Camp

By Antonio Milton

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2

Prologue 3

Chapter 1: Outside 5

Chapter 2: Freaks and Geeks 13

Chapter 3: Heartbeat 20

Chapter 4: All The Shine 30

Prologue

It’s just glorious, the smells, the sounds, and the beauty of summer. I had no plans, no work and no worries. It seemed to me like school was never my thing. It wasn’t like when I was at my old school in, where I was lost and confused, and mostly, acted like a little kid. My family was from well, the hood or the ghetto, you could say. Whichever way you put it, I don’t care. I was born at in Nevada, but I was raised here. And where is here, exactly? Stone Mountain, Georgia. I go to a mostly white school, and I really hate it there, I hate it here. I hate it everywhere, because I can’t run from it, and I can’t hide from it. I was born black.

I remember one day going up to my mom and saying;

“Mommy, I want to be just like him.” And I would point.

My mom would answer, “Marcus, you’re just fine the way you are.”

I never believed her. I always wanted to be white or at least invisible. I love how my mom never told I was perfect, and neither did my teachers, or my so-called “friends”. I reality, they were only my friends because I was stuck with them every day in school. I hated them. They made fun of my clothes and always wanted to touch my hair. I made no sense to me. Why did a bunch of white men burn down our school library when I was 5? Why do I never get see my Dad until he comes home at 1:00 in the morning after working three jobs so they don’t turn the lights off?

Sometimes I wish people would just let go and forget it. I never wanted to be hated, and I never wanted to be stuck in the south. I had no friends, at least no real ones. My “friends” were either one of two things, they were either rich stuck up kids or drug dealers.

I just wish that I could have some of my family back. I’ve had 2 uncles that were murdered in the streets and died like dogs in Atlanta. I saw one get shot right in front of me.

I forgive and I forget, at least I try to. My life is a little hard to explain, I guess I’ll explain it in pieces. This is the part that I actually started to first learn about the world, the time I went to summer camp. The first time I really opened my eyes to the world. The time I met her.

Chapter 1

Outside

For as long as I could remember, every day, As usual, my alarm goes off at 6:00 in the morning. I drag myself out of bed and open curtains to see the same, breathtaking sight a view every day, a musty brick wall of the building next door. I open the window to smell the nasty, foul smells that oscillate in from the alleyway below.

“Oh great.” I mutter to myself as I find out that the water’s been turned off.

I go to the couch and shake my dad over and over to get him to wake up, he’s late for work. After I give up trying, I notice the 2 six packs of beer sitting in the corner and realized that there were at least a dozen bottles on the floor.

The first day of summer was turning out to be great, and it ended even better. My father was fading in and out of consciousness for hours. Every time he woke I told him he was late, and then he hurried to the bedroom to get clothes on, only to pass out on the bed two minutes later. And then he would wake up and I’d tell him again, only that he’d pass out on the couch when putting on his shoes.

It was kind of funny actually, little did I know that my dad