The summer he turned ten was full of (confusing) adventures for Eli Kent.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler or read on.
This is kind of two stories, but I feel like they’re related.
I’m not a good swimmer; never have been. I’m not fit or coordinated. My right leg is shorter than my left, so I tend to veer off to the right if I do lanes. Not that I ever try.
When I was a kid, I was especially bad. I’d been sent to lessons, but I’m very lazy, so I didn’t pick up much.One summer when I was 10, the holidays were coming up and my mum suddenly got really paranoid that if I played in the waves at all I would drown instantly. So she dragged me along to the Boys and Girls Institute in Wellington and I remember standing with my head at the height of the reception desk, as she explained to an instructor, at great length, just how inept I was at swimming.
“No, you really don’t understand, he’s not good at all. He has no idea what he’s doing out there. I mean really, you can’t underestimate how little he knows. He can’t even doggy paddle.”
“No, you really don’t understand, he’s not good at all. He has no idea what he’s doing out there. I mean really, you can’t underestimate how little he knows. He can’t even doggy paddle.”
So we booked the lesson, and the day came around and she dropped me off at the BGI. She didn’t follow me inside, just left me with one of the instructors. The instructor looked at me, confused, and then adopted a strange kind of cheery façade, as if he was talking to a baby. “Okay mate! You’re in the Starfish today, follow me!”
He took me through into the area with the swimming pools, past the big pool, past the medium pool, past all the other kids my age who I can only assume were the Dolphins or the Sharks or something, into a back room with a two foot deep pool that was filled to the brim with toddlers.
The instructor, who I was quickly beginning to realize must have been under the assumption that I suffered from some sort of mental disability, handed me off to another instructor who had no idea what to do with me. She told me to get into the water. I did; it came up to my waist. I was ten years old, but the other kids around me had only just learnt to walk.
And instead of acknowledging that I wasn’t supposed to be there the instructor just panicked and continued on with the session. The first exercise of which was to sit on a small plastic chair so we could get used to having our heads under water.
She went down the line, holding the little kids’ hands as they each sat down on the chair in turn. Most of them cried. Then finally she got to me. And again, instead of calling my mum or just drowning me right there and then to put me out of my misery, she took hold of my hand and she made me sit.
And the water came up to my nipples.
***
The second story takes place that same summer. I think. Although memory can be tricky like that. I know I’m also ten in this memory. But maybe I’m ten in all my memories because I can’t imagine being younger than that.
My family used to go to this place called Blue Bay Motor Camp in Mahia. It was a huge campground sitting in the shade of a bunch of pine trees, right by the beach. It’s not there anymore. Some property developer bought it and turned it into subdivisions which have never been used. They built one house apparently and some locals burned it down. So now it just sits there gathering debt. But that’s another story.
We used to organise to go there with family friends and together we’d form a kind of tent village, all situated around a central community hub, where we would cook together and eat together. At night all us kids would play 'Spotlight' together.
Of the kids who were around my age, there was George, and his younger brother Henry. Then from another family: Tom, a year older, and his younger brother Ben. George and Henry had an older brother, Jack, and Tom and Ben had an older brother Jake. But they were in their mid teens and would hang out with my sister and whatever friend she’d chosen to bring along. On this holiday she’d brought along her boyfriend Nick, who was into Jimi Hendrix and, to the awe of us younger kids, could play the guitar with his teeth.
On this holiday she’d brought along her boyfriend Nick, who was into Jimi Hendrix and, to the awe of us younger kids, could play the guitar with his teeth.
Anyway, so George, Henry, Tom, Ben and I decided to build a driftwood fort in the valley of two sand dunes. We didn’t spend long doing it, and I don’t think we were hugely invested in the endeavor. But our blood began to boil when the next day we discovered that another bunch of boys had built a similar fort in the valley right next to ours, and that to do so they had borrowed some key pieces from our fort, thus compromising its structural integrity.
This was not acceptable, and we swiftly confronted them about it. The most striking thing I remember about this other group of boys is how much we were counterparts of each other. Like the Psycho Rangers to the Power Rangers or the Rowdy Ruff Boys to the Power Puff Girls. There were exactly five in each group, and age wise and personality-wise we all seemed to have an exact nemesis who we zeroed in on. Maybe that was how everyone was seeing things, or maybe I was filtering it all through a haze of morning cartoons.
My nemesis was I guy that I’m going to call Kyle, who in my memory is wearing a red bandana for some reason, like Josh Brolin in The Goonies. After a brief initial stand-off it was agreed between both groups that a fight over our territory was going to take place. We were to retreat, gather weapons, make plans, then meet at the same spot in an hour for bloodshed.
Our team set about finding the best sticks we could find for optimal melee combat. Some of us went for the heavy log wielding fighting style, others were drawn to the double handed, short sharp driftwood approach.
Then one of the younger boys had the idea that we should wrangle the older brothers and my sister’s guitar-playing boyfriend to give us the upper hand. I was less into this idea, as I had convinced myself that we were the good team and that we needed to go up against, at the very most, equal odds in order to deserve our inevitable victory. But the group were in agreement. Clearly the others cared more about winning than good storytelling. So we went to enlist the help of three fifteen-year-old stoners, like Gandalf with those stupid eagles in The Hobbit.
The big kids were keen to help. Watching a bunch of 6-10 year olds wage war against each other, I imagine, sounded like the perfect afternoon’s entertainment.
So with our now, sizeable gang of warriors, we met our foes once more atop the sand dune separating the two forts. It was tense. The sun was high in the sky, and as we squared off, each of us positioning ourselves adjacent to our evil counterpart, it became quickly apparent that nobody knew exactly how to start a fight. So we just stood there, trying to kind of find a reason to start hitting each other. We hurled insults back and forth, as if some impulse in us was aware that in order to come to blows we would need to make ourselves pissed off enough.
If I’d read much at all at that point in my life I might have tried to remember how they did it in Lord of The Flies. Looking back now, comparing my own experiences to those of the kids in that book, I do wonder whether savagery would really come that easily to a bunch of prepubescent middle-class school boys.
Nonetheless, tensions were rising, and it seemed like some kind of breaking point was imminent. This is where the older boys started to get nervous. Through the fog of their dope induced ambivalent attitude, some inkling of responsibility began to take hold. They began to wonder if it really would be fun to watch a bunch of little kids beat the shit out of each other and if they might actually be held accountable in some way in the future, for their failure to intervene.
So, to my frustration, they began brokering peace between the two tribes. They started saying things like “Hey guys, maybe we should chill out, ay,” and “Let’s just have fun.” This is not what I wanted. This is not what they were called upon to do. They were supposed to stomp in, leaving a wake of destruction behind them. If we’d known they were going to try and get us to make friends we would never have asked them to come.
I could feel my tribe members’ taste for battle beginning to dull. The other tribe as well, were beginning to seem less enthused at the concept of a few bruises. Then Nick, my sister's boyfriend, asked us all why exactly we wanted to fight. Everyone tried to come up with valid accusations against the other team that might warrant violence, but they were stumbling over their words. It was all starting to seem so pointless. I was growing desperate. Something needed to happen soon or nothing would.
And just my luck, my counterpart, my nega-twin, Kyle, started to creep to the side, as if going for a sneak attack, trying to attack my flank…
The feeling of crossing into danger is the same as running from hot sand into cold water. You have to commit to it fully. There is no halfway. I saw my opening. I seized the moment. I grappled him, twisted him around and before anyone knew what the hell was happening I was on top of him, pushing his face down into the sand. I was surprised at how easy it was. He was quite surprised too, I think. Looking back, he may have just been adjusting his footing.
I thought that with this one audacious act, I had shattered civilization. But after about ten seconds of me furiously grinding this kid’s face into the sand, I heard somebody call my name and I looked up to see everyone else staring at me.
I had assumed, hoped, that this would be the moment that the front line would break and the carnage would commence, that the others, like me, had just been waiting for an excuse. I thought that with this one audacious act, I had shattered civilization. But after about ten seconds of me furiously grinding this kid’s face into the sand, I heard somebody call my name and I looked up to see everyone else staring at me.
Nobody had moved. Everybody looked pretty bewildered. George said “Eli, what are you doing?” I didn’t have an answer. I climbed off Kyle and he staggered to rejoin his friends. He looked rattled, sand still clinging to his face. I felt cheated. Everyone was looking at me like I was the one who’d killed the mood.
No friends were made that day. No enemies either. There was no victory or defeat. There was tinned spaghetti for lunch and, later on, beach cricket. And of course lots of swimming, as long as a big kid was watching and I remembered at all times not to let myself go too deep.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Rhianna McCormick-Burns
This content is brought to you with funding support from NZ On Air.