I went to a bunch of different summer camps when I was a kid. I went to the Catholic one, Camp Stella Maris, the Boy Scout one, Camp Massaweepie, and the day camp one, Camp Arrowhead.

I don’t recall liking the kids. I didn’t make friends easily. I kind of stood off to the side and observed. I watched the other kids make friends. I made some, I wasn’t antisocial. It’s just that it’s always taken me longer than a week to get tight with people.

But it afforded me the opportunity to just watch kids and how, even separated from their normal schools and social structures, they quickly assemble into their roles in this new environment. The popular guy, the athletic guy, the pretty girl, the pretty girl’s friend who asks the popular guy if he likes the pretty girl (he does), the funny kid, the music obsessed kid (usually metal or The Cure), and the kid who doesn’t fit in.

There was one kid that I went to two different camps with. His name was Matty Cooper. He was a little smaller than the rest of us and he wasn’t mentally challenged but I think he had special needs. Unfortunately, no kid was nice enough to use that term that didn’t yet exist. He didn’t really fit in and that’s coming from the silent kid in the bunk who sat off to the side just watching everyone else.

I’ve known a few kids like this in my childhood, from school, from my neighborhood, from various activities. I always wondered what their lives were like. Who were their parents? How did they deal? Was it difficult? What I was wondering at the time was, did it break their parents’ hearts to know that their child, who had it harder than a lot of other kids, had it even harder because they got picked on and left out.

I remember hearing a story in middle school from a couple of kids who saw one of our classmates outside of school, in a mall, maybe, or some fast food restaurant. His name was Tommy and he was little slower than the rest of us. In the story, the kids either said something to him or behind his back or maybe they didn’t say anything at all but Tommy’s mom shouted at them anyway. “You leave him alone! Why are you always picking on him?! Just leave him alone!” The kids thought this was hilarious. I heard the story and I laughed along with them.

This was all in elementary and middle school, of course. By high school, things change dramatically. I saw one of the kids that got picked on in middle school in the audience of the Jerry Springer Show, with a full mohawk, dressed like a member of the band Rancid. I saw another kid from my class, Ian, walking through Eastview Mall wearing head to toe black, with a long black trenchcoat, kind of like a cross between Neo and Trent Reznor. Honestly, the look agreed with him and he seemed a bit more comfortable in his own skin. But I digress.

I thought Matty was fine. He was a sweet enough kid. Then I saw him again at Camp Arrowhead later that summer. The counselors seemed to know him there.

The next year a new kid came to Camp Arrowhead, Jeremy. He was less social than Matt, harder to talk to. He was kind of a stocky kid. I think I recall him having a breakdown and crying over something that really didn’t warrant it. He was left out of a lot of things. There’s no kind way to put this but he was the slow kid at camp that year.

I had two counselors, Trent and Adam. Trent was, like six feet tall, athletic, with a buzz cut. He seemed like an adult to me but he was probably 18, if that. Looking back, I think Adam was a stoner. He had shoulder length blond hair, wore one of those baja jackets, was really good at hacky sack, and slept in his car.

I liked Adam better, Trent was kind of a dick. I used to pout if I ever got knocked out of a game like dodgeball or something. Yeah, pouting isn’t a good look but I was in the fifth grade. Trent yelled at me, “Dude! You act like you’re the only person who ever gets out!” Were the roles reversed I would have wanted to shout at me too. I’m sure I was being annoying but, in any event, Trent always struck me as the meaner of the two.

Counselors were adults. If a kid got hurt, counselors knew what to do. They told us where to go. They solved disputes between us. They would kid around with each other about what they had gotten up to the night before. I’m sure it was just some eighteen to early twentysomething kids just hanging out drinking. It sounded amazing to me. Sometimes we would catch glimpses of them as they really were, not being the people in charge of children, just acting like themselves.

It was in one of these moments when their guard was down that I heard it. I happened to overhear a conversation where the counselors were talking about campers and I overheard Trent say, “Jeremy? Jesus, he’s even more retarded than Matty Cooper.”

The adults were supposed to be better than us. As a kid, I knew that I was a kid. I knew that there had to have been some age in the future where you knew what to do and things were fair and people weren’t mean. I didn’t think an adult could think like that. But they did. They do. No one is above petty judgement no matter the age.

And I wasn’t some hero. If Matty or Jeremy got made fun of, I laughed at the joke. I didn’t offer them friendship. I was just a kid trying to dodge verbal bullets like every other kid. I wish I could have been better.