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You spend the first few days thinking about food non-stop. Dreaming about it. You can smell what people are cooking two houses down, and it makes you drool and your stomach clenches painfully. You feel shaky and weak whenever you think about food.
Although it's happened a lot more than this in my life, here's one particularly painful memory about hunger. It happened when I was newly pregnant. I was 20 years old and we were living in Utica, NY. We didn't have photo IDs, we had no car, and pregnancy was hitting me hard--getting a normal job was pretty much impossible for either of us. With the lack of photo IDs and documentation (all that had been left behind when I fled my abusive husband) getting welfare would have been impossible too, if I'd thought to try. Unfortunately, I didn't even know that welfare existed for people who didn't already have kids. I didn't know that being pregnant would "count."
Rhythm worked as a day laborer for a company called "Labor Ready." Every day at 5:00 am, she'd walk downtown to go stand in line outside of the Labor Ready building. Assignments were given out on a first-qualified-person-who-comes basis, and women were *far* less likely to meet the "qualifications" for most jobs than men. If Rhythm got an assignment, she'd be gone for about 9 hours and then get paid in cash when she got back to the Labor Ready office. She'd buy something for dinner with that money on her way home. If she didn't get an assignment, then we didn't eat. Waiting for her at home alone, I never knew whether I'd eat that day or not. Breakfast and lunch were like dreams from another life; I lived for the dinner I might or might not get. We had no phone, no TV, no radio. no heat, and the autumn nights in upstate New York can be damned cold. We were isolated in a strange city where we didn't know anyone, and we had nowhere to turn for help.
This went on for about 5 weeks. One day we were walking near Faxton Hospital. Rhythm hadn't gotten an assignment for 3 days, and we couldn't stand to sit at home and think about food, so we decided to just go walk around. I think I had seen an ER doctor at Faxton that day for some spotting that concerned me. Anyway, there's a McDonald's right across the street from that hospital, and when we walked past it, the smell from the grill exhaust wafted over and overwhelmed us. Rhythm turned pale, but kept her composure. I collapsed into a heap on the sidewalk, sobbing hysterically out of hunger and frustration and fear. I was about three months pregnant then, and I had never felt so hungry and desperate in my entire life. A couple of people stopped to see if I was okay, and Rhythm told them point-blank...she's pregnant and she hasn't eaten in three days. Someone ran over to the McDonald's and brought me back a cheeseburger. I took three voracious bites and then promptly threw it right back up. I was horrified--not because of public puking, but because I'd had FOOD right there, and I had "wasted" it by throwing up.
A few weeks later, Rhythm had a good run of luck with the Labor Ready jobs. We managed to scrimp and save enough to buy two Greyhound tickets to Virginia, to where my Mom and stepfather lived. We packed what we could fit into two duffel bags, abandoned all of our other belongings, and left. Since we'd spent all our money on the tickets, we had none left for anything to eat on the way. My one and only visit to New York City was when we changed buses at the Port Authority station; I was sick and starving, but I still thought the skyline was incredibly beautiful. This was in November of 1999...the Trade Center towers were still there, and I will always remember being amazed at their height, and the fact that I could still see them even when we were 30-odd miles away into New Jersey.
We went through Albany, New York City, and on to Washington D.C. with layovers that lasted for hours before finally getting on the bus that would take us to Harrisonburg. It took about two days. My stepfather was waiting for us at the bus station in his enormous green Pontiac. I was so relieved to see him that I was literally weeping for the whole ride home to my Mom's place. When we got there, I walked in the door of her mobile home and collapsed on the couch. She was making a simple dinner--those Gorton's baked fish things and french fries--but it was like heaven to me. I ate until I got sick, then I ate again more slowly. Over the course of the next week, I could never stop getting up to look at Mom's cabinets and fridge. It was like I couldn't quite believe that after 3 months of being hungry, the food was really there. Rhythm got a job at a local meat-packing plant and we went crazy for a while with food. I would wake up in the middle of the night and Rhythm make an entire pork chop dinner at 3:00 am, just because we COULD.
To this day, I still have nightmares. I also tend to get panicky whenever the cabinets are looking even slightly un-stocked. I can't help it. I don't know if I will ever stop being afraid that the food will be taken away from me someday.
Anyway, that's one of my stories.
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