Page 23 of Wicked Hungry

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.