Shimon's Trial

W

hat’s there to say, camp was great, it was the time of our lives, it was borderline utopic. We were 15, we were punks, we were potheads, we were constantly trying to outdo each other: Benny’s pranks, Shimon’s jokes, my ability to hold a lungful of smoke for one, two, three utterly hilarious minutes. Friends since that moment during our first summer four years ago when Shimon pulled from his duffle bag a set of official Taj Mahal poker chips and taught us how to play Texas Hold’em. Our parents back in the city, our meals served to us in a massive wooden dining hall, the forests safe and green, the lake cold and deep. At night we would bunkhop to the girls’ cabin after getting high behind Arts and Crafts, we would laugh till we fell asleep, would be woken up by our counsellors in the blue freshness of morning ready to do it all again.

And then, Rich walked into the cabin as Shimon was putting the finishing touches on a massive joint and the summer screeched to a standstill. Rich waltzed through that door, and everything changed. They stared at each other, counsellor and camper, Rich wearing a Leafs jersey, a few days growth on his handsome, confident face, Shimon sporting a defiant smirk, the joint floating on his upturned fingers like a canoe on standing waves, everybody else silent onlookers. Rich swore under his breath, shook his head, walked out into the balmy night, and we snapped into action.

By the time Rich returned with Myra, the unit head, we were all sitting on our hastily tucked beds, model campers. Rich was only a few years older than us, we still remembered when he was a camper, as horrible a shit as any of us; Myra, though, with her head staff shirt and her walkie-talkie and her clipboard, Myra was fully adult. Rich was only borrowing the authority that Myra had with her at all times. In other words: this was serious.

“Myra! Come to say goodnight to your favourite cabin?” Shimon said.

Myra flashed a quick smile. “You know why I’m here,” she said, obviously not happy about it. She had us all get off our beds and Rich helped her search the cabin.

As they searched, the tension in the cabin taut enough to produce a musical note, a deep, bassy moan, Shimon kept talking. “What are you looking for? I can promise you there is no peanut butter here. Rich is just angry I beat him at basketball yesterday. Right? Right, Rich? No hard feelings, Rich, right? I’ll let you win, tomorrow, Rich, I swear.”

“Shimon, shut the fuck up,” Rich said, his face a clay mask of focus as he went through our toiletry bags hanging on hooks in the bathroom.

Even though they searched as thoroughly as they could, even though they unmade Shimon’s bed, tore through his toolbox and rifled through his clothes, there was no weed, no joint, no paraphernalia to be found. Not a single green crumb. Still, Rich was staff, and his word carried weight.

“Can you please come to the head office with us, Shimon,” Myra said, standing by the cabin’s door, a parent resigned to the unfortunate need for punishment. Shock went through us like an electric bolt. The bass note fractured into high-pitched screaming guitar bends.

I can still see Shimon’s face the moment he realized he was actually getting thrown out of camp: surprised eyes, half-smirking mouth, cheeks flushing of all colour. I had never—nor would ever again—see Shimon so powerless, so vulnerable as Myra held the door open for him and he walked out.

There were five weeks left of camp, 35 sun-drenched days and moon-spilled nights, and we weren’t going to waste a single one of them.

Did the fear and disbelief I was drenched in make it to my own face? With Shimon gone, who now to lead our merry gang? I had not known a single minute at Camp Burntshore without Shimon’s elastic confidence, his fearlessness with girls, his way of turning what we were thinking or doing into pithy little statements. The summer’s maw threatened to swallow us whole.

The last thing we heard Shimon say before he was out of hearing was, “Please, Myra, you don’t understand, my dad will kill me.”

But, murderous father or not, Camp Burntshore’s policy was clear: if you were caught with illegal substances, you were kicked out. Even without evidence; this wasn’t a courtroom, this was a private summer camp. Rich caught Shimon, so Shimon was booted. They packed him up and shipped him off that night. The next morning, in the rec hall, Myra, who would often visit our cabin at night and tell long creative stories with clear morals while we lay in our beds, half asleep, fully in love, gave our entire unit a speech about respecting the camp’s rules, about not throwing away the summer, about being content within the confines of the permissible. Some of the girls cried; we sat there, trying to neutralize our faces.

Heeding Myra, or perhaps just momentarily spooked, we stopped smoking for a couple of days, a short, bittersweet mourning period, before falling right back into it with deranged abandon. There were five weeks left of camp, 35 sun-drenched days and moon-spilled nights, and we weren’t going to waste a single one of them. The first thing we did was split Shimon’s weed, safe in a yogurt container behind a concrete pillar underneath the cabin that Shimon could access by hanging out the window, Benny holding his calves, up amongst ourselves. This is how he would’ve wanted it, we said, our throats sticky with anticipation.

Shimon was the first casualty that incandescent summer. We spoke of him often, repeating his best one-liners, wondered what he was doing in the city—Shimon wasn’t the letter-writing kind—pondered how hard his father, a large, serious, silent man we were all terrified of, took it. Yes, Shimon was the first casualty that summer, but there were others. I, somehow, made it out unscathed. Even though I was terrified of getting caught—a terror that I kept hidden, along with all my other swarming sensitivities—it was worth it to get high with the cabin, to laugh and exclaim through the smoke, the weed an additional adhesive in a summer already rife with bonding.

It seems like a lifetime ago. Our young, laughing faces.

We didn’t see Shimon again until the summer was over and we were back in Thornhill. We were at Benny’s house, punching bowls and playing video games, filling Shimon in on what he missed, the hook-ups and the scandals and the riotous debauchery, egging on Shimon’s elaborate threats to Rich’s life—“Rich is dead, he’s so fucking dead, that blistery-ass jock itch on a starving rat’s genitals, I’ll douse him in bug spray until the DEET burns his eyes out, I’ll shave him hairless and tie him to the high diving board until the sun fries him, I’ll cut off his dick with a saw—”, when word came that Benny’s camp girlfriend, Chloe, had some girls over, so we slid into our sweatshirts and shoes and walked 20 minutes through warm suburban night to her house. No one had warned us that a bunch of camp staff had stopped by Chloe’s place to say hello, and that Rich was among them.

But there they were. There he was.

That tense moment of silent appraisal between Shimon and Rich on Chloe’s driveway, I’ll never forget it. They were surrounded by a huddle of campers and staff, the lights above the garage imperfect spotlights illuminating the dark slanted asphalt. Rich was wearing an original Raptors jersey, was clean shaven, his hair freshly cut, had a four-inch long blunt smoking in his hand, his face serious with imploration, comical with it.

Rich, soft, apologetic: “I’m sorry Shimmy. I had no choice.”

Shimon, steel-eyed, fists clenching and unclenching: “Sure you did.”

The crowd shifted; they wanted a fight.

Rich, a little sad, a little tired, the blunt rising and falling along with his shrug: “I was staff. You were a camper. Do you know how much trouble I would have got in? I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t see you with that spliff.”

“Myra would have.” This was, and was not, true—earlier, we had told Shimon that Myra had seen us exiting the woods, red-eyed and furtive, on more than one occasion, but just waved hello and kept going. She never caught us in the act, or with any illicit substances on us, though.

Watching Shimon and Rich almost come to blows made me ready for a change, so, later, in Chloe’s backyard under massive beleafed oak trees, I sold the half ounce of hash to Benny for ten dollars, the kind of symbolic action I was obsessed with at the time.

Rich proffered the smoking blunt. A peace offering. “Look, I said I’m sorry. Here. Take this. We’re cool. I’m sure they’ll let you back next year. We’re cool, right?” Shimon grabbed the blunt, puffed the cherry into burning, cratered life. The other staff wandered off.

“The craziest part about all this?” Rich said, his relieved face teetering toward mirth, “I was baked when I came to the cabin that night! I was looking for candy.” I could barely see Shimon’s face behind the white smoke of the blunt, but all of a sudden, the tension that had just left his body jerked back into him. He handed Rich the spliff, shook his head, and walked off.

That was the same night I sold Benny the brick of blond hash that had been mellowing in my parents’ basement freezer over the summer. As happened every so often in my teenage years, I had decided to stop smoking weed: I needed to clear my head, needed to be a bit less paranoid, a bit less sensitive. Watching Shimon and Rich almost come to blows made me ready for a change, so, later, in Chloe’s backyard under massive beleafed oak trees, I sold the half ounce of hash to Benny for ten dollars, the kind of symbolic action I was obsessed with at the time. Benny, dancing around with excitement, hugging me, humping one of the oak trees.

It must have been late fall when Shimon called me; I remember the cold rain, the streets plastered with leaves, the smell of woodsmoke. I hadn’t seen him much since I started my weed hiatus, though that familiar tingling sensation to resume smoking had returned, so I was excited to hear his voice on the phone, took it as a harbinger of coming stoned times. But it wasn’t a session he was calling to arrange: Shimon’s dad was suing the camp for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract, was claiming that not only did Shimon not have cannabis with him, but that Shimon did not, and never had, smoked marijuana. A claim for which they needed proof, corroboration. Witnesses.

“The camp is supporting Rich, that walking tumour, so we need an ironclad case against him.” Shimon was talking fast, barely pausing between words. “Our lawyer says we need at least two witnesses. Benny’s already in. You’ll do it, right man? It was ridiculous. I was persecuted. I didn’t have anything on me. I never touch the stuff! They booted me without any evidence. Besides, we all know Rich himself smokes weed at camp, that fucking weasel. You were there when he admitted it!” I couldn’t tell if Shimon was being serious. Did he know he was lying, or did he honestly believe that he hadn’t had any weed at camp, that he wasn’t the most accomplished pothead I knew? Was his dad standing right there, listening?

I didn’t say anything of substance that first phone call, just grunts of agreement and repeated I don’t know, man. Visions of Shimon in Benny’s treehouse, hitting a six-foot orange bong that Benny and I lit from the ground, Shimon and I in the backseat of a drug dealer’s car, Shimon joking through the terror to close the deal, Shimon holding court outside the mall to the rhythm of joints, lighters, coughs, laughter.

It was weed that doubtless cemented our friendship; the first time I smoked was the day after our first summer at camp, with weed Shimon stole from one of his brothers. And now it was weed that had brought us to this moment.

That night, I tossed and turned, wracked with guilt for something I hadn’t done. Hadn’t yet done. Hadn’t yet not done. I had never had a friend like Shimon before, not at camp and especially not at school; I wanted desperately to stay in his good graces. Shimon’s friendship had helped me level up as a teenager, and I did not want to lose that modest yet hard-earned perch. The first time I ate dinner at his house, I was shocked. I hadn’t yet realized families could be so functionally different. Shimon’s dad got the first portion, and then it was a free-for-all among the four brothers. You ate as fast and greedily as you could. Shimon’s mom made enough, but it was always just enough. Why didn’t she just make more? One of many lessons in supply-and-demand I learned at Shimon’s side.

It was weed that doubtless cemented our friendship; the first time I smoked was the day after our first summer at camp, with weed Shimon stole from one of his brothers. And now it was weed that had brought us to this moment. I wanted to say yes, to put myself on the line for him, but didn’t think I could go through with it. The fear that rose up when I thought about it was like car exhaust in a closed garage.

After the second time Shimon called, I met up with Benny at the mall. I had heard that Benny and Chloe were selling the hash I had sold him in the summer for peanuts all over Toronto for 20 dollars a half gram. Though I never expressly said it was only Benny’s to smoke, not sell, it had seemed obvious to me—I had basically given it to him for free, an act of friendship, and now he was making a profit off of it? I knew I would never say anything about it to Benny, but I didn’t, and never would, see him the same way. We bought muffins and ate them near the fountain, pennies and nickels and dimes shimmering under the water.

“Shimon’s hurt,” Benny said, crumbs falling out of his mouth as, in his jeaned lap, he folded an intricate little canoe out of the muffin wrapper. “He thought you had his back.” Benny placed the wrapper boat into the fountain, and gently pushed it off.

“I did. I do. It’s just … ”

“It’s just what?” Benny asked, watching his boat get pummelled by the fountain spray, go under.

“I don’t want to lie for him.”

Benny nodded, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Dude, I get it. Trust me. But, what is the truth? They didn’t find anything on him. The cabin was clean. That’s enough of the truth, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” I had barely touched my muffin.

The main business concluded, Benny went on to complain about Shimon, who was obsessed with the trial, would talk about nothing else. I remained noncommittal, left the mall feeling like shit.

Why was I so afraid? Was it the fear of lying? The fear of getting caught? The fear of going against Camp Burntshore, easily my favourite locale on the planet? Or was I just terrified of being involved so nakedly in the workings of power, of being implicated in big words like guilt, innocence, wrongdoing, truth, revenge, justice? Underneath my little-shit posturing, I was just a kid, a kid who didn’t want anything to do with courthouses or their machinations.

The third time Shimon called me about the trial, I swallowed hard and jumped in. “I’m really sorry, man. I can’t do it.” Silence. Was he thinking about how ridiculous this all was? Was he pissed at me? Or worse—much worse—disappointed? I wished he would say something. He didn’t though. I broke first. “I’m just not … comfortable, to, to … you know … ” Was he really going to make me spell it out?

“It’s cool, I understand,” he said in a strange, forced tone. He took a big breath in, exhaled. “You know I would have done it for you.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he had already hung up.

I was proud of myself for saying no. It had taken all of my mental and spiritual resources. I was entirely and utterly drained. Placing the phone back on the receiver, I knew the friendship was over.

The camp settled with Shimon and Shimon’s family out of court. The amount was sealed, but Benny told me it was in the high six figures. Shimon never went back to camp, left Toronto to go to university in Vancouver, came back and went into his father’s logistics business. Last I heard, Rich was living in Halifax, teaching high school gym during the week and coaching hockey on the weekends. I worked at Camp Burntshore as staff for six years—six years where I did my best to never barge in on my campers doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing—got a degree in computer science, work at a tech start-up in Toronto. Somewhere in there, I awoke from uneasy dreams, an adult, with a family of my own.

I was—and still am—in awe of Leah’s commitment, her intelligence, her ability to see the right way forward and to move toward it, and I eagerly pledged allegiance.

I met my wife, Leah, when we were both on jury duty together. The case was a pretty famous one: the City of Toronto versus Leave a House Take a House, the activist guerilla group who built wooden shelters for unhoused people in downtown Toronto, stocked them with food and medicine. The Crown showed stills of the simple but functional plywood structures on the sidewalk, blocking parking spots, in otherwise bucolic parks, cited the various ordinances and bylaws that were being broken. The defence presented the statistics of rising homelessness, government inaction, of how much a roof over one’s head affects one’s wellbeing. Leave a House Take a House’s actions were plainly and obviously against the letter of the law, but Leah convinced us that the best way forward was to nullify the trial; she showed up that first day with pamphlets she had written and printed herself. “If a law is unjust, we have a duty to say so. And the way to do that is to have the trial thrown out. Who’s with me?!” I was—and still am—in awe of Leah’s commitment, her intelligence, her ability to see the right way forward and to move toward it, and I eagerly pledged allegiance.

Asking Leah for a coffee on the last day of the trial was the best decision I have ever made; I’ll forever be grateful to that letter calling me to jury duty, which I had nearly recycled without answering. Leah and I have built a good, solid life together. Our oldest kid, Miriam, a gifted artist with a quick and hilarious mind, will be attending sleepover camp for the first time next summer. A third generation Lake Burntshorer, as hard as it is to believe. She can barely contain her excitement.

Oh, Miriam, what will you see there, in that bounded-yet-expansive society in the parentless woods, what will you learn about the world and its borders both hard and soft? Your mother and I discuss it in hushed tones after you and your brothers have gone to sleep. Will you find for yourself a place in the dizzying pattern and hold onto it with everything you’ve got? With what mixture of determination and resignation will you confront the cruelty and the injustice, the beauty and the struggle, the endless animal swirl?

And when you are finally called upon to tell what you have seen, Miriam, what will you say?