Paris: The Memoir(32)
That’s the objective of Rap: to force a person past the last jagged inch of what they can stand. You’d like to think you’ll sit there and be tough or yell back or walk out or whatever, but there were beefy Imperial Marine throwbacks standing guard all around to make sure nobody went anywhere.
“That’s it, Paris. Run your anger.” Weaselmug shoved a wad of paper towels in my face, hugging her moist, flabby arm around my shoulders.
Blanda turned on a girl sitting across from me.
“Why are you sitting on your ass, Katy? Why aren’t you helping Paris take care of her feelings? Your chickenshit lack of participation is harming everyone in this room!”
As suddenly as it had turned on me, the circle beast wheeled on that girl, bellowing and berating her until she gulped and sobbed and drowned in that riptide of cruelty and horse shit, and then they moved on to someone else, destroying one person after another.
Weaselmug praised the most aggressive attackers and ridiculed anyone who was hanging back or not being brutal enough. If you refused to participate, you were “out of agreement” and next up for annihilation. These kids knew each other well enough to target each other’s soft spots. Whatever it was that cut the deepest—they found that vulnerable place, drilled down on it, and tore the person apart like a pack of hyenas.
This went on and on and on. For hours. I am not exaggerating.
For hours this went on.
And on and on and on.
Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu left me.
It’s a song about being abandoned. This was the message drilled into us during those endless sessions: Whoever you were counting on—family, friends, anyone who ever said they cared about you—just forget them. They lied. They left you. Just when you needed them most. Anyone who says they love you—they don’t. Because you are not worthy of love, and if you love yourself, you’re just fucking delusional. You are helpless. You are worthless. You will never be loved. Your family has rejected you. We’re your family now, and the only way to survive is to be like us.
People rocked and wailed, spewing snot and drool, bawling self-hatred, their noses running, their eyes red and streaming. Some kids screamed until their faces were freckled with the little red dots you get when tiny blood vessels burst under the skin—the ones that come from violent vomiting. The only way to make it end was to confess. You had to spill some dark secret, share your terrible thoughts, or divulge some creepy thing about yourself.
People confessed to doing and thinking horrific things—raping a cousin, killing a dog, wanting to stab parents and strangle girlfriends—which was utterly terrifying to me, because I thought these confessions were all real. I was like, Who are these people? It didn’t even cross my mind that some kids were just making shit up, saying whatever they had to say to make the abuse stop.
The ritual dragged on for hours until everyone in the circle was spent and sweating. It was late—after midnight—and we’d been up since stupid o’clock that morning. I told the hippie counselor, “I have to lie down. I’m going to pass out. I’m going to throw up. Please. I have to go to bed.”
“Soon,” he said with another weird little wink. “First we smoosh.”
I was like, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. I couldn’t imagine how this whole scene could get any more messed up, but—yeah.
It did.
Everyone gravitated to a conversation pit in front of the fireplace—“a horseshoe of cushy couches” is how it was described in the brochure—and these kids who’d been ripping each other’s guts out five seconds earlier got down on the floor and snuggled up with their heads on each other’s stomachs and their limbs entwined. Weaselmug sat with her legs wide apart. Blanda sat in front of her. Another girl sat between Blanda’s legs, leaning back on her chest, like they were all on a bobsled. Weaselmug grinned and stroked Blanda’s greasy hair.
Blanda said, “C’mon and smoosh, Paris!”
I was like, Oh, hell no. No, no, no, no, no . . .
Three girls cuddled up with Hippie Mess, cooing and giggling. Some dude who was in the room when I was strip-searched tried to drag me onto his lap. He opened his legs and tried to bobsled me, for Christ’s sake! I was like, “Get off me!” and tried to twist away, but Blanda grabbed my wrist and shook her head.
“Smooshing is not optional,” she said. “It’s part of the program.”
“I guess I should have prepared you,” Hippie Mess chuckled, pulling the girls closer. “Smooshing is all about feeling. I is thinking; Me is feeling. There’s an ongoing battle between the two.”
“I is bad,” said Blanda. “You gotta stop thinking. I can’t work the program. You gotta let Me do it.” She looked up at Weaselmug for approval, and Weaselmug kissed the crown of her sweaty head.
People kept trying to lean on me or drag me into their laps. I worked my way into a corner, pulled my knees to my chest, and hugged my arms around my shins, trying to become small, like a walnut in a hard shell. When they finally let us go to bed, I climbed into the bunk and covered my head with the blanket. I tried to keep it together, but I was so deeply shaken—I won’t lie—I cried and cried. Again, I was gripped with that deep trembling. Every muscle in my core ached with fatigue.
Blanda whispered in the cold darkness: “If you don’t smoosh, you’ll get the worst chores. Scrubbing toilets or cleaning up puke. You’ll get blown away every time during Rap.”