I see a shirtless man with a beard. He is tattooed, like Michael, but has shaved his head. There are tables with glass beakers and tubes and five-gallon buckets on the ground and empty cold-drink liter bottles, and I know I’ve seen this before, know that smell because when Michael built his lean-to in the woods behind Mam and Pop’s house, it looked and smelled like this. The reason he and Leonie fought, the reason he left, the reason he’s in jail. The man is cooking, moves as easy and sure as a chef, but there is nothing to eat here. My stomach burns.
Tattoos mark what would otherwise be unmarked. Lines on the body, like lines of grief, pain, age and sickness charting entropy. And then there's ever present hunger that evades any demarcation with its constant presence. Lines or not, people have to eat.
