Our spouses were busying themselves with setting up the tents and building a fire. They were so good at it, these practical people we married.  My brother, Dorian, and I, city kids from Queens, were loitering, unsure of what to do with ourselves, not knowing how to do anything.  Our six children were playing, starting to get hungry, collecting twigs for the fire. Four were under 10; two of Dorian’s older ones were teens.

“Do you want to play Johnny Whoops,” I asked them.  

“What’s that?” they all said. 

“I’ll show you,” I said.  

My mom used to entertain me this way, splaying out her fingers and counting back from the pinky, saying as she pointed to each finger: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, then Whoops when she got to the slope between index and thumb, and then Johnny for the thumb and on again the other way.  The kids loved it.  Dorian came up with another hand trick from our childhood, and we felt useful, somewhat restored.  

Dorian and his family lived near San Francisco, and we had flown from New York to spend a camping vacation together in Crater Lake, Oregon.  This wasn’t my idea.  

We had two tents: a very small one and a large, ten-person one.  Val and I ended up in the small one.

In the middle of the night, I sat up gasping, my head skimming the roof of the tent.  Val sprang up with me.  I clutched the shirt at his chest, desperate.  “I can’t breathe,” I said.  

He unzipped the tent.  “Stick your head out,” he said.  

I leaned over to do this, but it was so dark outside that I felt enclosed.  It was like a void. I still couldn’t breathe. “I can’t,” I screeched.  I was in the midst of a panic attack, except I didn’t know it. 

“Shh, you’ll wake everyone,” he said. He meant the other campers on the site, the ones we didn’t even know.  Then he said, “Go to the big tent,” and fell back into his sleeping bag.  

The big tent was only three feet away.  If I put out my hand and took one step, I could touch it.  But it felt like crossing a precipice on a tightrope.  “I can’t,” I said again, in a whisper this time, but just as urgently.  

Crouched on all fours, I called into the night for my brother. “Dorian,” I said.  No sooner than his name left my mouth, he responded with an aching “Yeah?”  

“I’m scared,” I said, nearly whimpering, my breath condensing in the cold.

“Me, too,” he said, his voice sounding just like mine.  

“Come and get me,” I said.  

Jorey, his son, stepped out of the big tent and offered me his hand.  I grabbed it with too much force, took two quick steps, and I was standing inside the larger tent.  Everyone was awake. All eyes were on me.  I found Dorian’s, and I knew he understood my fear.  “It’s okay Les,” he said. “I’m freaking out, too.”  

“How am I going to sleep here?” I said.  I hadn’t brought my sleeping bag.

Sherie, his older daughter, unzipped her bag and said, “Get in.”  I slipped in beside her, thankful for her body warmth.  

I wished I were in my own living room in Queens watching “Friends.” I imagined an episode and walked myself through it scene by scene.  Coyotes had conversations in the background. Claudia was murmuring soothing things to Dorian while rubbing his head.

In the morning, Dorian and I talked over breakfast.  “When you called my name last night, it was unreal,” he whispered.  “It was a lifeline.”  And then, “I don’t know if I can do another night of this bullshit.”  

“I know,” I said.  

As we hiked in the scorching heat, swatting away bugs, we came up with a plan.  We would sit by the campfire until our eyes were about to close before heading into the tent to sleep.  We also agreed that we would all sleep together in the big tent.

We built a fire and willed our plan to work. In the tent a few hours later, a pounding rainstorm woke me, and I steadied myself by looking at all the sleeping children around me and Val, who seemed unphased. Dorian was cradled peacefully in Claudia’s arms. My suitcase was outside. I figured it was already ruined. I thought of another episode.

In the morning, we woke with the dawning realization that we were wet.  Our sleeping bags were in puddles of water, the tent flooded, everything soaked.  

Claudia and Val were trying to roll up the big tent, their fingers hurting from the cold rain.  It was unmanageable, sodden with mud.  

“Fuck this shit!” Dorian said as he picked up the tent and balanced it on top of the garbage receptacle. 

We got the kids and Dorian’s dog, Ruby, into the cars and drove the entire day till we got to his house. At gas stations we rotated between the two cars for a change of scenery. The kids sang Johnny Whoops in their underwear and watched Forest Gump on the video monitor hanging from the ceiling.

In the driveway, Claudia and Val unpacked the cars expertly and without our help.  Dorian and I fell onto the couch exhausted and watched “Friends.”

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