Four Weeks, Five People

There’s nothing we could have done.

They’ve been relying on that phrase for a while. In the fourth grade, when Brian Whitaker tried to steal my lunch box and I took a pair of scissors from the art corner and quietly destroyed his in return. There’s nothing we could have done. In eighth grade, when I called Jenny Winters a slut in gym class and she had a conniption of epic proportions even though, let’s face it, I was just the only one brave enough to say out loud what everyone else was thinking. There’s nothing we could have done. In sophomore year, when Peter Chu called me a faggot and opened his locker the next morning to find his stuff covered with fifth-period AP Biology’s supply of dead frogs. There’s nothing we could have done. It took a four-hour meeting with half of the administration to sort that one out, and the only way our bumbling pushover of a principal would let me stay at the high school was if my parents agreed to send me to a therapist for a serious psychological evaluation.

It wasn’t long until we were sitting in some over-air-conditioned, underdecorated therapist’s office in downtown Bethesda, listening to some psychiatric hack spout an endless stream of nonsense. It took only three words for all of my parents’ worst fears to be confirmed.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

“Narcissistic personality disorder?” my mom repeated.

“That’s not even a real thing, Mom,” I said. But she was already starting to fall apart, and I knew she wasn’t listening to me. In fact, I knew exactly where her mind was as she looked over to my father, teary and frantic, for reassurance.

There’s nothing we could have done.

They’re trying, of course. In one of the least self-aware moves two remarkably not self-aware people have ever made, they are now trying to undo what they see as the negative externalities of wealth by sending me to a twenty-thousand-dollar summer camp.

So here we are, staring at each other in the room I’m about to be imprisoned in for a month. I watch as my mom takes her hand off my suitcase and then puts it back, unable to decide whether or not she’s ready to leave. “Mason,” she says, and takes a deep breath. This is my mother’s holding-back-tears voice, which means that it’s time to rearrange my face into a sympathetic, pained expression. “Mason, promise me you’ll take advantage of this opportunity.”

“I promise,” I say, looking into her eyes. I walk toward her, place a hand on her shoulder, then draw her in for a hug. By the time we pull apart, she is dabbing at her eyes. This is a good thing, I say to myself. I am doing a good thing. My mom will go home and convince herself that she’s found the perfect program for me and that when I come home in a month, I’ll be a totally different person. Then she’ll drink tea and actually be able to fall asleep without worrying about me for once. I won’t have to deal with a lecture that I’ve heard a thousand times already, and my father can feel manly and important, since he’s footing the bill for this stupid camp. Besides, what else am I supposed to say? “Mom, everyone else at this camp is going to be a dipshit and there is no reason for me to be here. But if you’re going to make me come, the least you can do is hurry up and leave me in peace.” She doesn’t deserve the anxiety and I don’t deserve the fallout.

So I hug her, and I smile in the way that I know reminds her of my father, and I take the suitcase. “I got this,” I say. I move it to the side of the room, where there’s a pile of bags starting to form, and then walk back and shake my father’s hand.

“Be good, son,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I say, and flash him a grin.

“All right, Amy,” he says, squeezing my mother’s hand and guiding her past the suitcase. They leave hand in hand—my mother teary, my father stoic. I see them exchange a look as they walk out the door.

There’s nothing we could have done.

ANDREW (#u85ce315e-2639-5880-bef7-3e6507af0eb5)

IT STARTED KIND of as a joke.

I’m in this band, right? It’s called The Eureka Moment. And I know every single kid in every single band ever says this, but we’re actually pretty good. Jake is a killer guitarist, Aidan has been playing drums since before he could walk, Sam doesn’t get pissed about no one actually giving a shit about bass (way more important than skill when it comes to bassists, to be honest), and I have a good enough voice to get away with having pretty average guitar skills and even more average hair.

We weren’t very well-known for most of our time together. The first two years, we played a lot in garages and not a lot anywhere else. It was fun, obviously, but still, we dreamed about making it big just like any other band, you know? It wasn’t just the fame or the money—kind of the whole deal. The lifestyle, I guess. The image. I remember we’d spend hours looking at pictures of grungy lead singers with bands dressed in all black and ripped-up cigarette jeans that only anorexics and addicts can fit into. Heroin chic, it was called.

I don’t know how it happened, really, but I think we all kind of ended up adopting that look, thinking it would make us more popular. I mean, girls dig that shit, right? And then it turned into this stupid game, where whoever spent the most time smoking and the least amount of time eating “won.” There was never really any prize. I guess the satisfaction was enough. It was one of those jokes that everyone takes a little too seriously. We probably dropped a hundred pounds between the four of us in a few months.

The problem is that it worked. People were into us. Or maybe they weren’t into us, really, but they were at least interested in us. They gave us a chance, is what I’m saying. Our Twitter followers doubled. Girls started tagging us in Facebook photos their parents probably wouldn’t be thrilled about. The local newspaper picked up a couple stories about us. More and more people started coming to shows.

We never really talked about the game after we got more popular. I think the other guys just sort of realized it was stupid, quit, and went back to eating absolute crap and calling it “bulking.” You know, normal sixteen-year-old guy stuff.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I think maybe it affected me more than anyone else. I’m the lead singer, I guess, so people noticed my appearance more than some of the other guys. Smoking anything I could get my hands on and not eating and buying jeans I couldn’t afford and shouldn’t have been able to fit into and watching my cheekbones get more and more noticeable—I felt good about it. It was like accomplishing something, like becoming someone I wanted to be. And then, gradually, it pretty much became all I was. I mean, my friends were totally freaked out. My band mates hung around because we played together, but even they thought I was taking the whole thing a bit too far. The only people who really wanted to spend any time with me anymore by the time The Incident rolled around were people who dug the band but didn’t actually know anything about me as a person.

I’m not going to say that I don’t have a problem, because that would be kind of ridiculous at this point. I mean, I’m here, right? Camp Ugunduzi. I came willingly. I said okay when my parents suggested it and told them I would work on my issues and meant it. I’m not even angry about the fact that we’re in the middle of nowhere. Or that they took our phones away. Or that we’re not going to have internet and I’m not going to be able to jam with the guys for, like, four weeks. I’ll take that if it means I can bring myself to eat a burger and fries when I get back.

And it’s not like it’s not nice here. They’ve gathered all the campers on the grass by the lake so that the director can give some kind of speech before we break into our groups, and I have to admit, it’s pretty much just as beautiful as the brochure promised it would be. This is the kind of place artists go when they need quiet inspiration. When they’re sick of playing distorted power chords all day long and want to do something acoustic, something peaceful. I sit down on the grass, head filled with melodies and choruses and wishing I had brought my notebook out with me so that I could get it all down before they disappear. Inspiration is like that. There, and then, all of a sudden, gone.

By the time the director finally joins us, there’s about fifty people out on the grass. Some of them have formed small clusters and are talking to each other, but most people, like me, are just sort of staring into the distance. And then there’s this deafening screeching that I’d recognize anywhere as microphone feedback. For a second, it’s almost like I’m back in Aidan’s basement, plugging in all the amps and messing around with mics before a show. It’s a sound I’ve grown weirdly fond of, considering how awful it sounds. But then the director starts talking, and I snap out of it.

“Welcome to Camp Ugunduzi,” he says. “My name is Dr. Ash Palmer, and I’m the director here.”

The first thing I notice about this man is that everything about him is gray. Gray hair, gray eyes, gray suit. Even his voice, which is low and deep and gravelly, makes me think of the color gray.

“I could not be more thrilled to be starting the fifth year of our wonderful pilot program with you,” Dr. Palmer says. Which sounds great and all, except it would be impossible for this guy to look any less thrilled. Seriously. Dr. Palmer looks like one of those dudes who is literally not capable of smiling.

“Unfortunately, my position as director means that, for the most part, I won’t be seeing much of you over the course of the next few weeks. With that in mind, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say this afternoon.

“Foreboding warnings against misbehavior and disobedience seemed like a bad way to begin what I hope—and I certainly know you all hope—will be a positive experience. Attempts to find some sort of grand, overarching teaching message that would apply to a group as complex and diverse as you seemed infantilizing, not to mention destined to fail. And the usual cliché words of encouragement—well, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing those.”

At this point, I’m pretty confused. I mean, is he trying to be nice? Is he trying to be strict? Is he trying to intimidate us? Does anyone know? I look around the circle. Based on the looks on everyone else’s faces, the answer is definitely not.

“So I thought I would leave my opening dramatics to this, and leave the rest to our terrific, incredible staff,” Dr. Palmer continues. “For many of you, Camp Ugunduzi is a land of unknown. You may feel apprehensive, unsure, perhaps even scared, about what the next few weeks will entail. For others, it is a place where you’ve come to identify and address your problems. Your time here may hold many challenges, but you’ve come determined to confront them as best you can. Whatever role Camp Ugunduzi may play in each of your individual lives, I hope that for all of you it means an opportunity. To heal. To change. And, ultimately, to grow.”

Dr. Palmer does one last sweeping look across everyone gathered outside. Then he nods. “With that, I take my leave. You should now find your way to your group leaders, who are stationed around the area with signs with their group number on them.”

I stand up and start walking toward the woman standing next to the water with a giant 1L sign. Then I watch as everyone else finds their own group: clusters form around the 1R sign, then 2L, then 2R, then 3L, and so on until all ten signs are surrounded by five or six campers. But even as I look around, trying to take everything in at once, my head is still on Dr. Palmer, in his gray suit, giving his speech in his gray, gray voice. It was nothing unusual, I know. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. Just standard stuff that you’d expect to hear on the first day of camp—about how we’re going to grow, and change, and help each other solve all of our problems and whatever else. It’s stuff that should make me excited actually—because this is why my parents sent me. Because this is why I came.

But the thing is, there’s a part of me that’s scared. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to grow, or change, or let anyone help me get through this stupid problem. Because sometimes it feels like it’s everything I have. Or everything I even am. And sometimes, like the nights before shows and the moments after eating something I know I really shouldn’t have and when I’m counting my ribs as I’m lying in bed, I can’t think of who I’d be without it.

BEN (#u85ce315e-2639-5880-bef7-3e6507af0eb5)

Here is the exposition:

FADE IN:

EXT. CAMP UGUNDUZI MAIN GROUNDS—DAY

A field of grass.

The sun is shining. The air is warm. There is no noise other than the chirping of birds, the rustle of leaves in the wind, the occasional crack of branches from the forest in the distance. All is calm. All is beautiful. All is perfect. Well, except—

PAN to reveal the UGUNDUZI 1L BLOCK: five unhappy campers standing in a circle and looking like they’re facing certain death. One of them, lanky with brown hair and green eyes, grimaces.

BEN (V.O.)

Yeah, so that’s me.

This isn’t as weird as it seems.

Think about watching a movie. Think about the feeling you get when you’re actually in the theater, watching stuff happen on-screen. You’re invested, right? You want to know what happens. You like the characters, or you hate them, or you want them to hook up, or you want one of them to kill the other, or you want everyone to kill everyone else because they’re all imbeciles (I call this last one the Michael Bay effect). The point is, you care about them as if they’re real humans. You react emotionally to the things they do as if they’re real humans. But at the same time, you know, in your mind, that they’re not actually real humans. You know that in half an hour, or an hour, or two hours, or way too many hours (Michael Bay effect again here), the lights are going to come back on, and the universe you’ve just been lost in for however long is going to disappear, and all of the people you just rooted for or cheered against or lusted after are going to vaporize, too. And so, while you care, there’s always a part of you that’s holding back. And sometimes, that part of you is strong enough to drown out everything else you’re feeling in a sea of indifference.

That’s what moments like this feel like. People always say that dissociation is when things don’t feel “real,” and I used to say that, too. But then I realized—that’s not true. I know that I’m standing outside in the middle of a state park in upstate New York, and that I’m with four other people, and that we’re all furiously avoiding eye contact with each other while waiting for the adults to start talking and tell us what to do, and that I would do anything to disappear and be somewhere else right now. Life doesn’t get much realer than that.

What it does feel like is that, at any moment, the lights will come on and the credits will play and I’ll be put out of my troubled, awkward, unavoidably real misery. Sure, I’m so panicked that I can barely breathe right now, but just wait until the act-two turn! And yeah, I’m positive that everyone can already tell how terrified and pathetic I am, but I’m sure it’ll all get sorted out in the closing pages of act three. Whatever mortifying thing I’m about to do or say, however much I feel like I’d rather be alone in a hole in the ground than have to talk to everyone standing here and make a total idiot of myself, even if it’s so bad that I feel like I can never justify getting out of bed again—none of it matters, not really. The girl glowering at the grass will exist to the left; the boy to my right will disappear offscreen. It’ll all be okay. Because that’s just how movies are.