Debauchery in Michigan; or, A Horrific Account of the Envision National Youth Leadership Forum's Michigan University Medical Program, as told by a suburbanite nepo baby.

I took a seat in the darkest corner I could find. To roughly, my left and behind me were stone pillars, blocking me from view from a casual glance. I took this seat mostly because of that. I really didn’t want to interact with any of my fellow peers, at all, partly out of anxiety and partly out of my own anti-social behaviour. 

Very rudely, my thoughts and musings were interrupted by an African woman, a staff member whose name I’d forgotten at the time of writing. I wanted to say it was something like Darleen or Charleen or something with an “-een” to end it, but for the sake of identifiability I’ll call her Madame Chip-On-The-Shoulder, because she truly did have a massive chip on her shoulder, a frankly unreasonable amount of hatred for the youth. Throughout my experience at the program, I questioned why and how she even got the job. Cheap imported H-1B labor I suppose.

But, to return to the past, she said something along the lines of, “Why are you here.” Note the period, very important, it was less of a question in the rhetorical sense and more of a general statement, maybe she was talking to herself, reminding her of her purpose of harassing teenagers and making what should’ve been a fairly enjoyable program as unfun and unenjoyable as possible.

I didn’t answer her, because it should be very obvious. I am a nepo baby, unafraid to tell the world my true label, and my father wishes, or wished, for me to take up his family’s craft of doctoring, or doctorage, I prefer the latter term personally.

It was tense, a very tense awkward moment, more so for me than her I believe, but it was both ways honestly. I was completely caught off-guard, not expecting to be found in my hidey-hole so quickly, and she relished every moment, every opportunity, to execute full-use of her authority as program staff over me, or any other person under her for that matter.

In short: I got dragged more towards the center of the room in an attempt to force me to socialize with the other youth. Naturally, as soon as she turned her back I immediately slid away in a booth seat with the greatest coverage from prying eyes possible. It was there that I met Rico.

Rico isn’t very important to my account. He was more of along the lines of an acquaintance, or that friend you make at a new school, the “trial” period of friendship where you’re unsure and wary about someone else, but you stick together out of necessity, not because you have things in common or a genuine sense of camaraderie.

Rico was a fellow sufferer, caught and forced to socialize before me. I made my introductions with him, and he did the same to me, out of that societal expectation of pleasantries, before immediately going back on his phone to scroll through Instagram. I didn’t mind that. Not at all.

Before long, our duo became a group of four, with the addition of Edward and Sawyer. Edward is important, being the person I ultimately spent the most time around, again friends out of necessity, with me generally acting as deranged as possible and trying my absolute damnest to see what made that man crack.

Sawyer on the other hand, well, Sawyer and I didn’t get along very well. Sawyer was a know-it-all, reminding me very heavily in terms of personality and appearance of my school-friend Joseph. Except, well, Joseph didn’t have a neckbeard, and Joseph could also take a joke. Joseph, or Giuseppe as I call him, is also much less inclined to flex his knowledge with a holier-than-thou attitude. Sawyer was an ass. A smart ass, in the very pure definition of two words. Intelligent with the most disagreeable disposition.

The four of us sat, three of us making small-talk, a pointless thing really, and the fourth scrolling through Tiktok or Instagram or whatever short-form video app is popular with the youth. Edward was, I realized, the first to also see through the facade and understand the true suffering of the situation we were in, sheep at the mercy of abusive shepherds. 

Around fifteen or so minutes into our introductions and pleasantries, Sawyer was interrupted by a thin, long-haired, scruffy looking man asking his name. Warily, Sawyer told the man his name. At this moment, precisely, I realized what, for a lack of a better word, geeks Sawyer and Edward were. They were completely unable to recognize the questioner as a fellow student, ironically because of his facial hair. I never did learn that man’s name, only a title, Gum Guy.

Gum Guy was arguably one of my favorite people I met on that trip, and I highly regret forgetting his name immediately and never getting his number or social media handle. Gum Guy will be spoken about in legend to my future grandchildren, this elusive man who I befriended via watching midgets fight and offering me gum. Truly a mythical character.

Chip-On-The-Shoulder had rounded up everyone, yelling “Attention!” as if we were recruits in some sort of African insurgent army undergoing basic training. It is there that we meet Chip-On-The-Shoulder’s lackey, underling, goon, or whatever you want to call it, Sing-Song, again another African woman who relished the power she had over a murder of adolescents, except her voice carried itself with a sing-song-y accent. Similar to Trinidadian, but not quite, more rough in her pronunciation, more hollow in the tune of her voice, sickly sweet in that sadistic way.

I should probably point out, it was around four-forty in the evening, and, according to the itinerary, dinner was at five. Everyone longed for food.

The following is a blur, a haze, an absolute mess of a memory. The only distinct identifiable motif throughout it all is a single uniting word. “Icebreakers.”