Free Lunch

Content Warning: This section mentions physical and emotional child abuse, as well as domestic violence.

“I don’t know why I get so angry about this stuff. This is how it’s been my whole life. But some days—some days I hate my life, and I feel like fighting. Fighting my mom, fighting other kids, fighting the world. Doesn’t matter. Just something to take the sting out of me being so broke.”

Rex suffers The Damaging Effects of Abuse and Conditional Love, with his abuse coming in the form of emotional, physical, and economic abuse, as well as neglect. He becomes increasingly angry at his situation, and in this quote, uses repetition to emphasize how much of his life is filled with fighting. This desire to fight is learned behavior from his mother Luciana and stepfather Sam.

“When Mom isn’t working, she’s always upset and sad and she can’t love me like a normal mom. She gets mad at every little thing. No job means no money, which means no groceries or electricity. That makes all the love go out of my mom, like air out of a balloon. And who wants an empty balloon?”

Rex recognizes the effects of financial stress on his mother Luciana’s ability to be a good mother, her stress leading to The Damaging Effects of Abuse and Conditional Love. It is common for parents with financial struggles to lash out or shut down from their roles as parents, and Luciana does both. Rex equates love with the presence of money and develops the belief that people with money are inherently happy.

“Some of my friends get yelled at when they break stuff in their house. In my apartment, there’s nothing to break.”

When Rex reflects on his home life compared to that of his friends, he does so with dark, ironic sarcasm, finding a bleak silver lining in the concept of having nothing. When he begins middle school, he often compares himself to others and wonders why his situation is so different from theirs; this leads him to resent his mother and the world, showing