I look down and study the stripes on the beach towel on my lap. Then I look around me. During the time we’ve been here, inhibitions have been relaxed. For the first couple of nights, the counselors gave showers fully dressed. Now most are stripped down to their underwear and some are naked. All of the campers are completely exposed.

They are a strange assortment of bodies. I’ve become accustomed to them in their summer clothes, even in bathing suits. But seeing them naked is something else.

There is Yvonne. Every morning she puts a clean sock on her stump and straps on her leg and becomes one of the crowd. No one notices the plastic leg sticking out of her shorts. But here, attached to a naked body, otherwise normal, even beautiful, the oddness of it sticks out. Standing in the shower, she unhooks the leather harness and tosses the leg aside. She peels the white sock off her stump. Balancing on a grab bar, she stands there, naked, one-legged, and starts the shower. Sitting on a shower bench, stump jutting outward, she soaps herself and rinses and squeezes shampoo into the palm of her hand. She rubs shampoo into her hair, just like a two-legged girl with no thought of a stump. And why not? She is a one-legged girl, that’s all. She must be used to it.

There are other shapes. Here is an interesting back, with a big fleshy bulge. Dangling from the body are tiny legs, frozen in their infant state. On another bench is a camper with a severe spinal curvature. Her back is so twisted that she sits on her side. Her breasts rest on her lap like two pillows on a mattress.

I stop seeing people and see body parts. Knees that look enormous because the shin muscles are gone. Skinny, useless limbs. Humps, bumps, and knots. Bags, tape, and gauze. Stomachs with holes in them and plastic tubes through which urine and feces escape. And more places where parts are missing.

At the far end of the room a spazzo showers alone. There is something boyish about her body; the female parts seem out of place. There is no softness about her. Over the whole body the flesh is firm and muscular. She looks like an athlete. The discus thrower. As the spazzo moves under the shower, muscles ripple—back, neck, shoulders, stomach, arms, legs. Ridges rise and fall as the voluntary muscles struggle against the resistance of involuntary spastic motions. The big muscle groups are plainly visible at work beneath tight skin.

Tight fingers grip a wet washcloth. The arm straightens, flexing against its own resistance. It drags the washcloth across a bar of soap on the bench beside her. She scrapes the rag over her other arm and bats it at her neck and trunk. Then she leans forward into the falling water. Still holding the limp cloth, she tries to stick up one leg.