The Devil's Lettuce: A Short Story

At twenty-two years old my younger-self had previously pictured me in an entirely different place. I never imagined living in Texas, I’m originally from Chicago, and that’s where I thought I would reside. I thought I’d be graduated from college already, but fate had a different plan. And never in a million years did I think I would become a drug addict; but I am, and you know what? It’s been the best thing that has ever happened to me, it’s something I’m truly thankful for now. See, all the things listed above may seem like negative things if you look at them from an outside perspective; however to me, they’ve changed me in ways I never thought possible just six months ago. Multiple circumstances have led me to this point, but a few stick

David's mother got worse and she began to think of new ways to torture David. David was one of a few brothers, but only he was targeted. The other brothers pretended he wasn't even there. There was only one person in the family that still loved David was his father. David’s father would fight for David and would protect him from the mother. But, he would always lose. Whenever David's father went to work, David would get beat. Dave became the scapegoat for his mother's mistakes. David became a slave of the house and did all the chores. If he did not finish his chores with an unreasonable time, he did not receive dinner. David was starved for three days at a time. Once, David got stabbed by his mother for not completing her dishes. Whenever David came back from school his mother forced him to throw up to see if he got any food at school. This happened every

Young David is being scolded by his teacher Miss Chestnut for getting up during class 28 times to lick the light switch, pencil sharpener and among other things. She decides to send a note home with David to tell his mother that she will be visiting to talk about his behavior. While this takes place, there is another form of a power struggle going on inside a young David’s head his OCD is whispering to him that he needs to do abnormal things such as smack the heel of his shoe to his forehead.

David's instructor was intimidating, rude, and somewhat abusive, but despite these things he used her behavior as a motivator to succeed. David was not about to give up and he: "refused to stand convicted on the teacher's charge of laziness," and due to that, he studied for 4 or more hours every night because he was determined to stand out (Sedaris, 1999). David clearly had a reaction to his teacher’s approach, which created a sense of urgency and a need to excel. His choice to persevere, despite her attitude, caused him to work hard, and he was once again able to use humor to get through by adding jokes to his responses to her quizzes. This whole experience shaped him into a better person and made him

The devil at the dawn of Christianity bore little resemblance to the ruler of hell, the antichrist and agent of evil that he is known as in present day. Satan makes few overt or implied appearances in the Old Testament. For the important role of God’s greatest adversary, early Christians had to flesh out great parts of Satan’s story in order to develop him into his present, fearsome persona. The Christian story of the Devil is heavily influenced by earlier Greek mythology, and early Christian writings about the Devil co-opted local mythology in order to gain new converts and discredit popular pagan beliefs.

David must pretend, not just for the remainder of the novel, but for the next forty years, to be ignorant of Frank’s crimes, and much of what is happening because his parents do not realise that he has

After a long ride, we saw our new home for the first time. It wasn’t luxurious, but to a couple of young children like us it was cool to live on the beach. The changes that lied ahead of us were great. There are many ways in which this new start changed my life. First, no longer did we live in fear. This enabled me to move on. I enrolled in eight grade that year. I felt like had a fresh start. No one knew my business. I could make myself whatever I wanted. My whole personality changed. That year I started at quarterback for junior high and from there everything started to look up. If I was to go into details of all the success I had it would be bragging, so I am just going to say I went from a casualty of a broken home to a respected and important part of High Island High School. In the five years I was there, I had more fun and a more productive life than all the other years put together.

Everything David did that was courageous. Most importantly, he survived the Nazi’s horrible control, showing his mother had influenced him. Even though David had a difficult childhood, David’s mother helped him a great

     The conflict of the story was Dave’s mother. She was cruel and unloving. She would drink and abuse Dave. For some reasons she never beat any of her other kids. Every time he stood up to her she would tell him he was a nobody or an “it”. She did cruel things for no reason. For example one time she tried putting him on the stove to burn him. Other times she would make a gas out of ammonia and Clorox in the bathroom and lock him in there for hours. The climax of the story is when people at school start noticing cuts and bruises on David. When a social worker is sent to his house, his mother starts treating him with love and pretends she’s sorry. Dave believes it and doesn’t say anything when the social worker comes. Dave thinks his dreams have come true and is very happy not knowing when the social

Following these attacks David’s delusions dissipated. It seemed as if the demons had been feed and were in a dormant state. He moved from the Bronx to a two-family home in Yonkers. Here though the delusions would grow stronger and more elaborate. The Cassara family, whom he was renting from, owned a German Sheppard who was noisy and howled frequently. He would become David’s unrelenting torment. Inside this family’s dog lived a demon that was ordering David to go hunting for blood. This would drive him to the edge becoming even suicidal at one point. No longer able to bear he left the Cassara’s and moved to an apartment home in Yonkers. Here a man by the name of Sam Carr owned a black Labrador that would also torment David.

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

David questions himself about many of the choices that he made in Nic’s life. Some of them good and some of them I had a difficult time understanding. For instance was it really a good idea for his mother to move so far away from her child and then force him to travel back and forth between his home with his father to his mother’s house in Los Angeles, where he basically living his life on his on.. As a young child was this too much for Nic to handle let alone truly understand. Was it a good idea for David to take Nic to see Nirvana which was a rock band where the lead singer was addicted to heroin and later overdosed and died, whose death really affected Nic. Or was it a good thing for David to share with Nic at such a young age about his abuse of drugs and alcohol when he was in high school and college. Throughout this book David second guesses himself a lot. I feel that one of the most controversy things in the book was when they were visiting family and David and Nic went out for a walk and he was talking to his son about his drug use and Nic asks him if he wants to smoke some weed and David does. Now some of David’s actions can be considered confusing because maybe Nic was thinking that you did drugs when you were in high school and college and look you turned out alright or the fact that he thinks it is ok to do drugs because my dad actually smoked some weed with me.

One point in this chapter that I find to be significant is when Nic is confronted about the marijuana in his backpack. For example, his parents call him in for the first time out of many, for doing drugs: “Standing on the deck, I call to the boys. They come over, Nic palming the ball, breathing hard...They look at the outstretched hand holding the marijuana.”(53). I believe this is important because Jasper is seeing marijuana for the first time. They had no idea how big this was gonna get at the time. I believed this to be important because it is David 's first time that he has had to deal with Nic and drugs at all.

Personal interviews with several of Meirhofer’s surviving relatives provided a look into the childhood of this troubled man. Meirhofer’s aunt, Layne Meirhofer-Greeney said, “David had a relatively normal childhood upbringing. He was raised just as any of us kids. He wasn’t abused or neglected, and had traditional Catholic values. We had frequent family gatherings, and always included David. As kids, we were very close” (L.Meirhofer-Greeney, personal communication, October 10, 2014) Wayne Meirhofer, David’s uncle, says, “David was a smart kid. He got good grades, and always seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders. He went into the military, and it seemed to us that he was traveling in the right direction in life. It floored us to hear of the things he had done” (W.Meirhofer, personal communication, October18, 2014) My father and Meirhofer’s uncle, Lou Carlassara, said, “I was very young when all the drama happened with David. I don’t remember much about him, but I remember being told we could no longer make trips to Montana to see that side of the family because David had done

Though David represents a seemingly common boy at the time, he has several qualities that make him stand out. However, these character traits are never simply told to us. Instead, the implied author uses David’s actions, decisions, and beliefs to