The Cicada
W. Randy Rice
Being a JC was a mixed bag. Generally, you did the shit work. Literally. You shoveled stalls. You plunged toilets. You were the lowest of the low - a Page to the Knights. That was the bad part. The good part was that you didn't have much responsibility for the campers. You were on your own. But the best thing was, two, and only two male JC's were selected to work at the girls camp each session. Imagine this . . . sixteen years old, in the middle of an all-girls camp for two weeks where you are about the only guys they see. It didn't take much to be cool. But that didn't stop us from trying. That's how this whole thing happened.
This was the session I was a junior counselor down at Carlisle. I'd been hanging out at "Stevies" - a private place along a deep and quiet part of the creek, deeply shaded by Rhododendron. It was a space reserved exclusively for counselors. Generally, it was a place to smoke and make-out. I'd been there most of the evening, putting my best moves on Becky Traynor. Clearly, she was charmed. Unfortunately though, I'd spent the majority of the afternoon scraping algae from the docks upstream. Something about my generally green hue just wasn't doing it for Becky Traynor, though I thought it was pretty cool in these early days of punk. It took quite a while for the obvious to become . . . obvious, and as I watched Becky Traynor retreat to her cabin it dawned on me . . . . it had gotten dark. Real dark. The trucks were put away. I couldn't find any of the Camelot counselors I knew were in camp (well, I COULD have found them, but I don't think they would have appreciated it!). It was clear, I was going to have to walk back to Camelot. Alone. In the dark.
Now, let me put this in perspective. Camelot is tucked deep in the hills of southern West Virginia . . . 20 miles from the closest phone. It is about as remote as you can get. Mountain lions live in these woods. Copperheads and, less often, rattlesnakes, are common. There are new sounds in the woods every night. Even for the people that had been coming to camp for years . . . the night was a formidable thing.
But that it was formidable was a good thing. Camelot was exactly one mile on a dirt road through dense woods from where I stood. This was a prime opportunity to establish myself among the ranks of Camelot legend (and thus secure a studly factor that Becky Traynor could never resist!). Terry Murphy was the only person I'd ever heard of that had made the walk from Carlisle to Camelot alone at night. Making "the walk" would probably be good, all by itself, . . . but as fate would have it . . . I didn't have a flashlight! This was a terrifying prospect, even given the state of my testosterone at that point in time. But, if . . . WHEN I pulled this off . . . I would establish myself as a stud among studs. People would talk about this, in awe, for years. Perfect.
That was it then. I was committed. And I started walking. I got just outside the lightfall from the lamp over the first cabin, to the last point where the sky is still open. Before the trees. The road led into the darkness among the trees like the throat of some yawning beast. I stopped at the sight of it. In a second, all of the night sounds became silent. Dead silent. There had been no wind all day long. But just then, a barely perceivable breeze breathed against my back. Pushing. It was eerily cold . . . and as soon as it was gone from me I saw it moving the trees just up the road. The woods were yawning wider. Hungry and inpatient. I couldn't help smiling a cocky smile, all to myself, as I took the first step toward that horrible gaping mouth. This was incredibly cool.
I walked. With each new step I could feel, . . . hell, I could hear every muscle in my legs. The conspicuous silence persisted until I got precisely to the tree line - and with the very next step I heard it. It wouldn't have seemed unusual but for the silence. The single oscillating-screaming pitch of a Cicada, off in the woods, across the creek. Faint, but present. Rising, then falling in a distantly shrill buzzing tone.
I settled into a cautious stride. The edge of the woods on both sides of the road presented certain obstacles I needed to avoid. Low hanging branches, sticky new webs freshly spun by night spiders the size of saucers, and larger stones that would twist an ankle or break a toe. At first, I'm sure I looked like a hyperactive Frankenstein, walking as fast as I could with my arms out in front of me, feeling my way in the dark. As my eyes adjusted, I could follow a faint path of the night sky, visible through the canopy of trees, by leaning my head back and looking up as I walked. Awkward, but functional. I was going to make it. The lonely shrilling of the Cicada persisted. It seemed odd.
I made it up to the girls campfire circle - about half way home, and the path of sky was suddenly and completely obscured by the trees. This was total darkness. It got suddenly cooler. My foot splashed to the soft bottom of one of the ancient puddles in this perpetually dark spot in the road. A single drop splashed cold and high on my arm, and with it came the smell of earthy rot. My gait was broken as I gingerly retrieved my shoe from the sucking mud. With the sound of water running from my shoe, back to it's place in the muck, I was sure I heard the Cicada come closer . . . across the deep part of the creek there, and into the campfire circle. Following me? Even by coincidence, could it have kept pace with me up the creek? Was it even the same one? Had to be. If nothing else, I was certain it was the same one.
My shoe squished loudly with each alternating step. I was acutely aware of the Cicada now, and frustrated by the sound of my shoe interfering. How close was it now? As if reading my mind, the Cicada responded by getting louder. Not closer, but much louder . . . seemingly more urgent. Excited. My God!. It was excited
I was approaching the corral at Camelot, the first sign of home. The end of my walk. I could anticipate some relief. There was a little light here, and lights at the pool were in the distance, casting a blue-ish glow on the trees. Just one more little patch of woods. The single light over at the corral hung in the steam of the evening.
There was motion over there, at the corral. Not one of the horses. Smaller. The goat . . . the goat they brought with the horses at the beginning of the season. It was pulling hard at it's chain. Frantic. It's mouth moving, in a gaping goat-scream. But there was no sound of bleating . . . only . . . the scream of the Cicada. That was it . . . all that I could hear. So loud it hurt my ears, and I realized then that the screams of the goat were being obliterated by the scream of the Cicada. It was totally consuming. I could feel it. And in a spasming jump-kick, the goat turned enough for me to see it. On the other side, clutching the goat in it's bark-gripping claws, a Cicada the size of a cat, with bulging red eyes and a glowing algae-green torso. The whole goat seemed to resonate with the violent pitch of the insect. I could see it shaking.
Two days later, they came and got the goat. It was sick. Lost a lot of weight and wouldn't sleep. Just bleated all night long - loud enough to keep people awake. Turns out he was OK. But when they tried to bring him back two weeks later, that poor goat about killed himself trying to ram its way out the back of the truck. Did fine all they way out Dutch Ridge, the road to camp. But as soon as they turned down the lane toward the corral . . . well, there was just no way.
I never made that walk again . . . not by myself anyway. Never got credit for the walk I did make and was never remembered for it. I was however, remembered for something else: My fear of bugs.