A Teenager's Journey by Richard B. Pelzer Page A

remember from that episode is the early morning hours, when a few of the other teenagers thought it would be funny to play games with me. From time to time one of them would open the door to my room and make some funny comment, then close the door quickly. I laughed and laughed. It wasn’t really funny; it was just the effect of the drugs, combined with what I thought was happening around me. Again, I couldn’t tell if it was real or if it was part of the high.
    By the time morning arrived word had gotten back to the counselors about what had been happening during the night. I woke, hungover and hungrier than I’d been since I arrived. Usually I made it to the mess hall before nine in the morning, but today I got there just before they closed the doors, at eleven.
    As I walked the quarter mile to the hall, I met up with one of the kids I had been out with the night before. We walked along the road together, reminiscing about our night out. We laughed at each other’s stories of what had happened when we returned to our dorms.
    Just outside the doors to the mess hall stood Clay, the senior counselor.
    “I want to see you in my office now,” he barked at me.
    My friend and I looked at each other.
    “I’ve got to eat something first. I’ll be up in a while,” I said.
    The two of them walked back to the camp, and I sat down to my breakfast. When I’d finished, I went outside and sat on one of the benches in the courtyard just outside the mess hall. I knew that the counselors would probably send me packing, as they had with other kids who broke the rules. Without reservation or remorse I walked back to camp and up to the offices, to find Clay. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was sent home.
    What would be so different?
I thought.
    Dale, another group counselor, was in the office. He had a reputation for being the camp’s hard-nosed disciplinarian. He informed me that he’d called my mom back on the mainland and told her that I was being expelled, and that she’d have to pick me up at Salt Lake City airport.
    “The problem we have here, Richard, is that your mom doesn’t give a damn what happens to you. She told me that you’re not welcome in Salt Lake—ever. Since you’re not eighteen and we’re not your legal guardians we can’t send you back without permission.
    “What’s wrong with your mother? She said she didn’t care if you died and were buried in Hawaii.”
    I simply looked at him. “You’re the ones who thought I was out of my mind. You’re the ones that thought I was making up what she was really like. Now you’re asking
me
?
    “I don’t care if you send me back home. You can drop me off at the airport and I’ll take care of myself. Either one, Salt Lake International or San Francisco, it doesn’t matter to me,” I yelled.
    The look on his face was nothing less than total bewilderment. He was shocked to think that he had me under his control one moment, then a moment later was powerless to discipline me the way he was used to doing with all the other kids who messed up. He asked me to sit where I was and wait for him to return.
    In a moment he came back with Clay, and closed the door.
    “I spoke to your mom and she really doesn’t care what happens to you. She won’t give us permission to send you back alone. She won’t pick you up and she doesn’t want you back in Salt Lake,” Clay calmly told me.
    The first chance I had to get a word in, I blurted out: “I don’t care what you want to do. I’m not going back to Salt Lake. I’m getting off in San Francisco and staying there. Since you’re not my legal guardian you can’t stop me.”
    Clay asked Dale to step out of the room, then closed the door. He said softly: “Listen. I was wrong when I didn’t believe you during our talks. I didn’t believe you when you said that she was completely uninterested in you and your brothers’ lives. I just can’t understand how she can completely write you off as if you were