@@@@@ Less than a minute later I was turning in
@@@@@
Less than a minute later I was turning in to my
own drivewayIn spite of the medication, my right
leg throbbed from switching back and forth between
the gas and the brake, and I had a headache - a
plain old-fashioned tension headacheMy main
problem, however, was hungerIt was what had
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driven me out in the first placeOnly hunger was
too mild a word for what I was feelingI was
ravenous, and the leftover lasagna in the fridge
wouldn't doThere was meat in it, but not enough
I lurched into the house on my crutch, head
swimming from the Oxycontin, got a frypan from the
drawer under the stove, and slung it onto one of
the burnersI turned the dial to HIGH, barely
hearing the flump of igniting gasI was too busy
tearing the plastic wrap from a package of ground
sirloinI threw it in the frypan and mashed it
flat with the palm of my hand before scrabbling a
spatula out of the drawer beside the stove
Coming back into the house, shucking my clothes
and climbing into the shower, I'd been able to
mistake the flutters in my stomach for nausea - it
seemed like a reasonable explanationBy the time
I was rinsing away the soap, though, the flutters
had settled into a steady low rumble like the idle
of a powerful motorThe drugs had damped it down
a little bit, but now it was back, worse than ever
If I'd ever been this hungry in my life, I
couldn't remember when
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I flipped the grotesquely large meat-patty and
tried to count to thirtyI figured a thirty-count
on high heat would be at least a nod in the
direction of what people mean when they say
"cooking meat If I'd thought to flip on the fan
and vent the aroma, I might have made itAs it
was, I didn't even get to twentyAt seventeen I
snatched a paper plate, flipped the hamburger onto
it, and wolfed the half-raw ground beef while I
leaned against the cabinetAbout halfway through
I saw the red juice seeping out of the red meat
and got a momentary but brilliant picture of
Gandalf looking up at me while blood and shit
oozed from the wrecked remains of his hindquarters,
matting the fur on his broken rear legsMy
stomach didn't so much as quiver, just cried
impatiently for more food
xi
That night I dreamed I was in the bedroom I had
shared for so many years with PamShe was asleep
beside me and couldn't hear the croaking voice
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coming from somewhere below in the darkened house:
"Newly wed, nearly dead, newly wed, nearly dead
It sounded like some mechanical device stuck in a
groo