hand and set the cup down on the hearth. It was made of stone and uneven, but she didn’t notice when it tipped over. A leftover stream of spittle and rum and coke dripped onto the carpet. She was ready to dance and the music switched over to Adele, which wasn’t really that great for dancing, but she loved this song. In front of the fireplace was the largest open area in the room and obviously the place where people should dance. No one else was actually dancing, but this didn’t deter her. She was the one having a good time, even if the rest of these people couldn’t get into the swing of things.

Her version of Rolling In The Deep was loud and raunchy and got the attention of many people in the room. Some even tapped others’ shoulders and pointed out the spectacle of a short, skinny brunette high school girl, drunkenly singing her heart out to an ornamental statue of a dog next to the fireplace. When the song ended Nora shouted, Let’s put on some dance music! There was laughter throughout the room.

Yea, she thought, now they’re having fun, too!

Somebody put LMFAO on the stereo and she was free to let loose. Nora was not a great dancer anyway, and even more out of control under these circumstances. She didn’t realize she spilled her other drink until she tried to take a swallow and nothing was there. Suddenly, Cam appeared by her side. Cam, who is so cute, but so serious. Cam, who is so kind but always treats her like she is a little stupid. Cam, who she’d like to kiss right now, even though she didn’t really even know why. That would be awkward later, no? She giggled.

Let’s go find something to put in that cup, he said.

My hero, she declared and then did kiss him - a little too hard and a little too long. Cam said nothing and guided her down a hallway toward the back door. When it opened, a blast of November air stopped them both.

Buurrrr, said Nora, a bit too loudly. She wrapped herself around Cam, putting her arms under his sport coat. She began to lift the untucked shirt in the back, hoping to feel the small of his back.

Burr is right, he replied, unwrapping her arms and leading her back into the house. He turned into the garage, where the poker and Euchre players had set up tournaments, hoping they wouldn’t be disturbed. The air was smoky and attention to the games made the atmosphere thick. Nora didn’t notice the calm intensity.

Yea! Games! she erupted and most every head in the three-car expanse turned to look.

Let’s just watch for a bit, said Cam. They stood close to a poker table full of bearded boys and a girl Nora knew from algebra class. She had the most chips in front of her and was shuffling the cards. They watched as the deal was made and then all but two players tossed their cards back in. Nora laughed abruptly.

What? inquired Cam, wanting to be in on the fun.

I was just thinking about how difficult it must be for the king and queen to have sex with all those robes and stuff on all the time.

Cam was confused, so Nora pointed at the hand of the boy sitting in front of her. Look! See how much costume those royal people have!

The entire table groaned and the boy tossed his cards on the pile, declaring Redeal. Many deadly looks were slung at Nora, so Cam took her back inside. They passed through the kitchen and she managed to grab a cup full of beer. It wasn’t clear who it belonged to, but nobody objected so she didn’t give it back. She swallowed much of it with her first gulp.

Steady, Girl said Cam, quietly.

They rounded a corner into yet another room, a den perhaps, but it could easily have been the main living room of Nora’s house. Lane was there. Lane, the sensible one who writes poems and listens to jazz and makes them laugh with stories of people he serves at the bookstore. Nora literally screamed and ran to him, wrapped herself around him and shaking until they both fell. Cam shook his head when Lane looked in his direction.

Ohhhhh, Lanie, Lanie, Lanie. I love you, too! Nora squealed. She wouldn’t let him stand up and they rolled on the carpet until she crashed her shoulder into the corner of a large wooden desk. She sat up with a tear in her eye. The boys huddled around, checking to see if she was bleeding. There was a major red sore, which would soon be a bruise; something else to explain to her mother, somehow.

The boys slumped down next to her, believing for a moment that Hurricane Nora had finally stopped, but the sound of I Don’t Care I Love It came hammering in from the living room. Nora slammed the rest of her beer like a shot and leapt from her spot.

I love this! she declared. Come on!

No. Come on, Nora. Just sit for a minute.

Hell no! she shouted and ran around the corner, hitting her sore shoulder on the door jam. An instant later her head popped back into the room, evaluated the two boys and demanded, Isn’t this fun? I am having sooooo much fun!

And then she threw up with such force that it flew across the distance between them and splattered all four of their feet.

2.

They were not having fun. Leah found Ellie in the corner of what she could only guess was a craft/sewing room. Ellie was on Instagram, obviously avoiding the party. She knew why.

There you are, she said. Heck of a party, eh?

I suppose it might be, but for the drunken idiot we brought.

You’ve heard?

Didn’t have to; I witnessed most of it from afar. I count three people she has hugged, two she punched, one broken toe and a lot of hurt feelings.

Who cares?

When she looked up from her phone Ellie seemed hurt; damaged. "I begged - begged - my sister to finally let me come to one of her college friends’ parties. I promised laundry and chore favors for months to get us this invitation!"

We should have left Nora at home.

We should put Nora in a home.

They thought about that for a minute, each with their own version. Ellie was angry and pictured Nora trapped behind massive gates and huge padlocks, in an open backed hospital gown and slippers. In her vision, Nora would be shuffling along from one medication table to the next, stopping occasionally in the shock therapy room for some brain erasing. She knew they didn’t really do that anymore, so she settled for an image of Nora with a deranged roommate who stole her desserts and made her sing at bedtime every night.

Leah thought about it in a different way. Things were getting out of hand lately, but the idea of leaving one of their friends behind for an important social event like this would have been shocking a few months ago. Their group friendship was storied around school and each member considered it, consciously or unconsciously, vital to their own persona. They were The Sophisticates, for freaks sake!

I mean, damn, said Ellie suddenly, Did you see her plant that kiss on Cameron? She was honestly trying to get her tongue into his mouth. I thought he was going to die.

Maybe he liked it?

Ellie shot her a look. There was history there, all the way back to the seventh grade when Cam was her first kiss and she carried a piece of Bubbaliscious Bubble Gum he had chewed and spit onto the sidewalk. Ellie had scooped it up in a piece of paper, put the paper in a sandwich baggie and toted it around until she left her purse at an away soccer game two years later.

Ellie went on, That was hardly the worst of it. When she danced, or whatever, she splattered her drink on at least six people and all over the floor. I spent, like, an hour cleaning it up.

They heard voices in the hall calling their names, and soon after Cam and Lane came through the door. The smell that followed was pungent, sour and a vicious assault on their already perturbed senses.

Damn! What’s that?

The boys were exasperated. Nora. Nora puked. We were in the line of fire.

Ellie’s head slumped to her chest. No. No. No, was all she could say.

They looked at each other, wondering what to do. Who would be the first to admit what they all knew? They weren’t prudes. They all drank, but they didn’t get drunk. They didn’t try to party. They didn’t forget what they had done the night before and they didn’t avoid responsibility for their actions by blaming alcohol.

They did not drink like the jocks, boys and girls, who gorged themselves as if it were a competition of strength and stupidity. They did not require drinks as social lubricant like the geeks and wallflowers who could barely open their mouths during the day. They did not drink as part of a ritual like a social club, nor an initiation like the band members. The burnouts, who drank when they ran out of harder drugs (or to get the courage to take them) were way beyond their understanding. The brainiacs may need a drink to unwind from their success-obsessed hypertension, but they did not.

They considered themselves sophisticated! They drank wine with good food. They slipped good rum into their hot chocolate at the spirit bonfire. They had a little vodka in their orange juice on the mornings of big tests. Lane always had a little flask of gin in his coat, but it was an iconic gesture most of the time. The flask had been his great grandfather’s, or something like that.

Nora was a part of this, too. Among this group of poets and intellectuals, she was the artist. She could sing and draw and describe the colors of the sky with a beautiful ease and mystery. She had once led them on a tour of the Art Institute of Chicago that left them bleary eyed and in awe of her insight and tenderness. She saw things others did not and she shared them like little gifts they would keep on their bookshelves forever.

Susan, in particular, knew of Nora’s deep compassion and warm heart. She knew the many dedicated hours Nora spent at the animal shelter and how, if it had been a day where they had been forced to euthanise an animal, even if it was for humane reasons, she would cry on the drive home. They all knew her tender heart and the way she approached others in pain, hoping to ease the burden of anyone by shouldering it herself. Each of them had relied on Nora at one time or another, certain she would take the trouble, wrap it in a bubble of humor or anger or tears and set it loose. Somehow she could make them see problems just float away and bring peace to their lives.

When she was sober.

Ellie’s sister burst into the room with the fury of a cat who was forced to take a bath. The four of them sat there silently and allowed her to heap abuse upon their shoulders. Abuse for being younger, for being stupid, for being out of place, for deceiving her into believing they could fit into an older crowd and abuse for ever having the audacity to be born in the first place. But mostly, abuse for being Nora’s friend. Abuse for associating with her, abuse for bringing her and abuse for not keeping her in check; as if anyone could keep Nora in check.

Get her OUT! hissed the sister and they tromped off to find her. They would flee the party that was to be their transition from being high school intellectuals to worldly social comets, orbiting beyond the realm of their peers and into the universe of possibilities.

Nora was easy to find because everyone who saw them kept pointing the way to the front door, where she was sitting, passed out, with her back against the door. Susan, the final member of their group (timid and brilliant Susan) was keeping her from falling face first into the brass umbrella stand. There was an unfortunate odor coming from it, and they could only guess how many times Nora had vomited into it before finally succumbing to all she had drunk in the past two hours.

The boys sadly picked her up and dragged her into the cold night.

3.

In the twenty-five minutes it took to get from the tony side of town to Nora’s more average neighborhood, the Sophisticates that were awake had decided on an audacious plan to rescue their friend. There was agreement on one thing; that Nora was a drunk and needed help. But there was broad disagreement on how to bring that help to the fore. In the months to come, the group would discuss and argue about the plan and its outcomes until they finally had to agree, practically with a blood vow, never to mention it again. As it was, Susan would slowly separate from the others and, by the time graduation came in June, would have found another group of friends to celebrate with.

When thinking it over individually, and they would for years to come even if they had agreed not to talk about it out loud, each would try to comfort themselves with pride in the results. They did end up getting help for Nora. She did get treatment for her problem. She did reshape her life and she did not ever ruin another party for them. In the process, they may have exacerbated the difficulty of the recovery many fold and definitely felt her absence for years to come since they did not ever see her again, save that one occasion eleven months later.

Nora’s fifteen year old Honda Civic was parked in the street as usual and she had the keys in her pocket. Getting it unlocked and started was the easy part. Getting Nora into the front seat with her seatbelt buckled proved considerably harder. It never occurred to them that unconscious people bend like noodles when being moved around. They managed to bang her head against the top of the car at least twice. Leah had to enter the passenger side, lay across the seat and guide her feet into the proper position. Eventually they had her in place.

They all pushed and Cam steered the car so it was pointing toward a tree in the next door neighbor’s yard. There was a slight hill here and once the car was rolling they felt they could recreate a minor fender bender without much trouble. Susan only agreed to help after being convinced by Lane the car would be going less than ten miles an hour when it hit the large oak. She accepted his phony calculations as fact, as he got good grades in math and science. Lane was, in fact correct. Had the car hit the tree in question the impact would have been minimal. It might not have even woken the neighbors, but it would have scared the hell out of Nora when she came to or woke up hung over the next day. Nora’s drinking was a sign she was hiding from something, but she had no death wish and absolutely no desire to create any further burden for her mother or little brother. Everyone knew her devotion to her small family (the story of her missing father had never been discussed) and figured this tiny incident would be enough to make Nora ask one of them, Do you think I drank too much? Laughing nonchalantly, whoever had been asked would take this conversational beginning and turn it into the intervention required to set Nora on a more sober path.

Unfortunately, the glossy mental gymnastics performed by Lane did not include the presence of a curb. Curbs, like leaves on a tree and pages in a book, are the part of a whole and sometimes overlooked. When Cam asked, How far down the street should we push her? he is not thinking, ‘How far down the street, past the manhole, over the storm drain and up over the curb should we push her?’ The curb becomes apparent only after they released the car on a slow course toward the giant oak next door, some thirty yards away.

Details such at these tend to come to light when they suddenly make an impact on our lives. Leaves matter when they must be raked; pages matter when they give a paper cut; curbs matter when a late model Civic is going just fast enough to rub against them, but not fast enough to jump up and over them and onto the sidewalk, across the grass and into a storied oak tree beyond. When the front wheels made a strong lurch to the left, Lane and Cam see the folly of forgetting the details.

Pointing much more downhill, the car picked up speed on the increasing grade and began to careen from side to side. Lane and Cam took chase, but soon realized the ridiculous nature of trying to catch a moving car and, as if they had the strength of a super hero, stop it in its tracks. Lane stumbled and fell, scraping his hands on the rubble while Cam came to a stop next to him and squatted down to watch the event unfold. The boys saw, with the girls standing like statues twenty-five feet behind them, the car weave into a garbage can and hit the curb on the other side of the street, forcing the wheels in the other direction.

Now going nearly twenty miles an hour, the car pointed directly at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Olsen, a retired couple who’s greatest love was traveling the country in a recreational vehicle only slightly smaller than their land-based home. If Mr. Olsen’s sister hadn’t been ill, the couple would be in that giant white and sea foam green Winnebago Vista right now, parked in some roadside campground and snuggling under a Notre Dame blanket knitted by Mrs. Olsen herself. As it was, they were at the bedside of the ailing family member across town and that camper was stored safely on the parking pad next to their two-car garage.

If not for the camper, Nora would have hit the house instead of a vehicle as big as a house. In the confusion of the are we going or not afternoon, Mr. Olsen had forgotten to put the stabilizing wood blocks behind the wheels and when the Civic smashed into the back corner of it, the parking break broke free. The vehicle moved forward providing some release of energy and, perhaps, lessening the blow.

Still, the crashing vehicles made a tremendous noise and the Civic bounced sideways, turning ninety degrees before coming to a stop. The quiet of the scene immediately following was unnerving and the boys turned to look at the girls with a look of considerable fear on their faces. Leah was the first to break out of her trance, hitting Ellie on the shoulder and screaming, Come on! They began to run for their own car and, once everyone was inside, made an extremely awkward three-point turn and sped away.

Inside the Honda, Nora was still unconscious. This was good because she hated the sight of blood and a great deal of it seemed to be flowing down her face. The airbag did not activate, which Ellie would point out later as they were speeding away from the scene without stopping to check on Nora’s condition. She thought this was an indicator that It wasn’t really as bad as it looked, hoping the shards of Winnebago fiberglass and Honda bumper would require minor repairs. It was good the bag hadn’t opened. Even though they buckled Nora’s seatbelt, she had slumped over the wheel during its bumpy ride down the hill and her face was resting on the steering wheel at impact. The explosion of the airbag might well have broken her neck. Instead, her face bounced off the wheel, cutting her cheek from the corner of her mouth to her molars. This was not a life threatening injury, but it created quite a shock to Mrs. Olsen when she came out to investigate the noise.

Emergency responders were called, including the police. Nora was collected and taken to the nearest hospital, where she received nine stitches to close her mouth. The young, but talented, intern joked to the nurse