The Highs and the Lows

There was no staff meeting, as was the custom for Wednesday mornings.  So once again, there was no unified communication among the staff about the status of the situation with Brandon.  As part of the Super Wednesday activities, I arranged with Autumn and Slip to combine our cabins to complete low ropes elements together.  I deliberately made sure that Brandon was not in the same group as Katie, in an attempt to minimize the distraction level, but this placed him in the group with Nicole, the other female sportsman camper.  That is the group that Autumn and I took up to my favorite low ropes element, the Triple-T.  Much of that event relates to the buildup of ideas, and since Nicole had done it a few weeks earlier, I limited her participation for the first half hour or so, so that the rest of the group would have the opportunity to make some of these discoveries on their own.  Brandon was not much of a team player through all of this, and only participated at my direct request.  He repeatedly asked to go get a drink of water from down at the picnic tables, which I repeatedly refused, for a variety of reasons.  After fifteen minutes of this, I could tell that I was reaching the limit of his patience, so finally let him go.  Within a few seconds of him heading down the hill, Autumn insisted that she should follow him, against my recommendation.  I continued to facilitate the event while she disappeared after him.

She was gone for a good ten minutes, and when she returned, she pulled me aside.  “By the way, do you know he has a knife?”

“WHAT?”  That one caught me a bit more by surprise.

“Well, like a razor blade, or a knife, or something.  He has been scraping his wrists with it.”

“I saw the marks, but I didn’t realize they were that fresh,” I replied, while also remembering the heart carved into his arm, which had been a point of discussion on Monday night.  I should have known he would have something like that.  And to think that I had stripped all six knives out of my luggage and put them in the kitchen on Monday night, just so there would be no weapons of any sort accessible to him.  Also, I am usually really good at identifying when a camper has something they shouldn’t, with shells from the 22 range being my favorite thing to confiscate.

Brandon returned a few minutes later, without mentioning anything that had happened down at the picnic tables, and we continued the event.  At different times Brandon and a few others got into very heated debates about how to best complete the event, but he was not necessarily the instigator, and I thought it was good that he engaged with the group.  Eventually we finished and traded groups with Slip.  That part of the afternoon went without incident, although if I recall correctly, Brandon refused to participate on the Swing-To.  Once we had finished with the second group at the Triple-T, we regrouped and moved on to the high ropes elements.

Slip ran the Flying Squirrel, while Ashley belayed the Multi-line, and I was on the Catwalk.  This worked out well since I wanted to get my kids who had experienced difficulty on the Multi-line the day before, a chance to practice on a lower element.  I ran most everyone through once, and sent James and Mike up three or four times each over the next hour.  Brandon was only willing to do it if I let him go without a harness and belay rope.  I was learning in dealing with Brandon, that drawing a line and telling him to stay behind it would usually result in him immediately reaching over and tapping the other side, just to have crossed the line.  If on the other hand, I just pointed him in a given direction, after delaying just long enough to establish some level of control, he would usually do whatever I requested.  This was on of those few times were I clearly had to draw the line. I of course refused his request to go without a harness, and clearly told him not to climb anything without the proper safety and supervision.  After that, he behaved himself reasonably well, still occasionally offering those insightful comments about how thin the rope was to help boost the confidence of kids when they needed it the most, but I was able to put a damper on that as well.

All three cabins were intermingling at this point so he headed off to observe the other two events, while I dealt with belaying the Catwalk.  I had Mike Holmes up again, who was having some trouble, when Slip approached.

“BullsEye, I need to talk with you.”

“Alright, I am a little busy, what is it?”

He came closer, “It is kind of a sensitive issue.”

So I sent the rest of my guys over to the bench by the Multi-line, but could do nothing about Mike who was done with the Catwalk, but refusing to rappel down.  Slip talked quietly while I watched Mike, waiting for him to lean back, so I could let him down.

“Yes…go ahead.”

“Well, Brandon likes Nicole, and-.”  That hit me like a lightning strike.  A hundred different little incidents over the course of the week immediately flashed through my mind.  I realized my assumption from campfire about Katie had been incorrect, and that my ‘solution’ at low ropes had actually put Brandon in the same group as Nicole, upping the emotional level of those earlier ‘debates.’

“One of my guys Alan does too.”  Slip continued. “Now the two of them are being really aggressive with one another.”

“Does Alan realize that Brandon could probably kill him?”

“Well I separated them for the time being, but I figured that would be important for you to keep an eye on that.”

“Okay thanks, I will.”

“Oh, and we are getting ready to head up to Canteen pretty soon, are you almost done?”

“As soon as he comes down,” I responded, pointing up at Mike, “But just send my guys over here, and you can head out, I will catch up later.”

Autumn and Slip’s cabins took their time getting ready to leave, taking off their harnesses etc.  I had gotten Mike down from the Catwalk using another fairly creative method that I will refrain from going into detail about in writing, and was collecting my cabin’s gear before they had even left.  My guys had all been sent up to the Catwalk near me, and the other two cabins were down at the picnic tables collecting their belongings.

Right as I was taking off my harness, Brandon walked over to me and said, “If you will excuse me for a moment, I have to go kick someone’s a**.”

This seemed like another one of those times where I needed to clearly draw the line for him.  “Absolutely not, get back here, right now!”  That had absolutely no effect, so I headed off down the hill after him.  At this point I was taking a different approach, “You might want to stop and think about the consequences of what you are doing.  It might save you a lot of trouble in the very near future.”  I wasn’t yelling at him.  I could tell that he was shaking in rage again, and totally out of control.  I was only about ten feet behind him, so I was talking in a low voice, trying to diffuse the situation, instead of making a scene.  Regardless of attempts to keep things low key, the group below saw us as we approached, and they all scattered to get out of his way.  All that is, except Alan, who froze, sitting there, rooted to the picnic table.  Brandon reached him, grabbed him around the shoulders, and threw him onto the ground a few feet away.