Boot Camp

  “No!” Joe disagrees harshly. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. You are a child. They are your parents. You don’t know what’s best for you. They do. You are to obey them unconditionally. That is precisely why you are here, Garrett. And you will stay here until you learn that. Do you understand?”

  I lower my head and stare at my bare toes in my flip-flops. What I understand is that I’ve always related better to adults than to kids my own age. It’s not exactly something I’m proud of. Believe me, it would have been a lot easier the other way around. But from the time I was young, I was like an older person trapped in a kid’s body. While other kids were reading Goosebumps, I was reading Stephen King. When they were listening to hip-hop, I was into jazz. While they were watching teenage horror movies, I was watching the films of Martin Scorsese and Paul Haggis.

  Then I met Sabrina, and there was an instant connection. I’d never felt anything like it. At first the eight-year difference in age felt strange. I admit it bothered her a lot more than me. But she looked younger than her age, while I, more than six feet tall and shaving every day, seemed older. Strangers never questioned seeing us together. We looked like a couple in our late teens.

  But it wasn’t just outward appearances. I felt we were meant to be together. We were both math geeks and manga heads. Every time Sabrina started to fret that being with me was wrong, that people her age weren’t supposed to have “intimate relations” with people my age, I pointed out that there used to be laws against relations between people of different races, or of the same sex. We now think of those laws as barbaric or uninformed.

  People develop at different speeds. I told her over and over that sometimes the “normal” rules don’t apply. She tried suggesting that we wait until I turned eighteen. But to me that sounded like an eternity.

  “Garrett, I asked you if you understood,” Joe repeats.

  I understand that I’m a prisoner in a place where my parents are paying a lot of money to get other people to do what they’ve been unable to do. Which is convince me that something that feels completely right is wrong.

  “Well?” Joe says.

  “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  “What do you understand?”

  “I understand … that I will stay here … until I learn, sir.”

  “Learn what?”

  “That I must obey my parents unconditionally, sir.”

  Once again the room grows quiet. Until Chubby Girl says, “Don’t believe him. He’s full of it.”

  And for once, she’s right.

  SIX

  “You will be observed by a staff member or student guard at all times.”

  “See those lights in the ceiling?” Joe asks. It’s Shut Down, and we are in the dorm where Dignity family sleeps. The day at Lake Harmony starts at six A.M. We run and do drills until eight A.M. and then wash up for breakfast at eight-thirty. After breakfast we study in classrooms until lunch. After lunch we have more studies, then more drills, then Circle. After that comes dinner, then Reflections, and then at nine-thirty P.M. we wash once again and prepare for Shut Down at ten.

  The dorm walls are bare gray cinder blocks, and there are no windows, just a door at one end and an open doorway to the bathroom at the other. The air in here is hot and stinks of stale teenage sweat. Sixteen metal cots in two rows of eight are jammed into the room, plus four additional mattresses that go on the floor each night. The other members of Dignity stand in neat rows in front of their cots or mattresses, listening while Joe yells at me.

  “Are you stupid, Garrett? I asked you a question!” he shouts, sending spittle into my face.

  “Yes, sir, I see those lights.” On the ceiling above the cots are two rows of tiny red lights, but I’m thinking about those four mattresses on the floor. They are reserved for the Level Ones, but the mattresses aren’t punishment. There’s simply no space for more cots in this room. When Lake Harmony makes four thousand dollars a month on each kid, those four extra mattresses add up to nearly two hundred thousand extra dollars a year.

  “Garrett!” Joe screams.

  Spittle hits my face again, but I dare not wipe it away. I am a Level One. I am not allowed to move without permission.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pay attention, you dumb ass. Those are motion detectors. You get out of bed in the middle of the night, they go off. You can use the bathroom once before Shut Down; then you stay in bed until morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answer, even though I have no bed. I am one of the lowly who sleep on a mattress on the floor.

  “Even if you were to somehow get out of this room, there are motion detectors in the halls,” Joe continues. “And the panic bars on the doors to the outside are wired to lock automatically for forty-five seconds if touched.”

  Joe must see the confusion on my face.

  “What’s the problem?” he barks.

  “What if there’s a fire, sir?”

  “That’s why they lock for only forty-five seconds, you idiot. Any more stupid questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  Joe moves down the line to the pale, delicate boy with blond hair and blue eyes. The boy’s shoulders are stooped, and he begins to tremble when Joe stops in front of him. The boy’s bare arms and neck are covered by a patchy, oozing, reddish rash.

  “What is that, Pauly?” Joe asks in a disgusted tone.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Pauly answers in a quavering voice.

  “You don’t know?” Joe asks. “It’s a rash, you dumb wimp. You ever have anything like that before?”

  “Well, a couple of times, when I ate something that disagreed with me, sir.”

  “Something that disagreed with you?” Joe repeats with revulsion. He turns to the rest of us. “You hear that, boys? Little Pauly ate something that disagreed with him. Oh, iddn’t dat jus too, too bad?” He finishes in baby talk.

  A few kids grin. Others eye Pauly with looks of utter derision.

  “Now lemme ax you someting, wittle Pauwy,” Joe continues in the humiliating baby talk. “Are you sure you ate someting dat disagweed wit your wittle tummy? Or maybe you just wubbed yourself against the wall to make it look like a waash so you could have a wittle vacation in the infirmawee.”

  Still trembling, Pauly shakes his head and stares down at the floor, blinking hard to fight back tears.

  “I didn’t hear your answer, wittle Pauwy,” Joe says mockingly.

  A tear drops off Pauly’s eyelid and splats on the floor. His lower lip quivers. The kid has a rash. Why is Joe tormenting him? It takes every muscle in my body not to shout at Joe to lay off.

  “What’s a matter, wittle Pauwy, can’t you talk?” Joe taunts.

  “I… I didn’t rub against anything.”

  “What?” Joe snaps sharply.

  Pauly jumps. “Sir!”

  “So wittle Pauwy didn’t wub against anyting,” Joe goes on. “He just ate someting dat disagweed wit him. Well, dat’s too bad, wittle Pauwy, but you’re not going anywhere near the infirmawee. You’ll just have to tough it out and get better all by your wittle self.”

  It hardly seems to matter that Pauly never asked to go to the infirmary.

  Having reduced Pauly to a jellylike blob of tears, Joe leaves. But we are not left alone. In addition to frequent check-ins by the chaperones, the Level Five and Six kids become “teen guards” at night. Just before Shut Down they escort us two at a time to the bathroom and watch while we use the toilets, which are in stalls without doors. The teen guards then take turns staying up at night, reporting every infraction to Joe in the morning. So it seems strange to me when, shortly after Joe leaves, Adam brushes close to Pauly and mutters something. Pauly hangs his head and follows him to the end of the room, where the two of them disappear into the bathroom.

  A moment later they are followed by Zitface. I’ve learned that his name is David and he’s a Level Four. Unibrow Robert, the stocky Level Three with the dark eyebrows, also goes. This appears to be an obvious violation
of the rules, but the two Level Five guards, Ron and Jon, continue preparing for bed as if nothing unusual is happening. Even when the sounds of a scuffle come from the bathroom, the others pretend they hear nothing. There’s a loud slap, followed by a muffled cry. Slaps are favored at Lake Harmony because they leave no telltale bruises in the morning.

  “Aahh!” A sharper yelp of pain comes from the bathroom. The rest of us in the dorm share furtive looks. It’s three against one in there, and the one is weak and defenseless.

  “Ow!”

  The hell with the stupid Lake Harmony rules. I head toward the bathroom, but teen guard Ron blocks my path and says, “Don’t.”

  “They’re hurting him for no reason.”

  “Go to bed or I’ll tell Joe,” Ron warns.

  I point toward the bathroom. “You gonna tell Joe about what’s going on in there?”

  Ron doesn’t react. It’s almost like he didn’t hear the question. “That’s none of your business.”

  I step around him and head toward the bathroom. Behind me Ron threatens, “You’re in big trouble.”

  In the bathroom Adam has backed Pauly against the wall, one hand jammed against the kid’s throat, the other holding something thin and light blue under Pauly’s nose. It’s a toothbrush that’s been scraped down into a pointed weapon. In prisons they’re called shivs. David Zitface and Unibrow Robert stand nearby, watching with amused leers.

  “Let him go.”

  Adam and his posse spin around with startled expressions. “Get lost,” Adam snarls. What makes him the leader? He can’t be more than 5’9”, and he’s narrowly built, and slouches. Clearly, the power he wields must be psychological.

  I stand with my arms crossed. “I said, let him go.”

  With one hand still on Pauly’s neck, Adam aims the shiv at me. “You want to get messed up bad?”

  The threat sounds hollow, so I don’t answer. I just wait.

  Adam gestures with his little plastic weapon. “I said get lost.”

  When I still don’t move, David Zitface and Unibrow Robert shoot nervous looks at Adam, who frowns uncertainly and points at Pauly. “What do you care about this piece of dirt?”

  “He’s not a piece of dirt,” I reply patiently. “And this isn’t some prison movie. What are you doing to him?”

  Adam lets go of Pauly, who slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, knees pulled into his chest, sobbing.

  Adam gazes down contemptuously. “I don’t see a human being. I see a piece of crybaby crap that doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “What’s with you?” I ask. “You sound like you’re reading a script. How would you like it if I did that to you?”

  “Fat chance,” Adam scoffs.

  When you’re big, you learn to use your body in carefully measured ways. A half step in Adam’s direction and a slight tilt of the forehead show everyone what my intentions are. “Leave him alone.”

  Adam steps away from Pauly and jabs the shiv in my direction, but he’s now clearly on the defensive. “I’ll kick your ass in so many ways, you won’t know night from day,” he warns. But his voice is a tremulous octave higher than before, and he and his little gang start to leave the bathroom.

  I step to the side, giving them room to pass. They go, grimacing and gnarling like dogs on a leash. Adam is the last, and as he passes, he aims the pointed end of the toothbrush at me. “You’re a dead man.”

  SEVEN

  “You may be placed in Temporary Isolation at any time for any reason.”

  “Take Garrett to TI, Mr. Gold,” Joe says the next morning.

  “But sir, what about what Adam did to Pauly?” I ask, while the troll grabs my wrist and twists my arm hard behind my back to make sure I cooperate.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe replies. “Ron and Jon, come with us.”

  I glance at Pauly, who hangs his head and won’t meet my gaze. If he talks, it’s a death sentence.

  Keeping my arm behind my back, the troll walks me down the hall. Joe follows, spewing his nonstop litany of abuse. “You still don’t get it, Garrett. You think you’re smart, but you’re too stupid to see how it works here. You have no rights. Your opinions don’t count. You’re just a punk kid with a crap attitude, and you don’t know squat. When are you gonna figure out that what you think doesn’t matter? The only things that matter are what I think and what your parents think. That’s why you’re here, Garrett. Because you didn’t listen to your parents. And that’s what you’re going to think about in TI, dimwit. Learning to listen. Learning to obey. Learning to do what your parents say.”

  The troll shoves me into the TI room and follows with Ron and Jon. Joe remains in the doorway.

  “No marks,” Joe says, and closes the door.

  “Face down on the floor,” the troll orders.

  I do as I’m told, and then Jon and Ron get to work. They spit and slap and twist and squeeze. Everything that hurts but will leave no telltale bruises tomorrow. I grit my teeth, trying not to let them have the satisfaction of knowing how much pain I’m in, but grunts and yelps escape my lips whenever the stabbing, twisting agony becomes too great. They grind the heels of their shoes into my knees and elbows. Only Level Ones through Fours are required to wear flip-flops, allegedly to slow us down in case we try to run away. Level Fives and Sixes are rewarded by being allowed to wear shoes.

  “Stop!” I hear myself cry when Ron twists my arm so hard, it feels like it will explode out of the shoulder socket.

  Standing near the door with his arms folded and a demented smile on his lips, the troll asks, “What’s the matter, Garrett? Can’t take a little pain?”

  “I’d like to see you take it.”

  “WHAT?” the troll shouts. At the same moment Ron twists my arm harder.

  “Sorry, sir!” I instantly apologize and feel relief as Ron eases up.

  “You better be,” the troll murmurs.

  The beating stops, and I feel my aching body go limp. Sabrina, if you knew what I’m going through …

  “Good work, boys.” The troll praises Ron and Jon as they leave, and the door slams and locks. So this is how they do it here. The staff can’t be accused of harming kids because they have other kids do it for them. And why would Ron and Jon agree? Because you don’t get out of Lake Harmony unless you prove whose side you’re on.

  “You deserve to be here.”

  “Everything you did before was wrong.”

  “You’ll never leave until you learn to respect authority.”

  “Change your attitude to gratitude. Your parents sent you here to save you. You owe them everything.”

  Each day I hear these chants when Ron and Jon come back to slap and twist and spit. By now I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been in TI. Jon and Ron are like robot zombies. They drone the words with no feeling, as if they’re reciting a mantra. The troll usually accompanies them for my daily beatings. But today for some reason he’s not here.

  “You suck, Gary Durrell.” Jon leans a knee into the small of my back. “You’re stupid, pathetic, and good for nothing. Just a miserable excuse for being human.”

  “Are you even listening to what you’re saying?” I ask, twisting my head around and looking up at him. “You just called me Gary. My name’s Garrett.”

  Above me Jon blinks. Both he and Ron pause from their “duties.” I roll over onto my elbows and look up at them. “Seriously, what are you guys doing?”

  If ever there was a moment when one of them might have said something that showed they were faking or pretending just to get out of this place, now would be it. But instead Jon answers robotically: “You have to renounce your old ways.”

  “You deserved to be sent here,” Ron adds. “We’re trying to help you.”

  “You guys really have been brainwashed,” I tell them.

  The word detonates something in Jon. Smack! He slaps me hard in the face. “You better stop mouthing off, loser.”

  “You gotta admit yo
u have anger issues,” Ron says.

  Anger issues?

  And for the rest of the session they beat me extra hard.

  The door to TI opens, and Joe comes in with Mr. Sparks.

  “Get up, you worthless piece of crap.”

  I rise slowly. My body aches from the daily torture. Feeling light-headed and dizzy, I have to put my hands on my knees and bend at the waist to keep from passing out.

  Whack! Joe smacks me across the back of the head. “Straighten up!”

  I slowly obey his command. Joe steps close and stares up at me as if reading my eyes. “Nope, you still don’t get it. Still think you don’t belong here, right?”

  There’s no answer I can give that will satisfy him. Without warning he drives his fist into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I double over, gasping in pain.

  “When I ask a question, you answer,” he barks.

  It takes me a moment to catch my breath.

  “Well?”

  “If I answer, you’ll just hit me again, sir.”

  Pow! He hits me anyway.

  Still in TI. The places where my body takes my weight on the floor—elbows, knees, hips, ribs—have grown excruciatingly sore. In this windowless room I lose track of day and night; I merely doze on and off. Immeasurable lumps of time float past. To escape the numbing sameness, I retreat to the land of memories:

  My dad and me rafting down the Colorado River, bucking the rapids, the cold water splashing my face, my hands gripping the safety ropes.

  Sabrina and me spending four dollars on a truffle in a chocolate shop. The taste of chocolate and raspberry on my tongue. Then tasting it again on Sabrina’s lips.

  Lying on my bed at home, ears encased in Sennheiser headphones, listening to music with the volume so high that the sound has a heavy, syrupy quality …

  Another week passes. Or maybe it’s only three days. Ron and Jon come in to deliver another beating. What scares me the most is knowing they really believe what they’re doing. I don’t know what happened in their lives before they got here, but they’ve become devoted disciples of the philosophy of Lake Harmony.