I have a feeling there’s this magical state of obliviousness that is the place of existence for any small boy.  It’s the place where he hones his skills of distraction and restlessness; that special place that allows him to beg for food without shame, or urinate on or around the toilet without developing hangups or irritating quirks, or take apart the television, for example, without a single ounce of concern for the future.  Obliviousness leads to couch cushion forts and broken panes of glass, lost coats, and uncombed hair.  It’s well-known that the small boy will often discover his own genitalia while in this state of obliviousness.  Penicillin is the result of obliviousness, as are America, the art of tattooing (I think), the wheelless lawn mower, the need to invent prosthetic limbs, and oddly enough, chewing gum.

If you ask me, obliviousness in a boy is perhaps the most important step in his mental development, because without obliviousness, where would any boy be?  More importantly, where would any boy end up?  You can teach any creature mathematics or the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street.  I’ve seen horses pound out simple addition problems with their hooves and birds deliver a stack of mail to their proud owners, the bills pinched tightly in their eager beaks.  But I’ve not once, without exception, ever been witness to a single man surviving much beyond boyhood without the skill of obliviousness.  A man must know how to mentally divide himself if he is to survive the long, grueling years of existence that await him as an adult.

Life is the fine line he walks, strung like a cable between the peaks of two tall buildings.  The air feels fresh but most of what he sees is a blur.  His obliviousness is just the stick he holds onto as he tries to cross, hoping to keep his balance, his toes gripping the cable as the sweat drips from his nose.

One time Imaginary Keith was in charge of the children.  Whole droves of them, running around crazy like wild horses, and it was Imaginary Keith’s job to round them all up somehow.  Wrangle the children it might have said on the job description, although I’m sure that’s not what it said, but rather some nonsense about how rewarding a time it would be for any young man to spend a summer or two in the exciting and challenging field of camp counseling.  Yes, thinking back, I’m almost sure the brochure never mentioned the wrangling of children, but this was long before Imaginary Keith even knew much about children, and so he was easily persuaded by the glossy literature and the promise of free room and board.

“It sounds kind of like joining the Army,” he remembers telling someone who was also standing there in front of the job fair recruiting table for the camp.  “Only without the commitment or the chance of war.”

But like I said, this was long before Imaginary Keith even faintly understood the workings of children, and without another thought, he grabbed a pen and signed up for the adventure, right there on the spot, while his rather empty, twenty year old head, which was itself unfamiliar with the concept of impending doom, listened quietly to the steady beat of a distant war drum.

So Imaginary Keith was put in charge of the children, every single one of them.  Boys and girls, big ones and little ones, smart ones and dumb ones, it was just like in the Oscar Meyer wiener song, he thought.  As a matter of fact, there were so many kinds of kids running around that it was a bit overwhelming at times, and it was then that he realized that the Oscar Meyer wiener song was really a little oversimplified.  In the days approaching camp, he’d imagined all the kids having sort of the same face, sitting there quietly listening to him as he told them what to do.  I imagine he thought there’d be a list of things for the kids to do, and that they’d just run up and read the list all on their own, and then run off and do whatever the list said, and he’d just sort of follow them around and keep an eye on things.  There’s really no telling what Imaginary Keith thought he’d be doing, I can tell you that.  Whatever thoughts were going through his head more then twenty years ago have long since disappeared.  We’re lucky these days if he can tell us about yesterday with any degree of accuracy.  Twenty years is simply out of the question.

So like I said, Imaginary Keith was put in charge of the children, and spent an entire summer running around after them, chasing them across open fields and around bunk houses and crowded dining halls.  There seemed to be no end to the chasing, and it sometimes felt like he was chasing these kids halfway across Oklahoma and back again, which is where this particular place happened to be.  And because it was Oklahoma, they’d sometimes spot a tornado, off somewhere in the distance, and then he’d have to start chasing the kids all over again, because believe it or not, a bunch of wild children off at summer camp really have no sense at all and will run straight off into a tornado if you let them.  So Imaginary Keith would have to get up and run around outside by the tornado, trying to round up the kids without any sense, which like I’ve said, is most of them.

Now, here’s the funny thing.  It always sounded to me like my friend just wasn’t that good at rounding up these kids.  The way he tells it, they were always escaping and sneaking off somewhere and either laughing or shrieking or screaming about something, and there he was, hot on their heels, chasing after them.  It always sounded to me like any other job he’s ever had, and that he was always one step behind, trying to catch up.  But then, maybe I’m wrong, because when the summer finally ended, and Imaginary Keith stopped chasing those kids all across Oklahoma and back, the people suddenly started lining up in an effort to give Imaginary Keith things.  After all that time, they wanted to give my friend something so they wouldn’t be forgotten, and so they lined up, and one by one, began to hand him things.

There were a couple of people from Texas who thought that Imaginary Keith should chase their two kids around full time, and so they handed him the opportunity to work for them.  Pack your bags, son, because you’re coming to Texas, they said, waving money around and promising him more of that irresistible free room and board.  But Imaginary Keith, for whatever reason he now can’t remember, told them no.  Maybe he’d chased their kids around quite enough, or maybe he just didn’t like their kids, or maybe he just didn’t like the idea of being stuck in Texas with a couple of other people’s kids, one at each hip like a couple of six-shooters.  Whatever he was thinking is long gone, but we do know that he never took the job.

There was a girl who gave him a small notebook of poetry that she’d written, although if you asked him now, he would be forced to shamefully admit that not only does he not remember the girl’s name, but that he somehow managed to lose the notebook of poems many, many years ago.  It’s a pity, really, for anyone to hand over something special to Imaginary Keith thinking he will treasure it next to his heart for all eternity. 

And there was this other girl who didn’t write poems, but instead took a vow to lose her virginity to Imaginary Keith, which really caused quite a stir at the small camp and got everyone at the camp running around faster then ever before, even the other counselors and the owners of the camp.  I don’t know how it is now in Oklahoma, but back then, when some teenage girl started talking about vows and losing her virginity, it wasn’t just some down home production of Oklahoma where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains and everyone ends up going for a nice buggy ride.  No siree.  Back then, everyone got bent out of shape and called a meeting in the mess hall to see if, in fact, they could talk about a penis without ever actually having to say the word.  It was, perhaps, the only time in Imaginary Keith’s life where a whole room full of people were actually thinking about his sex life all at the same time.  It’s unfortunate, really, that it had to be such a stressful event.

But no, Imaginary Keith assured those in the room that just like the job in Texas, he had refused the girl’s gift, choosing instead to remember the young woman for her beautiful, willing spirit.  I don’t think those were his exact words, but close enough.  Anyway, the whole thing really is something, looking back on it, because although Imaginary Keith can’t remember, I would bet anything that he thought this would simply be the first of many girls who would vow their virginity to him, and that all he had to do was wait for a more opportune time to collect.  I would bet that he thought the girls would just keep lining up, one right after another with their vows and promises, right up until the day he died.  But I can pretty much tell you that’s not the way it ever happens, not for Imaginary Keith anyway, and not for any man that I’ve ever met.  But try telling that to a young, twenty year old man who’s just had the good sense to walk away from a willing teenage girl.  Come to think of it, try telling anything to a young, twenty year old man.

But there were all sorts of things handed to Imaginary Keith that summer that he will never forget - images in his head of kids playing capture the flag on the gentle slope of grass that led away from the bunk houses, the sound of the dinner bell ringing without fail three times a day, the wide-eyed look of kids sitting around an open fire at night.  He’ll never forget the cowboy boot sticking out of the ground at the mock grave, or the old, frayed noose still hanging in a nearby tree to help him along with the well-rehearsed horror story.  And many a night, even still, I sometimes see Imaginary Keith looking up at the stars, and I know he is thinking about the conversation he had with a boy who was not so unlike himself, when he was a boy, and how the boy described to him what it felt like to be considered crazy by your own parents and forced to see therapist after therapist in the hope that you would one day be cured.  Cured of what, Imaginary Keith couldn’t imagine, because to him, the boy had seemed fine, dreaming of stars and girls and the life that waited for him at the end of his childhood.

Other things were given him that summer.  More things really, then he sometimes cares to remember, because after all, it was only one short summer of his life, and if you spend all your time thinking about one summer, you end up losing track of all the rest, and by the end of your life, you find yourself thinking back on everything that has ever happened to you, and it starts to feel like you’re chasing those kids all over again, chasing them not only around Oklahoma, but this time around an entire lifetime.  And this time, because there is so much space, you realize there is no hope of ever rounding them all up.