(AoS) Twinkies are a viable food option

When he had first come to the United States, the man called Sledgehammer had been trying to escape his name in England. He had become too visible, too much of a presence on the police radar. Sledge wouldn’t have been in such a position the in the first place if he had been content with his lot in life the way his mum and da were. But it isn’t easy for a teen to accept being in poverty. Living each day having to playact like you had seen the popular TV shows, or hating that your uniform always looked like shite because you had no spare to switch between. Forget about spending any time with your mates or trying to impress a girl after school or on the weekend. Every stitch of clothing that had been provided for him was second hand. His parents did their best to make sure that there were no large stains and that any holes were mended, but that did nothing to hide the fact that nothing he wore was new. Clothes had been the first thing that Sledge pinched. He wanted so much to look like he wasn’t the son of factory workers.

Of course stealing clothes wasn’t enough to change who he really was. You can put lipstick on a pig but it doesn’t change the fact it lives in the mud. Sledge needed more things, and not just physical objects, but money as well. There were plenty of other blokes around the neighborhood and hanging about Charlie’s shop that didn’t mind liberating funds from people. Getting them to accept a scrawny kid like himself was hard. Sledge’s mum would confine David to the shop whenever he came home bruised and battered, claiming that he had a row with his mates. Half the times that she complained she didn’t know the extent of damage that her younger son had been through. Hospitals could be costly and Sledge didn’t want to let his parents in on what he’d been up to. Wounds had to heal in whatever fashion they could.

New York was suppose to be a change from all that. There were hundreds of success stories from people no better off than he who had made the long journey and started with nothing. For a time he had been one of those stories. Sledge had a flat of his own, not having to rely on his parents or his brother for shelter. No major run ins with the police, nothing that he was unable to talk his way out of or could be overlooked with a bit of ”persuasion”. There were girls from time to time to keep him from being lonesome. Money was no problem. Life had never been better.

And then it happened. The very thing that he had been blackmailed to prevent happened anyways, and Sledge knew the truth about what happened. It was the only source of pride the man had left. With New York City looking like a nuclear fall out his way of life had fallen back to what it was before. No, this was worse than England. At least in England what food Sledge found was identifiable as such. Picking his way through what had once been a gas station’s store, the man scratched his cheek. Holding that secret was the only thing that allowed him to feel greater than he was. Right now he felt the way
he looked. Grungy. There wasn’t much call for shaving in this new age, and David now had a beard, and his hair was no longer short. His flat had been looted, taking most of his clothes. What Sledge was able to find for warmth mad him look like some sort of army veteran he thought. Broken glass crunched under his feet as Sledge lifted a bit of drywall that had fallen. What he needed was some sort of food that was not raw meat, spoiled vegetation, or had in life been in the water. “Never realized how much shopping you do in a petrol station until they’re not ‘round righ?” he asked his companion