In spite of which, Mom twirls her hand with this fraud-y laugh, and for what? A bunch of mover and shaker moms like her, all waxed legs and flowered silk floaty things, matched up with aggressively ripped power dads in pastel jeans and polo shirts, totally the kind of people Gramma would say Measure Up, but it's like they all came here with an agenda, like Mom, plus a lot of them look too old to be here in spite of their ultra-white teeth and stretched, face-lifted grins.
There's only one bunch in the place that's having fun, lounging at the head table in red camp shirts that pretty much broadcast the fact that we are not all equal here.
Unlike the waitpeople, they have this I-love-this-life glow, like an ad for joy. They're laughing and talking like they couldn't possibly be related—weird, as this is supposed to be a family camp. Although isn't on Mom's agenda, I point. “Wait. Who are they?"
"Oh, them? Nobody.” Mom's voice is all trilly: la-la, but her fingers bite down. Don't you dare follow up. “Just psychiatrists."
Right. Therapy camp. The only happy people here are the shrinks.
Then, oh the shame, everybody at each table has to get up and say who they are and why they're here. Mostly my eyes glaze over, people actually say gross things out loud, like “feelings of inadequacy,” “sexual dysfunction,” like they can't wait to yack up their souls. One by one they let it all hang out, while the shrinks at the head table grin and cheer them on. I keep my speech short: “Chazz Ferguson. They made me come.” Mom's is sad: “I'm Jane Ferguson, and I'm here in hopes.” Dad's is not what you would call straightforward, like, he won't meet our eyes. “I'm Lionel Ferguson. Let's solve the problem."
There's a ping pong tournament on the porch after, followed by the camp sing-along, because like Mom, we campers are on a schedule here. A bugler plays “Taps,” just like in military school, which didn't work out for me.
Then, accidentally, the folks wake me up in the middle of the night. Too bad, since they were trying to sneak. I catch Mom fluffing her hair and hooking on light-up earrings while Dad stares in the mirror, trying like crazy to make a happy face. Holy crap, they're going out! Where they were all boring and obvious at dinner, now they're all edgy and festive, like tonight is their first date.
I'm thinking maybe their un-named problem is solved, but I can't say that. “So, what. Is this, like, a swingers’ camp?"
Awesome. They both jump. “Don't be silly. It's the Late Show."
"And you have to sneak?"
Mom goes, “We're not sneaking. It's right here on the schedule. Now go back to bed.” They're jiggling in the doorway, all shifty eyes and guilty grins.
I whine, “I wanna go,” even though I don't.
"Sorry, it's not for kids. That's why they're having it so late.” Then Mom says the wrong thing. “It's kind of X-rated."
And I do.
Mom fades out the door singing, “Don't think we're neglecting you. Look under the bed in our room, sweetie. We got you a Wii."
Does she not know I already have two? But I am thinking a lot of things, starting with that I just got carte blanche to go through their stuff. Plus, no way am I facing nature before I know what's out there. Tomorrow I explore. When I go, I have to go armed.
I toss their dressers and find about what you would expect. Camp gear from The Territory Ahead and Patagonia, store-folded with the pins still in. Underwear and cruise-type dinner clothes, not like they'll need them here. Self-help books on everything from getting it up (unopened) to getting ahead (dog-eared), but nothing about having fun. No, er. You know. Either one of them had their tubes tied, or else they aren't having sex. Comics, my dad reads comics! Comics and, oh, cool! Utility belt with knife and halogen flashlight. I hide it in my room.
I never heard them come in.
* * * *
Today my folks are all ragged and unsteady, like either they had their souls sandpapered last night or whatever they drank reamed their insides raw. Meanwhile the shrinks are laughing it up like the happiest people in the world.
Breakfast is just weird. At the lodge last night we were, like, on our own little island? Today people come up to our table, mumbling and smiling like Mom and Dad are runners-up in a contest I don't know about. Behind Mom's back some lady gives me a gooshy look. I could swear her mouth is going, oh, you poor thing. This creeps me out but without coffee, which Mom says is bad for my ADD, it's a mystery I'm not feeling strong enough to penetrate. At home Blanca serves it black with enough sugar to float my boat. Another reason I hate these trips.
Gross. We have group calisthenics, followed by swimming. Then, gack! People line up outside the shrinks’ cabins like they're going to confession. A squinty woman in a red shirt tweets and eight couples peel off and follow her and a guy shrink up the hill. I'm like, “Mom?"
She's all, “Hush, honey. This is their special time."
For the rest of us? Schedule says: Downtime. No way am I going back to the cabin, Mom and Dad are in there. I guess they didn't solve their problem; I can hear them yelling from here.
Time to sneak up on the hill.
If you aren't used to nature it's creepy, crawling on stuff that you don't know what it is, but I need to find the trail to the X-rated Late Show. These woods creep me out. It's all the leaves and rocks and junk on the ground, and you never know what's moving underneath, it could be lizards or giant beetles or, ewww. Snakes! I find a forked stick. It makes me feel braver, just not enough.
They've, like, defeated nature by hacking a clearing out of the jungle, so there is a gym-sized clearing at the top. Campers are sitting around a raised platform, poking each other and giggling like kids at a puppet show. The platform looks like the set for some awful play, with two chairs and a table, a rocker and a ratty sofa with a guy on it. The show must have been really awful, because this great big guy is curled up in the ratty cushions, squirming like a snail trying to worm its way back into the shell.
Like a sports announcer, the guy shrink blats, “And how does that make you feel?"
Then out of nowhere, wham! This humongous grownup on the stage breaks down on the sofa, thrashing and sobbing to break your heart while both psychiatrists bow to the crowd with humongous grins. And, wow. People stand up and cheer! I creep out of the bushes to watch.
"Good, good.” The shrink is egging him on. “We want to feel your pain."
After a while the applause dies out, but the sobbing doesn't. The shrink has to hop onstage to uncurl his star from fetal position. Show's over and it's time to move out. His red shirt is pretty much drenched by the big guy sobbing into it as he hauls himself up, “No more, please, no more!"
The shrink just grins and thumps his patient's back the way a trainer works over his boxer, motivating him to fight another round.
Everybody goes, “It's good, it's all good,” like it's the camp mantra and there's a prize for chanting, although I hear a couple of voices behind me going, “More!” If it's all good, why is he still crying to break your heart?
"Catharsis is the first step to recovery. That's it for today."
Everybody leaves except the vic, who stands there sobbing even though the shrink wants to move him out. “It's right to get in touch with your feelings, Bradley, but enough is enough. Let's do the rest of this in private."
"Nooooo!"
"Come on, Bradley. Come on, first therapy, then lunch...” The shrink starts backing downhill like a trainer holding up a biscuit to fool a dog. “All right then. You'll find me in the crying room. I'm only waiting ‘til five."
So I'm alone at the top of nowhere with this lump of misery while lunchtime comes and goes. I creep up and poke his shoulder, like, enough. “You're gonna stop crying, right?"
He jumps. “Lady, lay off !"
"I'm not a..."
He turns and sees me. “Oh. You're a kid."
"Pretty much.” In fact, in this place I never wanted, I am the one and only kid.
Now he is ugh-ugh-ing, trying to mute the sobs. “I thought you were that m
ean bitch."
I don't ask which one. “What the fuck happened?"
Ugh-ugh. “Psychodrama."
I know damn well what that is, but I play dumb. “What's that?"
"I really don't want to talk about it.” Ugh-ugh. But I have unplugged him. He groans. “Okay, okay.” Ugh-ugh. “They took me back."
"Back where?"
That does it. “B-b-b-b-back in time. They brought my baby brother home when I was five years old and I hated it, I hated them for getting one, and most of all I hated him. I hate him to this day. It was my birthday and they forgot, what kind of present is that?” Ugh-ugh. “But I thought I was over it until...” Ugh-ugh. “They made me go back there and feel guilty and terrible all over again."
If I can't stop him, he'll sob out his whole story. “That sucks."
"You have no idea.” He is one big Greek tragedy mask. “My mom and dad lied to get me here. Now I'm their prisoner."
I am thinking, Like me and Dad. “Me too."
He doesn't exactly brighten, but he stops ugh-ugh-ing. “For all the good it'll do us. Do you want to hear my..."
"No!” I don't know what I want, exactly, but I'm starved. “Let's go eat."
"Frankly, I'm not ready to face..."
"No problem. I'll steal food."
By the time we get down there, everything is pretty much gone. We sit on the end of the dock gobbling apples and hot dog buns. Lame, but all I could find. We don't rightly talk, we stare out at the endless lake and we are both thinking the same thing. We aren't ready to talk about it yet. I don't even know if he's smart enough to make a plan, so that has to wait. I don't have a story and I sure as hell don't want to hear his, so instead I go, “If that's the early show, what's up with the late show?"
"Ugh.” He uses Mom's exact words, except he is apologizing. “It's X-rated. Believe me, you don't want to know."
I do, but he doesn't want me to ask. “That sucks."
"Everything does.” He sort of smiles, and once again we are on the same level. “Might as well go up there and get it over with."
I am too polite to ask what. “This whole place sucks."
"Damn straight.” He gets up groaning, because it's time to face his folks, although he is entirely too old to have folks. I'm afraid to ask if he also has a wife. They'll make him say the mental anguish was good for him, that it was great, getting his soul torn down to the axles and his guts spread all over the floor of the shop like engine parts, oooh, yes, you bet it was, wonderful, losing it up there in front of everyone. Yeah, right, you bet it was.
"If they want to feed on me, let them.” He throws me a look like a note tied to a rock. “It won't be for long."
So this Bradley Simpson and I aren't exactly bonded, but if one of us figures out how to get off this rotten island, we'll both go.
* * * *
The second Ferguson family dinner is exceptionally awful, and not just the food. I have no idea what we're famous for, but tonight, since the folks peeled off for the post-lunch session on the hilltop, we're stars. So many people buzz our table that Mom's usual second-night supper conversation, in which we dish the other campers and pick some to hang out with, gets derailed before it leaves the station. We are stranded with zero talk, plus for reasons he won't name, Dad is sulking. What's up with that? Between flyovers, in which people drop in on their way to the buffet, she and Dad exchange loaded glances. They know something I don't know, like what's going down at tonight's Late Show. Gulp. Are they, like, the Late Show stars?
So, fine. Tonight, I am prepared. After all, I know the way. Utility belt locked and loaded: flashlight, bug spray. Knife, in case, but in case of what?
In spite of the flashlight I get sort of lost, ergo-therefore, I come late to the feast. I don't really want to know what happened before I arrived because those are my parents, Jane and Lionel Ferguson, up there on the stage.
A deaf person could track them by the sound. They aren't exactly tearing out each other's hearts up there and eating them, but the howling is fierce.
By the time I clear the bushes, it's done. At least I think it is, but oh, holy crap! That's my mom coming down off the stage, running flat-out; she is chasing my dad. They're tear-stained and shaking and they look nothing like themselves. Dad gallops for the bushes where I am hiding and I'm like, oh shit. Where he's usually all clipped and businesslike, my father is agonized and shaking, like something up there just laid him wide open and he hated what he saw, and Mom?
It's hard to explain.
The shrink on duty is small and wiry, but looks strong enough to take on gorillas or elephants. She lunges for Dad and spins him around before he hits the bushes, which also means me.
He's all like, “Noooo."
"Get back up there. We're not done." She twists his arm and muscles him toward the steps where Mom is waiting with campers clustering, all supportive and there-there. The shrink hustles Dad along, stoking him like a personal trainer. “Come on, Lionel, you can't quit now,” and, “not now, when you're doing so well.
The rest of the, I guess it's the camp encounter group, is chanting, “You can do it,” and, “Come on, come on"—well, everybody except poor Bradley Simpson, who's gnawing his knuckles like a corn cob, agonizing because he's been through it and he's probably scared for Dad. I can't swear to it but I think Bradley sees me. He raises his ring fingers, like it's a sign. Light glints off somebody's glasses and I see the bleachers set up in the underbrush behind the stage. I can't make out who's up there but I'm pretty sure they're all in red, so what's up with that?
The shrink on duty is all, “Seize the moment, Lionel."
And from the bleachers I hear, “Gooooo!"
Dad flinches like he's scared, and I'm scared for him too. What do they want from him? What are they getting from us?
The shrink grabs Mom and Dad by the wrists. “Now, you two get up there and give back as good as you got, Lionel. It's your turn!"
Then she links Dad to Mom like a preacher and pushes them back up the steps and everybody cheers. I have to admit that for old people, like, they've got to be forty, my parents look pretty good up there. Dad gets his hair done in a place on Bedford Row and Mom goes to a spa and gets threads pulled tight under certain parts of her face. The outfits are perfect but they always are, no matter where my parents go. They stand there like a pair of life-sized lobby cards, and I don't know whether to be proud or mortified.
Mom takes his hand, like, well, honey? and they exchange a loaded look. Then that bitch the shrink goes, “Shall we begin?"
I would rather forget most of what my parents just said to each other and did in the course of acting out their lives. It's rubbing me raw and why do I think I hear the red shirts on the hidden bleachers making this, er, orgasmic “Ummmm."
What's amazing is that Mom and Dad get into it like a pair of old pros doing dinner theater at some crap club. Weird, how many people are getting off on this.
First they're just kvetching at each other about the usual, it could be any old fight except doing it for an audience gives the performance an extra hype. Being watched gives them both some kind of edge. Even Dad is into it, waving his arms and making broad, show-offy faces, and grinning like a pro. The performances get bigger and bigger. My folks are dishing out the same old crap I hear from the pool house every night, but now that they are into it, they're mugging like old troupers, because we are the audience and they are the show and I am glad as hell that nobody knows I'm here.
Spare me having to yack up the details. All you need to know is that, no surprise, Dad has been having an affair. The surprise is that where in our neighborhood affairs are a given, Mom let this one piss her off. Unless it's that this time, Dad proposed. He wants to divorce us and marry Melanie, the script girl from the last Batman, who knew?
Once they have it out on the table, bloody and squirming, this Polly—the shrink gets down with them, like, “Call me Polly"—this Polly says, “Now, show us where it went wrong,” and they do
.
They reenact highlights of their courtship. Their careers. The wedding. Their careers.
Me.
It all went wrong when Mom decided to have me, and this is the part I really don't want to talk about, so here's the short version, and don't make me spell it out for you.
In terms of who is the perp that destroyed their nice, happy, perfect little marriage, it turns out to be me.
These people that I look like, that I thought I knew start reenacting the messes I made in their beautiful, over-landscaped lives, although like film school and the MBAs they got from U.S.C. to enhance the presentation, I was totally planned. My ostensible parents are all Greek tragedy now, like I showed up specifically to wreck their lives.
So Jane and Lionel, what were you thinking?
That you could hang me on the wall or buy license plates and roll me into the garage and say, “There?"
This is awful.
I have to watch them up there pacing behind the sofa, which represents, like, my crib? They take on about it forever, re-enacting me messing up their lives, especially their, er, their fucking sex lives. This devolves into nonstop recriminations and fighting, wherein they play out every bad moment from my first day home up ‘til Blanca came, after which they step away from each other, all bleached out and shaking, and take a little bow. I'm shaking too, but at least it's over. Yeah, right.
The wiry shrink hops up onstage and they go, “Helloooo, Blanca” and she pretend-wrings her hands in her apron like a maid, which Blanca would never do. Then pretend-Blanca picks up imaginary me in her arms and steps down, at which point my father and my mother that I thought might not like me but at least cared fall down on the sofa and re-enact themselves having steamy sex. Then Dad says, “It's not the same” and I bleed for Mom until she comes up with the punchline. “It hasn't been right since he came."
Asimov's SF, July 2009 Page 5
