meeting” times were usually reserved for group sessions with the camp’s therapist, a frazzled old woman named Mrs Nussbaum. During our six weeks, Mrs Nussbaum ultimately came to the conclusion that at least three of the Jupiter boys were particularly troubled, and trouble for her—I never answered her personal questions, while Cobie Petersen and Max seemed to not fit in with the other planets of campers.
She happened to be waiting inside Jupiter when Larry marched the four of us in for our scolding about suicide attempts and such.
Our first session went something like this:
We sat on our beds while Mrs Nussbaum eyed each one of us, almost as though she were trying to decide which unattractive and mangy puppy to save from the euthanizing chamber at a dog pound. Ultimately, I got that all wrong. Mrs Nussbaum had other intentions as far as the fate of her boys was concerned.
Mrs Nussbaum touched the tip of her index finger to my name tag. It made me flinch, and wonder, as all boys do at times like these, why did I always have to go first?
My name tag said this:
HELLO! MY NAME IS: Ariel Burgess
I COME FROM: Jupiter
Mrs Nussbaum said, “Ariel. That’s a lovely name. Would you care to tell us all something about yourself, Ariel?”
I looked directly at her and shook my head.
And since Mrs Nussbaum brought it up, let me add something about my unwillingness to talk.
It wasn’t that I felt embarrassed speaking English. I was confident in my ability with the language. The truth is this: I did not speak because I was unhappy and I was afraid. I was sorry for where I came from, and for what happened to so many of my friends and family members. I was sad to be an orphan—worse, a sole survivor—even if the Burgesses did graciously make me their awkward second son, Max’s non-twinned twin. And it made me feel terrible how much Max hated me, too.
I didn’t talk because I wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened to me with the orphans in the tent city. But most of all was the feeling that I didn’t belong here, as much as everyone had seemed so intent (and self-satisfied) with the notion of “saving” Ariel; and that I would never come to understand all of the nonsense that America presented to me.
That’s why the boy from the refrigerator didn’t say much.
So when Mrs Nussbaum asked me if I would care to talk about myself, what would she expect me to say? I would love to care about talking about myself, but I did not.
So I said this, as politely as I could:
“No thank you.”
Mrs Nussbaum looked injured.
It was a silly thing. Why would anyone ask a question to someone who has free will and then be surprised—or disappointed—by their answer? This made no sense. She asked, I answered, and then there came an awkward, silent, staring period that lasted for several minutes before Max contributed an opinion.
“Allow me to break the ice,” he said. “Ariel just doesn’t like to talk.”
Besides, Mrs Nussbaum mispronounced my name—she called me Air-iel—which is how most Americans said it. Max corrected her, saying Ah-riel.
It almost felt as though he were sticking up for me—something brothers should do, right?—but then Max added, “He’s stupid, besides.”
So Mrs Nussbaum asked Max to talk about his anger, and again seemed surprised by Max’s response that he A) remembered Mrs Nussbaum from when this was a fat camp, and he had never been fat in his life; and B) couldn’t give a shit about Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys.
Apparently, Max still held on to his celery grudge from two years earlier.
“This used to be a fat camp ?” Cobie said.
Max said, “It still is a fat camp. They switch it every six weeks between fat camp and the eighteenth century. When I was thirteen, my parents got me in during a fat camp cycle. It was the shittiest summer of my life. Even worse than now.”
Mrs Nussbaum smiled broadly. “But of course I remember you now, Max!”
And then Cobie Petersen asked Mrs Nussbaum, “How does it feel having the only vagina here in this entire camp?”
Mrs Nussbaum reddened.
She stuttered, “I . . . I . . .”
When she regained her composure, Mrs Nussbaum reminded the boys of Jupiter that this session was not about her, but if we felt like we wanted to talk about vaginas, she thought that it could be a healthy thing for boys our age.
I glanced over at Larry when Mrs Nussbaum mentioned a possible vagina-talk. He looked sick.
Then Mrs Nussbaum patted Robin Sexton on the knee and said, “Robin? I have a cousin named Robin. His parents named him after the little boy in Winnie the Pooh. How about you? Perhaps you’d like to begin by telling us how you feel about being here, or maybe you could say something about home, since the other boys seem to want to shut this experience out. You know, build walls around themselves.”
When she said build walls, Mrs Nussbaum pressed her flattened palms in the air in front of her face, as though she were acting out a street mime’s performance of “Man Trapped in an Invisible Box.”
And Robin said, “Huh?”
“He keeps shit in his ears, ma’am,” Cobie Petersen pointed out.
“Oh,” Mrs Nussbaum said.
Then Mrs Nussbaum asked us if we felt guilty or sad about what happened to Bucky Littlejohn that day on the archery field.
We all shook our heads, and Cobie said, “He pissed in his bed last night, and Larry made us all clean it up. He was bound to get shot sooner or later.”
Mrs Nussbaum looked approvingly at Larry and told us, “You boys are off to a great start, I can tell! That’s a very nice way to build a team.”
I suppose team-building in America depends on getting someone else’s pee on your hands.
That day, Mrs Nussbaum passed out blank index cards and gave us pencils. The pencils were the small kind you’d get inside box games, like Yahtzee. The Burgesses played Yahtzee every Saturday night. Max hated the game. He told me it was the only game he knew of where it was impossible to cheat, plus you had to do math. Both of these features made the whole thing not fun to Max.
The pencils Mrs Nussbaum gave us had no erasers, which implied to me a prohibition on making mistakes. I noticed how Cobie Petersen rubbed the pad of his thumb on his pencil’s point. I was reasonably certain he was estimating things like sharpness and stabbing potential.
My pencil had teeth marks in it.
And Mrs Nussbaum instructed: “I want each of you to write on your cards. I want you to write about where you would most rather be, if you couldn’t be here right now at Camp Merrie-Seymour with your friends.”
We
