2: FACILITY FOR TROUBLED YOUTH
When I was 8-years-old I wanted to go to Camp Hedgewood. I looked forward to it because there weren’t many kids in my neighbourhood and I wasn’t good at making friends at school. Camp Hedgewood was a summer camp for kids from ages seven to seventeen, and after getting over the homesickness, for two whole weeks my only worries were getting sick of marshmallows, and getting bad sunburns. My absolute favourite tradition of the camp was the overnight tenting trips to Lonely Island, which we canoed to across Blue Lake. I went to Camp Hedgewood every summer from when I was eight to twelve. Those summers were the best summers of my life.
And then it shut down.
After thirty-years of operation, Patty Slaunwhite had to go and die of ovarian cancer. It was a shock, and it was one of those things that you never thought would happen until it did. Uncle Mike, which he let all us campers call him, didn’t want to continue on without his wife. Last I’d heard was that he sold the place before dying of something people die from when they get sad and lonely and depressed. Now, as a grown teenager with no interest in the outdoors or leaving the Internet, Camp Hedgewood had a new name.
NEW HORIZONS
“New Horizons?” I leaned forward in my seat to read the text I didn’t think I was seeing. “Is this a joke?”
“You can read,” the Avril singing man said.
I turned around in the seat and looked back. The old wooden Camp Hedgewood sign was still there, like it always was, but there was a metal sign stuck to the front of it. I could see the new bolts in the wood, and how it made the old wood split.
The biggest difference was the new fence. It was right after the sign, and then our car came to a set of locked gates. The guards only opened them when the car entered the property, and closed them as soon as we passed through.
I pointed to the fences that were attached to the gates. They were tall and had barbed wire at the top. They disappeared into the forest surrounding the entrance.
“This place is fenced in.” It wasn’t a question. It was right there for me to see. That I was trapped within fences that touched the sky.
“Obviously.” Avril looked at me in the rear view mirror. “It goes right around. No holes or anything.”
That was devastating. But my only hope was the lake. That they hadn’t gone and barred it off. That it was still open and at least one hole in the system. That the cliffs surrounding the shore were a deterrent enough for runners.
When the car came to a stop, I looked out the window. There it was, Camp Hedgewood—or a deserted version of it. There was no colour or life to it anymore. No screaming kids. No parents waving goodbye. The place was overgrown, dead, and quiet.
I stepped out of the car in my bare feet, and I tried not to swear when the loose pine needles drove into my soles. No matter how I stepped I still felt every single one. When had my feet become so sensitive? I used to run around barefoot and never feel a thing.
“I peed in those outhouses.” I pointed with both my taped hands toward the wooden sheds about a hundred metres away, all lined up one by one. They were at the edge of the woods, away from the entrance.
“Those aren’t outhouses,” Burrito Eater said. “I’m sure they’ve been used as that though.”
I looked closer at the small, wooden structures. Burrito Eater was right. They were the same size as the outhouses that used to be there, but built in a newer wood. I wondered what happened to the outhouses, and what the new sheds were there for.
The main building was a log cabin at the top of a slight hill. That hadn’t changed. It had a wraparound deck that overlooked the property, and was nearly covered in moss. It would always be the mess hall from camp to me. There was no other way of looking at it. It was Camp Hedgewood. Mostly.
It felt the same, except for the people. There was barely anyone around if you didn’t count the guards or the counsellors. Every single one had a whistle around their neck, like a gym teacher ready to correct our mistakes. The counsellors were all dressed in plain clothing that didn’t match each other, and that gave me hope that the place wasn’t strict.
"There's not too many places to run,” Burrito Eater said.
I dropped to my knees when Avril tried pulling me toward the main building. They both dragged me like it wasn’t an issue. I pretended like I was a dead body and every piece of me was spaghetti. My hands were still duct-taped and each man grabbed me under the armpit and lifted me. They pulled me up the stairs and into the mess hall. My heart stopped at the sight of the place.
It hadn’t changed a bit.
There was still the stage off to the left, which we’d performed several skits on. The walls were covered with handprints from past campers, a decoration that was also a memory. The tall ceilings were filled with fluttering posters that blew around from the ceiling fans. There were still rows of tables and chairs. But all of those tables and chairs weren’t occupied with loud, screaming kids anymore.
It was quiet.
There were roughly twenty people there, all staring down at their plates, eyeing me cautiously when they could. There was an echo in the back of the room as we walked, and I was in awe at the setting. It was still the summer camp I remembered, except the campers were gone and replaced with a few drones. The drones were wearing white t-shirts with the words ‘NEW HORIZONS’ printed across their backs.
The artwork was no longer vibrant. It was dull from the sun shining through the windows, and the handprints on the walls were chipping. I knew exactly where mine was among the others, but right then wasn’t the time to search for it. There was a huge map behind the stage, and it showed all the paths through the forest that connected the cabins.
Somewhere cabin 519 was alive and well.
I got to my feet and followed the men’s lead for the first time since being with them. They led me to an office and closed the door behind me. There was a window that showed the view of the entrance of New Horizons. The main road was out front and it made it look like we were all there on our own free will—like there wasn’t a guarded fence surrounding us. In front of the window was a desk with two chairs. Behind the desk sat a man with grey eyebrows, a receding hairline, and a pot belly. He looked right at me with tired, here-we-go-again, eyes.
“Hello Valerie. My name is Larry.”
“You can call me Val.”
“No, we go by your full first name here.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. Valerie was a mouthful. Nobody called me Valerie except my parents when they were pissed at me. They had been calling me Valerie a lot.
“You can take a seat here.” He pointed to one of the seats in front of his desk.
I took a seat. Not because he told me to. I was tired and my feet hurt. They were sore from walking barefoot across the ground. I didn’t know nature could be so sharp.
"Do you know where you are, Valerie?"
I nodded. "Of course.”
“Where are you then?”
“I’m in an office with a window.”
There was a chuckle behind me.
I looked behind my shoulder and saw that Avril and Burrito Eater were gone and replaced with a different man. He had no hair and huge shoulders that curled toward me. He was probably in his forties by the look of the crow’s feet appearing on the edges of his eyes. But he was in good shape, and it showed through his tight, dark shirt.
"You’re correct, but there is always a better answer,” Larry said. “Would you like to try again?”
“I don’t believe in better answers. I just believe in any answer. But thank you for the opportunity.”
“You’re at a facility that I run for troubled youth, like yourself.”
“I saw the sign.” I pointed over his shoulder, signalling that the proof was somewhere behind him. It looked like I was pointing a gun at the window with how my hands were still taped together. “But I have yet to see this facility you’re talking about.”
“That’s just a word. Don’t be scared of it. I
like to think of this program as a facility, that’s all. Because a facility is a place that is necessary to do something. I see this program as a facility, and if successful, it will pump out a product that meets the high standard society sets. Hence, facility for troubled youth.”
“And I’m guessing I’m meant to be the product.”
“In time, maybe you could be.”
“But I’m not troubled.”
“No? I think everyone is troubled about something. And this program is here for you to figure it out. So—what are you troubled about?”
I stared at him. There were a lot of places on old people to stare at. That’s why they were so interesting. Because they had weird hairs coming out of weird places, and spots that weren’t there twenty-years ago. And Larry had a huge nose. Why did noses get bigger and bigger as people got older?
“Come on, Valerie. There has to be one thing you’re troubled about.”
“If I had to say one thing…” I played with my earlobe and thought hard about the deep, underlying issues that kept me awake at night. “I used to straighten my hair all the time until I realized it was frying my hair. I stopped straightening it so it would get healthy and that’s why it looks a little fluffy around the edges. But I miss having sleek hair sometimes, and bleaching it has been counterproductive. So yeah, now that I think about it, I’d say my hair has been pretty troubling.”
He leaned over his desk and flipped open a file that was sitting in front of him. It had my name across the top in cursive writing. I couldn’t remember the last time I used cursive, or even printed out my name.
I stared at my nails. They were chipping. Originally they had been painted with a purple nail polish. It was nice to be able to paint over dark, filthy nails. But of course, there was no nail polish that could last forever.
"We haven't discussed the rules of New Horizons yet. That’s where you are, if you don’t know."
"Oh I thought I was still at home.”
He didn’t acknowledge that I had said anything. His eyes stayed on the documents in front of him, slowly reading the lines that were spread out across the page. He was occupied by whatever he was flipping through, and I wondered what exactly was on those pages. I didn’t really care what was written about me. The real story could only ever be written by me, and that was a story I didn’t know how to write, and didn’t want to ever read.
Two minutes later, he closed the file and looked up at me.
“Would you give it three out of five stars? I know it’s not a literary piece and all that, but the pacing isn’t bad and there’s some good plot. And you have to admit, plot is fun to read, especially when you’re bored. And isn’t that the basic point of reading? To enjoy yourself?”
"You know what?” He stood up. “I don't think you’re ready for this program.”
“No?” I stood up too. “I think we can agree on that. It’s been nice meeting you…is it Harry? Sorry, I’m the worst with names.”
“Valerie, you’re not going to be like that while you’re here.”
“Be like what?”
“Until we can have a civilized conversation, you will be in solitary confinement."
“Excuse me?”
He pointed toward the door. The man by the door grabbed me by the shoulders before I could make a move. He dragged me out of the office and back into the mess hall. I tried to run, and the other teenagers just watched me from their spots. It was like they already had the life sucked out of them, or maybe they had seen it all before, and I was nothing new.
The man had a firm grip on me while he walked us outside. He dragged me down the stairs and I was back to being limp.
"I just want to make the most out of this stay,” I said. “So hopefully I didn’t blow my first impression back there. I think having my hands duct-taped threw him off. You know, it gives the criminal a bad rep in front of the jury. I never had a chance.”
After a couple minutes of my feet scrapping across the ground, the sheds that I had thought were outhouses came into view. I finally put two-and-two together.
“Those aren’t sheds, are they?”
“That’s where you’re going to be staying for a bit.”
“What's your name?” I tried to drag my feet to slow him down. I didn’t want to go into one of those buildings. “I don't remember you introducing yourself."
He continued to pull me along without an answer.
"Come on. I need a name. Jerry just gave me his!" I laid on the ground with my hands taped in front of me while he opened the door.
“Are you going in on your own or do I have to throw you in there?”
“What’s your name?”
“It’s Guy.”
“Guy?”
He lifted me by my arm and shoved me into the room. When he shut the door I couldn’t see a thing. It was completely black except for a crack in the corner that let in a little light from the setting sun. I was tired. I was hungry. I was upset. And for whatever reason, I began to laugh.
I couldn't breathe in the small building anymore. The heat was so bad that sweat was beading off my body. I was completely soaked and it felt like I had run a marathon. In reality, I had done nothing but sit still the entire night in that shed.
I thought about what I’d be doing if I were at home. Probably the same thing—lying on the floor. Or eating takeout. There was nothing in the world that pizza couldn’t solve. Or ice cream—that would be perfect. My mouth watered thinking about eating something cold.
Instead of sitting still for any longer, I banged my feet against the walls. It was just something to do. After twenty-seconds of banging there was a spot of light in the corner. I wasn’t sure if I had done the damage or it already there. Either way, the wall was weak and crumbling. I banged even harder, excited by the prospects of finding a way out. Maybe someone before me had been driven to insanity by the heat, and I was picking up where they left off.
"You should let her out now—she’s been in there all night!”
Larry’s voice was recognizable even from far away. Already we were on bad terms and I had only been there for half a day. His voice reminded me of my dad’s Uncle Bruce, who died of diabetes. Not the kind you’re born with, the kind from not eating well. I used to hate when he’d come over to the house because he liked grabbing my head and pushing in on both sides as a joke. He said it was to keep my brains together.
I banged my feet even harder on the walls. The wooden boards were weak and were bending. I knew if I kept kicking that I could break through. I just had to be patient and keep up the pace. That was all anything required, really.
Guy opened the door before I could escape on my own. The breeze alone made me stop what I was doing and forget about being trapped. The cold felt so good on my skin, and I calmed down.
"Come on. You look like hell." Guy reached down and lifted me up by my wrists.
The tape pulled at the hairs on my arm but I pretended to feel nothing. I wanted to have no reaction. He pulled me outside, but I missed the step down, and landed hard on my knees and elbows.
“That hurt,” I groaned. There wasn’t a way to catch myself, and my bones felt the shock of being slammed into the ground. I dropped my face into the dirt because there was no point holding up my head any longer. I could feel the dirt sticking to the sweat on my skin.
Guy yanked me back up. He was rough and I could feel the bruises already forming. That was something I probably had to get used to. Being pushed around and doing things by force. There was no waiting around for me to get up—the counsellors were there to drag me. Dad always said I needed a good kick in the ass.
Guy seemed to think he had me under his control—that I had given up. I realized it was my chance to teach him that the most interesting people in life were the people you didn’t trust. And I was one of those interesting people.
I bolted.
The scene must have looked amazing. It was me sprinting with my hands taped in front, and Guy chasing after me.
I had never run anywhere like that before, and it felt so funny. If I died and went to heaven, I would ask God to replay that moment for me to see from a bystander point of view. That had to be a thing. All our moments in our lives should be on tape somewhere up in the clouds. What else was the point of doing crazy things? You had to be able to see it again.
There wasn’t really anywhere to go. I slowed down, and Guy tackled me to the ground. He landed on top of me, and I was back to square one again, with my face pressed into the ground, and my elbows and knees scrapped up.
“There had to be a better way to stop me,” I said.
Guy ripped me up even more aggressively. Next time I’m sure it would be by the bun of my hair. And I would pretend I felt nothing, because that was the plan. If you held it in, sometimes, it really did disappear. I almost believed that how you imagined your bad experiences, determined how they affected you. That’s what I was going with.
Guy pushed me ahead of him, but held tightly onto my elbow. He instructed me to walk toward the dirt path in the distance.
“Sure thing.” I turned and looked at him. Behind him, Larry was watching us. I tried to give him the finger, but with how my hands were taped together, it looked like I was praying. Maybe I needed all the help I could get, even from the sky