Boot Camp (8 page)

Something tells me to step toward him.

He steps back. Strange how this is what Lake Harmony is all about: power and domination and fear. They take away our power and it makes us fear them. Why am I not allowed to speak or move without permission? It is a way of stripping away my power of self-expression. When they have all the strength and we have none, we fear them and do whatever they want. TI, the beatings, the humiliation—they're all about leaving us naked and weak and forcing us into subservience.

But oddly, my blood is power. Covered by it, I'm like some horror-movie ghoul. I take another step and feel the balance between Joe and me shift like a seesaw rising and falling.

“Stop!” he orders, his voice a notch higher than before. It's almost as if we're not at Lake Harmony anymore and I'm not a Level One with fewer human rights than a refugee from some third-world civil war. For a moment Lake Harmony's ridiculously tyrannical system of rules and points doesn't apply. Not that I could lose any points anyway, since I have none. I take another step.

“You'll be so sorry,” Joe hisses. “You have no frickin' idea what's gonna happen to you.”

I stop. “But what's the point, sir? If you beat me until I'm a zombie like Jon and Ron, what does that prove?”

Sensing I won't come closer, Joe breathes a little more easily. “Parents send their kids here because
they've lost control. Their kids are self-destructing, and they have no place else to turn. A lot of these kids would be in jail, or strung out, or dead if they weren't here. We save lives, Garrett.”

“So Pauly's gonna stay here until he makes the football team, sir?”

“That's up to Pauly's parents, not me,” Joe replies. “My job is to make sure Pauly's parents get a kid who'll try out for the football team if that's what they want him to do.”

We've reached a stalemate. Covered with blood like this I could probably back him all the way down the hall. At the same time I realize that that is most likely what he expects. Doing it will just reinforce what he already believes about us “completely out of control” kids with all our “anger issues” and “crap attitudes.”

So instead I point down at the gummy red mess on the hallway floor. Damned if it doesn't look like a murder scene. You can imagine one of those chalk police outlines where the body lay. “Shouldn't I clean it up, sir?”

Joe cocks an eyebrow suspiciously, as if this must be a trick. He walks a dozen feet, pulls a key ring off his belt, and unlocks some kind of janitor's closet. Inside are mops and brooms, a bucket on wheels, and a sink. He holds the door open for me. “Get to work.”

I nod subserviently and reach for the mop and bucket. “Yes, sir.”

And suddenly we're back at Lake Harmony.

“You will not criticize Lake Harmony.”

“Go on.” The troll points at the concrete steps to the old brick administration building. I climb up and pause at the wooden front door, waiting for the next command.

“Knock and go in,” the troll orders.

I do as told. The air in the lobby is cool and air-conditioned. The troll points at the door to Mr. Z's office. I cross the lobby to the door, then stop and look back at him.

“Knock.”

I knock.

“Come in,” the gruff voice says.

Inside, the office is even cooler than in the lobby.
Mr. Z is sitting at his desk, studying a colorful newspaper flyer advertising televisions. He takes off his reading glasses. “Come here, Garrett.”

I step closer. Mr. Z stares up at me but says nothing. Our eyes meet and stay locked for several seconds.

“Most kids can't do that,” he says.

My eyes remain on his, but I don't respond. He has not asked me a question.

Mr. Z puts the glasses back on, picks up some papers, and scans them. “You've been here for more than two months, Garrett. During that time you've spent a total of three weeks in TI. What have you learned so far?”

“That my parents are paying you a lot of money to turn me into a more obedient son, sir.”

He lowers the papers and looks over the glasses at me with a slightly amused smirk. “You're a fast learner, Garrett. But that won't help you get out of here. You won't be able to fool us or convince us you're ready to go before you really are. Some of your fellow students foolishly cling to the notion that they can fake it. You know who they are because they're the ones who've been here the longest. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they just keep making the same ones. And the biggest mistake you can make here, Garrett, is thinking you can outsmart us. You may never have seen us before, but we've seen hundreds and hundreds of kids like you. I've been in this business for eleven years, and believe me, I've seen it all. We'll know when you're ready. And you will not leave a second before that.”

The room becomes quiet.

“Any questions?” Mr. Z asks.

“No, sir.”

He makes a tent of his stubby fingers and studies me. “I have a feeling there's a lot going on inside that brain, Garrett. A lot of mental energy being expended trying to find a loophole or some weakness you can exploit in order to get out of here. Rather than waste your time trying to think of ways to get around what you're supposed to be doing, why not spend that time and energy trying to understand why you were sent here and how you can change?”

Silence.

“Keep in mind, Garrett, that Lake Harmony is not an end. It's a means. A way of getting you back on track and headed in the right direction. Many of our graduates go on to two- and four-year colleges. Clearly, your parents have the ability to provide you with a wonderful education. Why waste your time and their money here when you could be enjoying life somewhere else?”

That reminds me of something. “Sir, may I ask a question that is in no way meant to be disrespectful?”

“Yes, Garrett, go ahead.”

“Financially speaking, isn't it in your interest to keep us here as long as you can?”

Mr. Z smiles. “We couldn't have stayed in business all this time if we did that. Parents send their children here because we deliver results. That's our reputation, Garrett.” He points at the old green file cabinets. “Inside some of those cabinets are letters of thanks from grateful parents who'd thought they'd lost their kids
for good, sent them here out of absolute desperation, and then got back the kids they'd prayed for. You know what we do here, Garrett? We save lives. We're the last stop on the road to self-destruction, and we turn kids around and point them toward salvation. That's why I do what I do, Garrett. And as long as I keep doing that, there will always be parents who'll want to send their troubled children to me.”

“Even if you have to beat them into submission, sir?”

Mr. Z's face goes stony. “That concludes our meeting, Garrett.”

“One last question, sir?”

“What?” Mr. Z snaps, his voice oozing impatient displeasure.

“Sir, does every kid meet with you like this?”

Mr. Z draws a long breath in through his nose. “No, Garrett, they don't.”

“Then why me, sir?”

Mr. Z gazes at me with an expression that's hard to read. “You can go.”

The taped lectures that blare over the loudspeakers at mealtime are called RLs, which stands for Right Living. Just another example of Lake Harmony's conviction that before we came here we excelled in wrong living. Tonight's dinner lecture, broadcast at eardrum-bursting decibels, extols the merits of sleep: “Sufficient sleep positively affects our health and well-being and plays a key role in preventing disease and injury, promoting stability of mood and the ability to learn.”

The only thing worse than these tapes is the food they serve while we listen to them. Greasy, fatty, and monotonous. Gray hamburgers, soggy French fries, watery spaghetti, slightly rancid-smelling tuna fish.

Given how foul the food is, hot dogs are a Lake Harmony favorite. For tonight's meal we each get two franks in buns and a fist-sized glob of mealy brown baked beans. What a feast!

“You bitch!” Tempers flare in the Courtesy family, where a tall blonde lunges across the table at another female. “Mothers,” “fathers,” and “chaperones” swarm over the two girls, pulling them apart.

Suddenly I feel a sharp poke in my ribs from the kid sitting next to me. It's David Zitface. He dips his pimply forehead in Adam's direction. I look across the table, where Adam meets my gaze and then looks down at the dogs on my plate.

He must be joking—or crazy—if he thinks I'm going to give him my hot dogs. If he wants part of my dinner, he can wait until a night when they're serving creamed chicken. Under the booming RL and the continued shouting at the Courtesy family table, Adam bares his lizard teeth menacingly. I ignore him. After a moment he turns his attention to Pauly, whose hot dogs sit untouched on his plate. Like a drop of food coloring in water, the red rash has spread and become diluted over his body.

“Ahem.” Adam clears his throat. Pauly gazes up for a moment and shrugs as if he already knows what Adam wants. He wearily glances around to make sure
Joe and the chaperones aren't watching, then slides his plate toward Adam, who quickly picks off both dogs.

At the end of the meal, the glob of beans on Pauly's plate remains untouched. He hasn't eaten a thing.

After dinner we clear the tables and move on to Reflections, when we're supposed to write down our thoughts and what we learned from the RLs that day. (Level Fives and Sixes sometimes get to watch nonviolent PG movies and eat snacks like popcorn and potato chips in a special room off-limits to everyone else.) Once every two weeks we can write a letter to our parents (but nowhere else, and to no one else, including Sabrina). The RL is turned off, and we are given fat, bendable rubber markers. Pencils and pens are considered potential weapons.

There's no point in writing anything critical about Lake Harmony, because the chaperones read the letters and tear up any that disparage this wonderful institution. Up till now I haven't felt like writing. Wouldn't sending my parents a letter be doing them a favor? Letting them know I'm okay? And why should I do that? Why should I do anything that might make them feel good about sending me here? But for some reason today that feels dumb. What's the point? They know where I am. They may not hear from me, but that doesn't mean they don't call Mr. Z a few times a week to see how I'm “progressing.”

Besides, can they really be serious about “rewiring” me? I'm sure they've heard that it's supposed to take a minimum of six to eight months. More likely a year
to a year and a half. And in stubborn cases two years or more.

Two years? No way. I can't believe they'd send me away for that long. They're just trying to scare me. I can even remember the moment when they probably decided to do it. One morning I came home from Sabrina's and found them waiting for me in the living room. They were in their business clothes, my father wearing a white shirt, red tie, and blue suspenders with little sailboats on them, my mother in a coal-gray suit.

“You're going to be late for work,” I said, glancing at my watch. Most mornings they were in their offices by seven
A.M.

“This has got to stop,” said my mother. She was talking about Sabrina.

“I'm home in time to go to school,” I said. “What's the problem?”

“The problem is that it is inappropriate for you to be seeing a woman who is eight years older than you and your teacher,” my mother said.

“She's not my teacher anymore,” I reminded her. “You took care of that.” After my mother found out about Sabrina and me, she complained to the school and got Sabrina fired. She even threatened to go to the police, but I knew she wouldn't.

“You're still seeing her,” my father said.

“So?” I said.

“You are disobedient and uncooperative and out of control,” my mother said. “You don't listen to us. You come and go as you please. You act as if you live here by yourself.”

“Look, the one thing you've told me over and over is that you want me to go to an Ivy League college,” I said. “I've got great grades, and high PSATs, and next year I'll start taking AP courses. I'm doing exactly what you want.”

“You didn't go out for any sports,” my mother said.

“I'm not athletic,” I shot back.

“You don't do any extracurricular activities,” she said.

“They're boring,” I argued. “Look, let's be honest. There's nothing wrong with my life. You just don't like it, okay? I don't play the sports you want me to play. I didn't go to the camp you wanted me to go to. I'm not dating the kind of girl you want me to date. I don't like your friends, and I don't like your friends' kids. In other words, I don't fit into the life you imagined for me. But there's no law that says I have to.”

“You've taken money from us,” she said.

“You cut off my allowance,” I said. “What was I supposed to do?”

“That doesn't make it right,” said my father.

“Okay, so a couple of times I took forty, maybe fifty dollars,” I admitted. “Most of my friends get double that a week in allowance. You guys are millionaires. Mom pays four hundred dollars to get her hair done. Your shirts cost two hundred and fifty. I'm amazed you even noticed the money was missing.”

“What about this?” My father placed a small brass pipe on the coffee table. He must have found it in my room.

“Well, congratulations,” I scoffed. “You just figured out that I'm one of the seventy percent of all teenagers who've tried pot.”

My father cleared his throat. “I think what your mother and I are worried about is, if this is where you are at age fifteen, where will you be at age eighteen?”

“In college, just where you want me to be,” I answered.