My Den Mother Was a Communist

I was five when I lost my faith in man. I remember shuffling through the leaves, making them rustle and fly up into the brisk autumn air. I peeked inside my coat to see my cub scout shirt, but it made me sad, cause it was medal free.

I fingered the leaf in my hand. We were to press it at the den meeting, earn merit points or some such nonsense to get a merit badge, but I feared it would all be futile, as my communist den mother would not give out merit badges unless everyone in the group earned one.

Why was I tied to everyone? Was I not better? Was I not superior to the obese boy with the chronic wheeze? I was always shocked when he lived through each meeting. The other cubs would drink their soda and throw things at one another, while I would listen to the den mother drone on about her life in Georgia, not the hick redneck infested shithole down south Georgia, but the backward irradiated nothing in the former Soviet Union Georgia. She was happy to be in America now. She had lots of food. Her son was only mildly retarded. She got to be a den mother.

I watched the wheezy boy drink his cough syrup. It never worked. Why did he bother? He could not jump so we could earn no physical badges. I doubted he could even press a leaf. He was dragging our den down. She probably pretended to have us all advance at the same pace out of sympathy for him, but it was probably to protect her son, who was a spaz without the wheeze or the excuse of obesity.

One meeting when I was smoothing the edge of a Tomahawk I made she asked me what page of the cub scout handbook that was on.

I looked up at her slowly. "Communism doesn't work you know." I stuck my Tomahawk in my belt. "Mao was fat and stupid." I looked at the wheezy boy. "People are selfish and stupid."

She walked away from me and poured more soda for her stupid son.

The greater cub scout meetings were such a source of shame. All the other scouts from rival dens had uniforms adorned with medals and merit badges. Our troop may as well have been naked.

"How come you don't have any badges?" The other boys would ask.

I would grit my teeth. "Marx really didn't get it."

"Who's Marx? The fat kid?"

I stood in the pile of leaves and thumbed through my cub scout handbook. We were only on page 9, after months, it was ridiculous. I thumbed into the hundreds, past merit badges I knew I would never attain under her chains. Could there be a merit badge for murder? Could there be a merit badge for a coup d'etat? Was the cub scout founder so far-sighted as to see my plight, and reward the enterprising boy who overthrew his dawdling den mother and lead his troop to glory?

There was something about building a tent. And a compass. Then I hit the index and lost hope. I could hear the wheezy boy's gasping in the distance. I couldn't bear the thought of being at his funeral. My uniform so pathetic. I crumpled my leaf and cursed Lenin, dropping my book in the gutter and heading for home.