The Art of Starving

by Sam J. Miller

  Tariq had asked me the same question. At the time, I’d tried to answer it but all I’d been doing was looking for lies. Ways to not tell the truth. I couldn’t be honest with Tariq back then because I could not be honest with myself.

  My eating disorder had never been about Maya. I could see that now. My Mission of Bloody Revenge came from the same damaged place as my hunger. I had spent my whole life listening to stories about what a man was supposed to be. Do. Look like. How a man was supposed to act. It had cost me so much hurt and suffering and courage to come out of the closet, to reject a huge piece of The Masculinity Prison that I never noticed I was still stuck inside it.

  “I wanted to be . . . strong,” I said. “I was weak and disgusting. And when I started to go without eating? For once in my life, I felt like I had some kind of control. Some kind of power. So I kept doing it.”

  “Oh, my baby,” Mom said, and reached across for my hand.

  “I knew it was stupid,” I said, grateful for the same old security-blanket warmth of her giant grip. “I knew it was hurting me. But I knew that if I let go of it, I’d have to confront . . .”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t know how to. They didn’t ask.

  “Well, nobody asked me what my plans were,” I said. “But I want to start applying to jobs in town. Stupid stuff. Retail, minimum wage. Just so I can have some spending money, start saving for college.”

  And so I can buy my mother an acoustic guitar so she can get back to some dreams she stopped dreaming right around the time life started hitting her upside the head.

  “Whatever’s wrong with you kids is my fault,” Mom said, tossing her menu dramatically in that way she always did when she’d made her food decision, and talking fast, like she’d been working up the courage to say this for a long time.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Maya said, scribbling on a napkin. “Whatever’s awesome about us is your fault, too. And we’re pretty awesome.”

  “Yeah, we are,” I said.

  “Yeah, you are,” Mom agreed. “But I tried to hide my problems from you, and they’re your problems, too. And if you don’t know about them, you can’t control them.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a gay boy with an eating disorder,” Maya said, and at the sound of the g word I kicked her under the table. Hard.

  “’Fraid not. But I always take things too far. Sound familiar, Maya? I was like that with your father. I fell for him so hard that nothing else mattered. I loved him so bad I couldn’t see straight. So I made a lot of bad decisions. When you started playing the guitar, when you’d be practicing that thing for five hours a day, I saw myself. That same obsessiveness. It made me happy. It also made me scared.”

  “Mom, don’t—” Maya said, but Mom cut her off.

  “And you, Matt. You both know by now that I used to have . . . a drinking problem, I guess you’d say. I was an alc—I was an addict.”

  I looked around for a waitress. Anyone, to come rescue Maya and me from this Special Moment. But the place was packed and no one had time to save me from a stressful soul-baring session with my mom.

  “I had a hole inside that I was desperate to fill,” Mom said. “I’ve been talking to your doctor about it. My addiction, your disorder—she thinks they might be connected.”

  “I think so, too,” I said quietly, letting words come out without stopping to think, because if I stopped I’d censor myself, and I was as curious as anyone else at the table about what the hell was going on in my head. “I know what you mean. About the hole.”

  Maya put her hand on Mom’s, which was resting on mine.

  “Dr. Kashtan says I can’t look to anything outside of myself to fill the hole,” I said. “Not money, not success, not anyone else’s approval . . . nothing that you can’t control one hundred percent.” I didn’t add, Not love, not even awesome love with a superhot guy.

  “I believe that,” Mom said. “Anyway. I bring all this up to say that if it wasn’t for those problems, I wouldn’t be where I am today. We wouldn’t be. Hell, you two wouldn’t be here at all. The point of all this is to tell you not to be ashamed of what you are or what bad decisions you’ve made in the past because of it. But know it. Stand tall in it. Understand it.” And just like that, before a single second of awkward silence could set in, she moved us on to safer pastures. “What are you ordering, Matt?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Ordering a sundae would have been the easiest thing in the world. Swallowing that thing in five giant spoonfuls would have been simple. And then, a half hour later I’d be hating myself. The hard thing to do was order a grilled cheese sandwich and an extra pickle, the way I always used to when I was little, and eat it slowly, which is what I did. Mom clapped her hands. “Okay, grown-up conversation over. You are now officially children again. And you must obey me immediately no matter what I say.”

  “We never did that when we really were children,” I said.

  “Silence,” Mom commanded, and we ate.

  RULE #52

  People only have the power over you that you give them.

  Unless you’re locked up. Or somebody’s ward. Or you live under a dictatorship. But even then, their power is a legal fiction. It possesses your body but not your mind.

  DAY: -79

  TOTAL CALORIES, APPROX.: 2100

  “Good session?” Tariq asked when he picked me up outside the therapist’s office.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think it was.”

  Something loud and angry and beautiful and punk was thumping from his speakers. We sat like that for only a second before he put his truck in drive and we started moving.

  “Got us lunch while I was waiting,” he said, and reached into the backseat for a bulging McDonald’s sack.

  “Is this a test?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Do you need to be tested?”

  “Want to see my food tracker?” I dug out my cell phone, tapped open the app.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”

  I handed it over. He hmmphed a couple times then handed it back. “And are you being honest with all of those entries?”

  “Of course I am. I’m only hurting myself if I lie.”

  “You’ve hurt yourself before.”

  “Touché, asshole.”

  Food was still a fight. I cupped a medium french fries in my hands and wanted so badly not to eat them. And then I ate them, one at a time, and I felt fine, because eating was not an enemy to be conquered or sign a peace treaty with, it was a thing human beings had to do to live.

  Tariq ate as he drove. I watched him shovel fries into his mouth, marveled at the strong line of his throat when he tilted his head back. His greasy lips were magnificent.

  “I still love you,” I said without meaning to.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was jerkish of me to say. I don’t want to make things awkward. I’m really happy we can be friends, after everything that happened.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “But . . . maybe . . . friends with benefits?”

  He snort-laughed, his mouth full. “Shut up,” he said when he’d swallowed.

  “I wasn’t kidding.”

  “I know. But still. Shut up.”

  “Why? I thought we were good . . . together.”

  “That’s why we can’t, idiot. Because I care about you, a lot, and it’s been really hard for me wondering if you were going to die at any moment. And I could never just hook up with you without . . . feeling it. Falling back in.”

  “But I’m better now,” I said. “I’m not going to keel over and collapse.”

  “I know. And I’m happy for you. And I really hope you can stay better.”

  I nodded. I felt full, sleepy.

  “How’s your dad?”

  “He may be Syrian, but he’s still acting pretty Egyptian. You know, because he’s in denial. Get it? De Nile?”

  “If we’re not together a
nymore, I’m under no obligation to laugh at your stupid jokes,” I said, although I was, in fact, laughing.

  “. . . because he’s in denial about my being gay,” he said after too long a pause.

  “Yeah . . . no . . . I got it.”

  “I got into Wesleyan,” he said.

  “Holy shit, dude! Congratulations!”

  “It’s pretty great. Still waiting on a bunch of other applications, but it’s nice to have at least one yes.”

  “You’ll get nothing but yeses. You’re a goddamn genius.”

  “Thanks, Matt.”

  And it was there, then, that it truly set in: we were over. Something about the way he said my name. With warmth, with friendliness, but not with love. We were buddies. That was all.

  “My senior year is going to suck without you,” I said.

  “Naah. You’ll be a god to these kids. And it’s amazing how little the Hudson High bullshit will bother you once you have one foot out the door.”

  “I hope so.”

  On our right, hanging from the sturdy branch of an oak tree, was a pig. With a gunshot wound in its side. Some asshole had lassoed it, thrown the rope over a branch, tied the other end to the hitch of their truck, and drove until the poor terrified thing was hanging ten feet in the air, and then used it for target practice. I shut my eyes and could see it as clearly as if it were happening, this animal dying because of me. I could imagine its fear, its screaming. I practically smelled it. My eyes burned with sudden wetness, and suddenly it felt very hard to breathe.

  There goes that autonomic regulation again, I thought, but knew it was just guilt.

  “Chicken McNugget?” Tariq asked, extending the container to me.

  I took one, held it up, sniffed it. Tore it open. Felt the hot grease scald my fingers. Looked at the weird soft puffy pockmarked texture of the off-white highly processed flesh inside. Thought about the animal it had been. Apologized to it, and to the dead pig hanging from a tree.

  “No thanks,” I said, putting it back, and something settled inside me, a decision I’d been mulling over without realizing it. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since . . .” I looked at my wrist to consult the watch I was not wearing. “Since five seconds ago.”

  And I was. As simple as saying it. How had I not thought of this before? A way to make smart healthy food decisions and act out my desire to diminish suffering. It felt like the tip of a beautiful iceberg, this decision. How many more ways were there, for me to act to right the wrongs I saw in the world? Millions, probably. Not with hate, not with violence or anger. With love.

  Tariq said, “So . . . what? I’m supposed to just eat that nugget? After you ripped it up with your grubby fingers?”

  “You didn’t have a problem with my fingers when they were—”

  “Shut up, Jew.”

  “Whatever, Muslim.”

  We drove. We talked, the light jokey tone staying with us, but I didn’t feel light and jokey. I felt sad. I had screwed up so badly. I had messed up so much. Hurt so many people. Earned my broken heart.

  “Let me out down here,” I said when we got to the turnoff to the narrow woodland road where my house was.

  “Why?” he said. “Your mom knows all about us. And anyway, there’s nothing to know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I just want to walk a little bit. Stretch my legs. You know?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I never had a friend before,” I said, getting out, because I was feeling melodramatic. “Not a grown-up one.”

  “You’re going to have lots of friends, Matt. And boyfriends. Way better ones than me. You’re awesome, and once you actually start believing that, so will everyone else.”

  So I wouldn’t get every little thing I wanted, just because I wanted it. My desires did not make a difference to the world outside of me. I could not, in fact, bend the fabric of space and time and reality to get what I wanted.

  “Later,” I said and took the McDonald’s bag out of his hand.

  “Hey!” he said. “I still have half a thing of french fries!”

  “I’m a recovering anorexic, I need these to live, sorry,” I said, shutting the door, getting it right on the first slam.

  I wanted to be mad at him. Wanted to hate him for rejecting me, for not believing in my getting better, for not reciprocating my emotions. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was fighting a battle just as hard as mine. He had his family damage and self-doubt and whole universes of other struggles I knew nothing about.

  RULE #53

  Congratulations! With the proper care and feeding, your human body should last you one full lifetime. It will, however, throughout your life, give you shit. Spring new horrific developments on you—diseases, disorders, traumas. Maybe your body came with a free side order of obesity or inherited clinical depression or a tendency toward cancer. Good luck with that. Make the most of it. Treat it right because that’s how you’ll get the most enjoyment out of it, but understand and believe that you are not your body. You are so much more.

  DAY: -79, CONCLUDED

  Suicidal ideation.

  The phrase wouldn’t leave my head. I walked back up the winding wooded road chanting it, and one minute it was a harmless piece of medical jargon and the next it was a pretty appetizing option.

  I almost starved myself to death. I broke my mother’s heart. I maybe burned down half the town.

  I was getting better, but I still had so far to go. So much work to do. And for what? I still wasn’t entirely convinced that if somebody suddenly gave me the power to snap my fingers and cease to exist, I wouldn’t use it.

  I wasn’t suicidal anymore. But once you go there, once your mind has seriously weighed it as a possibility, it never really goes away. It’s always there—always an option.

  What the hell was wrong with me? Life just felt like so much work. Being a grown-up, being a son, being a student—I just wanted to walk away from all of that. Boys still called me faggot. I was still named after something people step on. I still thought about running away a lot. I still made plans to hitchhike or ride the rails or follow the river. I still had the bag full of books and hoodies and diet soda under my bed.

  I ate french fries. They were getting cold and they were delicious. I made a mental note to look them up, when I got home, to confirm whether or not they were made with chicken blood or jellyfish guts or beef “flavoring” or some other ungodly unvegetarian abomination.

  By then it was twilight. Dark came later and later every day. That was something. A little more light. I held out my hands. I felt the weight of my backpack, the texture of my clothes. Overhead, the branches were bare. I stood at the center of miles of wilderness. The universe was a cold dead place of rock and dust and emptiness that didn’t care whether I lived or died.

  A grunting noise stopped me. I turned around to see a large pig wander out of the underbrush. Not a wild boar—its skin was the pale pink of a domesticated animal. I could see its ribs, and the spittle flecked along its tusks. It saw me. It stopped. It opened its mouth. It outweighed me, and it was omnivorous, and it was starving.

  It charged.

  “Stop, pig,” I whispered, bracing myself for destruction, raising my hand—and it stopped. Like, froze in midair. Two legs off the ground, bounding forward. Eyes confused, terrified. My pulse quickened from shock and fear instead of autonomic dysfunction this time.

  “Easy there, pig,” I said softly, unbelievingly, and lowered my hand. The pig . . . unfroze. Stood there, looking at me. “At ease, soldier.”

  Could this be true? Could my powers be real? Could they be totally independent of my eating disorder?

  “Walk in a circle,” I said, and it did.

  I took a step forward, and it flinched. “You don’t need to be afraid of me,” I said. And it softened. Held eye contact. Looking like nothing so much as a big ugly puppy. Did it recognize me? Remember that I freed it? Still respect my authority as Commander
in Chief of the Swine Army?

  We stood like that for a long time. Pig and boy. Man and animal. The hog had spent its whole life in a cage, waiting for the day when it would be slaughtered, and then, shockingly, out of nowhere, it was free. The thing could die tomorrow, shot by a hunter or hit by a truck, but it was living its life while it could. Its eyes were fearless, curious, eager, excited.

  My powers had come from anger, from hate, from fear, from shame. I’d convinced myself that I could only draw strength from self-destruction. But what if that wasn’t true?

  “Wind,” I whispered, raising my arms in front of me and then pulling them to the left.

  A sudden gust stripped the last of the leaves from one crooked tree.

  I saw with razor’s-edge clarity, so plainly that I laughed out loud from the Disney Movie obviousness of it: The greatest power comes from love, from knowing who you are and standing proudly in it.

  In the hospital, and at the rehab center, I used to imagine Better was a place you could get to. A moment when I would look around and see that Everything Was Fine. But that’s not how this works. Being better isn’t a battle you fight and win. Feeling okay is a war, one that lasts your whole life, and the only way to win is to keep on fighting.

  “Hungry, girl?” I asked, and held out a handful of french fries.

  Her teeth brushed my palm when she snatched them. She could have taken my hand off.

  “I’m sorry I got so many of your brothers and sisters killed,” I whispered.

  Something thrummed in my veins, in my stomach. It wasn’t hunger—it wasn’t an ungodly destructive superpower rooted in violence—but it was close. I was still that glorious monster that had leveled my town. I still saw how the world worked, understood the systems the powerful used to hurt the powerless. I could change the world.

  The pig grunted, looked me in the eye.

  “Does that mean you forgive me?”

  I ate a couple of the french fries and poured the rest out on the ground for the pig. We chewed together. It was true that a whole lot of pigs were dead because of me, but if it wasn’t for me they would all be dead by now—or stuck behind bars, waiting to be butchered. Now, at least, some of them had a chance.