Cures for Hunger Read Online Free PDF

as if I didn’t care, though I planned to harass him about salmon fishing and make him feel bad about not doing something more special for my birthday. Even on our way into the city, as I tried to bide my time, we passed a shallow river where Native Americans stood in the current, spearing salmon that splashed between the rocks. My father had long ago explained why they were allowed to fish this way and catch as much as they wanted, and I’d been jealous. I couldn’t help but mutter, “I wish I was Indian” as we drove past.
    My father sold Christmas trees near downtown Vancouver, on a parking lot rented from the Pacific National Exhibition, which had closed its rides for the winter. He’d put up fences and turned the space into a maze of pine, spruce, and fir, and he’d been sleeping in the mobile home that served as an office and a warm-up place for his employees, the young men who hauled trees and flirted with Helen, a pretty blond with fringed bangs who ran the till. She played Christmas music over the speakers until the last customer left, then put on the Eurythmics or Duran Duran, and everyone gathered in the cramped living room to drink and talk, the trailer floor creaking and grinding against its cinder-block supports.
    Though his workers all had yellow rain jackets and pants, my father wore green, as if it were a general’s color. Yellow was ugly, he told me, and he pointed out that you called cowards yellow. In green, he blended with the trees, so that sometimes I didn’t notice him watching as I wandered and talked to myself. I’d look up suddenly, seeing the faint figure, his eyes still and dark as unlit windows.
    Even though I was actually proud of going to work with him, I couldn’t stop worrying about the salmon runs. Each time I reminded him, he sighed and said, “Okay. I’ll think about it. Stop asking, will you?” Then he turned back to speaking with customers or giving commands.
    By that night, I was starving. On the couch, I huddled in my jacket,
trying to read Mystery of the Fat Cat, wishing I had enough friends to form a gang or that I lived someplace with interesting creatures like rats and cockroaches. My stomach clenched and gurgled, and I pictured myself sinking my teeth into Helen’s arm as if I were a famished rat. What had changed? I never used to worry about food. Was it something my father had done, or my mother’s dreams? I was feeling sad and frustrated, as if I might cry, and this only made me angrier. I hated myself when I wanted to cry. I threw down the book and went outside.
    Misting rain drifted over the lot, gauzy halos around the hanging colored bulbs. No one stood near the trailer, the music turned low, Perry Como crooning softly as if from far away. Pine needles covered the asphalt, and I walked into a dark row of trees, hundreds tied in twine and leaned against two-by-four supports. Voices reached me, rising and falling, like the ocean from a distance. The corridor of trees became so dark that I froze, trying to see ahead, my senses overpowered by the smell of pine sap.
    â€œAndré . . . ,” I called, but my voice broke, and I swallowed and tried to make my throat work. “André!” I shouted. Footsteps scuffed past beyond the trees and stopped.
    â€œHey, André!” a man barked, his voice nasal and angry. “Your kid’s looking for you.”
    The footsteps scuffed off, and I pictured big rubber boots on indifferent feet, dragging through pine needles.
    â€œWhere?” my father called.
    â€œJust over here,” the man barked again. “Over there.”
    My father called my name, sounding tired. His silhouette appeared at the end of the corridor, his sou’wester gleaming faintly. He didn’t drag his feet but stepped quietly until he stood before me. His beard seemed black, his eyes lost beneath the rubber brim.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œI’m hungry,” I said,