As they came back in from the wild

   We walk through the darkness of the campground towards the voices and music. The sound of a very tinny radio echoing off the RVs. The insect rub their wings together in such a fever that the radio seems to fade out.
   There is a neon cooler on the edge of ring of the light from the campfire.     
   Kurt and me crouch down, in the brush and then lay on our bellies in the  dark as if playing soldier. The impression I got was that silence and stillness were rewarded by some . Talking in code, Kurt Norther says, "Delta alpha 1 nine you think much longer, copy?"
   I didn't respond. He’s just a little kid. A whole grade behind me.
   "10-4, Eagle eye what is your 20? Over." He says.
   "I don't think you know how this works." I say, annoyed.
   The adults go for a walk, wet bottles in their hands.  Short cut off jeans and feathered hair like head dresses. Leaving the radio, the dart board, the campfire, taking their cigarettes, their mustaches and hands and arms around each others waists. Do you know the way that women laugh late at night when they are far away from home? Neon tank tops and wine coolers, It was late. A summer moon was up there spinning like a quarter flung onto a glass top table.         
    “Maybe they went to the pool.”
   “The pool is closed and locked.”
   
    I  open up the cooler. There is a young girl, watching from the inside the window of the RV.
   "Dont take very many" She says in a soft southern voice.    
   “We won’t.”
   “What are you doing in there?” Kurt asks
   “Trying to sleep, but they are so loud. I’m glad they went away.”
   She was quiet while we tried to get the bottles open. Watching us try to twist the lids off like they were sodas.
   “You gotta use a bottle opener.” She said.
   “We knew that!” Kurt says. Then he snatches a garbage bag from a pile next to the picnic table and starts to pile four more bottles into the bag.
   "I watched you guys kill frogs against the wall, yesterday."
   "They were toads." I say.
   "I watched you kill toads..." She says.
   "Yeah. What of it?"
    "Nothing. Just that if you are gonna kill frogs, a good place to do it would be on top of the showers...you could throw them down through the skylight at these girls who gave me a bad time today at the pool."
     "A bad time?"
     "Older girls. They picked on me. Pulled my hair."
     "Maybe we'll pull your hair too." Kurt said.
     "I'm letting you take those beers. We're friends."
      "Sure." I said.
   "You should go up on the roof of the girl’s showers.  When they get back, you could throw frogs at them."
    “Why would we want to waste these frogs on girls?”
    “They are shitheads.” She said. “Real nasty shitheads. They deserve it.”
    “Go ahead, take as many beers as you want, and then go...get them, good.”
   

The field outside the showers was wet from the rain. Our pant legs soaked up to ankles. At our leisure we caught the toads that hopped between blades of grass beside the bachee ball pit. Put them in the same  plastic bag as the bottles of beer. It was nothing for us to catch toads, we could have done it professionally, been millionaires. If there was such a thing, professional toad catcher.

"look how They jump in the bag trying to get out"

"of course, wouldn't you?"

He gave me a look like, I had two heads, "how to hell would anybody find a plastic shopping bag big enough to fit me? I'm big for my age."

Then, we scaled the side of the building. Going from the picnic table up to lattice work. Onto the low roof. Up there you could see rows and rows of sleeping camp sights. Darkened RVs. Not even many stray fires to speak of. Weren’t these people on vacation?

I lived there.

They were on vacation and, damn, it looked like they were all asleep.

The summer moon is fat and full, and they slept faultlessly through it all.

Before too long,  those girls come walking across the stones in their flip flops. Their voices carrying. Idle banter.

They entered the bathroom and we looked down through the sky light with the light suddenly on. The black below us all white tile. I was conscious that I was looking down into heaven. Such a strange angle to be at, where you could look down into heaven.

            The girls undress.

Kurt messes around with the bag of frogs.

I shake my head at him. He doesn't get it. I say, "I think it'd be better just to watch."

"huh?"

"be quiet "

"I didn't catch all these fuckers for nothing. I'm throwing them"

"don't"

"why you scared, be a man."

He didn't get it

"be quiet"

Three of them. A blonde. Two brunettes.

One of them had hair between her legs.

Then the young flat blonde looked up why she washed her neck and caught a glimpse of us above the rafters. She dropped the soap, it skidded away on the tiles, we ducked for cover.

"we've been spotted."

Now two things happened simultaneously. The blonde was squawking down below. Yelling about weirdos watching on the roof. Her cries bounced off the sinks and toilets and spiraled up and out as if megaphones.  Kurt ran across the roof leaving the bag of toads and jumped down, twisting his ankle and then limping across the field  back to his campsite  two of the girls disappeared into the toilets, getting their clothes.

One girl remained. She stood there in the center of the shower, slowly washing her arms. Really suddsing up. Her eyes were wide and she looked up to where I still was, watching her. She didn't care.

Then she slowly turned around and started to wash behind her knees bending over, exposing herself.

I thought about it.

I thought, what could be bad about a girl like this?

Then the doors opened and out came the shy ones flapping their flip flops down the stone path and out into the road. Still in towels gripping their clothes to their breasts over plain white towels.

Wet hair stuck to their still wet backs.

They reminded me of horses, running hard into the darkness.

It went on like that. The girl spun around and washed her breasts, all the while looking up at me.

Then, when all the suds were gone and the steam was thick and her skin very hot pink, she took her eyes from me and shut off the water. Turned and casually walked away, out of my line of sight.

I looked back across the field. There was someone coming. An old woman. I moved to the other side of the roof. I dropped myself down onto the picnic table outside of the door where you went in to rent the canoes.

Then I crossed the field away from the campfires. Into the darkness of the pines. The fireflies would appear at random. Like odd moments.

Two things occurred to me crouching there.

First, what could be bad about a girl like that?

Then I thought about how I had forgotten all about the plastic bag of toads. They were still up there. There is a chance that thy are still up there, living up on the roof. Watching through the skylight at the bodies rinsing off the mud as they come back in from the wild.