Castle Anthrax

Multiple Sclerosis sucks. MS in college sucks worse. Imagine waking up every morning so exhausted and your back so sore that pulling on your socks hurts. Then the fatigue and the pain gets worse throughout the day until all you want to do is go home and crawl into your bed. That's how much it sucks.

I had to get that rant out of the way. MS took over my life in college. Seemingly one night I went to bed a normal teenager and the next morning MS hit me like a logging truck rolling off a mountain. I became a hidden invalid from an invisible disease. Since I looked fine, friends couldn't see how much I was hurting. They slowly drifted away when they couldn't understand why I never did much.

I've had that affliction for thirty years and researchers have come up with some amazing medications, but this story takes place before the miracles happened. This is a story of how I grew into the person I was supposed to be with the help of some remarkable women.

One wintry morning during my junior year in college, try as I might, I could not get the spoon full of cereal to my mouth. Ataxia had taken over and my fine motor control was gone. After I gave up on breakfast, I couldn't tie my shoes, and when I did make it to class, I couldn't read my own notes. Those problems resulted in a couple of hospitalizations and an unending course of rehabilitation. I managed to keep up with my studies and pass, but life became an exhausting up hill climb where I typed my assignments with only my index finger because that's all the control I had and where I counted taking a shower by myself as a major victory. I came home an emotional basket case with a dose of street heroin to do myself in if things got any worse. I'm not proud of it, but life at that point looked like a downward spiral into darkness without friends or love.

I placed the three packets of street heroin in my shaving kit where I could see them daily and ask myself if life was bad enough for the final option.

"We're sending you to an MS resort this summer," Dad announced over salmon with dill sauce one evening at dinner the week after I came home from college.

Salmon was supposed to be good for MS so Mom prepared it once a week. It wasn't until later that I realized it was an act of love. Nobody liked it.

I could tell by the grins on Mom's and Dad's faces that they thought I'd be overjoyed.

"I was looking forward to a summer of flaking off. It's been a tough year."

"This is supposed to be a great place," Mom said frowning at me probably because I wasn't jumping for joy, "it comes highly recommended in all the MS publications. There's a doctor and nurses on staff at all times, plus there's plenty to do. The brochure shows hiking, canoeing, sailing, archery, all sorts of games and crafts. It's got to be better than you hiding up in your room for the summer playing those computer games."

She flourished a glossy brochure from beside her plate and passed it to me. Sure enough, it showed all sorts of singles in high hair and bell bottoms grinning at the camera as they went about their glorious co-ed camping experiences 1970's style. They were standing, sometimes with canes or crutches while others grinned up from their wheel chairs. To my parents I'm sure it looked like a great place for an outdoor experience that would accommodate my limitations, but to me it looked like an open air MS ward replete with mosquitoes.

"Great, I get to spend my summer with people telling me how lucky I am to have a relatively mild case of MS," I thought to myself.

Doctors, nurses, therapists, and even my parents from time to time had told me that. Except I didn't feel lucky. I had a debilitating disease that kept me too tired to run, too sore to jump, and too drained to participate in most of life's little pleasures, but before I could object...

"Your father sent the payment for a five week stay." Mom added with an arched eyebrow, "and during that time your father and I are going on a long postponed European vacation, so you see it's the best of both worlds. You get a pleasant summer at a resort while your father and I get our first vacation in years."

She reached over and gave my father's hand a squeeze.

That was that. There was no sense complaining or negotiating. Mom had announced in so many words that she and Dad needed a break from me and I couldn't blame them. I needed a break from me.

That is how on the last Sunday in June, I found myself standing beside my luggage in a gravel parking lot reeking of pine and fresh air as my parents thundered off in the family station wagon. Dad showed enough restraint to not speed off in a cloud of dust. His wheels did throw a few stones though.

A guy wearing the official camp shorts and t-shirt came up to me.

"Charles Schaffer?" he said squinting at the sheet of paper on his clipboard.

"Chuck, call me Chuck."

"Okay, Chuck it is, my name is Brad, I'm your health consultant," he made a note on his clipboard and looked up, "you're my only add today, so let me tag your luggage, and then we'll hike back to your cabin." Brad was a big guy, one of those Nordic giants that populate mid-western high school football teams except he lacked muscle tone. I recognized the look. He had MS too.

We followed a gravel road a quarter mile through piney woods and pot hole swamps to a screened in cabin nestled into a hillside beneath towering red pines. Other cabins were scattered about at random up and down the hill. Down below where the ground flattened out stood a rustic lodge that looked like an oversized log cabin complete with faux cedar shingles.

"This is home for the next," Brad consulted his clipboard, "for the next five weeks."

He opened the door and I stepped into the semidarkness flipping on the overhead light. There was a bed, a chest of drawers, and a night stand with a nondescript lamp sitting on it beside the bed. That was it. It was easier to name what it didn't have. There was no minifridge, no microwave, no television, no bathroom, no air conditioning, no video games, no windows to shut, no room service and no carpeting. In addition, the walls and the roof were bare studs, and there were no windows, just screen stretched across large openings. The damp, musty aroma of decaying pine needles was included at no charge.

"It's pretty basic," I mumbled in a fit of understatement.

"Well, the whole idea is to give you an authentic camping experience and to get you out and mixing it up with the other resort customers," Brad said with a shrug, "the rest of the camp is pretty up to date. Our medical facilities are top notch, and you're going to be amazed at how good the food is," he walked to the door and pointed out a block building we had walked past, "the bathroom and the showers are right there. It gets very dark on moonless nights, keep a flashlight beside your bed in case you need to use the facilities at night, and if you take a whiz off the porch at night, cover it up. The camp director gets really torqued when people pee outside their door. It's a health department violation."

"While we're at it," he added after a little thought, "is there anything I need to know about your medical condition? My job is to look you up a couple of times a day to make sure you're okay. I'll get your file later on, but I'd like a head's before you fall out of your canoe and drown."

I shrugged.

"There's been no big changes lately. Mostly I get ataxia, numbness in my extremities, fatigue, and of course the ever present MS hug. If I do get a flare up it's usually my kidneys. I won't be subtle if that happens. It's agony to move at all."

He nodded.

The MS hug for you lucky non MS folks is a constant feeling that a tight band around your chest is constricting your breathing. It was my first MS symptom.

"Sounds like what I have except my flare ups are in the digestive tract. If anything changes or gets worse, sing out. We don't want anyone leaving camp in an ambulance. It's bad for you, it's bad for me, and it's bad for business."

"Where's everybody at?" I asked.

"Most people end up down by the lake on sunny afternoons like this. You're going to like it down there, the female to male ratio is skewed in your age group this year, so you should have no trouble finding female companionship. Why don't you spend your time exploring?" he pointed at a road cut through the trees on the far side of the activities area at the base of the hill, "follow that road. It'll take you to the lake. In the meantime, I'll figure out what happened to your luggage. It should be here by now."

"What time is dinner?" I asked.

"It's at five. Meet back here a little early so I can introduce you around."

Northern Michigan summer days make people want to live up here year around. The intense sunshine seldom gets uncomfortable because the cool breezes blowing off the great lakes ruffles the treetops, and keeps the air moving. My amble through the scrub pine and birch was a pleasant one, and soon up ahead I heard splashing and voices interspersed above the drone of the cicadas. The lake was a surprise. I rounded a curve in the road and beautiful tropical blue water opened up before me.

I walked onto a beach. There had to be a hundred or so men and women splashing in the water, and sunning. The only odd thing I saw was a double wide blacktop path down to the edge of the water. At first I guessed it was a boat launch, but I soon realized it was a ramp to get the wheelchair bound people down to the water in special all terrain wheelchairs. I could see several people in chairs in the water.

"Hey girls, look, fresh meat!" a female voice shouted.

A group of nine women who had been sunning themselves on the grassy lawn sat up to ogle me. Three or four held their loose bikini bras draped over their breasts which I found titillating. They all looked like people with MS. Since none of us move much, we carry more weight that we should. We all look a little doughy since none of us has much muscle tone. I include myself in that group. I'm not fat, but I can pinch more than an inch in most places I grab.

The best looking of the bunch got up and reattached her bra as she sashayed over where she leaned against a willow to talk to me.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Uh, twenty-one in August."

She looked up into the sky with clasped hands and mouthed 'thank you'.

"My name is Gwen Kowitz," she held out her hand and I shook it, "what's your name?"

"Chuck, just Chuck," I replied off balance from her boldness.

"Well, Chuck just Chuck, you are a god send in a camp full of married couples. You aren't married, are you?"

I shook my head.

She grabbed my hand, "Let me introduce you to my friends."

There was something almost sinister about the way she said it. I felt like a turkey just before Thanksgiving. I was getting way more attention than I deserved.

She pulled me over to join her group. Gwen was the pick of the bunch, but the rest were each attractive in her own way. They reminded me of the people I hung around with in school. Not the A list frat and sorority people, but the good people who concentrated on their personalities and their careers rather than their looks, the ones who made the best lab partners, the ones who noticed when you were down, and who had their share of the rent money ready when it was due. They were my kind of people and I fell right in with them.

"Where are you from, Chuck?" Gwen asked being the most forward of the group.

"Trenton, it's a small community downriver from Detroit."

"Isn't downriver like all factories?" asked one woman wrinkling her nose.

"Nope, you've never been down there, have you? It's actually quite nice."

I looked around the group.

"Where's everyone else from?"

"Grand Rapids," said one.

"Me too," chimed in another.

"Jackson," volunteered another.

The rest came from suburbs around southeast Michigan.

"Southgate," Gwen added.

That made me stop.

"Southgate? That's close to me. I have friends from Southgate."

Gwen stood out from the rest. She was on the slender side with the biggest grin that was possible to fit on her small face. She kept her brunette sun-streaked hair cut short, and her tanned body looked good in her modestly cut bikini. There was a tomboyish quality about her. While I made it a point to ogle everyone, my eye chose to linger on her. I wasn't sure why. Mostly I'm drawn to voluptuous women. The problem was that I wasn't the type that voluptuous women were drawn to. It made dating difficult. There was also my drinking problem. I didn't drink at all and that made it doubly difficult to get a voluptuous woman tipsy enough to consider me as a sexual partner. I played a lot of a Dungeons and Dragons as a result.

Things broke up on the beach at about 4:45 and everyone returned to their rooms to get ready for dinner. I took a shower so that I would arrive a little late. That way I could avoid sitting someplace where other people had staked out a claim. I arrived at the dining hall at 5:15 absolutely in awe of how much knotty pine the builders had worked into one building. I grabbed a tray and went through the serving line before taking my tray to the screened in dining area. My beach friends occupied two tables, but since no one seemed to notice me, or waved me over, I sat by myself at an empty table.

There are people who cannot stand eating alone in public, but I'm not one of them. I was about to dig into my chicken fettuccine Alfredo when Gwen dropped her tray on the table next to me, and slid into the seat beside me.

"I can't let the newbie dine all alone," she announced with a smile, "besides, other women are eyeing you. It's best not to let you stray too far without an escort. You might get bagged and tagged by another group."

"The male/female balance is that out of whack?"

She had changed into cut off jeans and an orange sleeveless top that looked stunning against her dark tan.

She nodded.

"Women get MS way more than men do. On top of that it's a bad year for men in our age group wanting to camp," she slid a forkful of fettuccine into her mouth and chewed deep in thought, "we girls with MS are in a delicate position. We want romance like everyone else, the problem is when word gets out that we have a condition," she made air quotes, "or when we shuffle down the hall at school with a cane because we're having balance problems, it shrinks our dating pool to zero."

She sipped her water.

"So we look forward to summer camp where we can spend time with men who have a similar problem and are willing to work with us, but nature is cruel. Men don't get MS at the same rate women do, so most summers we have to share the men if we want a little attention and affection."

I continued to eat waiting for the other shoe to drop. She couldn't have offered me sexual access to an entire group of women over the course of the summer. Things like that didn't happen, at least not to me. I must have heard her wrong.

She sat with a small smile on her face. It wasn't quite a leer.

"What do you think? You can get a lot of attention from nine women. We all agree that you're pretty cute for a guy, and that we can all have a lot of fun this summer if we cooperate."

"I'm not sure how to respond to that," I looked up at her, "I have to tell you that you're the one I'm drawn to."

She blushed, and for a moment I thought that I had the upper hand in this conversation, but I was mistaken.

Gwen gestured over her shoulder at her girlfriends sitting at the tables beyond.

"There's eight wonderful women over there who want nothing more than a little closeness and a little affection from a man this summer, go ahead and tell them that they lost out in the lottery and to play again next year. You know, for some of them there may not be a next year. I'm guessing that you have a mild form of the disease. Some of those ladies aren't so lucky. They've got a very aggressive form of MS. Next year they could be in a wheel chair, or worse. Would you deny them a little bit of happiness in their lives?"

I looked over at the women who were looking anywhere but at me. I found a few very attractive, a few more would probably look attractive to me once I had gotten to know them, and there were a few that I would probably avoid given the choice. I am not a fan of punk rock, tattoos, piercings or smokers. They were a pleasant looking group for the most part. The siren song of perpetual sex on tap called to me. What did you expect? I was a horny twenty year old.

"It's really not about who I'm attracted to, is it? The disease takes away so much, I'll do what I can."

That sounded so much better than me asking when I could begin screwing. I wasn't sure where that bit of empathy came from. I'm not a selfish guy, but I had really suffered the past year, and dammit, I deserved to be catered to a bit. What the women were asking me to do was pleasant, but still it required work on my part. Like it or not because I had opened my big mouth, I was going to have a busy summer. A bug trapped in amber had more options than I did, but the duties were pleasant. Hooking up with a bevy of women over the summer was not horrible as long as I got the chance to lay in the sun and vegetate for a few hours each day.

"It's really not about you," she replied shaking her head, "it's more about you doing a favor to people who suffer like you do."

"All right, I'm in," I turned and nodded to her, "what's next?"

Gwen smiled at me then turned and nodded to the women at the tables behind her.

"Welcome to Castle Anthrax."

"Castle Anthrax?"

"Yeah, like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail," she sat up and assumed a haughty demeanor,

"we are all blonds and brunettes between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one."

"And you all want to be spanked?" I replied recalling the movie.

"Some of us probably will, but I'm not a fan myself," she said with a grin, "but the important this is that you've passed your first test. There will be another tonight."

"What was my first test?" I asked dumbfounded.

"I came over here to see if you drank milk through your nose, ate soup with your fingers, or chewed tobacco," she smirked at me, "I'm happy to report that you've passed your first test."

I clapped my hands. "My Mommy will be so happy to hear that. She always said to make sure my fingernails were clean and that I'm wearing clean underwear. I'll mention my good fortune in my letter home," I smirked right back, "she'll be so happy that the good habits she taught me will allow me to spend my summer in debauchery."

"Hey, you're as snarky as I am. I like that," she leaned in, "there'll be a campfire tonight. After the bed check at eleven pm, come to me. I'm in cabin 42. Be discrete."

She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and then she was gone. A few minutes later, I was invited to one the the tables the women were sitting at and had companionship for the rest of the evening.

The girls worked with the precision of a military squad at the camp fire. If a woman not from their group tried to get near me, a pair of my guards, one was named Beth, and the other was dressed in Goth intercepted and sent the intruder on her way. The campfire that evening was fun even if the party games were silly. After the campfire, Gwen accompanied me all the way back to my cabin.

"Mind if I come in?" she asked pushing the door open and entering.

"There isn't much to see. I haven't had time to unpack. You can't see if I'm a slob yet."

"So there won't be any pictures on your nightstand of girlfriends left behind?"

She leaned her shoulder blades against the door while she shoved her hips out into the room. I wanted to take her.

"Sadly, no. The one sort of steady girl I was cozy with faded away during my hospital stays last year. I haven't had time to cultivate new companionship between making up the work in my classes and the never ending rehabilitation appointments."