Getting Into Trouble

SEEING A SHAGGY brown camel drinking from a bucket on somebody’s lawn would normally be surprising, at least to anyone not born in a country whose main landscape feature was sand. Damon Cole, however, could muster no surprise. Because here—in the Florida mobile home community where his grandparents lived—the sight made just about as much sense as anything else. And he suddenly found himself smiling. His own reaction startled him. He hadn’t had anything to smile about in a long time. Weeks. Months? Hard to remember the last happy, contented moment in his life. Yet, as he turned into the short gravel driveway fronting the mobile home, contentment was what he felt. That could have been caused by the great memories he had of the place from his childhood, or by how much he’d missed his grandparents. Or even, simply, by the camel. Whatever the reason, he was glad. The emotions provided a respite from the more common feeling of helpless anger he’d experienced in recent weeks.