November 27, 1973 – First we eat, then we do everything else

I’m honestly starting to believe I might be dying.  I think about food all the time.  I dream about it.  No matter what else is going on, part of my mind is wondering where I can get some food.  How do you know if you’re starving to death?  One of the signs is lethargy and lack of energy.  But what does that mean when you have super endurance?  I never feel fatigue.  Does that mean I’m not starving to death?  Probably not, right?  Mentally I feel exhausted, it’s like there’s a disconnect between my mind and body.  In my conscious thought, I feel like I can’t take a single step but I know that I could do push-ups all day and it wouldn’t bother me. 

Another sign of starvation is irritability and trouble concentrating.  But I have that anyway because of the god damn chronic headaches I have ALL THE TIME.  Even when I eat enough to feel full (which has happened maybe twice) my head is still pounding, which makes me angry all the time.  I swear I’m usually a very pleasant person but I admit that I’ve been a monster lately.  Immedicable throbbing will do that to a person is what I’ve found.   

Bottom line is that the same thing that’s making me need to eat so much is also making it so I don’t know if I’m slowly dying.  Which is a pretty shitty design if you ask me.  If I ever meet the people that did this to me, I’ll have a cross word with them.  Another symptom is supposed to be feeling cold all the time, which I don’t, but that could be because it’s two hundred degrees with one thousand percent humidity here all the god damn time.  I can tell you that my hair and nails are brittle and shitty.  And my skin is taking on a weird pallor.  Is that a sign that you’re not getting enough to eat?  It’s not good whatever it is. 

We don’t talk about it because it’s not the kind of thing you talk about, but Martialla and Blue spend time most days just trying to find me (sort of) enough food.  Totally honest, I eat garbage a lot of the time.  Usually we can get it before they literally throw it out, but not always.  There are a lot of other people after it.  Because this is a very impoverished place.  And they’re not going to get it over me or Blue or Martialla.  It’s probably set off a chain reaction in the world of people who depend on urban scavenging for food.  I don’t like to think about it.  You might assume that this experience would make me feel more sympathy for people in “food insecurity” (what a fucking cop out term that is) but mostly it just makes me feel ashamed of myself.  It’s hard to feel self-possessed when you’re eating noodles out of the trash because you’re so hungry you can’t even wait to take them somewhere else. 

The last thing I would’ve thought when I woke up chained in the hull of a ship nine thousand miles from home was “I better get a job soon” but here we are.  I need some way to make sure I get enough to eat.  I spent the morning going around to restaurants to beg them for work.  I even went to the place where Elvis used to wash dishes because I knew they had an opening since he’s fucking dead.  I felt like a ghoul and a monster.  But I did it anyway.  None of the local places want me because I’m a white girl who can’t speak the language and none of the tourist places want me because I look like crap.  I’ve had one bath in like six weeks and I have one set of clothes that are ripped and bloody.  Surprisingly, that doesn’t make a good impression in a job interview.

The only place that gave me any consideration was a German ex-pat dive bar that gave me some seriously bad vibes.  So clearly what I need to do is rob the place instead of work there.  I don’t know what’s going on with those crazy Krauts, but it’s something shady so they have it coming right?  After my weird interview with the sleazy manager, I sat down at the bar to case the joint.  I don’t really know how to do that, but I was looking around, what else is there to it? 

My casing efforts were hampered by one of the only other patrons at that hour, a loud-mouth statie who was clearly drunk and had a lot to say about the US president even though no one was listening.  He looked like one of those guys you’d see in a steelworkers guildhall in Pennsylvania – his face looked fifty but his body looked hard as concrete.  He didn’t look big, just heavy, you know – he was a stack.  I knew that anything I said would provoke him but I couldn’t help myself, I was having a bad time. 

“Would you take it down like fifty decibels there, partner?  I’ve got a headache working over here and your kibitzing isn’t helping anything.  Who are you even talking to?” 

He looked around for a moment and then back to me, incredulous. “Are you talking to me, little girl?” 

“I don’t see anyone else here so I must be talking to you.  Also, little?  I’m like three inches taller than you, tiger.” 

I saw that he was gathering himself to come over and try to intimidate me, so I beat him to the punch by standing up and kicking his stool out from underneath him.  He fell on his ass with the most surprised look I have ever seen on a human (or lizard or fish) face.  I think he would have been less shocked if I grew a second head. 

He started to get up, huffing and puffing to blow my house down, and while he was doing so, I slapped him across the face.  Hard.  Not as hard as I can, but too hard.  I knew that immediately.  A pretty hard slap from me is going to kill most people, or at least seriously mess them up.  Remember, I’m as strong as twenty strong men.  I gasped involuntarily because I thought I had just murdered a guy. 

But he was fine.  Not fine-fine, but his neck wasn’t broken nor his face caved in.  He was like a boxer who just got bopped on the nose.  He needed a standing eight count but his manager didn’t need to throw in the towel.  He wobbled to his feet, turned his stool back over, and sat back down – giving me side eye.

“You’re lucky I don’t have my nunchakus, I’d beat your ass.”

I sat back down as well “Ooh, kinky.  Also, nunchakus?  What are you, twelve?”

He looked me up and down several times and then hocked something up “This is what the world’s coming to huh?  This is what a super-solider looks like now?  I wish they had never discovered that damn gene.  Now you have all types in the military.” He shook his head “All types.”

“Sorry buddy, I’m no super-soldier, I’m just a normal girl from the heartland – we’re tough out there, not like your weedy US women.”

He laughed mirthlessly “Ah, the Coalition, I should have known from the bong stink.”

I laughed in return “And you must be the reason why no one ever talks about the US super-soldier program, if you’re what it turns out.”

He grunted “No one talks about us because we’re out doing the real work while those two (DELETED) wonks of yours glad-hand and sell insurance.  The Warmasters.  Give me a fucking break.  They don’t know shit about war.”

“They are pretty annoying.  The blonde one is like that kid who wore his boy scout uniform to school, and the one with the scar?  That guy looks like a damn psycho.  He looks like the kid who drilled a hole in the wall to the girl’s locker room.”

He started at me for a minute and then laughed legitimately “Still, I have to give it to your Angel, she was the real deal, even if she was Coalition.  I would have been proud to have served with her.  God rest her soul.”

“God rest her soul.  So, do you want to have sex?”

He did an actual spit take, I thought that was just in movies, and looked over at me suspiciously “What?”

“It’s pretty simple, do you want to have sex with me or do you not want to have sex with me?”

“Uh . . . yes, I do.”

“Do you have a place?  And is it not a roach-infested shithole?  Are you the super anal spit and polish kind of military guy or the other kind who just throws their garbage in the corner?”

“Umm . . . I have a place.  It’s clean . . . ish.” His face took on an expression like a rabbit caught in a trap “Why is this happening?”

I finished the crappy German beer I was drinking “You’re ugly, you’re unpleasant in demeanor, I dislike you, and I bet you’re a lousy lay.  But I’ve had like sixty bad days in a row so I want to do something stupid.  I want to feel the embarrassment, self-loathing, and regret that will come afterwards.  You’re from the US, you like baseball right?  Think of yourself as a slumpbuster.”

I could see the wheels turning in his head “That’s . . . . hurtful.”

“Yeah, but you’re going to take me home anyway, aren’t you?”