prev fat on the inside next
2001-08-12 | 12:39 p.m.

In the grocery store with Felony last night, we stopped in front of the ice cream case. A nondescript man, early '40s, red hair, walked up behind us, looking at the ice cream, too. I said, "I don't see any Tin Roof Sundae, do you?" I was talking to Felony, but the man said, jovially, "It's in the fat-free section!"

Call his bluff. "Is it really?" I said calmly.

"I was just joking," he said.

I guess he wanted to make sure I felt bad about wanting to buy ice cream, because I am fat. Some people are like that. I don't think he had any business trying to embarrass me in front of my daughter, but he seemed very pleased with himself. I reached down and steered Felony away from him, away from the ice cream, away from the scene of the crime. I could see him smiling through the glass door of the ice cream case as he bent to retrieve a carton.

"I guess insults are on the list tonight," I said to Felony, a little cryptically. I'm sure he heard me, but he just kept smiling, like the cat who ate the canary. She didn't seem to understand what had happened, so I just let it go. But in the car I started to cry. At least when you're fat, I thought, it's easier to pick your enemies out of a crowd. When you're thin, it's harder to tell the assholes from everybody else.

I know because I was thin once. When I was 22, 23, I did a lot of crystal meth. I could wear size 10 jeans. Not as thin as Nancy Reagan, but thin for me. But there are side effects to using speed that aren't terribly pleasant. Your personality, for one thing, is all asshole, all the time. But I had big hair and loads of admirers. Still, I wasn't truly happy. I was so dehydrated that the backs of my hands cracked and bled. I was very weak. I had lost a lot of muscle because when I did eat, I didn't eat right. I loved Carnation Breakfast Bars and that's pretty much all I ate. A kind of glorified candy bar. When my teeth started coming loose, I decided to quit doing crank. Plus, I had been stealing it from my sister and I wanted to stop before I got caught. I quit cold turkey on New Year's Day.

The experts will tell you that amphetamines are not physically addicting, only psychologically addicting, but I can tell you that coming off it is no walk in the park. Mostly because if you've been doing it for a long time, your body is thrashed. Coming down, I slept for three days straight, then laid in bed even longer, unable to move. I had told Brian what I was doing and he had said, foolishly, that he wanted my sister to know. No, I told him, you can't tell her that. She'll kill me. He didn't seem to grasp that she would not be happy for me because I was kicking drugs, she would be mad at me for stealing from her. I begged him not to tell her, but he did it anyway. Then he came home, told me he had told her, and said he was going to his mother's house, many miles away, and wouldn't be back until late.

That was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. I'm not sure I ever felt so betrayed in my life, and I never forgave him for it.

I locked all the doors in the house and went into my office and hid inside the closet. I just sat there on the floor, trembling. I had no doubt that she was coming, I just hoped she wouldn't find me. I heard the rumble when she drove up our gravel driveway in her big truck. I heard her banging on the door, of course, yelling at me to open it, and then she kicked in one of the glass panes and unlocked the door and came inside. It didn't take her long to find me. She threw open the door and dragged me out by my hair. She beat the crap out of me, yelling at me, hitting me, yelling, hitting, kicking. She was so strong, she was flying, and I was so weak, I couldn't lift my arms to fight her off. I thought I might die.

Eventually, she left. I didn't blame her for being the person I knew her to be, but Brian I hated. I told him exactly what was going to happen, and he didn't believe me. And the worst had happened. He ignored me and let me get hurt. He didn't protect me even when I stood right in front of him and begged. And he just left me there. He brought this down on me and then he left. I know what I did was wrong, and I know what she did was wrong, but what he did was worst of all.

So. Getting beat up delayed my recovery by a couple more days, but eventually I got up. I remember walking unsteadily to the refrigerator, feeling hungry again for the first time in months. I stood there in front of the refrigerator and decided that I would never let myself get into that position again. If I got fat, so be it. I didn't care how fat I got, but I never wanted to be weak again. Being fat wasn't the worst thing in the world. Being dead was worse.

So yes, I am fat. The way I look at it, I have always been fat, even when I was thin. Sometimes I try this eating plan or that exercise, but mostly I like to keep myself well-insulated with Tin Roof Sundae. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to be thin without hurting myself in the process. But I'll always be fat on the inside.

prev archive next
0 comments