Wicked Hungry

by Jacobs, Teddy

  There’s only one person who might be able to help. Not my Uncle Eli. Not anyone in Providence, either. Someone a lot closer to home.

  But I’m afraid to call him. I mean, once we were great friends. Now I’m not so sure what he’s up to. Karen doesn’t trust him, but I don’t think anyone else has any answers.

  My window’s open, and I hear someone outside. My God, is it him? Or is it her? Someone fast, in any case. Lately my senses seem to be on overdrive. Not just feeling the moon, but movement, out in the streets. Out in the woods. Smelling things too, from blocks away.

  The doorbell rings. I hobble down the steps, open the front door, but there’s no one there. He was here, though; I know it was him. But now he’s gone. He’s so fast.

  What did he want?

  It’s warm outside, and the sun feels good on my skin.

  I turn to go back inside, when I notice something. There’s a little brown paper bag. On my doorstep.

  I look next door, and there’s another one on Enrique’s front porch. Another little brown paper bag, twisted shut at the top.

  I reach down and bring mine inside.

  The paper is warm from the sun. Inside there is a bottle. Made of black glass, which is kind of strange, but I guess that’s normal for Zach—he hates plastic. The label though, is paper, covered with strange symbols that shimmer in the light, but words, too: “ETERNAL CLEANSE. All-natural, Organic, Biodynamic, Holistic Vitamin and Cleansing Supplement. Helps with Focus, Pain, Healing, and Other Assorted Ailments. Take three times a day with or without meals until bottle is empty. Contains 90 pills.”

  A month’s supply, then.

  Forget it. This is madness. I’m going to play with some vitamins, when I don’t even know what’s wrong with me? And if Karen’s right, and they change me?

  Change could be good right now.

  But if things got worse?

  No, forget it. Things can’t get worse. Karen is crazy. I mean, I already have dark black hair all over my chest and back, have loose teeth and aching joints. What next, are my teeth going to fall out? Am I going to sprout fur?

  One little pill is not going to kill me.

  I’ll take one and see how it affects me. It’s got to be more natural than what the doctor prescribed me, right? It probably won’t hurt me, and what if...what if it helps me? Zach may be a pain, but he’s wicked smart. The boy can grow anything practically just by looking at it, all without chemicals; he hates them so much he wouldn’t take an aspirin if he were dying.

  Most of all I don’t see why he’d lie to me about my knee. I might as well trust him. What do I have to lose? But I’ll walk inside to get something to eat first. I don’t want to upset my stomach.

  Chapter 7: KAREN WON’T COME OUT

  A few days later I can’t say I feel a dramatic change, just more of an absence. It takes me a while to figure it out.

  My knee hasn’t ached all day.

  And I’m smiling.

  My parents can’t understand why. I’m not going to tell them, either.

  I take a walk instead, and leave the brace at home. The sun is hot, but the wind is cool, cold almost. Can I catch just a hint of fall color in some of the leaves? Is it really already September? Fall comes so early here in New England.

  I walk by Jonathan’s house and think about walking up and knocking. But he’s probably still gone at drawing camp. The boy is going to write some serious graphic novel someday.

  Me, I can’t wait until summer is over. I barely see Enrique except when he’s running by; the rest of the time he’s over at the garage, helping his dad and his big brother work on car engines.

  Maybe I should walk by Karen’s. Why not? At this hour, her parents are at work. If she can’t come out, maybe she’ll let me in.

  I walk up to my house and ring the doorbell, but the house is silent. There’s no movement. No light from inside.

  No. I want to talk to her. I’m not just walking away. I can feel her in there somewhere. Smell her floral scent. She’s waiting. Watching.

  I bang on the door again.

  Suddenly she’s there. I can feel her right on the other side of the door.

  “Stanley?” she whispers. “Stanley, what do you want?”

  “Can you open the door?” I ask her. “This is kind of awkward.”

  She opens it, just a crack. But there’s a chain.

  “I don’t want to see anyone right now. I’m still trying to figure things out. Someone is going to help me.”

  “Who?” I ask her. “Who’s going to help you? With what?”

  “I can’t tell you until later, maybe, after I’ve met her. I really think she can help me.”

  “Just open the door. I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Tell me, then,” she says, keeping the door shut.

  “Nothing, just my knee...it’s feeling better.”

  “Wow,” she says. “That’s unexpected. I’m happy for you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s amazing. I mean, all that stuff Zach was saying—”

  “Wait,” she rasps. “What? You didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “You didn’t take the supplements, did you, Stanley? I told you not to take them. I told you before that if you did, you...”

  “I what?”

  “You wouldn’t be able to stop.”

  “What’s the problem?” I ask her. “My knee feels great. Like it’s healing.”

  “Yeah. Your knee feels great. But you solved one problem by creating another.”

  “What do you mean, by creating another?”

  “How do you think I got those headaches?”

  “I thought they were migraines?”

  “Then how come I can’t go outside in the sun? And how come my skin’s so sensitive that it burns in sunlight?”

  She slams the door shut then and turns the bolt.

  She’s crazy. She gets headaches, she gets sunburns because of vitamins? Now I’ve heard everything. Why doesn’t she just stop taking them?

  But I don’t have time to stand there thinking it over. I walk home quickly, almost breaking into a run, my knee nothing more than a dull ache. I want to get home as quick as possible. Get off these streets. Get away from Karen.

  It’s not that she’s upset me or anything.

  It’s just time for my pill.

  Chapter 8: PHYSICAL THERAPY

  A week passes. High school is just around the corner, but I’m obsessed with other changes. I’m hungrier than usual, and the moon is still a week from full. My chest is hairier, and I smell... musky. Worst of all, three times a day my hands start to shake a little and I just feel this terrible...void.

  Until I swallow one little bitter pill.

  So Saturday my dad drives me to my monthly physical therapy. My knee starts itching as we drive toward the town center. That’s where Lauren works, in the chiropractor’s office right across from Town Hall.

  “What’s the point of going to physical therapy?” I ask him. “I’m never going to run track again.”

  He takes a moment before answering. “You know I went through that, too. Maybe a little later than you. In college. But there is more to life than running, I promise. It may take some more time, but eventually you’ll find something else that seems just as right.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think you even believe that.”

  “Maybe I didn’t, at first. But I did once I met your mother.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But would you have given her up for a second chance?”

  “At running? Not your mother.”

  “Then what? What would you have sacrificed for another chance?”

  “What are we talking about here? Like selling your soul to the devil? Or hitting the juice?”

  “Uh, either one, really.”

  My dad sighs. “I don’t know, Stanley. You can have all the resolve in the world, and then there’s your moment of truth. Running was my life, just like for you, and then it was taken awa
y. So who knows? I mean, no one ever offered me steroids or anything. They weren’t so popular then. And I wouldn’t have known how to make a pact with the devil, if I even believed in that. What brings all this up?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “But you never took anything that wasn’t natural, right?”

  “You know that just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you. But yeah, me and your mom, you know... I don’t know how to put this. Let’s just say my body wasn’t always my temple. I had my moments, and so did your mother.”

  “You mean, you and mom—”

  “We made mistakes. I don’t want you to go through what we went through, but I want you to know you can always talk to us, all right?”

  I nod. But I don’t think we’ll be talking about it anytime soon.

  Lauren is waiting for me when we walk in, and gets me up on the bench first, to do some strengthening exercises, but mostly just to make sure I’ve been taking care of myself and doing my stretches.

  “How’s it going, Stanley?”

  “Fine, I guess. Those sharp pains I was having, though? They’re gone.”

  “So, on a scale of zero to ten, your pain would be...?”

  “Zero.”

  “It’s completely gone?”

  “The sharp pain, yeah, for a week or so. But I still had this ache until, well, a couple of days ago.”

  “You’re telling me the pain is completely gone now?”

  “Not even an ache or a twinge. It’s just...”

  “Just what, Stanley?”

  “Well, the aches are gone, but my knee kind of itches.”

  She rests her hand lightly on my knee. I feel nothing, except the warmth of her hand.

  “I have no explanation,” she says, finally. “Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this. Unbelievable.”

  Then she gets to the business of torturing me. She pulls my foot around and watches me, waiting for me to wince, to groan, to clench my teeth. But all I feel is the itch. I want to scratch it. That’s all.

  “Dr. Pietrano give you a new prescription?” she asks. “Put you on some steroids?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  She twists my foot around.

  “This is real awkward. I mean, I know you’re a good kid, but I have to ask.”

  “What?”

  “You aren’t taking anything illegal, are you, Stanley?”

  I shake my head again. She keeps making me move, then she puts me on the weight machines, and I pull and push and nothing hurts.

  “Andy?” she calls out, then. “Can you come here for a minute?”

  He backs up her observations. My pain is gone. My range of motion has improved significantly, become almost normal. There is also more strength than normal. The itching they can’t explain.

  Actually, they can’t explain any of it.

  “‘Ours is not to reason why,’” Andy says, finally. “Let’s get Stanley on the treadmill.”

  I look at Lauren, wondering what she’ll say.

  “I guess you may run after all,” she says.

  Walking, then running on the treadmill, I feel like I’ve regained something I thought I’d lost forever.

  And I have, but at what price?

  I can run again, in exchange for a little extra body hair and smelly pits. What a steal, right? I smile from ear to ear as I breathe deeply and run in long, smooth, pain-free strides. I feel light and carefree. It’s like someone has taken a great weight off my shoulders.

  I just need to remember it’s an hour and a half until my next pill.

  But who am I kidding?

  My body won’t let me forget.

  Chapter 9: BANNED FROM 7-11

  There is something seriously wrong with me. Something new. And no, it’s not my knee, not the pills. Not even my high school. I mean high school is new, and being a freshman? It’s kind of like being a sixth grader all over again. Once again we’re the smallest, and we have to learn the ropes. Everyone is bigger, the school is bigger, and there are a lot more people. My classes are hard, and I know I won’t be getting straight A’s. But my classes and my school are not the problem.

  No, my problem is something else. It’s trying to keep secrets from my mother.

  I mean, if she catches me going to Burger King I can tell her I went there for a veggie burger.

  But what if she finds my stash?

  No, I’m not hiding pot, or dirty magazines, or crystal meth.

  I’ve got a stash of Slim Jims and Beef Jerky.

  At school, the cafeteria ladies look forward to seeing me in the lunch line. They admire my appetite, and whenever they see the mad gleam in my eye, they give me an extra serving of meatloaf. They even pour extra meat juices on top. Free of charge.

  I’ve been into 7-11 so often to buy meat products, everyone knows me there by name.

  So today, outside school, I look around in the parking lot for Zach, seeing if I can get restocked on vitamins, but I don’t see him. There are a few kids in black hoodies hanging out in the parking lot of the food cooperative, sitting on skateboards and drinking carrot juice. But no one I recognize. I ignore them. I walk down the street and into the 7-11. I have a twenty-dollar bill and a plan.

  But Ralph, the afternoon clerk, shakes his head. “We’ve had a whole lot of kids buying up our meat snacks.”

  I must have given him a look, because he puts his hands up, like he’s trying to tell me to take it easy. “I’m just not sure if I can sell you a whole case, at least not at a discount.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “I’m wicked hungry.”

  He stares at me for a moment, and his eyes narrow.

  “I know you,” he says, finally. “You were on the track team with my brother, Andrew. You were fast once, weren’t you? And now look at you, buying Slim Jims. What’s the matter with you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Go home and eat something healthy.”

  “I need a case.”

  He shakes his head.

  I reach out and grab his shirt. He pulls away, but I hold on tight. I hear his shirt rip.

  “Let me go and put the money down on the counter,” he says. “Then I’ll see what I can do.”

  I take a step back and he rings up a case. “You’re lucky you let go of me,” he says. “We have cameras, you know that?”

  I look past him into the corner. There’s a lens staring right down at me.

  “Get out of here,” he says. “And don’t come back.”

  I reach forward, grab the meat snacks and walk out of there.

  Outside at the far end of the parking lot I rip open one of the Slim Jims and inhale it, right there in broad daylight, not caring who’s looking.

  Chapter 10: ETHICAL EATING

  Sunday comes and I’m almost all out of pills. When I run out I’m going to have to approach Zach, as much as I hate the idea. What if he asks me for money? I’ll have to pay him. I need those vitamins, more than I’d like to admit. If I even wait an hour past pill time, things start to itch. To hurt again.

  My mother finds me in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “You’re coming with us, today, Stanley,” she says.

  “My knee hurts,” I say. “I need to stay in bed.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she says. “What is it with teenagers and the truth?”

  “They’re like oil and water?” I ask.

  “Ha,” she says. “My son is a comedian. But you’ve got to come with us. They’re talking about Ethical Eating.”

  I just stare at her. What does she expect me to do, jump up and down in excitement because I get to spend an hour listening to her talk about how we are what we eat and the how it affects the planet? Why can’t a meat snack ever be just a meat snack? Why does it have to represent all that’s bad in the world—all the industrial farming and animal cruelty and destruction of the natural environment?

  “Your friend Zach is going to talk, too!”

 
“My friend Zach?” I ask. If she only knew.

  “Your nice vegan friend.”

  “Mom, you know I don’t hang out with the vegan anarchists anymore.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call them that,” she says. “It’s really disrespectful.”

  “They call themselves that, Mom. It was never an insult—more like an inside joke. But Zach is really going to talk?”

  “He’s going to make a little presentation,” she says. “And I’m talking, too. I’m going to talk about vegetarianism and our family. About Diana, the moon goddess. Talk about why and how ethical eating is important for us. Stanley, I need you to be there.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Okay?” she asks me.

  “Yeah, fine,” I say. “If you’ll let me have coffee.”

  “Coffee?” she asks me, confused. “Why wouldn’t we let you have coffee?”

  “The last time I went, you wouldn’t let me have any coffee,” I say.

  “Stanley, that was a long time ago—you were in middle school,” she says, as if that explains everything. “And anyway, the coffee is fair trade.”

  She lets me get dressed.

  In the car Josh keeps talking to me about how he’s never going to eat meat, ever. He asks me how I would feel if someone wanted to eat my pet, for example.

  “I don’t have a pet,” I say.

  “Same difference,” Josh says.

  It’s hard to argue with a six year old. I mean, you can do it, but you can’t win.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.”

  “I mean, I would never eat Max,” he says.

  “Me, neither,” I say.

  “You promise?” he asks me.

  “Come on, Josh, seriously?”

  “Promise me you wouldn’t eat him,” he asks me. “Or let anyone else hurt him. No wait, pinky promise me.”

  “Pinky promise?” I ask. “That’s kind of serious, don’t you think?”

  He looks at me, his eyes wide. I want to laugh; he’s so cute with his missing front tooth. But I know if I do that right now he’ll take it the wrong way. So I hold out my pinky instead.