A Really Awesome Mess (11 page)

Chip was sitting on a ratty couch in the lounge with a netbook on his lap. The walls were painted this warm shade of yellow, but there was nothing on them. Two kids were playing chess at the long wooden table that sat about five feet in front of the couch. There was no TV for it to block. Three kids were actually playing Sorry. Like they were eight or something, not in high school like we all were here.

I didn’t feel like talking, but I did feel that I should express my gratitude to Chip if I ever wanted to get access to his Internet genius again.

“Hey, Chip,” I said. “Thanks for the, uh, hookup.”

Chip gave me a big smile. “No problem,” he said. “Hey, I’m working on a paper,” Chip continued. “You wanna read it?” I looked at him like he was insane. Well. More so.

“It’s a really good paper,” Chip said to me.

He was giving me a look that said there was more going on here than I thought, so I said, “Alright, cool.”

Over his shoulder, I could see that Chip had the web browser open, and he was looking through what were clearly everybody’s Assland intake records. I had no idea how he got this, but with a couple of clicks, he navigated to a page that was very interesting. “Whoa,” I said. “Fascinating paper indeed.”

“Yeah,” Chip said. “It certainly is.” Knowledge was power, and power was something we had very little of in this place, so it should have made me really happy to have this little nugget of knowledge about one of my classmates. But I was too deep in the hole of my depression. All it did was make me angry.

Monday morning I was the second one to breakfast, so I went to sit next to Emmy, who was doing her daily honeydew autopsy. “You don’t have to,” she said, and I just looked at her. “We already got our reward. And I’m guessing you enjoyed yours a lot more than you will sitting here with me.”

“Um. But
can
I sit here with you?” I could hear my voice sounding kind of angry. I mean, it wasn’t like we were besties, and I might have hassled her about her food stuff. But I still kind of liked Emmy, and it pissed me off that she didn’t seem to like me much today.

“No offense,” she said (which translates to “here comes something offensive”), “but I would like to sit alone and have some quiet time this morning. It’s all been a little intense, you know?”

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, but I won’t bug you with my presence,” I said, and I grabbed the edges of my tray so tightly that I kind of wondered if I was gonna snap it in two. I was just about to walk away when a small hand on my shoulder shoved me into a seat.

“Don’t even think about it,” Diana said. “We have to start planning. Operation Free Bird is almost ready to launch, and we have to make sure it goes off without a hitch.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but Emmy wants to dissect her melon in peace,” I said.

Diana gritted her teeth and sat right next to me. “I don’t care what the hell she wants,” Diana said. “You owe me. You all owe me. And unless I get out
this week
, the staff is going to know all about your”—she pointed a spoon loaded with Lucky Charms and milk at Emmy—“food dumps and extra exercise, and
your
”—and this time the spoon of destiny pointed in my direction—“disgusting perversions. So let’s get planning,” she said.

Emmy looked at me, presumably to share the “can you believe this kid” moment, but I had my eyes on my Grape Nuts. The hell with her.

Diana waited until Chip and Mohammed trickled into the cafeteria and sat down, then talked in a quiet (and, therefore, coming from her kind of scary) voice.

“So here’s what I want,” she said. “It’s Monday. And this” — she looked from side to side and unfolded a state fair flyer on the table for us to look at—“starts this weekend. So you’ve got five days to figure out how to get us there.”

The general consensus was that Diana’s idea was completely crazy, and it wasn’t going to happen. Then Diana made
similar threats to Chip and Mohammed that she already made to Emmy and me. Still nobody came up with a solution by the end of breakfast.

I was in a crappy mood already, and now this tiny tyrant was going to ruin everybody’s life. I mean, I felt like I was just getting the hang of how to handle Assland, and now one way or the other, it was getting screwed up on Friday. Awesome.

So, yeah, I wasn’t in the best mood for Sexual Reactivity group, and then we opened group with Jack looking at me through his John Lennon specs and saying, “So, Justin, you’ve been lurking for a couple of weeks now. I think it’s time for you to explain why you think you’re here.”

I rolled my eyes and appealed to the rest of the group for some help. Not that I was really expecting any. They all looked at me like,
You think you’re so much better than us. Let’s hear what you got
. Or, anyway, that was how I imagined it.

“Fine,” I spit out. “Here we go. It’s a short story. Memorial Day weekend. Met a girl at the amusement park. Brought her home, or anyway, to the place where my dad lives, which isn’t my home, he’s got all his workout junk in the room that’s supposed to be mine, and I have to crash on the pullout couch, but whatever. Anyway, so she goes down on me, Dad walks in. That’s the whole story. Now do you guys get why I don’t really think this group is appropriate for me?”

“What was the girl’s name?” Jack, the facilitator whose last
name was probably not really Inghoff, said.

“Kristin? Caitlyn? I guess there’s an outside chance it was Kitten. Anyway, something with a ‘kuh’ at the beginning and an ‘en’ at the end.”

“How long had you been going out?” some kid named Troy asked.

“Well, we weren’t really going out. I mean, I had only met her a couple of hours earlier.”

“And how’s her summer been going?” another kid, Brent, chimed in.

“How the hell do I know? I barely even knew her! Okay? So what? I mean, listen to you guys—not that I’m judging anyone else’s issues, God forbid, though that’s exactly what you assholes are doing to me, I guess it’s okay as long as I’m not the one doing it, huh, Jack? But I mean, one blow job! Does that qualify me for this group? I mean, I don’t even agree with the idea of this group! Sex isn’t bad!”

Jack pushed his glasses back on his nose, took a deep breath, and said, “Of course sex isn’t bad, Justin. And while it’s true that you don’t have the range of experience that most people here have, I don’t think your behavior is exactly healthy.”

“It’s not healthy to be interested in sex at age sixteen? Then I guess pretty much everybody is unhealthy.”

“Here’s what’s not necessarily healthy—being sixteen and having sex with someone you just met.”

“We didn’t have sex, I told you. She just—”

“Oral sex is sex, Justin. Hence the name. And, yeah, you’re right, sex with someone you just met is not the riskiest thing you could do, but it is risky behavior. And sex with someone you don’t care about is—like, if you weren’t doing this because you care about it, why were you doing it?”

“Well, I guess she was doing it to get back at her boyfriend.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why were you doing it?”

“What the hell kind of stupid question is that? Because it feels fucking awesome to have a girl’s mouth on your dick!” I really wanted to throw something. As it was, I had my fists clenched, and if I’d had any nails, they would have been digging into my palms.

Jack looked at me for a minute, then turned to the group. “Okay, Justin, thank you for sharing. Now how about you, Troy?”

I sat and fumed for the rest of the stupid group. What the hell were they doing to us here anyway? I mean, the admittedly short amount of time I’d spent with Caitl—or Krist—in was the only time in the last six months when I’d felt good, when it felt like everything was working. I didn’t even mean that in a pervy way. I just meant I felt like I was fine being me and things were kind of okay. And Assland wanted to take that away from me. Now I was supposed to go back and feel guilty about it or, like, the
only time I felt like a normal healthy kid was actually unhealthy.
Sorry, Justin, but you’ll never get it right. That time you thought you were happy? Wrong!

My fury didn’t really go away for the rest of the day. Even though I was figuring out how to navigate the million rules, all this place had done so far was make me feel worse. Diana’s idea about breaking out seemed way less crazy than it had before SR group. I mean, sure, they were gonna catch us eventually—we were in the middle of nowhere, after all—but at least we’d be in control of something. For a really short period of time, we would be one hundred percent in charge of our whereabouts and activities—nobody telling us what to do, and nobody telling us that what we were doing or thinking or wanting was wrong.

I was the last one to get to the dinner table, and before I even said hi to everybody, I looked Diana in the eye and said, “I’m in. I don’t care if it’s just you and me. I’m in.”

“IT’S NEVER GOING TO WORK. WHY DON’T YOU JUST GIVE IT UP?”
I whispered to Diana before Anger Management group started.

The crew’s whole “breakout” plan was so ridiculous. There was nothing “out there”—meaning the immediate surroundings of Assland—interesting enough to do such a pointless thing. They were never going to make it to the fair, which was at least ninety miles from here. Without a doubt, they’d be hauled back sooner rather than later. I just didn’t get the appeal.

And I mean, I didn’t like being watched all the time, or told what to eat and when to sleep, or getting judged by teachers and therapists as to whether I was making adequate progress any more than Justin and Diana did. But the alternative they were proposing was what? Playing in a cornfield for a few minutes?
Sneaking into the hayloft of some farmer’s barn and hiding out there for a couple of hours? No thanks. Assland was better than exile in No Man’s Land.

“What’s never going to work?” Tina asked as she bustled into the room.

Diana shook her head and squinted at me. I shrugged, like,
Go ahead, tell her
.

“Emmy’s plan to lose more weight,” Diana announced. “Which, can I say, is really stupid since she’s already practically nonexistent.”

“What about your plan, Diana? Care to share that with Tina?” I shot back at her.

Mohammed clenched and unclenched his fists rhythmically. Chip gave me a warning look. Justin ignored everyone and Jenny sat there mute as ever.

“And what plan is that, Diana?” Tina asked, leaning forward in her “ready to listen pose,” which made me crazy. It was like we could say anything to her—
I just sacrificed twelve squirrels to the devil! I shoved a D battery up my ass and boy does it feel good!—
and she’d still have that same calm demeanor.

Diana opened and closed her mouth a few times before this finally came out. “My plan to kick Emmy’s scrawny little ass the next time she dumps food on my plate and expects me to eat it.”

I yelped. There was no way Diana was going to ruin this for me. Not when I’d finally worked out the whole food thing so I
wouldn’t join Alisha and the factory farm girls on their side of Body Politics class.

Tina raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that true, Emmy?”

I tried to match Tina’s pleasant tone of voice and expression even though I was about ready to lose it. “It’s only as true as Diana’s plan to get us to bust her out of here,” I said sweetly. If Diana was going to get my secret reward taken away from me, I was sure as hell going to do the same to her.

Tina’s la-la-dippy-happy look morphed into a super-concerned one. “And is that true, Diana?”

Diana’s face was so red by this point it seemed like it might just melt right off her body. “No!” she yelled.

Tina looked around the group. “Do any of you know anything about Emmy not getting proper nutrition or Diana plotting to leave campus?”

More shrugs, a bunch of shaking heads.

Tina clasped her hands together. “Okay, I got it. No one wants to rat anyone out. That’s progress, too! You’re finally learning to work together as a group, even if it is possibly protecting some not-so-healthy plans and actions.”

Justin pretended to sneeze but instead of “Achoo!” out came “Bullshit!”

“Do you have something to say, Justin?”

I knew he had depression and was currently in a bad place, but it was kind of amazing how much energy he put into being
mad. Like, most of the time lately he moved in slow motion and had no desire to do anything—well, except maybe watch porn—and then suddenly something little would make his head nearly pop off.

“Yeah I have something to say. This is all such bullshit. You’re acting like we’re making some big-ass breakthroughs. The truth is, we only give a shit about what
acting
like we give a shit about each other is going to get us. And the really stupid part is, none of this helps anyone, no matter how hard you try to pretend like it does.”

Tina nodded calmly through Justin’s tirade. “Great observations, Justin. Thanks for sharing such honest emotions with us.”

Justin’s face contorted into a scary mask. “That’s just the kind of thing I’m talking about! I don’t feel any better, but no matter what I say or how I say it, you act like you’ve given me the key to happiness!”