The entire staff was fed up with Tim.  Him and his twin brother were both too old to be attending day camp, but since they lived in a development right next to the camp site, the local Rec Commission allowed them to attend anyway.  They had gone to the camp ever since they were little kids.  Now they were 13 year old menaces that bullied the other campers and caused problems with the college-aged staff, including me.

Tim and his brother were supposed to be helping us out as some sort of “junior counselor”, but it wasn’t working. And as the summer wore on, frustration was running high among us counselors.  It was also hot, which didn’t help.

Everything came to a head one August afternoon when Tim was blatantly disregarding our camp rules during my archery group activity.  We were shooting live arrows at a target- the rules were in place for good reason! But Tim thought rules didn’t apply to him, so he did what he wanted, putting both himself and the school-age campers in danger.

As I said, it was late in the summer and us counselors had been trying to deal with this all season.  This was an even dumber stunt than Tim usually pulled, so I yelled at him and told him to get out of the archery area.

Tim’s response to me escalated things to a place I didn’t know existed.

“Fuck off Fulginiti.”

He left as I told him too, but I was angered by the disrespect.  I didn’t have any good options as far as responding, so I made a mental note to tell John, our camp director. We met later that day in the barn, which served as our camp base.

And that’s where things got interesting.

“Hey John- Tim was acting like an asshole during archery today.  I told him to get out, and he told me to fuck off.”

“What?!”  John looked pissed. He was sick of Tim too.  “You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

“In front of the campers too?”

“Yep.”

“Come with me.”

I followed John through the barn, past the camper lunch tables, out the back door and onto the patio.  The campers were having free time so they were running all around the area having fun.

From the back patio, John yelled as only he could.  “BRING ME TIM PRICE.”

Within minutes, Tim emerged from the nearby wooded area of the grounds with a few campers who had gone in and tracked him down.  He approached John with his usual punk-ish attitude.

“What.” He said it almost like he was challenging John to a fist fight.

“Come with me.”, John said.

I stayed on the patio as the two moved inside, thinking John would take things from here.

“You too.”, John said pointing at me.

So I followed them both in through the barn’s back door to the old bathroom.  Campers weren’t allowed in the old bathroom because it had been out of service for years.  It had a rustic feel, with its stone walls and wooden ceiling, but basically it was just a very dirty room with a broken toilet.  

We went in.  John stood with his face squarely in front of Tim’s and asked him one question.

“Did you tell my counselor to fuck off?”

Tim was silent, so John asked him again, very slowly.

“Did you tell my counselor to fuck off?”

The next few seconds went like a flash of lightning.  Before Tim could finish the word “yes”, John had spun him around, pinned his hands behind his back, and forced his head down into the bowl of the broken toilet. 

It was like something out of a movie.  

Tim’s tough-guy persona was shattered as he stood quivering in the position he was forced in to.

“Don’t you ever disrespect my counselors like that again.” John growled. “You’re going to apologize.  Then your going to stop acting like a dick at my camp.  And if I hear about you pulling any more bullshit this summer, you’re fucking done. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” Tim’s answer came weakly out of the toilet bowl.

Letting him up, John said “Do it.”

Tim was shaking as he turned to me and apologized, with tears in his eyes.  I was shocked at what I had just witnessed. 

I don’t know how the campers found out what happened in the old bathroom, but they did.  Tim’s tough guy image vanished for the rest of the summer as he was teased relentlessly by the kids he used to bully.  Karma’s a bitch sometimes.

Of course I knew that John’s tactics were totally unacceptable and unprofessional, but the thought of reporting the incident never crossed my mind.  I’m not saying I thought about reporting it and decided not to, I mean the idea of reporting it actually never entered my brain.  

As stunning as that scene was when it took place back in the late 1980’s, it hits that much harder now, in today’s climate of soft student discipline and school environments that enable student misbehavior.  

It’s difficult for me to judge John’s actions.  On the one hand, as I mentioned, they were clearly inappropriate, wildly unprofessional, and possibly illegal.  On the other hand, John met the bully where he was, in a language Tim understood, and delivered his message effectively. 

All I know for sure is that it was the most memorable day of camp ever.

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