Chapter Seventeen: The Birthday Feast

No Cake. No Candles. Just Meat, Metal, and Loyalty.

My birthday was coming up.

March. Weather? Don’t remember. Didn’t matter.

There was nothing magical about my birthday. No countdown. No decorations. No fuss.

Most years it just… happened.

My teachers usually remembered. They’d say something like “Happy Birthday!” with that extra-cheerful tone reserved for kids who might not hear it anywhere else. They were probably right.

Except for the year we had a substitute in English. She didn’t know. I didn’t care. I didn’t expect anything.

Sometimes my mom remembered. She’d say happy birthday in that half-distracted way that sounded like she’d just remembered something on her to-do list. My stepdad had a different tradition: he’d hand me some food stamps and tell me to walk down to Steeple Market — the old church-turned-convenience-store in town.

That market was my place.

It was more than a store. It was a survival hub. A job site. A lunch counter for kids who knew how to hustle.

I used to go to the deli counter and ask for work — anything they’d give me in exchange for the throwaway ends of deli meats and cheeses. Trimmings. Shavings. The stuff they couldn’t sell. It wasn’t garbage. It was currency.

My job was in the basement.

Dark. Musty. Cold.