by Trish Cook
Diana ran off, grinning, and returned with the Whopping Wiener.
After Diana’s earlier “wiener in your mouth” remark, I felt kind of creepy gathering in a circle to watch Emmy eat a big one. But not actually creepy enough not to do it.
And any kind of perverted sexual thrill I might have gotten from the scene dissolved pretty much the instant Emmy took her first bite. The Whopping Wiener, which was smothered in, as near as I could tell, onions, mustard, relish, chili, Cheez Whiz or some similar cheese analogue, and hot sauce that Diana had added with a very heavy hand, was not something that could be eaten sexily. Or even neatly. Or really any way but disgustingly.
But I had to give it to her here, too—Emmy chowed it. Her face was soon a red and yellow mess of chili and Cheez Whiz, and she stopped only occasionally to belch as she did battle with the Whopping Wiener. It was a quick, if messy battle, and Emmy emerged from it looking stunned, semiconscious, and pleased with herself.
“Nap … kins,” she said as a drip of chili-cheese ran off her chin and plopped to the dirt at her feet. Diana produced a stack and handed them to Emmy, who began slowly cleaning off her face.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Tracy said. “That was straight-up disgusting. Any kind of horniness I might have had evaporated there.”
Emmy looked at him and belched in response. “Oh my God. I missed food. I had no idea how much I missed food. That was horrible and gross and probably the best thing I ever ate. I don’t think I’ve given bingeing a fair shot. Why bother purging one piece of cantaloupe when you can stuff your face and then get rid of it all, right?”
“Don’t even think about purging now,” Jenny said.
“Promise,” Emmy said. “I’m gonna let this one run its course. And by the way, I think you’re all gonna be suffering the consequences of that decision when you have to ride in a van with me later. I have no idea what my guts are going to do with chili, but I suspect it’s not going to be pretty.”
“Great,” Jenny said. “Now I wanna show you guys something.”
We followed Jenny through the state fairgrounds, and it was only when we almost got to the livestock barns—at least that was where I thought we were because the smell of hay and crap was thick in the air—that we realized Chip wasn’t with us.
“Um. Hey Jenny. I hate to interrupt whatever point you’re making here, but it looks like we lost one.”
Everybody stopped and looked around. “Where the hell is Chip?” Emmy said.
“Does looking for his sorry ass count as doing something for someone else?” Diana asked.
“No,” Emmy said.
“Damn.”
“Well, we all know where we’re gonna find him,” Tracy said. “The midway.”
We trudged back to the rows of rip-off carnival games. Sketchy guys in sleeveless T-shirts tried to mock us into throwing rings at ducks or shooting baskets at too-small hoops or throwing baseballs at bottles that were probably made of lead.
“I got him,” Tracy said, pointing at the booth where a row of kids were shooting streams of water into the mouths of clowns.
“I never understood that,” Diana said. “Like, you shoot water into the mouth of the clown and it makes a balloon fill with air and explode. What the hell sense does that make? I’d like it better if the clown’s head exploded. I hate clowns.”
Chip was surrounded by the following items: A medium-sized SpongeBob SquarePants, two large stuffed Dora the Explorers, and a colossal Perry the Platypus.
“Gimme that,” Diana said, grabbing one of the Doras. “You don’t need two.” She tucked it under her arm and gave us all a look that dared us to make fun of her. I was sure as hell not going to be the one to do it.
Chip was too intent on watering his clown to pay much attention. So Tracy grabbed the squirt gun and turned it on Chip’s face. “Ah! What the hell! I was gonna win that one!” Chip yelled.
“Guys, grab him,” Emmy said, and so Tracy grabbed one arm and I grabbed another. Chip let us lead him away without much of a struggle. He actually looked kind of embarrassed and didn’t protest at all as Jenny and Emmy distributed his winnings to actual children.
“Dammit! I could have totally done that! Why didn’t you tell me?” Diana said when Emmy and Jenny rejoined us.
“Well, see, part of the idea is that you have to actually think about someone else. Not just grab a Dora for yourself and do something else as an afterthought.”
“So if I gave this Dora away now, it wouldn’t count?”
“Right,” Emmy said.
“Thank God,” Diana says. “I really like me some Dora.” She looked at us defiantly.
“So what the hell, Chip?” Emmy said.
“It’s just … I knew I could win that one. And it’s like … it makes me feel good like nothing else does. I just get kind of lost, you know what I mean? I can forget myself for a while. It’s the only thing that works.”
“I hear you,” Tracy said. “I get this buzz off of convincing people of stupid stuff that I am actually really craving.”
“Yeah,” Diana said. “I used to cut myself for that feeling. But I know what you mean.”
I didn’t, though. Even among a bunch of really sick kids, I was the sickest. Because they had escape valves—weird, unhealthy, and potentially deadly escape valves, but things that made them feel better. I really didn’t have anything like that. Which was part of the reason I took the Tylenol.
“But we were all gonna try to …”
“I did try, Emmy,” Chip said, and it looked like his eyes were filling up. “That’s the thing. I did try. But I mean, if it was as easy as wanting to, I wouldn’t freaking be at Assland in the first place. I mean, are you gonna eat every meal like a normal human from now on?”
“Well—”
“I can answer that,” Diana said. “She’s been thinking about how to burn off those calories ever since that dog hit bottom. She’ll probably try to get away with not eating anything for three days to make up for it.”
“That’s not … I haven’t …”
“You really need to work on your lying skills,” Tracy said. “Nobody believes you right now.”
“Okay,” Emmy said. “So it’s hard. So it doesn’t happen automatically just because you want it to. Does that mean you don’t even try?”
Chip shrugged.
“Deep philosophical shit,” Diana said. “And boring as hell. Can we go see Jenny’s pigs now?”
“I just want you all to know this,” Chip said as we all began ambling back toward the livestock barns, “I want to be gaming every single second I’m here. Every step I take away from those games is hard for me.”
“I know,” Emmy said. “I want to puke really bad right now. You have no idea.”
“And I got my eye on a little farm-fresh cutie over there who would totally believe I’m a redshirt freshman basketball player,” Tracy said.
“And I am a weepy little bitch,” Diana said. “Oh no wait, that’s all of you. Can we please get the pigshit over with now?”
Jenny smiled and patted Diana on the back and led us back to the pig barn.
“Walk around for five minutes and meet me back here,” Jenny said. So we all split up and walked down the aisles of the barn, looking at the pigs. They smelled, but in one pen I saw two nuzzling each other, and that was kind of cute, and in another pen there were a bunch of piglets sucking on their mom, which was completely gross, but the piglets were completely adorable. But, I mean, after you’ve seen four or five pigs, it gets kind of boring, at least from my perspective. I had no idea what Jenny wanted us to get out of this.
We all met back at the front of the barn, and Jenny started talking.
“I’m not gonna say anything else all night because I’ve talked enough, and I hate it. I just want you to know this: Every pig you saw there tonight is going to be killed and will die screaming. And these pigs here, pigs like the one I raised, those are the lucky ones. The pigs you don’t see are the ones crammed
into pens where they don’t even have room to turn around. They spend their lives in their own shit and vomit, they get gross patchy hair from the diseases they have, most of them have broken teeth from trying to bite through the metal bars that hold them in, and oh yeah, they’re all so insane they make us look healthy.”
“So what?” Diana barked. “So we’re supposed to all stop eating meat? So we’re supposed to burn down the slaughterhouses? Why the hell are you telling us this, anyway?”
Jenny, true to her promise, didn’t say a word.
“Uh, buzzkill,” Tracy said.
AFTER CHECKING OUT THE PIGS—NONE WERE GETTING MASSAGES, playing soccer, or jamming out to tunes like Jenny’s Pigs Rule list suggested they might be—we hit the hot dog eating contest. Diana was busy drooling over Joey Chestnut, who was probably thirty years old and just about as attractive as you’d imagine a guy who gorges himself on wieners for a living to be, when I spotted this tiny Asian woman stuffing her face right along with him.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, and just like that any fun I’d been having at the fair faded into a familiar black hole of anger and futility. The lady looked like she barely weighed a hundred pounds, but she was chowing down like a Biggest Loser contestant before going on the show.
I quickly ran some numbers in my head: One hot dog was around one hundred and ten calories. The bun basically doubled that. And here was this woman who, according to the announcer, would quite possibly eat over forty of them in just ten minutes. That was nine thousand calories right there. At that rate, she’d gain nearly three pounds in less time than it took to watch an episode of CSI.
But the thing was, she was still thin enough not to set off my overly sensitive chub-o-meter. And she clearly entered contests like this all the time, because she was giving Joey Chestnut a run for his money up there, so it couldn’t be that she restricted her eating anywhere near as much as I had to. Ditto for purging: No amount of puking in the world would eliminate all of the damage she did as a professional eater. How does she do it? I wondered again and again, and kept coming up with nada. Zippo. Zilch.
It was like, nothing made sense anymore. Nothing had turned out the way I’d planned it. None of this was what I’d wanted. Though I tried hard not to lose it, I started sobbing like a complete baby. Everyone—including Diana, who came here specifically to get off on Joey’s eating abilities—was all over me in a matter of seconds asking what was wrong. Even Jenny hugged me.
“She … she’s … still … skinny!” I finally managed to choke out.
“Remember how you said I had to be one hundred percent, totally honest here?” Tracy asked.
I nodded and swiped at my eyes.
“Well then, no offense, but no one knows what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I took a deep breath. “Look at her,” I sputtered, pointing at the Asian lady, who apparently went by the name The Black Widow even though her real name was actually Sonya something-or-other. “She eats. A lot. And she’s not fat. I don’t eat anything and I’m not fat either. Get it?”
Everyone looked at me, completely clueless.
I tried again. “If I ate, not even like that but just like a normal person, I’d probably be Moby Dick in a matter of days,” I said. “And she eats like a lunatic all the time and is still a friggin’ toothpick. Right?”
More blank looks. It was like one big silent And …?
“It’s not fair, none of this is fair!” I was yelling now, and everyone was staring at me, and I didn’t care. “I can’t starve myself forever, because eventually I’ll die! But the minute I start eating again? I’m gonna blow up like a balloon, I just know it! And what about that picture of my tits? It’s going to be around cyberspace even after I’m dead. The guy I sent it to never came back to me, not even after I starved myself way worse than his stupid girlfriend. But I mean, what did I expect? If my real mom couldn’t love me, why would I think some popular senior would? It’s like a genetic law. Moms have to love their kids. But mine didn’t. She left me on the street in a basket with a note pinned to my clothes, like some gross old couch with a free sign tacked to it that if no one took pity on would end up at the dump. Well, that’s me. The unwanted garbage at the curb. At least I got the pity option and not the dump, I guess.”
I couldn’t believe how much it all hurt. It was true physical pain, despite being all in my head.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty lovable,” Justin said, a little smile playing around his lips.
I spun around and glared at him. “I can’t believe you’re giving me shit again when I’m clearly not in the best place to handle it! I thought we were past all that. You suck!”
“I actually meant what I said this time,” he told me, the smile gone. “Seriously. You should know that I only tease people I like. I’m like a second grader that way. Dumb but true. And you want to know something else that’s true? Back there on the Ferris wheel, when you were taking care of me, I think it’s safe to say I realized you are one cool girl. Lovable. Deserving of love. Whatever you want to call it.”
I turned beet red and shrugged. Justin looked embarrassed but pleased with himself. “Well, thanks,” I told him, sniffling. “That’s sweet. Doesn’t change anything, but it’s sweet.”
Diana decided she wanted a turn at comforting me, too. I braced myself for whatever tough love she was about to dole out. “For the record, I know you’re broken up about your mom getting rid of you, but let me tell you something. Not all moms are sweetness and light. Mine for example? She’s a total asshole, not to mention an alkie and a sex addict. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, not to mention the scumbag drug dealer she dated who actually just wanted a piece of me.”
I looked at our resident tough chick Diana, and realized she was just a heartbroken little girl on the inside. “What kind of mother lets her boyfriend do that to her daughter?” I whispered, completely horrified. I felt like such a baby, crying over my weight and being adopted when kids like Diana had a real, valid, awful reason to be pissed at the world.
Diana shrugged. “One who’s passed out cold most of the time. And don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your sympathy, bitches. He’s locked up, I’m fine.”
I wasn’t about to argue with her, even though I thought we were all at Assland specifically because we weren’t fine.
“I’m never going to be a mom,” Jenny piped up, despite the fact she promised not to talk again this whole trip. “I mean, my mom’s not bad per se, but she totally loves my stepdad more than us kids. Takes his side every time, no matter what. Like with Wilbur. She promised me I could keep him as a pet after the contest, but when my stepdad saw how much money we were gonna make by selling him, he got mad and said no. She immediately backed down. So instead of bringing Wilbur home, we brought home the bacon. Pun intended.”
A roar went up in the crowd. Diana’s crush Joey Chestnut had killed the competition once again. That dude wasn’t fat either. Argh, the world was mystifying.
A slide show came on the big screen onstage, flashing practically pornographic pictures of the first-, second-, and third-place contestants deep-throating eight zillion hot dogs. The Asian lady came in third.
“God, for all I know, she is my mom,” I muttered.
Tracy cracked up. “Now who’s being racist?”
I pointed to myself like, Who me?
“That chick’s Korean, Holmes. You’re Chinese, remember? You think all Asians look alike or something?”
I tried to laugh but it came out a single hollow ha! The truth was, anyone in the entire world could have been my mom and I’d never know. I was just going to have to accept that fact and move on if I ever wanted to be happy again.
Jenny uncharacteristically had still more to add to the conversation. “Want to know another reason why I’m never going to be a mom? Because I couldn’t even protect a pig! How would I ever be able to take good care of my kids if I can’t even keep a pet alive?”
/> “That’s it! I’ve had it!” Diana yelled. “The guy who molested me? Said no one would believe me if I told, and no one else would want me anymore anyhow, not after what he did to me. Emmy’s mom ditched her in the street and now she thinks she sucks. Everyone here let someone else make them believe they’re a bad person or a worthless piece of shit or whatever. And you know what? Those assholes can suck it. We’re a pretty cool bunch.”
I started clapping, and soon everyone but Jenny had joined in.
“What, no kudos for the kid?” Diana asked her.
“I guess I figure we’ll all learn to live with our problems eventually, whether we do it on our own or Assland forces us to,” she said. “But those poor pigs? Are still screwed. It’s like Wilbur all over again, and I still can’t do a damn thing about it.”
We all pondered that one for a few minutes, and then it was like a lightbulb clicked on over Diana’s head. “I got it, Jenny,” she said. “Tracy, you distract the lady running the show. Make up some of that awesome shit you’re so good at—”
“But I thought I was supposed to tell the whole truth today—” he interrupted her.
“Temporary restraining order on that one. It’s for a good cause,” Diana interrupted right back. “Jenny, you get onstage as soon as Tracy starts working his magic and grab the microphone. Chip, you can hack anything, right? I want you to take over the computer they’re using for the slideshow right now and find the most disgustingly graphic factory farm videos out there. Once Chip’s got that going on screen, Jenny, you have to use your voice for once. Say whatever it is you have to say about Wilbur. That’s the whole point. We can’t just sit around being sad or scared or pissed anymore—we have to do something about it instead.”
“What about us?” Justin asked, pointing at me and him.
“You guys?” Diana said. “Oh, you lovebirds are coming with me.”
“Where?” I asked, not sure I actually wanted to know. Not that I had a choice or anything. Diana was already dragging me by the hand and shoving Justin ahead of her with her free arm.