The Order of the Poison Oak (2 page)

Finally, Jean said, “How many of you here went to summer camp?”

Eight out of the ten counselors raised their hands—including me (unlike Otto, I figured day camp
did
count).

“And what was it you liked best?” Jean asked.

“The canoes,” Min said.

“Roasting marshmallows around the campfire,” a counselor named Lorna said.

“Archery,” Web said.

“The chocolate chip pancakes,” Em said, and everyone laughed.

I tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t remember anything in particular. (All right, I thought, so maybe day camp
didn’t
count.)

As each of us spoke up, Jean kept grinning like a Cheshire cat. Finally, she said, “Fantastic! Well, you know what? Those are all the things we want our kids to remember about camp too!” She thought for a second, then winked at Em. “I’ll see what we can do about the chocolate chip pancakes.” We all laughed again. Then Jean got serious. “But sometimes something as simple as a couple of weeks at summer camp can be a horrible experience for a burn survivor. That’s because kids with scars on their faces are sometimes made to feel like they don’t fit in with kids who don’t have scars.”

And so began two days of burn survivor sensitivity training. It was pretty basic stuff. For example, Ryan said, “We’re burn ‘survivors,’ not burn ‘victims.’ No one wants to be known as a ‘victim’ their whole life, right?”

But the biggest lesson, one we heard again and again, was that burn survivors wanted people to see beyond their scars. They didn’t want to be defined by their injuries. They wanted to be seen as individuals, just like anyone else.

“Burn survivors are used to being treated like freaks and monsters,” Jean told us. “But we’re not monsters. And over the course of the next two weeks, it’s your job and mine to make sure that none of these kids feel like monsters either. For them, this is a chance to have two weeks where they can completely forget about what they look like on the outside.”

I listened attentively to all this, and I contributed during the group discussions. But the truth was, I didn’t think any of it applied to me. After all, I was gay. I knew all about what it was like to be stereotyped—to have people assume lots of negative things about me, and to make all these snap judgments. I sure wasn’t about to do stuff like that to anyone else. I’d treated Otto like an individual, hadn’t I? (Even if his eye
had
reminded me of a whale’s.)

Saturday was our day off then Sunday came. Counselor orientation was over, and the burn survivors finally arrived. Unfortunately, it took me less than an hour to learn that Jean and Ryan were absolutely wrong: these burn survivor kids
were
monsters. Only it had nothing whatsoever to do with the way they looked.

Chapter Three

I was standing in the middle of a raging hurricane. The fury of the storm battered and bewildered me.

Okay, so it wasn’t a real hurricane. I’m doing that thing I did when I said the school hallway was on fire, when I tried to fool you into thinking one thing, only to spring on you that I meant something else entirely. In this case, I’m talking about my campers, who I now realize I also just compared to monsters. I am aware this is bringing me dangerously close to metaphor overload, so let’s just get to the point, shall we?

My campers were out of control. Each of us counselors had been assigned a cabin of eight kids. They’d been grouped by age and gender, and I had eight ten-year-old boys. By the time we got to our cabin, they were reminding me of Helen Keller in that play
The Miracle Worker,
but before Anne Sullivan turns the wild, shrieking Helen into a halfway-normal human being. I’m exaggerating, but only a little.

Mr. Whittle had divided up the kids out on the marching field, separating them into their various cabin groups. That part went okay, I guess because the kids were all still kind of stunned to realize they’d really be away from home for the next two weeks and because Mr. Whittle and Jean and Ryan were standing right there.

Out on that marching field, I’d introduced myself to my campers as their counselor and asked them their names.

No one said anything. At this point, they actually seemed kind of shy. This was probably the first time many of them had ever been away from their parents for more than a day or so.

“You,” I said, pointing to the closest kid. “What’s your name?”

I’d happened to pick the one kid who didn’t seem shy at all. In fact, as I looked at him, he glared back at me the way a lion looks at a gazelle—like he hated me in some primal, instinctive way. He obviously resented being here and was now determined to take it out on me. But finally, through gritted teeth, he spoke his name: “Ian”

Now that I was looking right at him, I saw that I’d also picked the kid with the least obvious facial scars. Up close, you could see that his skin almost looked like it had melted a little, but from farther back, he just looked slightly out of focus. Anyway, I couldn’t help but wonder if the other kids had noticed that I’d called on Ian first—that maybe I thought he was special because he didn’t look so bad.

“All right,” I said. I quickly pointed to another random kid. “You?”

“Zach,” the other kid said. And that’s when I realized that I’d gone from the kid with the least obvious injuries to the one with the most obvious ones. A lot of Zach’s body was covered with this white, gauzelike clothing. A few days earlier, I’d learned that this was something called a pressure garment and that it helped with the healing. Zach also had this white plastic mask over his face, which was kind of disturbing, with his eyes peering out and everything. It made him look a little like the Phantom of the Opera (I was sure he was very sick of hearing
that!).

“Okay,” I said, picking out another kid.
“You?”

“Trevor,” said a kid with a facial scar that reminded me a little of a seahorse.

And so we went on down the line—to Willy, Noah, Kwame, Julian, and Blake—and I decided that burn survivors are like snowflakes: no two are exactly alike. They had big scars, little scars, dark scars, light scars, pressure garments or bandages, and no pressure garments or bandages. (There were also kids in wheelchairs and on crutches, but I didn’t have any of those. They were staying in the main lodge with Jean and Ryan as their counselors.) One of my kids—Julian— wasn’t even a burn survivor. He just had the worst case of zits I’d ever seen. (I later learned this was something called early-onset acne conglobata.)

In short, we weren’t exactly the Brady Bunch. But I’d had my two days of burn survivor training, right? Plus I was gay and oh-so-sensitive.

With the introductions over, I led my kids to our cabin so they could unpack. And this was where things started to go seriously wrong. In the mere two hundred yards between the marching field and our cabin, something had happened to my kids. It had to do with the fact that they were all burn survivors. Around other kids like themselves, it suddenly didn’t matter what any of them looked like on the outside, just like Jean had said. So now, in a way, they
weren’t
burn survivors. Now they were just ten-year-old boys.

Hyperactive ten-year-old boys.

Hyperactive ten-year-old boys who were suddenly fast friends.

Or maybe “friends” is the wrong word. Maybe they’d just become united in their opposition to me— who, incidentally, was
not
a burn survivor, and so was suddenly the odd guy out.

Anyway, by the time we reached the cabin, they were running all over the place, laughing and playing.

“All right!” I said. “Settle down, okay?” My whole life, I’d been hearing teachers say this to kids. It felt bizarre for me to be the one saying it now.

I got the same reaction that most of my teachers got. No one paid any attention.

Okay, so maybe their running around and playing wasn’t the worst thing in the world. (How often did
these
kids get a chance to play like that, anyway?) But then the kid with the out-of-focus face started climbing to the top of one of the bunks. Once at the top, he turned around like he was going to jump down onto one of the single beds below.

“Hey!” I said. “You there, don’t do that!” By this point, I had already forgotten all their names.

Of course, the kid jumped anyway, landing with a big squeak.

Three kids immediately veered for the bunk bed and started climbing.

“Stop!” I said. “Everyone just stop right now!”

Still everyone ignored me. The three kids kept climbing up the bunk, and one of the other kids pulled a squirt gun out of his bag, pointed it at me, and fired. He’d actually come to camp with the damn thing already filled with water.

What gave here? This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. These kids were burn survivors, so I guess I’d expected them to be all nervous and noble and shy, like disabled kids always are in TV movies. I hadn’t counted on the ten-year-old boy thing.

As I stood there, helplessly watching my kids go berserk, I realized two things. The first was that Trevor (whose name, at this point, I still couldn’t remember) wasn’t really joining in. He was just watching the other kids, looking nervous and noble and shy, like
all
these kids were supposed to look. The second thing I realized was that out-of-focus Ian (whose name I also couldn’t remember) was egging the other kids on. Somehow, he was in the center of all this mayhem, controlling the other kids like a cop directing traffic. If this really had been a hurricane, he would have been the eye—the dead calm at the center of the storm. Which was funny, because I figured if anyone had a reason to be antisocial, it was Zach, the kid with the pressure garment and face mask (oops—pity alert!).

I decided that if I was ever going to get my kids in order again, I’d need to go to the root of the problem—namely, Ian. But how? I didn’t feel right about just reaching out and grabbing him. And I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his new friends—hadn’t he been embarrassed enough already? So I said, as calmly as possible, “Ian? Can I see you outside for a second?”

He was just pulling a can of shaving cream out of his duffel bag (and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to use it to shave). He also completely ignored me.

Screw this, I thought. What was I doing there? Why in the world had I thought that being a camp counselor was a good way to spend my summer? R&R?
Ha!
I saw now that being a camp counselor was just another form of baby-sitting, but without the fresh DVDs and well-stocked refrigerator.

I didn’t need this. I could walk away right then and there. I could say I wasn’t feeling well, that I was homesick, that I wasn’t comfortable working with burn survivors. True, I’d signed a contract with Mr. Whittle saving I’d work the whole summer, but it wasn’t legally binding (the one good thing about being sixteen years old!). True, I wouldn’t see Gunnar and Min all summer long, but it wasn’t like I had no other friends.

I turned to look out the open door, to a world of freedom without shrieking kids.

And at that exact moment, Web walked by outside, leading his kids on the way to their cabin. He had the eleven-year-old boys, and they were all walking in single file, like they were thrilled just to be following in his footsteps.

Web looked over at me and nodded. I nodded back—pretty damn confidently, if I do say so myself. From where he was, he couldn’t see the chaos inside my cabin—which was a good thing, because I sure didn’t want him thinking I couldn’t handle eight ten-year-old boys.

I can’t leave camp, I thought to myself. True, my contract with Mr. Whittle wasn’t legally binding, but there was no way he was going to let me just walk away, especially after five full days of training. Besides, I’d made a commitment—to Gunnar, to Ryan and Jean, even to Mr. Whittle. Plus I had no ride home.

Oh, hell, I admit it. I was completely infatuated with Web. He was the reason I couldn’t leave.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself for another skirmish with my charges.

And at that exact moment, Ian came up behind me and jerked down my shorts, exposing my white briefs for the whole world to see—including Web, who was still looking right at me.

* * * * *

I somehow managed to get my kids through dinner (which was slightly less insane, if only because adults were around), and then through lights-out (don’t get me started). Once I was sure all the kids were asleep, I left to meet Min and Gunnar. We’d agreed to rendezvous that night at this sheltered little cove a few minutes’ walk north of camp. We’d accidentally discovered it when we were out exploring the week before. Eventually, the other counselors would probably discover it too, but for the time being it was our own secret hideaway.

“Oh. My. God.” This was me. It was the first thing I said to my two friends. They were lounging on this big granite boulder that extended from the beach out into the water. I have no idea what the Rock of Gibraltar looks like, but let’s say it looked like that.

“What?” Gunnar said to me.

“Are you kidding?” I said, climbing up onto the rock to join them. “They’re a bunch of
brats!
And when they’re not running around shrieking, they’re puking!” I wasn’t exaggerating. Immediately after arriving back at the cabin after dinner, Willy had thrown up, probably as a result of all the excitement of the day. The smell had resulted in a vomit chain reaction in which Julian and Kwame had proceeded to throw up too. No one—I repeat,
no one!—had
managed to make it ten feet to the outside of the cabin.

“Your kids?” Gunnar asked.

“Yes, my kids! They are out of control! Aren’t yours?”

“Not really. I guess I got lucky. I think I got the nerds.”

“And mine are nine-year-old girls,” Min said. “In two years, they’ll be all snooty and premenstrual, but for the time being, they’re just sparkle nail polish and Bratz Slumber Party.”

All my life, I’d thought that when a class was out of control, it was all the teacher’s fault. I remembered so many teachers snidely saving how this class or that one was just so “difficult,” and I’d always chalked it up to their making excuses for their own pathetic teaching. But now I saw that they weren’t just making excuses, that there really was something to the idea that not every group of kids is the same.

“So,” Gunnar said to me, “you probably regret coming here, huh? You wanna go home?”

Now I’d done it. I’d made Gunnar feel bad. After all, this whole camp thing had been his idea. One more reason I couldn’t just vacate in disgust.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said, backpedaling. “I just need to get a grip.” I was still trying to find a place to sit on the rock. The top was uneven, and Min and Gunnar had taken the only two flat spots.

“What about the other counselors?” Min said, sipping on a Diet Coke. “What do we think about them by now?”

“I like Em,” I said. “I think she’s great.”

“Oh, yeah,” Min said. “Em’s great.”

“And Otto,” I said. “He seems nice.

“I like Otto too,” Min said. “Anyone else?”

“Well,” I said, finally finding a decent place to sit, “there’s always Web.”

“What about him?” Gunnar asked. My straight best friend—clueless to the end.

I decided to spell it all out for Gunnar. “I like him,” I said.

“Web?” Min said dubiously. “Really?”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Have you
seen
him?”

“Huh,” Gunnar said. “I wouldn’t figure you’d go for the ‘bad boy’ type”

“‘Bad boy’!” I said. “Web’s not a ‘bad boy’!” Gunnar rolled his eves. “Are you kidding? He definitely is.”

As much as I hated to admit it, my straight best friend wasn’t quite as clueless as I’d thought. Did I go for the “bad boy” type? The only other guy I’d ever been hot for was this baseball player from our school, and he’d been dark and butch and kind of cocky. In short, a “bad boy” (but a
nice
“bad boy”!).

I looked over at Mm. “What do you know about him?”

Min was staring out at the darkening lake. “Web?” she said. “Not much.”

“Come on! You were his partner the whole last week. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.”

“I do know one thing,” Min said. “He’s not gay.”

This wasn’t what I was wanting to hear.

“How do you know?” I asked Mm.

“He had a girlfriend,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Maybe he’s just not out. Maybe he hasn’t figured it out yet. Or maybe he’s bisexual. You of all people should know that just because he has a girlfriend, that doesn’t mean he’s not gay!”

“It’s a feeling, then,” Min said. “He’s not gay, I can tell. Gaydar.”

“You can’t have gaydar!” I said. “You’re bi!” Yes, I know this was a dumb thing to say, but I was desperate. I really wanted there to be some way for me to hook up with Web.

“Russel,” Min said evenly. “Trust me. He’s not gay.”

* * * * *

I wasn’t sure why Min was pissing me off—she was just giving her opinion, right? But she was really making me mad.