Free Eating My Feelings by Mark Rosenberg Page A

walked out the door. As I was walking down to the cafeteria, I glanced by the nurse’s office and saw Leslie, who was probably watching
The Price Is Right
, looking extremely melancholy. I hoped that I hadn’t gotten her in trouble with that asshole Carl, but then realized she would probably be better off without him. If need be, I would make it a point to pop by later in the day and tell her that she could do better than him and offer a shoulder for her to cry on. For the time being, I needed to get my ass down to the cafeteria and eat something. I was so hungry. Three days of healthy food was taking its toll on me and I was beginning to become weak and possibly anemic. Perhaps it had something to do with the lack of preservatives in my diet or the fact that the cookie food group was now completely lacking from my routine. Either way, I was starving and needed something to eat, and quick.
    As I was hiking down the hill, my least favorite person at camp stopped me: Glenn. I am not exactly sure why I hatedhim as much as I did, but the sight of him made me nauseous. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he looked like a straight-up rapist. We were, however, stuck together for the duration of the summer and I was going to have to put up with his nonsense for the rest of the month.
    “Where ya going, buddy?” Glenn said as he stopped me.
    “I NEED TO EAT. NOW!” I yelled.
    “No time for that,” Glenn said as he put his hands on my shoulders and physically turned me around and began pushing me back up the hill.
    “Are you seriously touching me right now? God only knows where those hands have been,” I said. “Where are you taking me? I need to eat something. NOW!”
    “Back up the hill,” Glenn said. “I got word from Carl this morning—you need to be with the other set of kids at camp.”
    Oh, shit, they are sending me to be with the fatties
, I thought.
    “Other kids?” I asked, as Glenn continued to push me back up the hill. “Stop touching me, I can walk up a hill on my own,” I added. I was, however, almost completely out of breath and had only walked about ten steps.
    “Yes,” Glenn said. “Carl thinks it’s time for you to be with some of the more proportionally challenged kids at camp.”
    “The fat kids?” I asked.
    “Ummm … kind of, yeah.”
    “DAMN HIM!” I yelled.
    I knew it was too good to be true. Granted, I had only been at camp for a few days, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be carted away to spend time with the fatter kids at camp. I was, after all, there to lose weight, and until then the only physical exercise I had gotten was being lifted from the cold lake back into a canoe.
    “What’s your problem with Carl?” Glenn asked as we walked up the hill.
    “I hate him. I hate you. And I hate this camp,” I replied.
    “Okay, understandable,” Glenn said.
    “What? Aren’t you going to tell me that I need to buck up and be a part of the team?”
    “No,” Glenn replied. “If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But remember, it’s not forever, and maybe you can learn something here.”
    “Ummm … okay,” I replied. That was the first decent thing that had come out of Glenn’s mouth in the short time I had known him. We walked up the hill and followed a path that led us behind the community showers (four days in and I still had no idea where they were), through a mess of trees and onto a large playing field. When we approached, all I saw was a bunch of fat-asses. Each was bigger than the next. I was not nearly as fat as these kids were. Was I?
    “Okay, Mark,” Glenn said, “I have to go back down the hill. I am going to motorboat over to the girls’ camp and hopefully motorboat one of the counselors, ha-ha-ha.”
    What an idiot. Glenn left me, and a waiflike man with glasses and a huge orange Jew-fro approached. At least one of my people was within view.
    “I’m Kurt,” the redheaded Jew said.
    “Mark,” I