Hardlife

The third week of July. Triple digit temperatues. No air-conditioning.  I'm a camp counselor/arts and crafts director. Hardlife was one of the oldest boys at the camp, which was surrounded by Illinois cornfields. He was too old, too restless and too young for where life was taking him.  And I don't know what happened to him. My sharpest image of Hardlife is of his arm. From elbow to wrist, "Tonya" was etched into his tanned skin. Rough, jagged, deep enough to hurt, and permanent. Even in this, I thought, Hardlife's luck is hard. Tonya is not a name to quit carving before it's complete. Hardlife's three siblings attended camp, too. His young sister Sunny belonged to my group. She loved to talk. She told us stories about her 17 cats that she loved, and a story about her dad, whom she didn't love. He ran away with someone he met on the internet. Sunny didn't tell us about her mom's illness. I found that out from Sunnymom when she picked up her children at the end of camp. Hollow-eyed and head-scarved, she thanked me. This week, on Valentine's Day, nephew Footloose texted me from New York City. He wants a tattoo, and as the keeper of the family history, he needed a date. 1883, I told him, that being as far back as one name goes. I envied Footloose wandering New York, looking for a foothold in the banking industry. But I thought what I always do when I hear of a tattoo. Don't carve, ink or etch anything you aren't willing to see through to the very last letter. Life is hard with Tonya. It's even harder with Tony, unless that is the name you meant it to be.