Teen Angst? Naaah ... (7 page)

“Fine by me,” Dad said. “Enjoy the concert.” We shook hands and moved to separate parts of the Wetlands.

I waited for thirty minutes, breathing smoke, eavesdropping on conversations, wondering where the band was. Finally Mike, Jian, Dave, and Murray appeared on the tiny stage. The Wetlands could hold about one hundred and fifty people. That night, it was packed; everyone howled as the band emerged.

They looked dangerously dorky. Jian wore a shiny purple vest; Mike, a shirt covered with multicolored Pac-Men; Dave, a black turtleneck. For the opening number, Jian got behind the drum set, Murray picked up his bass, Mike grabbed an acoustic guitar, and Dave strapped on an accordion.

Then Jian announced that there would be no music tonight—just talk. “Talk radio's getting big in America—you'd be an idiot to play music!” he said. He did a drumroll, and the band started in.

Because they use so many instruments in the studio, I had low expectations of Moxy live. Congas, bongos, accordions, pianos, organs, harmonicas—I couldn't see how the band could play all of them on-stage. But they pulled it off, substituting guitar solos for piano solos and strapping on extra instruments when necessary. Then they started in with their bizarre stage antics. Mike dressed up as Spider-Man and shot a cap gun at the Wetlands' disco ball, proclaiming, “That rotating disco ball up there saps and saps all the strength from Spider-Man!” Dave put on a fez, declaring that he was the king of Spain.

I looked over at Dad a few times as the show progressed. He kept his hat pulled low and his eyes closed, and tapped along with the music. True to his word, he ignored me completely.

Moxy played some favorites: “Video Bargainville,” an accordion-driven tale of everyday life in a video store, and “King of Spain,” the riches-to-rags story of a modern-day monarch. There was new material, too: the anti-employer anthem, “I Love My Boss,” and “The Greatest Man in America,” a song about Rush Limbaugh.

All of this led to a shattering eight-minute medley, featuring snippets of old favorites like “Love Potion Number Nine” and “Stayin' Alive,” and a farcical version of “You Oughta Know.” The medley ended with Dave's guitar solo; I heard someone clapping very loudly over the feedback. I peered at Dad, who always cupped his hands to produce incredibly loud applause.

Moxy left the stage, but the crowd began screaming and the guys reappeared, playing two encores. Dad and I didn't get out of the Wetlands until 1:30.

“Well, thank you,” Dad said as we got into the van. “I'm pretty sure that on the entire island of Manhattan, that was the best music being played tonight.”

“Yeah, they're pretty good, aren't they?” I said sheepishly. I got in the passenger seat and fell asleep. The next day, I was wide awake and brimming with energy at school.

Now here I was, three months later—with my head between the pages of my study guide. I had the
chance to see Moxy again, but there was a vital test the next morning. A classic dilemma. My nerd brain told me that concerts were never that great, that I was romanticizing the one I'd seen before, that I'd better lift my face and refocus on those questions because what if I was tested on this
particular part
of the book? My cool brain told me I'd been preparing for the test for weeks, that one more night of studying wouldn't make any difference, and I'd better stop tak-in' orders from society.

“Mom!” I called. She came quickly to my room; Mom was especially attentive when I was studying.

“Are you okay? Do you need any tea?” she asked.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could, ah, go to this concert tonight. It's Moxy Früvous, those people I saw with Dad a couple months ago.”

“Out of the question.”

“What? Why?”

“Ned, it's
six o'clock
. You couldn't have planned this sooner? You have a test tomorrow; you can't be seeing
bands
.”

“What if Dad came? Like he did before?”

“I know this may surprise you, but sometimes your father has better things to do than drive you around at all hours of the day and night—”

“I'll take him!” Dad shouted from the other room. “They're a great band! I'll take him!”

“Jim, don't interfere!” Mom yelled. “He has a
test
tomorrow!”

Dad and Mom continued the discussion. I closed the door to my room and went back to my study guide. My cool brain was ranting, “You could sneak out the window, Ned! Sneak out the window, dude! Be the man for once!” My nerd brain just laughed. I pulled up my chair and refocused my eyes on the page. I might not be doing the right thing, but I was doing the dorky thing—the only thing I was good at. Moxy Früvous would have approved.

B
lancheville is a small turd of a town on the Connecticut River. The only reason I know is because it houses my summer sleep-away camp, CCRC, short for the Christian Camp and Recreation Center.
^*
I've been coming here for five years, because my parents deem it necessary and because I have nothing to do in the city. If I were home, I'd be pacing through heat waves, eating Oreos, and playing Mega Man III.
^**

CCRC is coed; its campers are split into age groups called sections. Now that I'm fifteen, I'm in Explorer Village, the most independent section. I live in a platform tent with five other guys. It's a dank, smelly hole of a place—wet socks and mildewed towels strewn everywhere, a garbage can overflowing with candy wrappers … the green-fabric ceiling keeps the rain out and the odors in.

I cook my meals over a campfire, which is intensely gratifying. Sure, the food tastes like ash, but I get to chop firewood.
^*
And camp cuisine is a welcome departure from my New York diet of orange Hostess cupcakes and Trix cereal.

Most of my stay at Explorer Village is spent in “Festivals” and “Free Time.” Festivals are the typical camp activities—hiking, swimming, soccer, Ping-Pong, fish-punching,
^**
and general lounging. This year, it's rained almost every day, which means lots of Ping-Pong and lounging. I hate both.

But I hate Free Time more. During winter, as I trudge through school, all I want is a little time for myself. At camp, I finally get it—and it bites. What can I do with an hour in the woods of Connecticut? Read? Write? Practice my hopelessly flawed basketball shot? My campmates go “chilling,” which means sitting on a rock and having light, hip conversations with girls. I could never handle light, hip conversations. (Girl: “Did you see
Heathers
?”
^***
Me: “Uh, nope … did you see, ah,
Jurassic Park
?” Girl: “No.”) I spend most Free Times brooding in my tent, which has led to some Deep Realizations About Camp.

First off, it's a Darwinian popularity contest. At all times, the question on everyone's mind is, “Who's coolest?” People complain about high school cliques, but cliques at camp form more rapidly and are twice as vicious. Last year, some guys in my section set up a full-on monarchy, complete with lords and vassals. This kid Corey was a vassal; he would kneel before the lords and fetch things for them.

It's not even the lords-and-vassals thing that gets to me. It's when I'm walking and talking with X, and he runs ahead to whisper with Y and Z, and they all laugh. Bam—I'm left to wonder what I'm missing out on.

The easiest and most preferable way to be cool at camp (and everywhere, I guess) is to get with a member of the opposite sex. Even the dorky, buck-toothed guys become instantly popular when they land a fifteen-year-old girl. This is where my problems start.

I can't go up to a girl and ask her out. (Of course, “going out with” someone at CCRC is stupid because there's nowhere to go. It just means you and your counterpart hold hands and engage in some public displays of affection.) Fear of rejection isn't the only thing that holds me back—a powerful sensation of disgust does, too, as if I were in third grade and girls were icky. If I were gay, that would clear things up, but I'm not. Just inept.

This year, I had a chance—I really did—with this punk girl named Kat. She came up to me on that first day of camp and started chatting:

“Hey, Ned! Are you still reading all those Orwell books?”

“Oh, hi. Yeah. I brought some with me, actually.”

“Did you bring your Devo CD?”
^*

“Uh, no, left it at home.”

“Oh, you don't like them now? You've moved on?”

“Yeah, I like this band called Moxy—”

“I can't believe you didn't bring Devo. I realized, the way you dance to that, you would make the perfect Rude Boy!”
^**

For the next few days, we talked. It was classic: I liked Kat, I thought she liked me, but neither of us was forward enough to do anything. One day, this guy named Neal asked me what the deal was between me and Kat.

“Nothing, we're just friends,” I answered.

Neal got with Kat frighteningly quick, forming a relationship that lasted all through camp. I was thankful; it gave me an excuse not to ask her out, which I had feared more than anything.

I might have had some hope with Kat if there hadn't been any dances. I can't describe how much I hate dances. Ever since fifth grade, when that girl Rebecca told me I danced like a cricket, I've been a professional wallflower. I like it, in a perverse way. Standing by the wall, surrounded by other nerdy non-dancers, a sort of camaraderie forms. It's safe there, much safer than on the floor.

As luck would have it, dances are held at CCRC every Saturday, in the rec hall. During the first dance, I sat on a Ping-Pong table by a wall for three hours. Kat grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, urging, “Come on, Ned, dance!” I walked back to my table.

I missed the second dance because I was on a canoe trip. During the third dance, they played “Whip It” so I was obliged to get up and groove with Devo. When the song ended, I went back to my tent and slept. Sleep also freed me from the final dance, and as I lay in my dirty sheets, I wondered, “What happens to the wallflowers of the world? Do they ever get laid? Do they ever get married?”

I shouldn't dwell on unpleasant subjects. Some big things happened at camp, most of them on the canoe trip—eleven campers, two counselors, five days, seventy miles. I learned a lot about myself on
that trip, namely how to (A) smoke a cigarette
^*
and (B) get high.

(A) took place the first day of the trip, after we had reached our campsite. A group of boys trekked into the woods, bringing me along. They all lit up Camels, enveloping me in a smell familiar from my high school. I was offered one and shown the proper puffing technique. I took a drag.

It was just as I'd expected from riding in unventilated yellow cabs and car-service sedans—sort of like sticking your head in a campfire and inhaling deeply. The smoke went to the back of my mouth, then lower into my throat somewhere. It was acrid, abrasive, like swallowing sand. It tasted raunchy. I got very dizzy and began hacking, and then I gave the Camel to someone else. I sat down for a while, and the aftertaste was kind of good. But not good enough to shell out three bucks a pack.

(B) took place the next night, when my friend X produced a bong and brought me down to the riverbank with Y. X told me that nothing would happen to me because smoking marijuana only affected you the third or fourth time you tried it. He passed the bong
around; I don't know how much I smoked. We finished and X asked me:

“So, feeling any adverse effects?”

“No, I feel normal.”

“See, I told you nothing would happen.”

He turned to Y and began chatting with him. Then I started laughing. At X and Y's conversation. At anything and everything. They told me to shut up.

While I was laughing, a deep, analytical part of my brain was mumbling, “So this is what it's like to be stoned.” It was like waking up at 2:00
A.M
. with a 103-degree fever and stumbling through the hall to pee. I tripped over grass clumps as I went back to my tent to sleep.

The next day, I felt guilty. All those public service announcements I'd seen as a kid (in between Nintendo games) were haunting me. I justified myself the same way I'd done with the cigarette—if I hadn't smoked, I'd always be wondering if it were some great experience. Doing it, laughing a lot, getting told to shut up, and then going to sleep took a lot of the romance away.

Yet, for most of camp I haven't been stoned, or sitting through dances, or being called a “Rude Boy.” I've just been trundling along, writing, practicing my bass guitar, idly picking apart leaves. Last Sunday, at
our weekly Sharing Circle meeting,
^*
the counselors and campers sat around a campfire, talking about what we'd learned from CCRC.

“Ned,” one of them called, “what have you learned from camp?”

Geez. I learned that teenagers are vile creatures who grasp and exploit in the name of popularity. I learned some new songs on my bass guitar. I learned (A) and (B). I learned that hanging out is highly overrated. I learned that I don't like Free Time. I stalled.

“Um, uh, what did I learn? Uh, let's see … well …”

“Okay, I understand. You don't get it, right?”

“Uh …”

The counselor smiled. “You probably think that this whole thing is stupid, right?”

“A little,” I said.

“Well, someday you'll get it. Someday you'll realize how great camp is.”

Okay. I hope so.