Resentment and Muskrats

I was thinking about resentment last night because it's something I struggle with. People wrong me/offend me/neglect me/whatever and I resent them for a long, long time. I'm much better with it now than I used to be. I mean, after all, once you've been the source of major pain and destruction in other people's lives, you begin to cut others a little more slack. I've begun to think, what if the person who offended me is just another struggling sad sack (like me) who is doing his or her best and just happens to be bad at negotiating life?

Besides, I've begun to see the utter futility in resentment. A friend once told me that resenting someone is like drinking poison and then expecting the other person to die. It doesn't accomplish anything you might want it to. All it does is make you angry, bitter, and no fun to talk to.

As I was thinking about these things, I remembered my first full-on, adult-sized resentment.

I was 12 or 13 and was in Boy Scouts. In my ward in Rexburg, the monthly scout camp-out was as regular and predictable as the sun rising and tears in Testimony meeting. It just happened and you went with it. So one of these camp-outs took place at a place called Badger Creek. I think Ricks College owned it and would use it for leadership retreats, FHE activities, and, obviously, Boy Scout stuff. There's a musty, creaky old lodge set on the hillside (cobwebby and smelly -- I mean, it's the sort of place Scooby and the gang would investigate a mystery) and then there's a series of small, four-man cabins spread throughout the trees. Each small cabin had two sets of bunk beds, one on each wall, and then a pot-bellied stove.

I shared my cabin that weekend with Mike Rogers, a friend of mine, two other kids lost to the mists of time, and Brother Kinghorn. Ed, I think. He was one of our advisers and taught psychology at the college. He was a nice guy and I think most of my peers in the troop liked him because he seemed easy going and fun.



Well.

At some point during the camp-out, I found a lighter. When you grow up in Rexburg, Idaho, lighters are fascinating rarities. Hardly anyone smokes so you never really see them. Plus, if you're 12, something that makes instant fire is automatically pretty cool.

Except the one I found didn't make instant fire or any sort of fire at all. It was out of fluid and so all it would do is spark a little when I flicked the wheel with my thumb. I carried around with me that day, flicking it occasionally to see the spark and spidery bit of smoke that rose up from the wheel.

That night, it was the time when leaders are winding down but the scouts have no intention of sleeping anytime soon. It's the time of snipe hunts and poker games played for M & M's. For some reason, I was in my bunk, Mike Rogers was in his, and Ed Kinghorn was in his. I'm not sure why I'd retired so early -- it probably had something to do with the fact that I'm a huge wuss when it comes to cold and if I have a choice between a cozy, little cabin and following after a bunch of fools in the dark to look for imaginary birds, I'm picking the cabin.

Anyway, I was laying in my top bunk and Brother Kinghorn was below. Mike and I were talking, I think, and I was flicking the wheel of the lighter.

I understand that memory is faulty and we often only remember the things we want to remember but, honest to goodness, to the best of my recollection, it went like this:

Brother Kinghorn heard me flicking the lighter and said something like, "Mark, stop doing that. If your sleeping bag catches on fire, this whole place will go up and we could all die."

One warning is all I remember. Sure, one warning is all any reasonable person should need but I was 12 or 13 and not the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe I was anticipating a second, firmer warning. Maybe I didn't hear some menace or anger in Brother K's voice. Maybe I was just feeling like an ignorant snot that night. I don't know what it was. I don't think what happened next was because I disliked Brother K or because I had to show him who was boss. If anything, I imagine it was just that in the leaky attic known as a teenager's brain (you know, insulated with cotton candy, wired with fireworks, gassed with hormones, etc.) the phrase, "Stop that" translates into "At some point in the near future, would you possibly think about curtailing that activity that some other, clearly misguided people feel might be a tad annoying and/or dangerous? Thanks so much."

All I know for sure is that I flicked the lighter one more time.

What happened next, I remember with perfect clarity. Brother Kinghorn scrambled out of his bunk with a speed and ferocity and was both surprising and frightening. He jumped up, reached his hand into my bunk, grabbed my right wrist (the hand that held the lighter)with his left hand, grabbed a nearby flashlight with his right, and cracked me over the back of the hand with it, knocking the lighter to the floor.

He immediately got back into his bunk and rolled over.I spent a borderline-teary minute or two studying the small, bloody cut on the back of my hand near my ring-finger knuckle and then determined to get out of there and stay out for as long as possible. I put my shoes on and went and found the snipe hunters and poker players. I told them my story and showed them the cut. Some were outraged, others were completely non-plussed. I remember walking around in the cold, going from one cabin to another, until everyone had packed it in and I didn't have any choice except to go back to mine.

I don't remember much else after that. I don't remember interacting with Brother Kinghorn or really even anything else about that camp-out at all. I have a vague memory of explaining the incident to my parents and getting a "Well, why did you have to flick the lighter again" sort of response. What I do remember clearly is really hating Ed Kinghorn. Deeply. I felt so betrayed and wounded, I couldn't get over it. I think I held onto that hot anger for the better part of a year, avoiding Brother K at church, glaring at him or ignoring him altogether when we had to be in the same room, telling everyone who would listen about how a grown man clubbed a teenager with the butt of a flashlight. I never felt better.

Here's the random resolution to this story. The following spring, my brother David and I were the only ones home and he came to me saying that some hairy animal was in his window. Dave was probably 8 or 9 at the time so I wasn't sure what to think. I went to check it out and, sure enough, there was some oversized rat-like creature stuck in the window well of his room. It was too big to be a rat and not colored or shaped right to be a raccoon or squirrel. It was really unsettling to see something that big and unfamiliar skittering and scratching, trying to make its way out of the window well. Dave was freaked out and so was I.


(Wouldn't you be if something like this showed up at your house?)

Mom wasn't at home.
Dad wasn't at his desk at work.
Jason was gone somewhere.
The bishop was at work.
I didn't know who our home teachers were.
My familiar neighbors were at work.

We were up Rodent Creek without the proverbial you-know-what.

At last, completely out of other options, I phoned the Kinghorn residence. Wouldn't you know it? Brother K was home. I explained to him what was going on and asked if he'd come over to help us. He showed up a couple of minutes later and went into the backyard with us. He peered down into the well and said simply enough, "It's a muskrat." He assured us that we were safe, that muskrats were actually really common in the area and that, more likely than not, the spring runoff had forced the hairy little beast out of a nearby sewer or irrigation culvert. He said not to worry. For me, knowing what the thing was made it a lot less disturbing. I'd actually begun to think it was some irradiated mutant creature. (It was the late 80's okay? The country was still afraid of Russia and nuclear annihilation back then.) Anyway, Brother K awkwardly clapped me on the shoulder/side-hugged me and asked, "Gonna be alright?" and that was it. He left, my dad eventually came home and trapped the muskrat in a box. We took out to a swampy area near Fort Henry out in Burton and were never troubled by it again.

Happily, I didn't feel as angry towards Ed Kinghorn after that. I don't think he was in the ward that much longer. They moved and eventually he transferred to BYU-Hawaii to teach (because, really, who wouldn't?). Something about having to ask him for help made me resent him a little less. I still think he was way out of line and that his reaction was completely inappropriate. But I wonder sometimes if he remembers what happened and if he regrets losing it like that. I wonder if he's always struggled with his temper. I wonder if that's his burden to carry through life.

Anyway, this has turned into an epic post. I'll end it now. Enjoy this additional info on our friend, the muskrat:



P.S. I still have a faint scar on my right hand from that night. If you ever want to see it, just ask.