Busted

So me and my friend are tromping through the woods, making too much noise, talking way too loud. We’re both under the influence, and we’re both underage. So’s everybody else back at the campground, a couple hundred yards out near the water. We’re down at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, a whole bunch of us. Reason is, three of us, myself included, have to appear in front of a judge for some, uh, indiscretion committed earlier in the summer.

I’m stumbling about in complete awe. It’s like a little city, a little medieval village, all these tent cottages. The little pathways through the woods take on the look of well-worn winding streets and avenues, worn well under the hooves of horses and farm animals and mailed soldiers over centuries of feudal living. The colored lights that some campers string about the trees over their lot – red and yellow and blue and orange – dance in my eyesight. Campfires flicker all over, crackling warmly in the humid night, speckling the hilly forest off the beach and I wonder why the whole thing doesn’t go up in a Chicago-style conflagration.

Anyway, we’re stretching our legs, out for a little stroll. Whatever I’m on – and I don’t really remember what it was, but it was generously washed down with Miller Light – is making me anxious and sweaty and itchy. So my buddy takes me out for a two-cigarette walk to calm down.

We emerge from the brush in a lighted area, when suddenly we’re accosted.

The rattling engines of a souped-up golf cart destroy the rustic majesty of the night. Zipping out of the darkness, it skids up to us, halting so abruptly I think for a wild second it’s gonna tip over. The driver’s wearing a uniform and an extremely angry expression. He’s got one of those curly-wired cop car mic thingies to his moustache, which he slams down into its cradle. Uh oh. It’s Johnny Law.

He leans over to us suspiciously. “Can I help you two gentlemen?” he drawls.

One of my pet peeves is the old, “Can I help you?” spoken by someone who has no intention of helping you, let alone is interested in your well-being. For instance, years later, I was on the swings with my daughter at a playground when a woman came up to me asking if she could help me. When I said I didn’t need any help, she informed me that we were trespassing.

Okay.

So, now this dude is fishing for info on me and my buddy. This time, however, we’re very, very guilty.

Thinking much more quickly in his state than I am in mine, my friend says, “We’re looking for the bathrooms.” All campsites have them. They encourage campers to use them as opposed to using the Great Wild as your toilet.

While our would-be interrogator is looking us over, we’re looking him over. Immediately I notice that he’s wearing pants too small for his rather husky physique. He’s also wearing a leather jacket in August – in August! And how can he see wearing those dark sunglasses when it’s gotta be nine or ten o’clock at night? This guy’s a wannabe me and my friend telegraph simultaneously to each other with a glance. For crying out loud, he’s a security guard at a campground, and he’s scrutinizing us like he’s Harry Callahan and we’re hippies (which we kinda resembled, I hate to admit).

“Bathroom’s over there,” he whispers, half-nodding over his shoulder.

“Good day, sir,” we say, and make our way to the first building we see.

I pause at the door, though. “Is this the men’s room or the women’s room?” For the life of me I can’t tell. I have the sinking feeling that in my altered state I’m missing a vital clue. And Sheriff Fat Boy is still there, a peripheral glance reveals, still eyeballing us.

“Just go in!” my friend hisses.

Inside we’re in a tiled room, pleasantly light blue and white. Sinks, waste baskets, mirrors. Stalls off to both the left and right of the door. I panic. “Oh no! No, no, no. Where are the urinals?”

I plant the seed of doubt in my buddy. We look at each other, confused. “That guy’s gonna bust us now for going into the ladies room!”

“Relax,” my friend says. “We’ll just head back out.”

“What?!”

“LE, get a grip. Did you see that guy?”

“Yeah …”

So we head back out, chatting nonchalantly, back past young Kojak on the beat.

As we walk by, he removes his sunglasses and catches me with a glance. “Thought you had to go to the bathroom?”