Meat My Uncle by Tom Foster, Based on Meat My Uncle short story Meat My Uncle Screenplay adapted by Don Erikson

By Erez Bailen, Tom Foster and Don Erikson

James Jones is a nine year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, whose imagination is wild and wacky, Read on and enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Jones
• Release date: Feb 28, 2025
• ISBN: 9798230715894

Book preview

Meat My Uncle

By Erez Y Balen and Tom Foster

Chapter 1

My name is James Jones, and this is my story. Well, it’s a story, I don’t know if it’s just mine, but everyone always says ‘it’s mine’ when they’re talking about stuff that happens to and around them. So I guess it’s mine, since I’m the one talking about it. But I should probably talk about the people that will make their way into the story eventually, since if I was the only one in it that might be a little boring, right? I have kind of a fantastic life, but that doesn’t mean that it’s completely awesome. The people on TV and in the movies have awesome lives, even if they don’t look awesome or sound that way.

But their lives aren’t real. Mine is real, I think, since sometimes I can see past the world I enjoy, the world that makes sense to me, to the real world that everyone else lives in so often. It’s easy to think that a lot of people live in their own worlds sometimes, especially since some people talk to themselves and end up being put in big buildings where people are supposed to get help, even if a lot of them don’t come out. I’ve heard that a few kids tell me that I belong in there because I’m not like them, I’m not normal I guess. But my mom always tell me that they’re full of...well, a word I’m not supposed to say. But it rhymes with hit, spit, kit, bit, and a lot of other words that I can say, and it means something that stinks. I guess people can be full of it, but not all the way full, because...

I did it again. I kind of ramble when I talk about things that don’t need to be given that much attention. Sometimes other kids and people that don’t understand my condition, I have Asperger’s Syndrome by the way, don’t understand why I don’t act like other kids my age. My mom says to not worry about it that much. Mom tells me to just focus on what I want to focus on. My mom even tells me to focus on my friends, because they’ve known me so long that they understand me. They even understand the world the way I do, even if they don’t always believe in it. My friends are great, but sometimes they say they need a break, which I’ve finally come to understand means they need a break from me.

That kind of hurts my feelings, or it did. It’s taken a few years to get used to it, but my friends are still my friends. They just need time to themselves, kind of like I do when the world gets a little confusing. They’ve been very patient with me over the years, and I really appreciate that they’ve stayed my friends. It was hard though, and my mom had to tell me over and over that they didn’t hate me. Mom told me more than once that they were still my friends, but they had to live their lives too. My mom has been there for me in a lot of ways, and I love her for that.

My mom is peculiar too. She doesn’t identify as a ‘she’, and mom does have a wife, or had one at least. That’s the reason I’m able to write this at least, since mom got his wife pregnant, or so I thought until he told me different. If not for that, I might have gone to wherever unborn people are sent, if that’s a thing. I’ve asked my friends and my mom about that, but they don’t know either. I could talk about that for a while, but a lot of people have become a little irritated since it’s a circular conversation that doesn’t end for a while. I think I’ll talk a little more about my mom instead.

My mom likes men and women, which makes people call her bisexual. I don’t know why it sounds weird, but it does because her name is Jake, and goes by he and him, and his I guess. Another weird thing is that he won’t tell me where I came from since his wife, I thought, had given birth to me. I don’t resemble her or dad though, so over the years I’ve wondered who my real parents were. Mom has never told me where I come from, and he doesn’t like it when I talk about this that much.

I have a friend who’s adopted, his name is Tobias Mumford, and he sometimes tells people that they have no idea what it feels like to be adopted, and says that his life is a giant question mark. I guess his parents told him that he was adopted because they thought he could handle it. Most of the time he doesn’t talk about it, but he’ll bring it up when someone says they hate their parents, which I think is kind of bad since I don’t see how hating your parents makes sense. I get angry at my mom sometimes, but he’s still there to take care of me, even if I act like a jerk, like my uncle calls me. I’ll talk about him in a minute, he’s not important right now.

Sometimes, when Tobias starts talking about how tough his life is (it really isn’t but he says it is) I like to imagine that maybe Tobias and I both came from a secret location that our parents aren’t allowed to tell us about, like some far-off place where kids are kept, not to be hurt or anything. I’ve seen pictures and videos about kids being trafficked...I’m pretty sure that’s the word. My mom won’t let me watch a lot of that stuff, he says that it’s too disturbing and that it will give me nightmares. But I think that it’s better to know, even though it is really disturbing to think that people actually steal kids and do all sorts of horrible things with them.

I’m rambling again, aren’t I? Shoot, I don’t mean to do it but I just get going and...

Anyway. I like to imagine that Tobias and I might have come from some top secret location where they keep kids until they’re able to be adopted, or maybe trained to take down the bad people in this world. One problem with this fantasy is that there are bad people all over the world that still get to do what they want, so it’s obvious that it wouldn’t be real. But I like it anyway, since it sounds cool to think about a secret organization that might train people from the time they’re kids to protect other people. But it would be better if they were taught how to be regular people too. But that might be a problem too, wouldn’t it? What kind of regular person would want to stay in a secret facility all their lives to train for something that wouldn’t work anyway?

Some of my friends say that I’m too logical, that I tear apart any fantasy that people think of by asking really logical questions. I can’t help it sometimes. I like fantasy and science fiction, I like writing my own stories and making them into something cool. But my brain still forces logic on everything, even when I don’t want it to. I guess there are a lot of logical ways to look at fictional stories, but sometimes my mind won’t let me just enjoy it. My friends have learned to deal with this, but my mom doesn’t like it when we’re watching TV or a movie together and I start asking questions about one thing or another.

He doesn’t yell at me that I’m being stupid, but he does say that I need to learn how to ‘think around corners’ and not be so literal. I’m nine years old, I know what a lot of what he’s saying means, but I don’t know how to shut off my brain sometimes and just enjoy things. When I’m on my own I think I can do it, since my room becomes a different world when I want it to, and the world around me becomes different when I’m on my own. But some people don’t appreciate this. Even my friends feel that I’m a little weird, but they play along and ask me what I see when I look around.

Sometimes they enjoy it.

When I think about Tobias and myself, my mom doesn’t like it when I say me and Tobias since it’s not proper grammar I guess, I like to imagine that fantasy of coming from a secret location. It’s a place high in the mountains somewhere, funded by a shadowy government agency that, I dunno, wants to raise kids to be government spies, or special agents, or something. But they don’t make everyone into spies, or agents, but instead they let some of them become adopted, if they’re wanted, and stuff. I need to work with this idea, but it’s a cool one I think since it could be a good story that Tobias might like, I think. I don’t know, I start thinking about ideas like this and then I find that I kind of lose interest now and then.

But my mom has told me that I can put things ‘on the back burner’. I’m not supposed to do much with the stove when mom isn’t around, but he lets me cook when he’s home, so that’s fun. But mom has heard this idea of mine about the story, and he’s said that he supports my writing, and that makes me feel good. I just wish I was better at it.

Mom says I do fine, but I need to ‘flesh out my story’. That sounds kind of gross, but I’ve learned that it means to build things up and to make sure the story has everything it needs. It still sounds gross, but I get it at least. Mom is always asking how my writing is going, and I always tell her what’s going on, since he cares enough to ask. Plus, my mom gives me tips and points about writing sometimes, and that helps. It’s been able to help me come up with an idea to name the shadow government the Cradle, because