Notes from Ninja Camp

by Peter Bognanni

The week begins when the Huey hovers over Base Camp, and we see the pagoda sitting just under the crest of a jagged mountain. There it is: paint-stripped. Lawn un-mowed. Gnarly-ass boulders in the yard. Here we are, says one of the pilots, Take a good look, boys. He points down. Wow, I think. And I don’t mean it in a good way. The whole setup looks like some shitty Epcot pavilion, but worse somehow, because it’s supposed to be the real deal. Everyone on the helicopter realizes at once that this was a poor choice for a corporate retreat.

Layne, my seatmate on the Huey, has tears in his eyes when he sees Base Camp. Actual tears. I haven’t seen him around the office before, but I talk with him as we descend the rope ladder that hangs from the copter. We sway and bob as we speak, dangling hundreds of feet from the earth like tiny spiders in the gray sky. Turns out his wife forced him to go on the retreat. She thinks it might put him in line for a promotion, maybe put the lead back in his pencil too. Yikes, I think. Layne has a pencil. When we get toward the midpoint of the ladder, Layne looses his footing and almost knocks us to our respective deaths. Retreat hasn’t even started and we’re almost toast. Not good.

– Sorry, says Layne.

– Don’t worry about it, I say.

We all take the orientation hard. Our boss, McMichael is there with the Ninjas, and he lays into us with these sayings as we’re beaten with bow staffs. I was in the first Gulf War so I can handle this kind of thing, but Layne seems to be in a different kind of hurt entirely. They’re really slamming him with these bow-staffs. “FEAR is a four-letter word!” goes McMichael. Whack-a-whack! Whack-a-whack! Afterward we’re rewarded with some tepid Swiss Miss and sent to bed.

– Christ, Layne, I say that night, why don’t you say you’re sick or something? This doesn’t seem like your scene, pal.

But he’s just kind of sobbing into his Ninja Mat at this point. I’m not sure if he hears me. Anyway, I can tell even after the bow-staff battering, he’s made up his mind to stick it out. What other option does he have? McMichael runs the whole I.T. department.

He stops crying for a moment.

– Why are you here? he asks

– Character-building, I guess, I say. Leadership skills?

Layne nods. Despite the bruises from orientation, we sleep like sandbags.

Things can only get better, I think.

Next day though: more beatings.

We meet the Master after a short breakfast of pine nuts and kelp. The Master’s name is Shadow-Force, and he says our bodies need to be like bricks so our minds can be like mortar. I don’t really understand him, but McMichael is nodding so I nod too. Right away he marches us out on to the summit of the mountain, and all these little guys in skeleton masks drop from the trees and kick the shit out of us. I’m talking like twenty punches before you even know you’re being hit. Plus the staffs again. Layne starts moaning right away. And instead of helping him out, Shadow Force makes him an example. He jiggles Layne’s man-breasts while McMichael talks about accountability and asks how can we have an IT team that only cares about comfort?

That night, I wander over to his mat again.

– Layne, you got to get out of here, I say. They’re singling you out. This isn’t worth it.

– She’s with him right now, he says, I can feel it.

I don’t know what he means, so I just pat him on the back.

– You ever walked in on your wife while she’s getting it from your cousin? he asks.

– No, I say, which is the truth.

There is silence. Then Layne gets a nosebleed.

Day 2: No flogging in the morning. But instead, we’re abandoned in the middle of nowhere in our tighty-whities. We’re given knives and hats for the sun, but that’s it. It’s frigid, and the Ninjas leave with McMichael in the heated van, kicking gravel at us with the tires. Around noon, I find a stream and spear a skinny fish, which I share with Layne, who loses his knife like fifteen minutes into the thing.

– What did you want to be when you were little? Layne says, spitting out a scale. He’s slumped against a boulder, looking ten kinds of pathetic.

– Don’t know, I say, an astronaut.

Then Layne laughs really hard for way too long. So long that I get scared and pretend I’m hunting for other fish, but really I’m just avoiding Layne, whose laugh turns to weeping for awhile and then back to laughing. He stops when the Ninjas arrive eight hours later and one of them punches him in the solar plexus.

This time, Layne comes to my mat at night.

– Hey, he says.

– Yeah, I say.

–I think I’m going to die here. I had a dream.

– No, I say.

– I don’t know, he says.

Then Layne bends down so close to me, I can smell the powdered milk rations on his breath.

He whispers: Can I just lie next to you for a second?

– I’m not sure that’s such a hot idea, Layne, I whisper back.

– Yeah, you’re right, he says. Forget it.

In the middle of the night, one of the other campers puts a bar of soap in his ass. I feel terrible, but I can’t defend him. I have my job to think of.

Thank Christ we get to the weapons the next day. Around nine a.m. it’s throwing stars, and I get the hang of it quick. I drop a jackrabbit from fifty yards. Shadow-Force comes by and gives me this giant turkey drumstick for a reward. We’ve basically been living on berries and lichen so it tastes like gristly sunshine in my mouth. Turns out it’s poisoned though, and I’m losing my soul on the pagoda toilet for the rest of the afternoon. Shadow-Force says it’s a lesson in humility, which seems to be a theme around Ninja Camp. When I feel better, I look for Layne, but no one can find him.

Days 4 and 5 there are no beatings. But, there is some torture around lunchtime. Mild electrical shocks to the genitals in unpredictable bursts. The less we scream the less McMichael writes in his ledger. I get three marks. Pretty good.

Luckily, by evening of Day 5 we are handling swords. Finally. Christ. I have a spar match with a Programmer from the sixth floor and I slice a piece of his nose off. But it’s cool. Ninja code of honor shit. We shake hands, and Shadow-Force comes by with another drumstick. I toss it in the trash. This one was not poisoned, says Shadow-Force. Another lesson in humility.

That night, I swear I can hear Layne’s crying coming from outside the pagoda, but on closer inspection there is nothing there.

– Layne! I scream into the night.

A camper threatens me with ass-soap, though, so I knock it off.

Second to last day, I start to understand everything. Stop thinking, I say to myself, and end your problems. I am holding a rapier. I have spent the morning learning to wield it. I forget who I am and stab at things. Trees. Mountain Goats. I hide in the bushes for three hours, trying to be completely silent, then I scare the shit out of a groundskeeper.

At lunch, the guys in masks jump out of the trees again, but this time, I defend my self and hold three of them off with nun-chucks and a hilted dagger. Shadow-Force takes me aside and asks me how would I like to perform my skills for the whole group that night. McMichael is there, beaming. I am honored. My heart is as open as the sky, I tell him. He laughs, and squeezes my testicles.

Later when it gets dark, we have a bonfire. Shadow-Force brings out some turnip wine and we all get a little crocked. McMichael even talks about something else besides I.T. Things are nice. Tomorrow we go home.

But just when everything is perfect we hear this cry from the forest nearby that sounds like it’s coming from a vulture or a jackal. Everyone turns, and here comes Layne, barreling down the hill toward the bonfire. He’s dressed in rags and he looks like he hasn’t eaten for days. A woman’s name is written on his forehead in blood, and he’s holding some kind of homemade spear. As he approaches we realize, he isn’t joking. The Ninjas are drunk, so they don’t get up in time. Layne ululates, and lofts the spear and guts one of them. Wow, I think. Okay, Layne.

But this is not improvement. Layne has lost it. He jumps into the fire next, until all his rags are burning, then he pulls the spear out of the wounded Ninja and chases that that programmer from six with it.

– Layne, I say, It’s okay, buddy. Tomorrow you go home, man.

But I can tell Sixth Floor is going to die if I don’t act. So I pick up my rapier and catch him. I knock the spear from his hand. He is feral. Burning.

Shadow-Force appears behind me. McMichael is jogging behind him.

– Finish him, says McMichael, I smell a new regional supervisor.

– This isn’t what I signed up for, I say.

– Do it! says Shadow-Force, Weakness will not be tolerated.

All across the mountains I hear the sounds of the natural world. My ears are hyper-attuned. Bats. Rushing springs. Snapping twigs.

I think: This place has made me a Ninja.

I am holding my rapier above Layne’s white neck.

– Are you hurt, Layne? I ask. Hey Layne!

He doesn’t answer. A breeze kicks up and I can smell his burnt hair and his forest body odor.

I think: Are we really going home tomorrow?

I raise my rapier.

I don’t think.

**

Peter Bognanni is a recent graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. These days he lives in Chicago where he teaches people subject/verb agreement.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/prose/bognannip_ninja.htm