Monster's Chef by Jervey Tervalon

Author:Jervey Tervalon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

A firebomb went off in my chest, air rushed from my lungs, gasping for breath on dry land.

Dazzling images of the perpetual happiness of marriage: sharing a bed, a shower, breakfast, a return to a life I had never expected to have again, a life with her. I was high on it, higher than I had ever been on the pipe.

Exile was over. Elena was calling me home.

It took a day for Asha to return my call; she had one emergency after another to handle back there at the halfway house. Meth freaks were in revolt. Mistake was that they sent her three, and in a program for ten, three tweakers were ten times too many. Crackheads and heroin addicts were more or less manageable, but not meth freaks, or so she told me. They were always irritable, belligerent, or withdrawn, and of course they regularly relapsed, which meant a hell of a lot of paperwork.

“I wish you were here,” she said, laughing. “At least I never had to worry about the kitchen.”

We laughed about that, the good old days of life in a halfway house, slinging gruel for the semi-institutionalized.

Then I told her about the letter.

“Oh, that’s great, that’s wonderful news.”

“I want to come back to New Jersey.”

Asha was quiet on the other end.

“Did you talk to your parole officer?”

“Not yet.”

Asha sighed.

“Bridget will kill me if you leave.”

“I thought she intended to quit.”

Asha sighed.

“She can’t find another position, and she can’t bring herself to walk out on her contract.”

“Everything is so fucking complicated,” I said.

“Let me talk to Bridget. Maybe we can work something out. What did you say to Elena?”

My heart sank. I imagined it would be difficult, but I didn’t want to face up to it. I wasn’t ready to talk to her. I wanted to be sure of how things were going to go with me before contacting her. I didn’t want to blow it, didn’t want her turning her back on me once again, because I was sure of one thing: that would beat me down and keep me down for good.

“I’m not ready to talk to her yet. I don’t want to say something stupid and ruin it.”

Asha laughed. “Gibson, don’t be so hard on yourself. Call her. Let her know what’s going on. It’ll change everything.”

“You really believe that?”

“As the patron saint of lost causes, I’ve got to believe.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. You save souls and all that.”

“Like any good Hindu should.”

MY LIFE WAS STUCK between the pages of a book I couldn’t wait to be done with. Funny to be so unhappy in a place so fucking beautiful. From the mountain you could see the Pacific Ocean curving away, vanishing into the blue horizon and the grid-like vineyards on the hills below; or, in the afternoon sun, the undulations of hillsides resembling the contours of a body in repose. Sure, I wanted to wake up and breathe air so fresh it made my head hurt, taste water so fresh it was sweet, but not here, not doing this job, away from the woman I loved.

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