RECIPE FOR A CLUSTERFUCK: take ten teenagers the world believes are human garbage, toss in some hippy work-together-to-make-the-world-better bullshit, add a dash of insecurity and a dollop of fear, and then send the kids into the woods for three days and expect them not to kill and eat each other. Voilà! One glorious clusterfuck.
Zeppelin Bend isn’t one of those summer camps where campers spend their time finger painting and canoeing and singing songs. It’s the kind of place they send kids no one else wants and tell us it’s our last chance to make a U-turn before we wind up in juvie until we’re eighteen. Before Doug (which is the kind of name a parent gives their kid when they expect he’s going to turn out to be a massive asshole) drove us into the woods blindfolded, kicked us out of the van, and told us we had three days to hike back to Zeppelin Bend on our own, we spent three weeks learning how to use a compass, find food that wouldn’t kill us, start a fire without a lighter, and run from bears—since that’s really all you can do if a bear comes your way. In short, we supposedly learned all the skills necessary for a bunch of delinquents like us to survive. Doug even told us we’d get a surprise if we made it back to the Bend by the end of the third day. I figured it was probably an ice cream party or some other stupid bullshit, but even that sounded good after weeks of plain oatmeal and whatever chunky meat was in the stews they served for dinner.
It was just after sunrise when Doug marooned us in the woods, and we spent the first hour arguing over who was going to be in charge. Every group needs a leader, and everyone thinks it should be them. Everyone but me, anyway. I hung in the background, waiting to see who was going to come out on top. No use picking sides if you’re just going to pick the losing one. But eventually, we were going to have to choose someone, and I didn’t think it mattered who because, like I said, we were a recipe for a clusterfuck, and even the best chefs break a few eggs.
* * *
I guess I should tell you what I know about the others. Most of it’s shit I picked up around the Bend, so I can’t vouch for the truth of it. That’s why I like stories. They usually wind up revealing more about a person than what they’d tell you about themselves. It’s not that they lie intentionally, but when people describe themselves they’re really describing what they see in a mirror, and most mirrors are too distorted to show us the truth. If you listen hard enough, there’s more truth in fiction than in all the other shit combined.
Jackie Armstrong was the first person I met after my uncle dropped me off at the Bend. She’s kind of invisible in the way girls like her often are, and she was wearing a T-shirt with a logo from that werewolves in space TV show Space Howl. That was before we all got told we had to wear these shitty brown uniforms. It’s easy to dismiss a girl like Jackie, but you’re an idiot if you do.
Then there’s Tino Estevez. We got a lot in common, mostly being we’re both Mexican. Well, I’m mixed and he’s not, but it’s something. The kid’s kind of quiet, but if you watch him real hard, you can see some anger bubbling there under the surface. Before we’d even been dumped in the woods, my money was on him clocking someone before we were done. He kind of thought he should be the leader, but he wasn’t ready to fight for it hard enough.
Now, Jaila Davis is one badass motherfucker. She’s like a foot shorter than anyone else, but she acts like she’s a foot taller. I thought she was stuck-up when I first met her, but she’s probably better equipped to spend three days in the woods than anyone else in our dysfunctional group. And I don’t know how many languages she speaks, but she cusses in at least three.
David Kim Park was another one who thought he should be the leader, which was hilarious. The kid couldn’t navigate his way out of a paper bag, and he’s obsessed with sex. No lie. Anytime someone was like “Where’s David?” chances are he was hiding somewhere beating off. It was so bad, Doug had to pull him aside and talk to him about it twice. Plus, David was convinced there was a Bigfoot or aliens or something in the woods.
The third of the J girls was Jenna Cantor. I basically pegged her as a rich white girl from day one, and she didn’t do much to prove me wrong while we were at the Bend. She was kind of weird, too. Aside from being able to do calculations in her head I couldn’t figure with a calculator, she was real quiet. But not like snobby quiet. More like she was living in a world the rest of us couldn’t see.
Lucinda Banks wore her anger on her uniform. I tried to figure out why she’d been sent to the Bend, but she hardly ever talked except to complain about the shitty jumpsuits they made us wear. They weren’t the worst things I’d ever owned, but Lucinda seemed to take having to wear one personally in a way I found particularly interesting.
Sunday Taylor was another one I thought I’d get along with, but she kept to herself and acted like she was the only good kid in a pack of misfits. Not like she was too good for us, but kind of like she was afraid if she got too close, the real Sunday would come out, and I’m pretty sure there’s a hell-raiser somewhere inside that meek exterior.
The last two members of our homemade clusterfuck were Cody Hewitt and Georgia Valentine. I figured Georgia for another rich white girl, but she’s the type who thinks she’s progressive ’cause she likes that one Beyoncé song and has a gay best friend. She can be kind of type A, but she’s always the first to take the jobs no one else wants to do and never talks shit about anyone.
Cody wasn’t Georgia’s gay best friend, but he was probably someone’s. That boy knows more about old movies than anyone I ever met. Of all of us out there, he seemed to belong the least. I couldn’t picture him doing anything worth getting sent to a shit hole camp for fuckups, but he was there, so he must’ve done something.
I don’t want to say anything about me. I don’t think the storyteller should get in the way of the stories, you know? But if you need a name, you can call me Gio.
* * *
Doug had taught us how to use a compass but hadn’t actually given us one when he dropped us off. All we got were our packs, sleeping bags, empty canteens, little bottles of bleach to disinfect the water with, and the clothes on our backs. Jaila figured out which direction to hike to get back to the Bend, but it was David who suggested that we should find water first. He wasn’t wrong. It didn’t get too hot in Wyoming in the summer, but it was warm enough that we were sweating, and once David mentioned water, none of us could think of anything else.
I brought up the idea of telling stories, saying it might help keep our minds off being thirsty, which was mostly true. Tino said it was a stupid idea, and he wasn’t interested in telling stories. The others didn’t seem real thrilled either. Not until I mentioned I’d give a hundred bucks to the person who told the best story as judged by me. But then no one wanted to be first, so we kept walking, hoping Jaila actually knew what she was talking about when she said to find water we should look for animal tracks and head downhill.
I figured my story idea was dead since no one was willing to be the sacrificial lamb, and I was thinking I could start shit between Tino and Sunday to keep me entertained, when Jenna, who’d been so quiet I’d almost forgotten she was there, was like “I’ll go first,” which surprised the hell out of me.