Joplin

Danny is calling people. I've given him the numbers from Warmshowers, but he's getting nothing back. I don't blame people. Let's be honest: at five in the afternoon, it's a little late to be calling people asking for a couch for the night.
"Hey, this is Danny, I got your number off Warmshowers. I know it's late, but I was wondering . . . call me back if you can. Thanks." He hangs up. I give him another number.
My plans are fluid. There's an enormous cemetery near the Walmart at the north edge of town. We are, conveniently, at the north edge of town. There's a long park running through town near the Adventist church. That's convenient because it's Friday. I'm not sure I want to ride south only to find the park well-lit, however. And if Danny finds a place, well. What's one more body? Onyx doesn't want to sleep in a cemetery--won't, actually. And I don't think two tents and a hammock will go unnoticed in the park. So unless things happen just so, this may be the last I see of these guys.
"You guys found a place yet?" The mechanic pokes his head around the corner. He's got a goatee that sticks out a few fluffy inches from his face. He's got 10% concern on his face.
"No, nothing." Onyx is calm.
"Well, I just called my girlfriend. If you guys don't hear back from anybody, you can stay at my place."
"Woah, Tim! Thanks." Onyx is great.
"Hey, Tim." I sort of lean around a product display to see him.
"Yeah?"
"Can I show up, too? You got room?"
"Sure, man. No problem."
Oh, I'm excited now. The freeze in Milford has me a little spooked on sleeping outdoors for a bit. I eat at HuHot because I don't want to impose. By the time I'm done and on the way to Tim's, it's dark outside. His street has very few lights on it, and I can't see the house numbers. I walk all the way into someone's back yard before I realize they don't have two garages (Tim's marker for his house) and I silently creep back out again. Finally, I find his house on the corner. Tim answers the door by opening the garage and helping me find a place to lay down my stuff. Onyx is about to do laundry, and I throw my clothes in with his and Danny's. The kitchen is warm and full, and everybody's sitting around the coffee table in the living room, laughing. Danny and Onyx tell me about a camp site in Pennsylvania on the edge of a river where the rocks are red, the water is deep blue, the trees shade the bank, and life is perfect. To them, that's the pinnacle so far of their campsites. I tell them about the summit of Mount Mitchell, about waking up in a cloud, about running down the mountain so fast I barely had to pedal for thirty miles. To me, that's been my zenith. Kayla's an educator. Tim obviously works at a bike shop. I've quit my job. Danny and Onyx saved and scraped to make this trip. It's a lovely evening.
Of course, the other cyclists in the room couldn't leave until they had enough money. But Tim wonders why I'm through so late in the year.
"I worked at summer camp, and I left after I finished."
"Summer camp where?"
"Massachusetts. Near Mount Watatic, if you know it."
"No clue. You know, I used to work at camp."
"Yeah? No way!"
"I was a musician for a long time. I went to school with a music ministry degree; I wanted to be a pastor. Now look at me. I'm not putting it to much use, am I?"
"I graduated with an English degree. You don't see me using it."
"Yeah, well. I worked at camps and churches for so long, but it never really satisfied my craving for creation. I wanted to make my own music, and that's just not the venue for it." By this time, Onyx and Danny are both listening, their side conversation stopped. "I worked in it for a long time, but I was also in bands on the side, you know? For a while, we played this club in town and I managed it during the day. But I quit that job after I got sick of the ghost."
"What? You said ghost?" Onyx asks.
"Yeah, there's a story about some woman who died in the club, a murder. She was killed by the musician and she stayed to haunt his gigs. Now, I don't know if the story is true, but there were some rooms you just didn't go in. Sometimes, when I got there in the afternoon, I could hear bumping and banging upstairs, and I know I was the only one there."
"I don't mess with that stuff, man." I'm serious. "I don't know what's out there, and I would prefer it kept to itself."
Danny looks incredulous that so many people in one room could believe in ghosts. "Are you sure? I think that stuff is more often drugs, you know? I don't think the dead come back."
"No, man. I know what being high feels like. That's not it."
"It doesn't have to be drugs, then. But it's the sort of stuff that sounds crazy when you say it."
"Well, the ghost was calm compared to some stuff that went down in that club. Stupidest thing ever? I had this ex who would just not leave me alone. We're talking she would show up to our gigs and just scream and scream her head off. I don't know if she wanted me back or just wanted to make me suffer? I'm not sure. One time, I've had enough. I text her like 'Don't show up tonight. We're tired of your drunk ass.'
"I bet she stayed."

"You bet she stayed. I left, though. I left. When I got back, she was still there, and the music had stopped and the band was trying to get her off the stage."

"An exorcism."

"But harder to deal with than the ghost!"

The party in the living room fell apart after the stories slowed down. Onyx put my clothes in the wash with his and Danny's. Tim shows me where I'm going to sleep in his study. It's filled with knickknacks and bits. There are twenty 1:12 model and hotwheel vans, the kind that poor bands use to run from gig to gig. He leans his head in long enough to explain: "I love vans, man. I can't help but buy a cool-looking one."

"Oh! These are pretty cool." I don't know what to say. It's not weirder than my quirks.

As I set up and try to settle in, I overhear Danny, Onyx, and Tim on the porch smoking pipes.

It's times like these I don't fit in. I'm used to it. I've been practicing my entire life. I know it's a weird thing to admit, but I used to wet the bed long after it was normal. Try to find the cause, I dare you. Medically, it's a black hole. I've looked, trying to find an explanation for what I was as a kid. All I find is a strong correlation between bed wetting and sadism. All the vastness of science and all it can do for me is make me worry about whether or not I'm a sociopath. When I was a kid, of course, nobody told me this. Mom just dealt with wet sheets by putting a rubber mattress cover under us. Dad dealt with it by telling us that it was more normal than it perhaps is, that he wet the bed into high school, that we would stop soon, and to not worry about it. 

I worried anyway. Isn't that just the lot of children? Powerlessness drives worry. And I had no power over my situation. Wetting the bed wasn't a problem at home because mom had the power and loved me. At camp, it was a different story. And my body didn't take a week off just because I happened to be under the thumb of my peers.

I had some excellent counselors to take care of me my first few years from seven to nine. But at ten? Let's be honest, I don't want to tell the counselor about the diapers tucked into the back of my bag underneath the t-shirt I know not to touch, lest it shift and reveal my shame. 

So I didn't. 

Every night, I would wait utterly as long as possible, a pull-up under my shirt. Just as soon as the counselor was about to lose his patience, I would spring the question.

"Tom?"

"—Oh, my gosh What."

"I need to go."

"Get out, man. You've got two minutes and then I come up there and flush you myself. Hey! I said no talking, guys!"

I'd slip out to the bathhouse every night and wait in the stall for silence and anonymity, slip off my underwear and jump into my oversized diaper. I walked like a cowboy back to the cabin, hoping against hope that other people could hear it crinkle like I could. Inside, I laid perfectly still, drawing no attention, waiting for my watch to wake me before the sun, when I could bury the wet diaper beneath the paper towels in the bathhouse trash can. Again and again, every night, no matter how little I drank, no matter how late I use the restroom, no matter how early I wake up. I still have dreams of using the restroom, dreams that become nightmares in the split second that I realize it's a dream, walking up choked with fear that the bed will be saturated. I still pee twice before I fall asleep, drift to the edge, and slump back to the bathroom a third time, my body unwilling to fall asleep with even a thimbleful inside. I don't know what I'll do when my prostate starts to go in old age. My nights are fine. I sleep like a log. I sleep—but my experience is painted with the brush of memory.

I remember Austin, the biggest boy in the cabin, finding my pull-up in the trash can. How is beyond me: I know we were doing our cabin capers, but he must have tipped the can or dug in with his hands. He was the only one with gloves, and when he picked up my pee-soaked shame, my heart tried to crawl into the back of my brain, using my spine as a ladder. He swung it around his head again and again, taunting the other boys, trying to bully someone into admitting whose it was. At the time, I was sure everyone knew. Note, looking back, I barely remember anything more. I stayed as far from him as possible, made myself small so I wouldn't be a target. Did the other boys laugh? Did they cower with me? Why and how did the episode end? Did the counselor intervene, or did we stop him ourselves? And why—of all conclusions—did I feel so different than everyone else, so alien, so badly misunderstood?

I'm an adult. I've ridden three thousand miles by myself on a bicycle. I choose for myself, fend for myself, rely on no one. And I feel exactly the same ostracization while the other men sit on the porch smoking.

When we all wake up, Tim has made maple syrup bacon for the visitors. I eat two breakfast burritos, but I go without the bacon. I'm still the loner in almost all things. By the time I've wrapped, strapped, and grabbed all my belongings, everyone else is still laughing and talking around the kitchen. I wave goodbye and pedal away to church. I'm used to being different, standing out. Besides. When I think back, really think about it? I want the only one cowering as Austin spun the pull-up above his head. I'm not so different in the end.