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I was lying in a tent, in my sleeping bag, on the cold, hard, lumpy ground. I’d done that many times – camped out. But this time was different. I wasn’t with my family. In fact, I wasn’t with anybody I knew.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
That’s not to say, however, that I was alone. Alone in the tent, yes, but not alone. Just outside the tent, I could distinctly hear the howling laughter of the boys who were supposed to be (but thankfully weren’t) accompanying me in the tent. Instead, they’d elected early on to spend the night outside.
Spend, mind you. Not sleep.
They’d also made it their goal, apparently, to keep everybody else from sleeping as well. And it was working. Everybody except the counselors were awake. It’s too bad they didn’t wake the counselors up, because maybe then we all could have had some sleep.
There were three tents. Mine (and theirs), the counselors’, and the girls’. There were three girls, five boys, and two counselors – one male and one female. The other four boys and one of the girls had no intention of sleeping that night. The other three teens including myself were trying to sleep, and the counselors were apparently having no trouble sleeping at all.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
I was the odd guy out. The entire trip, I was the odd guy out. The two girls who were trying to sleep were also singled out, but not, I don’t think, quite as severely.
You see, the other boys weren’t being obnoxious and rambunctious in general. They brought it down on me. The scapegoat.
“Dude, look, he has a combover!”
It’s not a combover. I’m not gonna say anything. If I say anything, I’ll just make it worse. Then I’ll get mad. I’ll retaliate. I can’t. I shouldn’t. They would. I won’t be like them. I refuse to lower myself to their level.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
Several times during that night, they actively tried to make my life and the lives of the two “good” girls hell. Multiple bouts of rude comments, and stuff thrown at the sides of the tents. Several times I heard screams from the girls’ tent. I found out the next morning that Sarah was spraying hair spray on the sleeping mats, and lighting them on fire. At one point, everybody disappeared, and the rumor later was that they’d all run up to the lake and Sarah and Brett had “a fun time,” whatever that meant.
Unfortunately, they came back. Somebody decided to harass me directly. They talked about it outside the tent as if I couldn’t hear them. Perhaps they thought I was asleep or something. I knew something was going to happen. I tensed my body. Still inside my sleeping bag, trying to ignore them, and hoping nothing would happen, I clenched my fist, knowing that “nothing” wouldn’t happen.
Sure enough, somebody zipped open the tent, and stepped inside, pretended to trip, realized I wasn’t where they’d expected me to be, changed their course mid-“fall” and landed splayed out flat on top of me. Somehow, he managed to miss my fist held over my stomach. Shame. The fool made some stupid comment, trying and failing miserably to pretend it was an accident, and then left quickly, bursting into laughter with the other bastards once he was outside the door.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
I kept my fist over my stomach just in case they tried it again. Passive aggressive. That’s me.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
Eventually, I did manage to sleep.
Thankfully, that was the end of the first night. Of the nights we had together, that was the hardest of them. It was during the daylight hours that it got really bad.
We got on the bus the next day, to leave the YMCA camp. We were on our way to Seattle for a three-day kayaking trip, before coming back home. It was just a short, one-week summer camp trip. It didn’t feel like it those first few days.
At the point that we got on the bus, I’d been awake for six hours. Everybody else had only been awake for four. I’d gotten up with the sun, as was my habit. I’d entertained myself doing pushups and sit-ups.
It was a fairly comfy bus, really, but it was kinda small. The coolers filled with our food had to be stacked in the aisle, because they wouldn’t fit in the back with all our gear.
Draw two lines from corner to corner in a giant X over the state of Colorado. That’s where we set out from, on our way to Seattle, in the dead center of the state. Now find a map of Wyoming. Cheyenne’s in the lower right hand corner. Follow I-25 up a ways until you find Chugwater. Get out your reading glasses, because it’s in fine print on the map. That's where we hit our first gas station, and ate “dinner” (tomato paste, frozen pepperoni and halfway decent shredded cheese all on top of a hard bagel) in a park just north of town.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, I decided (by no means for the first time) that I was ashamed to be male.
The other males were now playing with pocket knives they’d shoplifted from the gas station. They were fascinated with the spring-loaded blades that were made into the structure of carabineers. It was dark out now, and the highway was empty, though that’s the way they always are in Wyoming. The play ended up with one of the knives (whose spring had broken, so the blade just flopped around) falling out the window of the bus, and landing on the highway. I don’t envy the person who runs over it and blows out a tire.
Looking back at it, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But I was scared. Having experienced being with those boys the night before, and that entire day, I was scared. Admit it, you would be too. The prospect of sleeping in the same tent with a bunch of testosterone poisoned boys playing with stolen knives was a little frightening.
We rolled into camp late, well past dusk. We set up our tents, trying to be quiet so as not to disturb the neighbors, and quickly set up to go to sleep. Which we did, because the counselors didn’t spend the time to set up their own tent, and slept with the kids instead. I was thankful that I was able to go to sleep quickly. Apparently I snored quite loudly and my tent-mates didn’t sleep quite as easily as I.
I was the first one awake the next morning. Again. I was up for probably forty five minutes before Bobby’s watch went off, telling everybody that it was time to wake up. They did, but grudgingly.
Breakfast was quick, and we set off once more in the bus. We took I-90 north into Montana and followed it west. First major town we reached in Montana, we stopped at another gas station. Everybody piled off the bus, and we all swarmed inside. The cashier eyed us warily.
I hate being a teenager and walking into any kind of small store. But it’s worse when you’re with a group of teenagers. I don’t like having the cashier staring down my neck. But after the night before I’d realized that there were solid grounds to their suspicions. Still, it doesn’t mean I have to like being stereotyped.
Back on the road, west on I-90. Just a few miles out of town, and Alex, who’d emerged as the ringleader of the “skaters,” pulled a little cubic white box out of his pocket. I could see it through the seats of the bus. It had colorful print all over it.
“Dude,” said Tony, “Lemme see that! Where’d you get these?!”
“I took ‘em from the gas station. Honestly, who pays for anything anymore? They were just sittin’ there, like five boxes of em.”
“There’s like eight of 'em here,” Brett said, looking at the label.
“Dude, who needs that many?”
“Truckers, dude,” said Alex. “When they get bored, they whip one ‘o these out.”
They all laughed, and Alex took the box back and opened it, pulling out a little silvery packet. He looked at it in his hand, and laughed, and threw it at Jordan, who flinched away on reflex, then realized what he’d done and started laughing with the rest.
I sighed and returned to my book as Alex started passing them out. There was great hilarity when Sarah asked for and received one.
The hilarity died down for a while, while we passed through Helena, and after another while it picked back up. In a moment of inspiration, Brett, the smallest person on the trip (he looked like he was twelve!), climbed over the back of his seat and landed in Tyler’s lap, who exclaimed, and decided to climb over the seat in front of him, filling Brett’s vacant seat. He laughed and joked with Alex a moment, then took the remaining two extra silvery packages in his hand.
Making sure he had people’s attention, he stuck his nose between the seats and looked directly at me.
“You want one?” he asked, trying to feign politeness, but it was obvious he was mocking me.
“No thank you,” I replied, restraining myself.
“Why not?”
“I don’t plan on ever using one.”
“Dude, you’re gonna get some girl pregnant, because you wouldn’t use one?” Somehow, his strange sense of logic escaped me at this point.
“No.” Apparently my logic was escaping him, too.
“You don’t wanna get laid, dude?”
“No, not really.” He frowned, and turned back around, thoroughly convinced – if he hadn’t already been – that I was weird, and quite possibly gay (neither of which verdicts I particularly minded, aside from the fact that I knew he and the rest of the males would act maliciously on them).
“Dude, yours is blue,” Alex commented intelligently.
“Yeah, what color’s yours?”
“Green. I didn’t know they were different colors. I wonder if they’re flavored?”
“They come in flavors? Dude, that’s awesome! I didn’t know that!” Brett said.
“Dare you to lick it!” Alex said, tearing open his package, and holding it out.
“You lick it, dude! Stick it in your mouth!”
“Here, look. Tony’s asleep. Stick it in his mouth.” But Tony groaned, and looked at them. At this point, I was so ashamed of the male population of the bus that I closed my eyes and buried my head in my pillow, leaning against the stack of coolers in the aisle.
It was when the boys in front of me started whispering that I became wary… again. Disgusted, I decided that the best plan of action was to play possum, and stay lying down, trying to sleep.
“Do it, dude,” I heard Brett whisper. Kristen, next to me, apparently awake now, objected. There was a moment of tension, and a suspenseful pause.
I’d been expecting it, but it didn’t make it any less painfully degrading. I tried not to twitch when something cold and wet hit my upper lip, hanging there a brief moment before falling down into my lap. It was snatched back amid poorly stifled sniggers erupting into uproarious laughter. Shock, terror, and a large boiling vat of anger paralyzed me. I did nothing. They probably knew I wasn’t asleep, but I at least denied them the satisfaction of a reaction. I clenched my teeth and tried not to shake, though my body wanted to, between the mixtures of intense anger and despair.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.
I refuse.
It seemed an eternity, and I finally lifted my head. I knew I was probably bright flaming red in the face, betraying my attempts at calmness.
It’s that feeling that can’t be described effectively in terms that language can convey. You want to scream and run away. That, or scream and break somebody’s nose. Repeatedly. You want to curl up in a dark corner under the stairs, in the bathroom, in a PE locker room, in the dark alley behind the chinese restaurant, in all the places nobody would ever want to look. And yet at the same time you want to stand up and give anybody nearby a piece of your mind. When somebody asks if you’re alright, you’re not sure whether to answer ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ or ‘No, help me,’ or simply tear the head off their shoulders.
That’s the feeling that was permeating all my thoughts. That’s the feeling that emerged from having a condom thrown at my face. That's the result of being trapped in a bus with a bunch of premature, self-absorbed, disrespectful, shoplifting jerks who didn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody else. That was the last straw that was very nearly crumbling the walls containing my self-control.
In stark contrast to my boiling vat of internal emotions behind them, the skaters were having quite the time of it, playing with the condoms until they ripped (sparking more laughter), seemingly enjoying their ride, as if nothing significant had just happened.
I fell to burning mental holes in the back of the seat in front of me, straight through the back of Alex’s head. I didn’t know who’d thrown the condom, but Alex had obviously become the ringleader of the bunch, and I focused all my anger into a death gaze at the back of his head.
Brett noticed, and made a remarkably stupid comment, ending with “Aww… do you need a consolation prize? Here, you can sniff my shoe,” he said, thrusting his DC Skater shoe under my nose.
I snatched the shoe out of his hand and threw it back at him as hard as I could, missing his head, but not by much.
“Dude, what’s your problem?” Alex said, shocked. I lost it. Completely.
“What’s your fucking problem?! Turn around, please!”
He mumbled a little confused, and turned around quietly. I was trembling with emotion, and stared in fury at the back of his head. I could see Kristen, now fully awake after another short nap, looking at me a little frightened by my change.
After a minute or two of my glares, he turned back around.
“Dudel I–”
“Turn around, please,” I cut him off, through gritted teeth.
“But I–”
“I said turn around!”
He complied quietly, but it didn’t relieve him of my fiery stare at the back of his head.
It wasn’t more than five minutes before we pulled into a gas station, and had to get off the bus. For unexplained safety reasons, nobody was allowed to stay on the bus while they filled the tank. Instead of wandering inside like everybody else, I stayed outside, standing determinedly against a billboard pole, wondering what they were shoplifting this time, and trying to fight back the tears. I lowered my sunglasses in an attempt to hide my emotion. My weakness.
After a few moments, the teens, if you could really call them that, piled back out of the store and back onto the bus. I kept my back on the pole. At last, Bobby walked out of the store, having paid for the gas, and called me back onto the bus. I couldn’t get up the words to object, and gave up, walking silently back to the bus, standing as tall as I could, with my arms folded.
We pulled into Spokane, Washington, near dusk. It was during the largest windstorm I’ve experienced in my life. Bobby and Rosie were afraid to park the bus because of the falling tree branches. And trees. Obviously, we couldn’t get out and set up tents. They parked the bus somewhere they felt was somewhat safe, and got out to talk to the people at the KOA front desk, to see if we could switch our reservation to a cabin instead of a campsite. There was only one cabin left. We took it.
The windstorm died down quickly, however, and soon dissipated completely.
Standing on the porch, I watched the boys being boys, playing with the fallen tree branches. They invited me into a game of hacky-sack. That was probably the worst thing they could have done, because I could neither play in the game nor stay out of the game without standing out from the rest, for I have no skill at “hack”. I declined.
I was still angry, and frustrated, and ready to cry, and I must have looked it, because as I turned to walk inside to socialize with the girls, Bobby asked me if I was alright. I couldn’t answer him on my first try; my voice caught in my throat.
“‘M okay,” I lied.
“You sure?” he asked, apparently a little more in tune to other people than the majority of males tend to be. I didn’t reply immediately; When I did, it was a fight to get the words out.
“I just… I thought I could get through one day. One day, without verbal and sexual harassment.” I was breaking down.
He obviously wasn’t prepared for an answer like that.
Nevertheless, he handled it well. He suggested we go for a walk, and called Rosie to accompany us.
At this point, my memory fails as to what exactly happened, but I know we walked to a picnic area on the other side of a campground. They sat on a picnic table. I sat on another across from them.
“I need to know exactly what happened,” Bobby was saying. I was crying. Sobbing. I’d finally let go. A person can hold inside them so much, so very very much pain, anger, and hatred. So much suffering and solitude, that when something finally changes, it all comes out in one torrent, one great outburst.
Needless to say, I could hardly talk. Eventually I was able to control myself enough to tell them who had been giving me (and the two girls I’d befriended) trouble, and what they’d been doing. And then… Bobby said the first kind words I’d heard all day:
“I think you’re very brave, being able to step up and tell us that this was happening. If I were in your place I’m not sure I would have been able to. This is a position in which most males think they just have to grit their teeth and bear it, but I’m glad you told us. You’re strong for being able to do so. You’re an amazing, strong young man.” As insincere and mushy as the words sound on paper, they were said in a voice of pure honesty, and they were well received.
That night, Rosie’s satellite phone was used non-stop for at least an hour while each person was personally interviewed by the camp director back at base camp in Colorado. He was very apologetic. I just wanted to move on.
And we did. The next day, we reached Seattle, and waited around till noon when a ferry could take us to Orcas Island, where our host YMCA camp was. Day after, we set off, two people to a kayak. The instructors had their own individual kayaks.
Guess who was my kayak mate? Alex.
It’s almost humorous now; I have a picture of our group standing on the edge of a cliff of a very small island in Pugit Sound. If you drew a line right down the center of the picture, you’d find your line had gone straight through my head, and divided the two different groups of people on our trip. To my right are Brett, Tony, Tyler, and Sarah, the new “cool gang”. To my left you see Katie, Kristen, and Alex.
How he changed…
See, this is the most interesting plot twist. Since that night, when I told the counselors about what had been going on, the dynamics of our group changed. Alex, the former ringleader, fell from power. I think, on that night, he changed. He became one of us, sort of. An outsider.
Surprisingly, Sarah became the new ringleader, with Brett as her right-hand-man. And they started turning on Alex. Not openly. But in those mysterious ways that people can silently, wordlessly oppress others without even the demeaning looks. Alex became one of us. A little bit. He changed over the course of our trip.
And I hope that change was as powerful as he demonstrated in the week we were together.
If I could know that his whole life changed for the better in the space of that week, if I could know that I helped him to see a different perspective, and change his whole attitude towards other people, I would gladly do it all over again.
I would do it all over, to know I was converting my tormenter into someone better.
I refuse to lower myself to their level.