Chapter 3

The next day at breakfast I saw a lot of gloomy faces. I grabbed my tray and looked down at a whole wheat bagel, low fat cream cheese, a bowl of grapes, gross looking sausage links, and a small individual carton of low fat milk.

I ate half of my bagel and my grapes. I was stuffed. I went to throw the rest of my garbage away when two guys walked up to me.

“Hey. Rory, right?” Asked a black haired guy I knew wrestled. His name was Tony DiNova. The guy he was with was a catcher for the baseball team. He was blond and sported a hefty paunch that looked soft. I nodded. “Could we maybe, have that?” I looked down at all the food I had left on my tray.

I could get in a lot of trouble for “over feeding” guys at the camp. At orientation I was told it would harm any progress they would make. “This stuff?” I asked.

They were practically salivating. I handed over my tray and they tore into my food like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. The blond catcher, whose name was Yuri, chugged that low fat milk like he had been in the desert for days and was glad to get some form of liquid. He belched and patted me on the shoulder.

“I’m still fucking hungry man…” He said to Tony as they walked away. I was getting an erection. I walked out of the dining hall and to the track where my first group would be meeting me. It would be the boys from Cabin Honesty.

Tony and Yuri walked out towards me along with three other guys. Each group would have five guys, except for the group from Cabin Self-Discipline, which would only have four. I heard one guy refer to me as a “scrawny fairy.” Yuri told him to cut it out.

“Okay guys, we need to get started so we’re going to warm up with a lap around the track.” They all groaned, but every one of them did the lap. They weren’t out of breath or anything. None of the seven groups I coached had any problems with the work. They were perfectly in shape. They sprinted. They did jumping jacks and pushups. They were probably in better shape than I was.

At dinner Yuri and Tony came up to me and asked if I was going to finish my food. I pushed my barely touched tray across the table and they devoured my dinner just like they devoured my lunch and breakfast. They both gave me semi-satisfied grins and thanked me for the leftovers.

I walked back to my cabin and a few minutes later the rest of my cabin buddies entered. “Are they trying to fucking starve us to death? That’s chick food; I need to eat like a goddam man.” Colt complained. I took off my sweaty counselor shirt and reached for a clean t-shirt. “And this undernourished prick wants us to just stare at his goddam ribs.”

“Mmmm Ribs.” Chimed in Faiz. Big Mike laughed his deep laugh and told Colt to stop messing with me.

“No, I… I was just changing.” I said. “Why are you guys all here anyway...at this camp?”

“To lose weight dumbass.” Colt.

“I mean, why are all the bigger players from St. Jo’s here?” Colin sighed heavily before talking.

“All the coaches got together and decided if any of us wanted to keep playing on our teams we had to spend our summer here losing weight. If we didn’t agree to come, we’d be off the team.”

“That’s stupid.” I said. All of them gave their sounds of agreement. They all changed as well, with Colt staring me down out of the corner of his eyes. That really was stupid. We were the best school in the Private School League. Why would the coaches even bother trying to slim down their players?

“I’m starving.” Colt said as he clutched his gut. “I wish I had some chips or something…. anything.” He climbed into bed. “I’m not gonna be able to take a whole summer of this.”

“Me neither.” Said Mike. He sounded sad, hell, he sounded downright depressed.

“But, you all will be losing weight. Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked. They all looked at me like I had said the dumbest thing in the world.

“Leave it to Scarecrow to say some dumbass shit like that.” Colt sat up in his bed and looked at me. “We all play the way we do because of our size. Size equals winning and winning equals confidence. I don’t know about everybody else, but I like feeling good, and I definitely like eating.”

I heard three firm confirmations of what Colton said from the other guys. I was glad they liked being bigger, but it was my job to get them to slim down. I couldn’t do anything to help their cause. They were all in bed and I walked over to the light switch and flipped it off. Day one was officially over.