It’s almost midnight and Canton is such a small-time, out-of-time shitkicker town, there’s only one store open close to the motel. I trudge through the overgrown lawn bordering the hotel parking lot and make my way toward one of those stores that’s one-half gas station and one-half fast food place. This one is an Exxon and a Subway. My father says Subway’s gotten too expensive and the food isn’t nearly as good as it used to be, but I crave tuna salad. 

On the way back, I prepare for what my father is going to say about the Subway. He doesn’t approve of most things, and this is just one of them. But I bought him a Snickers in the Exxon half of the store, so maybe he’ll forget about the Subway.

I have a damn good attorney. That’s the reason we keep returning to Canton, once a month, every month. My attorney keeps finding ways to stall the prosecution, and I try to resist smiling each time the county’s attorney wipes her crimp-curled locks from her face and flips through her stack of files to counter our latest motion. 

I’m guilty, of course. Isn’t everyone? 

My father said that this was a game, a sleekly motorized game, and all that mattered was who won and what they got away with.

“Where you get that Subway?” my father asks after I enter our room.

“There’s a store on the highway next to the burger place.”

“I never seen that.”

“It’s there.” I toss the Snickers bar on the bed beside him. “I got that for ya.” He’s laid up against the pillow, atop the bedspread, reading a paperback Western. He goes through three or four a week. This one is called A Lawman’s Promise. How does Walmart keep enough in stock?

He takes the candy bar into his hand and turns it over, mystified. It’s understandable. I don’t do a lot of nice things for people. I don’t remember birthdays. I don’t say “bless you.” I never say I’ll call someone again when I know that I won’t because I know that I won’t, and anytime you cause another pain, you owe it to them to watch the consequence of your cruelty, your carelessness.

“Thank you, son.” His voice goes so high and melodious, almost a plea, that my heart drops into my stomach. I’m not supposed to be doing things like this, that’s what Mother says. My father puts his finger to his lips. “Better keep this hidden from Mom.”

I know he’s going to eat that Snickers so damn fast the very thought of hiding it from someone is absurd. My father used to be fat when I was a kid. He was short and stumpy and in his policeman’s uniform looked like a Keystone Cop funny-fast-running toward his black, boxy patrol car, the other funny-fast-running officers at his heels. Then my father got cancer when I was in high school, and he became thin. He said after the chemotherapy that everything tasted like =cardboard, and the pounds slipped from his frame. Mother was so happy. she took a picture of my father holding his “fat pants” high and proud. He dropped 160 pounds. But the food’s lack of flavor couldn’t keep him away from the late-night fridge, full and unsupervised. He said if he ate enough, he could taste just a trace of each morsel’s native splendor. The pounds reappeared like department store fliers, and my mother put her camera away.

I sit on my bed and take my sandwich out of its wrapper. My father’s right. The food at Subway is getting shoddy. The toppings are haphazardly scattered, the mustard is thick at one end and missing at the other, and the tuna salad itself lacks a certain zing it once had. It’s hard to describe, not that I would ever try. I never mentioned food in my parents’ house. Sit down. Suppertime. Waste not, want not.

I’ve never wanted for anything—except a sturdy enough sense of stability to trash my life again and again, certain at least one more chance would be mine to have. One last chance.

“How much you pay for that?”

“Too much.” I shove my bite around my teeth and gums.

“Their food’s gettin’ bloomin’ ridiculous.”

I nod and keep eating. I can’t finish fast enough.

“Bet you paid eight or nine bucks for what?—a damn sandwich.”

“Saw a sign when I left. Gas went up again.”

“How much?”

“Four cents, I think.”

Whenever my father threatens to embark on one of his rants about this business trying to rob you or this politician trying to trick you, I bring up the gas prices. This matter trumps any other possible matter already under discussion. 

I know my father. Sure as I know he and Mother have mortgaged any hope of future stability to bankroll my freedom, at least until the next hearing.

My father unwraps the Snickers bar, just the one end. I don’t eat candy bars, but I wonder why he doesn’t just unwrap the whole thing and begin eating. Why is he giving his Snickers bar a slow-motion striptease?

I’m chewing, but I can still hear my father chewing as well: the soft, teasing smack of the caramel, the flaking of the chocolate, the crunch of the nuts. My father is enjoying his Snickers. He loves them so much, I just had to give him one. Never mind that I hate candy, can’t watch someone eating something sweet without getting sick on myself. I believed as a child, and I still believe today even now, that sugar will bloat you, cripple you, kill you. But my father just wants something sweet inside him. I can’t even eat my sandwich, I feel so sick.

He finishes, wads the wrapper. Upon rising from the bed, he treats it to a dented but durable tan plastic garbage can at the opposite end of the room.

“They have maids for that,” I remind him.

“No sense not doing it yourself.”

“Then why pay them anything?”

“I didn’t do that for the benefit of some damn Consuela.”

“I’m not gonna finish this,” I slip the sandwich back inside its bag. I’ve gone to bed hungry before. It’s easy: you listen to your stomach and let it rumble you to sleep.

“Lemme cut off a piece of that. Always wanted to know what a nine-dollar sandwich tastes like.” My father takes out his pocketknife and slices a hunk from the sandwich. He hasn’t eaten or drank after me, not ever since I got the disease. This was three, four years ago. He pops the piece into his mouth and chews it thoughtfully. He sadly shakes his head. “I told you it’s not as good as before.”

My father reads his Western while I watch Bill Maher on the free HBO. He hates the cursing and innuendos on these shows. I’d never ask, but I bet he wishes life were like one of those paperbacks with rugged horsemen and mountain ranges on their covers: simple, simple like a candy bar. Bill Maher reminds us why he’s smarter than us, and I click off the TV.

I turn out the light. At least now it’s dark. My stomach makes a wet, loud noise. I’m starving.

“Son, was that you?”

I don’t answer. He doesn’t ask again.