Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2022 02:21:21 +0000 (UTC) From: James Breitbart Subject: Skinnydip Creek Chapter 3 The First Frost Club began as the formal manifestation of my great-grandmother's initiative to support barefooted schoolchildren. Any student who attended either Ramsey Collegiate or the local public schools unshod every day until the first frost, typically in the front half of October, received a membership badge and an invitation to a series of social events throughout the year, culminating in a Barefoot Cotillion for the graduating eighth-grade class (which, in the initial years of the Club, had the added charitable effect of encouraging the farm children to stay enrolled in school) each May. The public schools began requiring shoes during a burst of modernization in the early 1970s, which meant that eligibility was restricted to Ramsey students. As the school worked to make itself more selective, boarding students who were unfamiliar with Bartlett's unique culture came to dominate enrollment, and the rules were changed so that meeting the barefoot requirement one year would carry over into all subsequent years until graduation. By the time I started at Ramsey, the month to six weeks of shoelessness had turned into the centerpiece of a relatively gentle hazing regime for first-year students (equivalent to seventh grade in the public schools), culminating in an initiation ceremony on the school lawn. About half of the boys and a smaller percentage of girls chose to go barefoot to class once they'd been initiated, and bare feet were technically expected for most club activities, although this bylaw wasn't typically enforced. For the most part, the First Frost Club served the same function as a booster club or student government would at other schools. Each class elected two representatives, one boy and one girl. I was the male representative for the second-years, serving alongside Mary Whaley, and Wyatt was the male representative for the rising sixth-years. Unfortunately, five of the 12 members were boarding students, which meant that we would need to arrange for them to call in on a conference line to have a quorum. Dad volunteered the use of his office Sunday afternoon after church and dinner. To facilitate the meeting, we invited the families of the other day students on the governing board to Sunday dinner. Reverend Whaley and Mayor Atkinson would be repeat visitors, although the atmosphere would likely be more convivial this time around. Reverend Jeremiah Crowder of the AME Church's children Faith and Isaiah were representatives of the third-year and senior class, respectively, and he would lend an ecumenical sheen to the proceedings. Andy Peterson's brother Jerry, like Andy a scholarship football player, attended along with a brother in elementary school, their parents, and their elderly grandparents, and planned to participate in the meeting as an observer. Kevin Lehman rounded out the list of day students on the committee. His father was the local dentist, and his brother Johnny was 11. The eight of us consumed our lunch as quickly as was polite and then repaired to the office for a conference call. Because the parents were fairly prominent in the community (with the arguable exception of Mr. Peterson, a deputy sheriff), they would have an informal meeting of their own to game out strategies to influence the town council. The boarding students, although necessary for a quorum, were less interested in the issue. The creek was only of interest to boarding students for the few weeks of the school year when skinny dipping in the cold mountain water would be appealing, and four of the five were girls. Veronica Daugherty, the female representative of the sixth-years, did point out that demanding girls have access to a creek full of naked boys could potentially create a precedent for boys to demand access to girls' dormitories. I began the meeting by delivering a run-down of what I knew about the Farrellis. Matteo was probably gay or bisexual. He seemed to dislike his sister and the way he'd dressed Friday evening potentially suggested a desire to fit in more closely with Bartlett society. Sophia was the opposite, going out of her way to antagonize people with her outspoken feminism. I hypothesized that her repeated appearances at the creek reflected this antagonism rather than voyeurism, since she had come with her brothers the second time and hadn't been spotted in the vicinity since. "Do you think she's a lesbian?" Faith asked. "I wouldn't really be in a position to know." "We could invite her to a sleepover," Mary suggested. "What good would that do?" "Girls use sleepovers for the same purposes that boys use the creek," Faith explained patiently. "If she's gay or bisexual, getting laid will put her in a better mood and might make her more positively disposed toward the town. If not, she'll probably be intimidated, and her reaction might help us paint her as homophobic." "There's one other thing we could get out of a sleepover," Wyatt said, "but I hate to be the one to suggest it." "What is it?" "Well, if we had pictures of her doing something she wasn't supposed to, they might serve as...leverage." I had seen my father on the receiving end of a public expose, and it wasn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy. "Let's save that for the worst-case scenario, but go ahead with the sleepover, if she'll agree to it." "Getting her to agree to it is going to be the tricky part," Isaiah mused. "I think the best bet is to go through Matteo and her parents, rather than her directly. When we invited them to dinner, Mrs. Farrelli said it would give her a break from cooking, so she might make Sophia go if it'll give her another night off." "It'll only give her a night off if she can get rid of all three kids. So, we need to plan another sleepover for Matteo and Amir." "They're seven years apart," Kevin objected, "that's too big an age range to be plausible." "We'll make it an official program of the First Frost Club's Committee on Welcoming New Day Students and Their Families," Isaiah answered, "which I'm officially nominating Sam and Faith to lead." The Steering Committee of the First Frost Club appointed subcommittees to handle specific functions or topics, each composed of two steering committee members and the other students they deigned to appoint. It served as a form of patronage, enabling the Steering Committee to dole out impressive-sounding leadership titles, and allowed the committee to delegate decisions relevant to specific groups of students. Being appointed to lead a steering committee as a rising second-year was something of a feather in my cap, but Faith was less impressed. "Why do I have to be on the committee?" "One, you're a lesbian, and two, we don't have younger siblings that would be under foot during the sleepover you'll be hosting. Sam's an only child, and he's got a big enough house that the older and younger boys can split into separate groups." "We'll put the older ones in the barn." We maintained the original barn that was built along with the house as a combination garage and rec room. The hayloft was filled with fresh straw that we could spread our sleeping bags out on, and there was a beer fridge from which my father wouldn't mind a few bottles going missing once the younger boys had gone to sleep. We realized that attempting to schedule the sleepovers before the council meeting would be too obvious, so we decided to send out invitations for the following Saturday evening and rely on numbers to make a positive impression at the council meeting. Both the Crowders and I had youth group that evening, and we told everyone we met to be there. The next morning, a pair of invitations went out to the Farrelli household on the First Frost Club's stationary, thanks to the assistance of Mr. Burns, the local printer. Once they were in the mail, I set off in search of Matteo, and found him rather aimlessly riding his bike around the Ramsey Collegiate School's campus. "Looking forward to school already?" I asked by way of friendly introduction. Matteo shrugged. "I wanted to get out of the house, and I didn't think I'd be welcome at the creek." "As long as you don't bring your sister. Speaking of which, you, her, and Amir are about to get invitations to a pair of slumber parties." "A pair?" "One for boys, one for girls." "Oh, she'll love that." "Well, a co-ed slumber party would be a little scandalous." "Not to sound like Sophia, but how is a slumber party more scandalous than what we walked in on you doing? It seems like everyone in town knows about that place." "They know about the creek, but it's an unspoken rule not to talk about what goes on there in town. It's far enough out that people who don't like it can just ignore it, and because everything that goes on is between boys there won't be any consequences that can't be ignored." "So, you're so eager to dissuade us because we're upsetting a carefully balanced equilibrium." "That and I think you're hot." Matteo flashed an embarrassed smile, and I grinned back. His smile was as cute as the rest of him. "So, um, you invited me and Amir?" "We assumed your parents would make Sophia go if they saw a chance to be child free for the night." "You assumed right, but I don't know how well he'd do at a sleepover." "Is he, uh...slow?" A developmental delay would certainly explain why he'd seemed so clingy Friday evening. "No, the counselor at his old school said he has an anxiety disorder. It's gotten worse since we moved, and, uh, he wets the bed a lot." "You don't think your parents would make Sophia go if he wasn't going?" "They need someone to watch him, so if I go and he doesn't, they'll make her stay no matter what she wants to do. And if I stay home, they aren't really gaining much by making her go." "Hmm..." the bedwetting itself wasn't a problem -- they would be sleeping on the basement floor and I had outgrown several sleeping bags from camping trips with my Dad and Uncle Jack that could be used by Amir and then thrown away if needed, but the prospect of public humiliation would keep him from going to the sleepover, and it didn't seem like there was any chance of following through on the plan for Sophia without him going. I thought for a moment, mentally reviewing everything I knew about bedwetting. Gradually, a solution occurred to me. "What if Amir wasn't the only one who wet himself?" "What do you mean?" "You know that prank you see on TV sometimes with the bowl of water? If you tell him ahead of time that you're going to pull that prank on all the boys, then he'll know that his `accident' will be attributed to the prank instead of the being blamed on him, and we'll arrange for at least one other guest to piss themselves too, so he won't be singled out." "It might work, but who are you going to find that's willing to piss their pants on purpose?" "You learn a lot about people's fetishes down by the creek." The watersports enthusiast I had in mind was Adam Fritz, a twelve-year-old who could be trusted to keep the chaos to the appropriate level and look out for Amir, and who had a brother, Austin, the same age as Amir. The three Sanderson boys and Wyatt Atkinson were invited with the rationalization that having people they'd already met there would make it easier for Matteo and Amir to mingle. Kevin Lehman and his brother Johnny (11) rounded out the guest list. Adam convinced Johnny to join in the bedwetting with the promise of a blowjob, and Austin with the promise of doing his chores for the week leading up to the sleepover. After finishing my phone calls, I went into town to pick up a copy of the Mountain Review. As the paper wasn't allowed in the house, I sat down on a park bench to scan it for relevant information. I found the article I was looking for on page six. "Sophia Farrelli, age 13, recently moved to the small town of Bartlett, North Carolina. While exploring the neighborhood she happened along a waterfall located on town-owned property that seemed like an inviting place for a swim. She had only been in the water for a few minutes when a group of boys chased her off, claiming that the location was barred to girls. The Mountain Review's examination of local ordinances finds no such law, but Ms. Farrelli and her father, attorney Benjamin Farrelli with the American Justice Alliance, plan to demand that the town formally acknowledge her right to equal access to public land, and provide appropriate supports to enforce it, at the next city council meeting Wednesday, June 9. If the town does not act, Mr. Farrelli plans to file a lawsuit alleging that his daughter is being discriminated against due to her sex." The article went on to provide the address of the town hall and a review of the legal precedents related to gender discrimination. I knew the bible-thumpers read the Review, because it's editorials frequently showed up in their sermons as the liberal elite's blueprint for undermining the family, enacting socialism, and so on. They would definitely see the article and would have the better part of three days to plan. I hurried to the town hall and put my name on the list for public comments, right under Sophia's. Sure enough, the council chambers were packed when the meeting came around. The public comment period was at the end of the meeting, which meant that the crowd had to sit through a regular meeting, and Mrs. Bucket's request for volunteers to staff the next Heritage Festival, before Sophia made her speech. I'll spare you the details; it was more or less the same as the Mountain Review article, with the gross factual inaccuracies omitted (She had not "only been in the water for a few minutes when a group of boys chased her off," as she had actually driven a half-dozen boys out of the water and left of her own accord after the promise of a free lunch). As she spoke, a group of grim-looking old women standing in the back of the chamber unfurled a banner that read "Shut down Sinnydip Creek." I'm fairly certain the omitted `k' was intentional. There were no questions or cross-examinations during public comments, so I took the podium as soon as Sophia sat down. For the occasion, I'd worn a blazer and tie, although I stayed barefoot, and prepared a speech with some help from Uncle Jack to tee up the defense he was planning. It started by explaining how I had met Sophia. "I was some distance from the waterfall when I heard a commotion and several boys I recognized came running up to tell me there was a girl at the waterfall. This surprised me because the waterfall is reserved by local custom for the use of adolescent and preadolescent boys with the public purpose of permitting nude bathing and other activities which are not in and of themselves illegal but would be inappropriate or disruptive in a fully public setting while protecting the boys from voyeurism..." Before I could continue someone heckled me from the back row. "He's a faggot!" I recognized the voice as belonging to Ray Cobb. Ironically, Ray had a reputation for being sexually aggressive with younger boys when he was at the creek, and I'd had an unpleasant experience with him myself a couple of years before. Hearing his voice rattled me, and I finished my prepared speech, once Mayor Atkinson had ejected Ray and the protestors, with much less confidence. "...Upon arriving at the waterfall, I met Sophia and spoke with her while attempting to cover myself the best I could under the circumstances. When she said that she was new in town, I surmised that she had simply been ignorant of the local custom and had not intended to cause any harm. I explained the reason the creek was reserved for boys, which she thought was unfair, but she agreed to leave with me. After that, I showed her around town, and we spent most of the rest of the day at my house." I thought I'd done pretty well, all things considered. I'd told the truth and nothing but the truth, if not exactly the whole truth, and it would stand in the record as a corrective to the Review's factual inaccuracies regardless of how the situation at the creek turned out. Mayor Atkinson dismissed me with an ostentatious apology for "the rude behavior of certain people," and I took my seat with my parents, both of whom looked worried. "Are you all right?" Mom whispered. "Yes." They were still clearly bothered when the meeting had finally ended, after what felt like hours of testimony from boys explaining that the creek provided an alternative to less wholesome forms of entertainment like shoplifting or graffiti, girls swearing that they did not feel in any way oppressed or discriminated against by not being allowed there, and fundamentalists making pointed references to Adam and Eve and making a range of wild allegations, of which I estimated about half to be true (it may surprise the Baptists to know that Bartlett's miniscule population of Satanists prefer to conduct their rituals in a local cemetery where they don't have to compete for space with 20-30 boys who, if Adam Fritz is around, might literally be in the middle of a pissing contest). "Do you know that boy?" Mom asked once we got to the car. "Ray? Yeah, I know him from the creek, actually." I proceeded to tell them about the incident with Ray a couple of years ago. Mom gritted her teeth, and dad looked back at me sadly. "That's something just about everyone has to go through sooner or later, bud. It sounds like you handled it well."