This is part of a collection of short stories from The Anorexic’s Cookbook
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Fresh game is an acquired taste but it’s a taste I've yet to acquire. You can’t even trick me into eating fresh game and plenty of people have tried. I grew up in Michigan where every November the menfolk put on camouflage pants and an orange vest, pack up the old station wagon with bullets and beer and head north with their hunting buddies. Most of the time they come home empty handed and hung over. I lived with foster parents when I was in high school and my foster father was an avid hunter. The last year I lived with them he finally got a deer and filled the freezer with enough deer meat to last the winter. I appreciated the concept, I just wasn’t anxious to eat Bambi. So when the deer steaks were served I pushed the meat around my plate but couldn’t actually eat it. After that the deer hunter was determined to get me to taste wild meat. One night the meatloaf tasted a bit odd, kind of bitter. I wasn’t alarmed because my foster mother, unlike my own mother, was a terrible cook. Her meals often tasted a bit odd. The meat was bitter so I covered it in catsup and took a small bite. Before I could find a place to spit it out, cheers rang out around the dinner table as the hunting foster parents gleefully announced that I had been fooled into eating deer meat. It was proof they said that I could not tell the difference between hamburger and deer. I could have explained but I didn’t bother.
I came to live with the hunting foster parents, let’s call them the Hunters when I was 15. My mother had been institutionalized with what was called a nervous breakdown after finding out that my step-father had been molesting her daughters. My younger sister went to live with my uncle but since I was older, part of the blame fell on me. Relatives with a similar experience were triggered into paralysis and denial. The result was I became an orphan and had no place to go. I stayed alone in our house until the high school insisted that I “find parents”. Then a friend of a friend had a sister and that sister and her husband became my hunting foster parents. For two years I lived in an unfinished corner of their basement. The finished part of the basement had Mr. Hunter’s padlocked music room with a tiled floor, drop ceiling, lights, electric outlets and wood paneling. Inside this room Mr. Hunter kept his electric guitars, microphones, speakers, a reel to reel recording set up and a wall full of 45’s. The laundry room was also finished with a tiled floor, drop ceiling, lights, electric outlets and wood paneling. I lived in a door-less concrete corner behind the furnace. I had no closet so I used the pipes on the ceiling to hang my clothes. I worked as a car hop to pay room and board and after school and on weekends I helped Mrs. Hunter care for the kids. Although Mr. Hunter had a very good job, other than the extravagant music room, his family lived like paupers. The extra money I paid helped with the cost of feeding me. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hunter were active members of the church and I joined as well. Contrary to my own mother’s teachings, their church taught me to be submissive and know a woman’s place. They were kind to me and took me in when no one else would. I grew to love them and their daughters as though they were my family.
But two years in that basement was enough for me. After I graduated from high school, I got an office job, moved out of the basement and was ready to move on. It was then that Mr. Hunter called me back for one last visit. He wanted to celebrate my birthday which was a few months past. How could I say no? When I arrived there was a case of beer and a bet as to how much I could drink. I was underage and had never been much of a drinker, so it was not a real contest. I played along and we drank and talked and laughed. I wasn’t worried because I felt I was in a safe place. I quickly became intoxicated and passed out on the living room sofa. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter went upstairs to bed.
Sometime later I woke up with Mr. Hunters hand over my mouth telling me not to wake his sleeping daughters. Then he raped me. The image of his daughters waking up and witnessing their father’s crime kept me silent, as he knew it would. But I would not stay still. I shook my head “No!” and tried to push him away. When he finished he got up and said, “Thank you for giving me your virginity” as though I had a choice. I could have explained but I didn’t. After he went back to bed with his wife I quietly left by the side door. I went home to the apartment I shared with a girl from work. I took a bath and went to bed. I said nothing to no one. Once again I figured I must have been asking for it.
That was not the end of it. For years after that night Mr. Hunter ruled my life. He demanded on an ongoing sexual relationship and if I refused he’d threaten to confess. He said he would tell his wife and daughters that I was some kind of Lolita who had seduced him. He’d say I had some secret power that I used to get a God fearing man like him to fall from grace. He’d say maybe my step-father had been falsely accused. It struck me as odd that he never felt the need to confess when he was on top of me grunting in my ear and banging my head into the headboard. Only when I was headed for the door did he feel a sudden need for penance and redemption.
I tried to get free many times but ended up back in his basement again and again. He controlled my work, my car and even my friends. If I got too close to anyone, he would call them and say that he was acting as my foster father and looking out for me. Then he would cross examine them and question their fitness to influence me. No one ever passed his test and he would exile them from my life. Once again I’d find myself orphaned, in his debt and in his basement. My life disintegrated. I changed jobs and roommates several times as I became more dependent on Mr. Hunter.
When my car broke down Mr. Hunter offered to co-sign for a loan. Instead of a reliable used car I foolishly choose a 1967 MGB-GT. The steep payments forced me to accept a job Mr. Hunter had arranged instead of one I choose. The job was swing shift which meant I never saw my friends.
One night I left work to go back to the room in Mr. Hunter’s basement feeling particularly lonely and isolated. As I pulled onto the expressway I saw a young man on the entrance ramp hitchhiking. He was medium height, several inches shorter than Mr. Hunter but young with a beefy chest and broad-shoulders. His shaggy blonde hair was held in place by a ridiculous headband pulled taunt across his forehead. He swaggered up to the car and leaned in the passenger window. There were slight traces of boyhood freckles across his nose which made him seem approachable. But his chiseled jawline made him seem commanding. His face would have been as comfortable on the album cover for Woodstock as the enlistment poster for the Marines.
I recognized him right away as someone who went to my high school. He was a year younger than me and had a reputation of being a bit of a bad boy. Not criminal biker bad boy, just sexy bad boy. His name was James Montclair Wilton but everyone called him Jamie. I offered him a ride and he climbed in all smiles and chatter. He was born in Kentucky and though the lost the accent he still kept that southern boy aw shucks charm. He said he remembered me from school, asked where I was going, turned up the radio and started singing along with “Sugar sugar, aw honey honey”. I started singing too, I couldn’t help myself. He was like an explosion of sunshine after a year of gray storm clouds. He asked about my car which he loved. I wondered if he’d still like it as much if he knew how much I paid for it. He said we should stop for coffee and we did. We pulled into Franks, a 24 hour greasy spoon that could have been a Hopper painting. We drank heavy mugs of coffee and talked for hours under the unflinching florescent lights. He was warm and funny and fresh. So I took him home with me. It was an act of defiance. It was an act of desperation.
The inquisition started the next day with Mrs. Hunter taking the lead. “The neighbors” she said, “were talking” and “Have you given any thought to your little foster sisters?” She played shame and guilt like a finely tuned instrument. I checked to see if Mr. Hunter showed any signs of hypocrisy. He did not. They acted like I was pregnant and insisted Jamie and I get married and arranged everything. Mr. Hunter played on Jamie’s need to provide for his new wife and even convinced Jamie to enlist in the Marines. Mr. Hunter wanted to have me move back into his basement so he could “keep an eye on me” while Jamie did his basic training. After the Justice of the Peace shotgun wedding Jamie and I went to his house. It was then I met Jamie’s mom – a tiny little firecracker out of Kentucky who had incredible instincts. She knew something was wrong and told Jamie, “No son, we’ll keep an eye on her.” I sat down at her kitchen table and never went back into the basement again. She was a godsend and her husband Phil was one of the most decent men I’ve ever known. I stayed with Betty and Phil for nearly a year waiting for Jamie to come home from basic training but he never did. He went straight to San Diego after basic and never left. He had a long time roommate named Sam was short for Samantha. A few years later we got an amicable divorce. Along with the final divorce papers Jamie gave me my maiden name, a car to replace my MG and a dozen red roses. I don’t know what would have happened if the relationship had been allowed the normal gestation period instead of being birthed prematurely to suit an old man’s lust. My affection for Jamie and my love for Jamie’s family never dies.
It has taken a lifetime to realize that this “respectable church going man” was a villain and I was no Lolita. I was his prey. I know now, that Mr. Hunter was not mentoring me or protecting me. He was simply grooming me, as most sexual predators do. Both my father-in-law and my foster father were hunters. One was a provider and the other a predator. My mother-in-law and my foster mom were two very different kinds of women. Both women knew what was happening to me. One protected me and the other, punished me.
I hadn’t been around hunters for decades when my friend Loren asked me to help her with her housekeeping business. She paid cash and it was only a few hours on the weekend and I really needed the money. So Monday through Friday I would carry my briefcase into meetings with the local business people and on the weekend I would be the invisible person cleaning their toilet. I admit it felt a bit like espionage. All of the houses were so different. Some were filled with antiques, some were ultra-modern and some had an Indian theme. One in particular I remember in great detail even today.
Loren and I entered the back door into a pink kitchen. The walls were pink, the table and chairs were pink and even the appliances were pink. There were pink gingham checked curtains and tablecloth and a pink tile floor. It was like a step back into the fifties. Loren gave the instructions and I followed behind as we headed into the main part of the house. We entered the living room and I stopped dead in my tracks. Every square inch of the walls were covered with animal heads. There were typical moose, deer, bear and then exotic lion, tiger and cheetah. I was overcome by the death in the room and I was backing out when I bumped into a table. I looked behind me and saw an upright baby kangaroo, its front paws used to hold an ashtray. Without thinking I said, “I’m so sorry.” Then the legs of an elephant were used as the base for a coffee table, the rugs were bears, the chandelier had monkeys hanging off the sides, Everywhere, everywhere were dead animals. Everywhere was the stench of death. I just kept saying, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
If a hunter kills a deer takes the meat to feed his family then he's a provider. If he uses the hide for clothing or blankets he’s still a provider. Providers search for food but they can also seek shelter, a job, a partner, a vocation, or a solution. The man who owned this house was not a provider but a “recreational hunter” which is a nice way to say a predator. A man who kills a deer only to cut off the head and hang it on the wall is a predator. If he takes apart a company that's fallen on hard times and puts the employees out of work and sells off the assets, he's a predator. If he takes a young girl and uses her for his own pleasure without a thought for the damage done to her, he's a predator. Predators’ trophies are no different than the soiled underwear a rapist keeps. It’s evidence of an empty soul that thrives on the suffering of others.
Most predators don’t use a firearm; their weapons are dominance, charm and shame. To some men anything female is fair game. They groom, stalk, hunt, wound, capture and domesticate little girls to use for their pleasure only. My foster father was a predator and the troubled child who sought shelter in his basement was just fresh game. Phil was a provider, a decent man whose instincts were to protect and nourish those he met including me.