At night, at the hunting camp, they played poker and drank. Sullen Boy usually won at poker because even though he got drunk, he concentrated on the game, unlike his friends, who were more interested in talking about how much sex they had, or would like to have with women. He was a good poker player but pretended he wasn't.
One night, after Sullen Boy had won most of the money, and after he had gotten very drunk, he suggested they play strip poker. This puzzled his friends because they didn't think this was done in most hunting camps. They didn't think this was even done in beer commercials, although with some of those actors, you could never tell.
But Sullen Boy insisted; he said he could beat them all and would give them a handicap, so he took off his shirt to prove it. Sullen Boy's friends didn't know what to think of this and most of them said no, although others looked quite interested.
Then Sullen Boy took off his t-shirt and his watch
and his boots and his socks and then his jeans, in that
order. He took off everything but his tight, white Jockey
shorts, and he stood on a chair in front of his friends
and he demanded that they play strip poker. His
friends were completely astounded, as they had never
heard Sullen Boy say more than ten words at once, let
alone see him take off his clothes. They were so upset
that, driven by their deer-
Then things became slightly confused; Sullen Boy's friends don't agree on what happened next, and Sullen Boy was too drunk to remember anything at all. His friends do agree however, that he took off his tight, white Jockey shorts and stood stark naked in the middle of the table and pissed on it. He whirled around like a fire hose that was out of control and he sprayed piss everywhere; there was no confusion in Sullen Boy's friends' minds about that at all, and they agreed that things like that were just not done in hunting camps, not even in Lanark County.
The story of what happened at the hunting camp quickly spread, and men came to the mill where Sullen Boy worked just to get a glimpse of him hiding behind his noisy machine. His co-workers, who used to be his friends, now wouldn't speak to him at lunch time, but that didn't bother him at all. In fact, he didn't seem to notice.
But Sullen Boy noticed something strange. The first time this strange thing happened was when one of his co-workers, whose name was Joe, sidled up to him when nobody was looking and asked him if he would like a ride home after work. Sullen Boy thought this was strange because he had a brand new 4-by-4 pickup of his own which he had paid for in cash because he had worked so much overtime. When he reminded Joe of this, Joe said that he'd forgotten, and walked quickly away.
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