1:05AM
“HEY, MAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU LOST?”, I hear one of my friends saying in an aggravated, yet concerned tone.
I grab my phone to see what time it is…. “Dude, who are you talking to, man?”, half wondering if my buddy was talking in a dream…
“The dude sitting in the middle of our camp”, he responds.
From where my tent was setup, I could mostly see our center, though I had set up slightly behind one of the other tents in our group and so my view was partially obstructed…
“I don’t see anyone”, I blurted still half asleep.
“Hey, man - seriously. What are you doing here. You’re starting to creep me out. How about you just get to where you’re going?”, my friend says again speaking to what I am beginning to believe is his imaginary friend.
“Ah, fuck it”, I thought… “I need to see what’s going on or this is going to drag on all night”... Out of my tent I hobble in nothing more than my drawers… As I rise to my feet enough to clear the tent obstructing my view, sure as shit a guy comes into view - the man in the blue shirt… But something is different… No longer does the man have a seemingly innocent grin on his face - he now has a disconnected look in his eye as he slowly shifts his gaze back and forth between my friend and myself - now with a discernibly crazier looking grin on his face.
Not a single word out of the man in the blue shirt as he sits legs folded indian-style in the center of our tent semi-circle…
“Hey, man. What’s going on?”, I ask with no response. “Are you staying in the grounds?”, I follow up with not realizing that he’s the same guy we spoke to earlier in the evening.
He nods in agreement while maintaining the same disconnected unhinged grin on his face.
“Well, bud - this isn’t your camp spot… I think that you may be confused… Do you need help finding your group?”
No verbal response, just a continued shifting of his gaze between my friend and I from the center of our camp.
By this point in time, our other 2 friends have been rudely awaken from their exhausted and drunken slumber - “What the fuck is going on out there, guys? Shut the fuck up”, one of my other friends moans.
“Dude… There’s a guy just sitting in the middle of our camp… He’s not responding… We’re just trying to get him to mozy on…”, I say in defense of our 1:10am discussion.
“The fuck you say?”, my other friend blurts in a concerned tone.
By this time, all four of us are up, standing in our boxers outside of our tents in the cool mountain air of 1:15am… But not the man in the blue shirt… Nope. He’s still sitting in the middle, cool as a cucumber in his shorts and unbuttoned shirt, shifting his gaze between the 4 of us with the same blank goofy grin on his face.
At this time, we’re what I’d like to believe to be a reasonable amount of annoyed, all things considered - essentially giving him the “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here” bit, as we continued to urge him to be on his way.
Reluctantly, the man in blue rises to his feet - now shifting his stare at each of us, absent of the goofy grin - now more of a “I’m going to wear you as a suit” look adorning his face. At this time, he begins to walk up the paved path that runs an inner loop around the campground…
“Good… Sleep… Finally...”, we thought… No sooner than my head hid my pad, I again hear my friend: “DUDE! WHAT-THE-FUCK?!”. I again climb out of my tent, where I now see the guy leaning over his tent peering in the top vent flap, goofy grin returned.
In pain, tired as hell and still half buzzed, I’ve now adopted a more aggressive stance against the man in blue. “Look man… I’ve about had it with your shit… You’re not welcome here - we’ve attempted to make that clear in a friendly manner and that’s not working. I feel pretty certain that if you keep this shit up, we’re going to have to try another tactic. I’m telling you one last time that you’re not welcome here and that you need to leave now.”
No words, just an angry stare in return. He then proceeds to walk back to the middle of our camp and plop right-the-fuck-back-down….
“Dude. I’m not fucking joking with you - I’m either getting some sleep or I’m kicking someone’s ass… The crazy guy in blue sitting in the middle of my fucking camp gets to chose which it is.”
The man again rises to his feet and begins to wander off - now towards our neighbors’ camp who we’d shared burgers, beers and s'mores with earlier in the evening with… A camp which we knew he was not part of…
“Hey, man - that’s not your camp either. You really need to get where you belong”, one of my friends says...
Seemingly in response the my friends queue, he turns slightly and begins to walk into the woods… Of course we’re all up and amped up on adrenaline at this point - now discussing that we need to check on the man in blue because we’d really feel bad if we heard about a dead body being found in the woods the following days… As we shine our light into the woods where we last saw the man, we notice that he’s only made it a few feet in - where he now stands, stiff as a board, staring off into the blackness of the woods…
“Yeah… Not going back to sleep with that fucker standing out there behind our camp”, we all agree as we begin debating if we should start taking shifts, or just pack our shit to GTFO… As we deliberate, the man walks out of the woods and stands behind the largest pine tree in his vicinity - occasionally peeking around at us… At this point, we can’t help but laugh a bit - “the fucker is trying to hide.. What the actual fuck is he doing?”, we joke… As delirium, exhaustion and just the laughable nature of this all takes over, he begins to walk towards us again… He’s no longer quite as stumbly… He’s more purposeful in his steps - less staggering… His shoulders are held a bit higher… His gaze is firmly fixed in our direction..
As he approaches, he’s clearly walking more towards me, the tallest member of our group, than he is my friends.
“YOU FUCKING C_NT! FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK! I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU, YOU FUCKING C_NT! PUNK ASS MOTHERFUCKER!”