Hatred is an odd emotion. Many years after it rears its ugly head it can still remain in the mind, a dull sensation that brings back memories tucked away deep, deep inside us. For some it is easy to maintain this hate but for others it slowly slips away. Who is better off? Those who forget and forgive their torturer or those that remain weary and cautious, preventing future ordeals? I personally am the former. A person who has to make an effort to maintain their anger towards others even those that I swear never to forgive. However, there is one that still haunts me today.
It was the summer of ’05 when I met the spawn of the devil. His name is Winston. At first Winston seemed like a fair enough guy, a little strange but oh my, I was certainly mistaken. By his evil doings my stay at nerd camp, a place I thought could never go wrong, was ruined.
The progression of dismay was not slow and by the second day I knew where this was going. Winston freely expressed his extreme right wing views, sexist opinions, and religious intolerance. And when I say freely I mean he actually searched out things he could make fun of or taunt people about. Let me give a few examples. Winston strongly and openly believed that all women only belonged in the kitchen, hated people of all nationalities except his, and worst of all (at least to me), constantly commented on how great of a man he believed Hitler was. Was he trying to be funny? Did he think he entertained people with his cruel words of hatred? At least he hated and was evil to everyone and didn’t just pick on one person or group. In that sense I can say he treated everyone equally.
Winston was intent on hurting those around him, both physically and mentally. He frequently smashed chips into the carpet and blamed them on others. Routinely he would find someone else’s book and smother it with peanut butter. At one point in time he shot me in the eye with a rubber band because I tried to get back my shoes...which he stole from me. Worst, worst of all was what he did when we tried to make amends to our counselor.
Around the second week into camp my group decided to give our counselor a gift as an apology from the group for our “bad behavior” (it really was a ‘I feel so sorry for you for having to deal with Winston on a frequent basis gift’). Everyone contributed except Winston. We decided a cool watch would be good since he wore a spider man one from McDonalds. Winston managed to ruin this for everyone. When we gave our counselor the gift Winston decided to take all the credit even though he didn’t contribute a single cent to the gift even though he explicitly agreed not to contribute. If that wasn’t enough, we later found out that he stole an item valued over one-hundred dollars from the store we got the watch from. Of course he never got punished, or at least on his own. Our counselor thought it would help the group if he punished everyone at once.
My counselor’s philosophy, or at least the camps, was flawed and pointless. By punishing everyone for one group member’s misdoings my counselor believed that we would encourage each other to act more civil in order to prevent damage to ourselves. It was an archaic system similar to the one Chinese emperors of the 15 and 16 hundreds used on their armies. If a general returned home without his soldiers he would be killed and if soldiers returned home without their general they would be killed. In a military setting this worked well but in a camp setting, where people pay hundreds of dollars to have an enjoyable time, only to be punished for some someone’s stupid ass behavior was unjust and insulting.
Enough was enough; something had to be done to Winston. He never suffered from his punishments because of the enjoyment he received when everyone else was punished as well. He never changed his ways or made amends. He was never nice. It was tearing our group apart and division began forming between those who wanted to take action against him and those who didn’t. I was the only one who seemed to take matters into my own hands, it seemed like no one was capable or willing to make Winston regret his sins. I decided I would be the down fall of Winston, the savior of the camp, the knight in shining armor about to defeat the evil dragon about to eat the damsel in distress…or something like that. At first I started picking on Winston like he did to us. This of course only had negative reprocusions. Winston started crying to the counselors that everyone hated him (which was o so true) and they fell right in his trap. Next I moved on to a more political form of uprising. I began to write down all the reasons why I hate Winston and then thought of ways to present them to our counselor. The list didn’t get very far and ultamitaly resulted in sleepless hate filled nights where I just punched the wall and “talked” with my roommate about how much we hated him. Finally I saw my chance, an unplanned opening to release the retribution of a thousand burring arrows of anguish upon the putrid scum named Winston. After lunch one evening Winston was being particularly cruel to me. He threw punch after punch at my dignity and self esteem. Winston thought he had won the battle but alas he had made a grave miscalculation. I was bigger than he was. I readied my fists like a samurai unsheathing his katana. I roared my belligerent battle cry! *ROOAARRRRRR* Winston was no match, the fight would have been over quickly had it not been for my counselor, who sprung into action faster than batman. Tonight there would be no fight, or tomorrow, or even the next day. The battle had been won now that Winston realized the magnitude of the situation.
Winston didn’t come back to camp the next year, or the year after that. Some say he was black listed, some say he was too afraid his reputation would follow him. Nobody knows but we were all glad that we never had to see him again. And that’s my story about Winston.
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