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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Karen showed up with 2-inch-long, fake purple fingernails set with rhinestones. According to routine, the outfitters had taken her clothes and given her the things that she would need for the trip -- everything from a T-shirt and hiking boots to oatmeal and a pocketknife. She was small, with mascara-smudged tear stains under her eyes and long black hair that she braided and unbraided as I laid out the tarp and showed her how to roll it up into a bedroll over her sleeping bag and blanket. I introduced myself and my co-instructor, Rob, and then asked her how she'd ended up here.
Her eyes were flat. "Two fucking goons woke me up in the middle of the night and put me on a plane."
I nodded, unrolled the pack I'd just put together and told her to try it. She stood up and looked me straight in the eye. "Look, I don't know what kind of Outward Bound bullshit this is. And I'll do whatever it takes to graduate and get out of here in 21 days. But if you or my parents or anyone else thinks that you're gonna change me or make me into a good little girl by sending me to boot camp, I'll tell you right now, it's not going to work."
I nodded again, and then went to talk to Rob about the fingernails. We had a hushed conversation. Would she be able to build traps, carve wood, build fires and tie complicated knots with those purple claws? Would we have to file them down? Would she get them caught in something?
We couldn't worry about it now. There were four other kids sitting on their packs 30 feet upstream, all in various stages of discomfort and unhappiness, and we had six miles to go by noon if we wanted to beat the midday heat.
Over the course of the next week, Karen was true to her word. She hiked five to 10 miles a day without complaining. She learned how to set up traps; she learned how to make a fire by striking a rock against her pocketknife; she learned how to build a shelter from plastic, string and branches. She did her journal assignments; she spoke when we asked her to, stayed quiet when we asked her to. And on Day 7, when the therapist drove out in an ATV to meet with her, Karen told her the same thing she told us: She wasn't buying into any of the bullshit or falling for any of the mind games.
By Day 9, the kids weren't expected to spend as much time alone. Now we worked together in a group, sat by the fire in a group and, yes, talked about our feelings in a group. Jason explained why it had been so hard for him to quit cocaine. Christie cried about her parents' divorce. Joey, who had been in and out of boarding schools and rehab for years, told funny stories about other therapeutic hiking trips he'd been on.
And Karen sat, quiet.
Lisa, the therapist, had instructed us by radio that we shouldn't push her -- just leave her be and let her know we cared.
On the night of Day 9, Karen told us that her boyfriend had once broken her arms with a baseball bat. Her parents were trying to break them up by sending her away. But he'd changed, she said, and she was just following all of our rules so she could get this over with and go home to be with him.
We knew from her paperwork that there was more -- an abortion, constant fights with her father, hanging out with a tough crowd. We also knew that she probably wouldn't be going home.
On Day 10, our supervisor drove out and told Karen that her parents had made a decision: When she graduated from the wilderness program, she would go straight to a private boarding school in Texas.
I went for a walk with her away from camp. She was crying and cursing, throwing rocks, clenching her nailed fists so hard I was afraid she'd cut herself. We knew that she no longer had a reason to follow any of the rules. But she had a role in the group: The other kids needed her and there were still places we had to go, wood to be collected, water to be filtered.
That night by the fire, Jason said, "You know, Karen, I'm not sayin' I'm glad your parents sent you away. But I will say this: If I ever see that guy of yours, I'm gonna kick his ass."
Karen wouldn't have heard it from us. But from Jason -- 17 years old, earnest and Southern, always the first to carry gear or go get water -- it meant something real.
But she still wasn't going to fall for any bullshit games.
"I love him," she said. "And he's not like that anymore."
And she was pissed at her dad. When she'd gotten pregnant, he'd called her a slut and refused to take her to the clinic. He wasn't there for her then, and now he was going to take her away from the one person who loved her? She wasn't having it.
