THE BULGARIAN:

IN THE SHADOW OF THOMAS WOLFE

In the mid-1990s, as a student, I had the opportunity to work in the United States on a J1 Visa at a children’s summer camp in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina. The camp, situated about 40 miles south of Asheville, was a for privileged kids but I nonetheless enjoyed my time there very much. Literary luminary Thomas Wolfe, who wrote Look Homeward Angel, was born close by, while poet Carl Sandburg lived his later life in Flat Rock, a few miles from the actual camp. I spent four seasons at the camp. Not wanting to work with children, I got a job in maintenance. The job itself was very physically demanding, but you were generally finished by six and then had the rest of the evening free, unlike the camp counselors — who were with the bratty kids 24/7 except for one day off in the week. As far as I was concerned, I had it easy in comparison.

ROAD TRIP

Most of the time we were moving beds to different cabins or fixing leaks in bathrooms or helping the resident nature guy to remove hornets’ nests. Not too taxing, if I have to say so myself. I can honestly say I enjoyed the work. There was one caveat, however: the pay was abysmal: I’m guessing, though it’s quite misty in my memory these days as it was nigh on two decades ago, I earned around $1500 for the three months I was there in my first year. That was from late May to late August. Calculate it: fifteen hundred divided by twelve equals a measly $125 a week. Now, I was only in my early twenties and food and board were included, but I had road trips planned for after the camp and money was precious. Okay, so every year the salary increments went up slightly but not by any significant amount. I remember in the first year, in 1996, I went across the continent with two Czech guys, Tomas and Martin. We left North Carolina in a flaming orange 83’ Nissan Altima station wagon we had bought for $300 in Hendersonville, NC, and headed up to NYC to meet up with Tomas’ Czech university pals (who also happened to be in a camp in New York state that summer) We met them somewhere near Central Park, if I remember rightly (there were three of them and they had bought a second-hand car, too). We discussed where we were going to go. The plan was simple: We were headed for Niagara Falls, and would go together. We started off. However, after ten minutes we lost sight of them in the awful Manhattan traffic. And that was it, we never saw them again. You must remember, these were the days before mass use of mobile phones, the internet and way before social media had been invented — and we had no way of contacting them. So, despite that, we travelled on our own. That trip, unfortunately, is not for this post, but maybe for another in the future.

THE BULGARIAN

Sometimes on camp, we would have to deliver things to the kitchens. Now, earlier I mentioned how easy our job was compared to the camp counselors. This, though, cannot be said as true for the kitchen helpers, porters and waitresses. They had it tough. Though no gulag, they struggled at time with the repressive heat and demanding schedule. The first summer, my co-workers and I in maintenance became friendly with a few from the kitchen. There was Clarence, a black fella from London in his late-thirties who had a penchant for eating and roller-blading. He was employed at the camp’s salad man, and his job encompassed washing, cutting and arranging the salads for every meal. Nice guy, too. Another one was Ivailo, a huge Bulgarian porter. Saying Ivailo had a problem with his English was an understatement: it was awful. He had come to the United States to make friends and improve his language skills.

THE COCKNEY GAFFER

The kitchen boss, Mark — another guy from London, and as odious a person as Clarence was kind — ran the show. I didn’t like him. He was arrogant and treated his subalterns in the kitchen — most of whom were from eastern Europe — with contempt. One day, myself, Tomas (who I would be travelling with on our great American road trip and worked with in the maintenance department) and another guy, Kyle, were chillaxing behind the kitchen during our lunchtime. This area — like the laundry cabin — was a magnet for conversation and camp gossip.

“Ivailo,” Mark said, documents under his arm, “go and get me some pepper. “Jamal’s running outta the stuff.”

Jamal was the head chef. An African-American from Gainsville, Florida, he came up with his team of chefs every summer to work in the camp.

The Bulgarian had been chatting to us, struggling, but he was trying.

“Okay, Mark,” he answered.

Ivailo disappeared into what we thought was the storeroom where all the supplies were kept.

“You all right lads?” Mark said to us in his strong Cockney accent.

“Yeah,” I answered.

Like me, Tomas and Kyle didn’t like him.

THE DISAPPEARANCE

We hung around, I don’t know, for another half an hour before he had to get back to work, chatting to other kitchen porters who were coming in and out to the back from the kitchen. We had another excuse, too: the waitresses. Oh, yeah — like the porters — they were mainly from Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Russia, and they were all good lookers.

“You like her, don’t you, Kyle?” Mark asked Kyle, a 26-year-old mature geology student from the north of England, referring to Kyle’s infatuation with Jarka, a dark-haired beauty from the Czech Republic.

“She’s all right, yeah,” Kyle answered in his laconic Mancunian.

“Where the fuck is he?” Mark then said as he looked at his watch.

“Who?” I asked.

“Ivailo.”

“Dunno,” Kyle said.

It’d been at least forty-five minutes since the Bulgarian had gone for the pepper.

“He’s only gone for pepper,” Mark said. “Can you go and see if he’s in the storeroom, lads?”

“I’ll go,” I said.

The storeroom was a big cabin about a hundred yards down the hill from the back of the kitchen where they stored all the dried food goods, paper towels etc.

“What do you mean, ‘he’s not there?” Mark said once I’d come back and told him he wasn’t in the storeroom.

We returned to work. The maintenance boss, Rachel, told us to go down to the camp’s central office to move a desk into another part of the office.

MARSHA

“Hello, boys,” Marsha, one of the office workers, said cheerfully as usual. “Whatcha here for?”

“There’s a desk needs moving,” I replied.

“Oh, yeah.”

She took us through to the main office.

“Ivailo,” I said, noticing him sitting in reception, “what are you doing here?”

“Do you know anything about him?” Marsha asked me, seemingly confused at his presence.

“Ivailo, I thought you went for pepper? Mark’s looking for you?”

He smiled, then looked at me blankly — he didn’t understand what I’d said, obviously.

“Pepper?” he answered, standing up.

Marsha then told me he came in asking for paper. They didn’t have any in stock for him, so he just waited.

“Come with us, Ivailo,” Tomas said to him, pissing himself laughing.

PAPER. PEPPER

“Where the fuck have you been, china?” Mark said to Ivailo as we were walking into the kitchen.

The Bulgarian was nervous, more so because of his weak language skills: I had to explain his case.

“He thought you meant ‘paper’, mate,” I said to Mark.

He looked at me in disbelief before focussing his ire on the business administration student from Sofia University.

“Is that right?” Mark said to Ivailo.

“Yes, Mark.”

“Get the fuck in the kitchen, yer twat,” Mark said. Ivailo went back into the kitchen. “And what the fuck are you two laughing at?” he asked us.

We couldn’t help it.

“Because it’s hilarious, Mark,” I told him. “PAPER. PEPPER. PEPPER. PAPER “It’s quite similar pronunciation really.”

“Piss off back to maintenance, you two!”