HUM by Dan Hawley (book club reads .TXT) 📗

exclaimed, skipping towards her destination. “It’s pretty cool!”

The Urban Market was a repurposed old shoe factory needed no longer in the age of globalization and sweatshops. It still smelled faintly of tanning chemicals and leather. The space was perfect for a small market. The industrial feel of concrete and brick combined with the high ceiling contrasted sharply against the vendors’ colorful stands. The market comprised of perhaps a dozen vendors selling all the necessities. Samantha and Jason looked over the fruit and vegetable stands and walked past the baker. A friendly couple was sitting behind a table selling honey made from beehives located on top of a downtown building. A popular Sunday destination, people milled about in organized chaos.

“Let’s just get some stuff for dinner now and go to the supermarket tomorrow after you get home from work?” Samantha asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Jason replied. “Maybe we can grab a bite too, while we’re out.”

The couple bought some fresh bread, vegetables, a few apples, and some cheese, and then made their way over to the fish vendor. While standing in line, Jason filled his lungs with the briny air.

“The fish here are way different than back home, huh?” he remarked.

Bubbling tanks full of live fish and shellfish formed a cascading glass wall. Jason saw lobster, Dungeness Crab, oysters, clams, and scallops. There were snappers, trout, and salmon—so many options.

Samantha leaned in to look at the snappers. Their black eyes set in their pink heads stared back blankly. Their little mouths were sucking and blowing water to filter air through their gills. Suddenly, a gloved hand thrust into the tank and grabbed the snapper Sam was watching. The helpless fish, expelled from the water and into the drowning air, was laid flat on a white cutting board.

WHACK, WHACK, WHACK!

Sam jumped back with alarm as the gloved hand beat the life out of the defenseless snapper with a club.

“Jesus!” she squeaked and averted her eyes.

“I was not expecting that,” Jason said, his eyes wide. He shook it off and put his arm around Sam. “It doesn’t get much fresher than that!” he joked with a goofy smile.

Samantha was not impressed.

“Awe, come on, babe. You know that for us to live, something has to die.”

“I know,” Sam whimpered. “But I don’t feel bad for turnips.”

Jason collected the now dead and wrapped snapper from the vendor, paid, and turned to go.

“I’ll probably be a vegetarian soon,” Sam remarked. “You already don’t eat beef or pork, isn’t that good enough?” Jason responded.

“I dunno, I just feel bad, and I don’t even like it really, so why eat it?”

“Yeah, I get it if you don’t like it,” Jason said as they continued walking through the market.

“These days you can get away with not eating meat, since there are so many options. You have access to all kinds of different foods now that we didn’t a hundred years ago. You can even supplement with powders and pills. But if all that stopped, you’d be eating my venison,” Jason quipped with a wink and a dimple.

“Ugh, I’m not eating Bambi, Jay! Stop trying!” “Whatever, babe, I’m just saying, you gotta know how to survive if you need to, and if you had to, you’d eat Bambi.”

Every autumn since Jason was six, he would spend two weeks deer hunting with his dad, grandpa, and a few others at a camp in northern Pennsylvania. The first time Jason shot a deer, he hit it right through the lungs—the perfect shot. The deer couldn’t run for long, and the bullet didn’t damage any meat.

“Great shot!” his Grandpa John declared as they both jumped up to give chase.

It wasn’t long before they came upon the doe lying on the ground, struggling for breath. Its eyes were wide with terror as it looked up at Jason. Jason’s eyes traveled down its neck to find the steaming hole where the 30/30 had entered its fragile hide. His 14-year-old brain was trying to comprehend what was happening; what he had just done.

Jason’s grandfather could see the pained expression on his grandson’s face. He put his rifle down and knelt beside Jason and the dying deer. “For us to live, Jason, something must die.”

The doe gurgled and strained her final breath, then struggled no more. A few tears ran from Jason’s eyes. John took Jason gently by the arm so that the emotional boy was facing his grandfather.

“Son, I understand why you feel this way. Hell, I was the same way when I took my first deer. But you do understand, Jason, this deer has provided us with food now. So there is purpose. There is a reason. Never kill without reason, Jason, you understand?” Jason’s eyes dried as he nodded towards his grandpa.

“Good,” John said as he released his grandson. “We will thank the deer for giving its life so that we can live longer. Its life, and death, had purpose.”

With that, John plunged his hunting knife into the belly of the deer, and with surgical precision, relieved it of its guts.

* * *

“Maybe next weekend we can check out the mountains,” Sam mused as she dropped the seasoned snapper into the smoking hot frying pan. The oil erupted, spitting and hissing like a snake. “Sounds good; we can put those winter tires to better use.” Jason thought for a moment.

“We could go skiing if you want,” he added.

Jason sat at the island, watching as Samantha expertly moved around the kitchen. With the grace of a dancer, she rolled the fish in the pan, grabbed the boiling pot of vegetables, and spun around to strain them in the sink. Salt and pepper sprinkled from her fingers onto the food in a cloud of flavor. Butter and herbs went into the pan with a splash of lemon and white wine, finishing the fish.

On to the plate it went.

With a flurry of motion, the vegetables and baked potato joined it.

Sam slid the plate under Jason’s eager nose. The smell wafted up, and his mouth