Ready for Another Big Day

I got up at six-thirty to take a shower, and stepped over Mouth who was fast asleep on the porch.  I finished up and was headed into the kitchen just after seven, for our seven-fifteen staff meeting.  Rocky and Max showed up from the duplexes right on time, and we began the meeting.  When the subject of Brandon came up, I told everyone that I had had a lot of trouble with him, and that Kevin was coming up later in the morning, and that we were going to discuss with him what should be done.  Since I expected Brandon to be headed home, it didn’t seem necessary to go into detail about what happened, or how everyone else should deal with him.  As it turned out, Kevin did show up during breakfast, but to deal with something else, with Rocky, so they disappeared, and the Brandon issue went unresolved as we headed off to morning Gazebo.  Both Paladin and I were acutely aware that my cabin was assigned to go to the rifle range right after lunch.  I pointed out to Paladin that he shouldn’t need Kevin’s permission to deny Brandon access to a gun, if it came down to that.  Regardless, we of course wanted a decision like that to come from, and be communicated to Brandon, by someone higher up the chain of command.

Right as we were finishing the morning Bible sermon by the Canteen, Rocky finally showed up, with Kevin driving up a few moments later.  Rocky headed over to me, and explained to me that he and Kevin had decided that Brandon would be allowed to go to the 22 range, but would not be allowed to shoot, which seemed like a no-brainer.  Kevin was heading down to tell Brandon the same thing in person, right as the rest of the group was breaking up to head off to cabin huddles.  I could tell Brandon was beginning to get into a very angry rebellious state, and he started exhibiting some of the same behaviors he had shown the day before, when we had been having our ‘theological debate’ by the Canteen.  He refused to even turn around to look at Kevin, who had been approaching him from the rear of the group.  I was able to herd the other six guys in my cabin up into the archery range without them even noticing what was going on with Brandon.  So there I was, standing in the archery range shed, trying to teach my cabin about the Bible, while watching the stand off between Brandon and Kevin through the screen.  Needless to say it was a little distracting.  Kevin was standing about ten feet up the hill from him, obviously talking to him the entire time.  Rocky was standing a few feet away, seeing everything as well.  Jason’s cabin had begun to hold their Bible study at the table a few feet away, but within a few minutes, Rocky had directed them elsewhere, to give Kevin a little space.  Once it had gone on for a couple minutes, I figured that with the behavior being exemplified, and now that Rocky had seen the way the kid was, that they would deal with the situation, and I should no longer need to worry about it.

I moved a few feet to get out of sight, and began to focus on the task at had, the Tuesday morning Bible study.  A few minutes in, one of my campers pointed out that Brandon was missing, but I told him it was fine, I knew where he was.  We proceeded to have a discussion for the next half hour, until to my surprise, Brandon walked around the corner and sat down.

“Ahh…Welcome back”

“Yeah”

“Well, we were just reading James chapter two…” -And so the adventure continued.

When we finished and regrouped for activities, Rocky pulled me aside and told me the results of Brandon’s little talk.  He said that he and Kevin had prayed about it and they really wanted to keep him there because they thought it would be good for him.  They had told Brandon that he officially had a ‘G’ and if they heard anything but good things about him from me, he would be sent home.  Combining that with the events I had witnessed in the last hour, it seemed that we were putting up with a lot from him, and obviously tossing out the usual playbook of discipline for the sake of reaching him.