Pickett Fences: Fatty Acid
by Jim Pickett
There was that unmistakable
sound of horror swaddled in pity, a blend served with equal
parts condescension and hope for a better tomorrow. A sort
of gasp, and then a silence as full as a fat baby’s diapers.
I have heard this sound before.
I was talking with an old
friend, someone who has been my friend since the late 80’s.
We haven’t lived in the same city
much—he’s done San Francisco, natch, and is doing
New York now, natch natch—while I have kept my booty
deeply rooted here in the City of Broad Bottoms.
A Cowtown I adore thoroughly,
except the fact that there are disproportionately FAR too
many aforementioned bottoms here.
I stand before you today and
call for the immediate export of superfluous bottoms, you
know who you are, along with the simultaneous import of authentic,
bona fide, test-driven tops.
Can we get this on the radar
screen please?
So back to the terror. He
recently came to visit, my “New York” friend, and
prior to his triumphant arrival in this quaint little hamlet,
here on our beautiful midwestern shoreline, we were on the
phone plotting and making arrangements. This is when the awful
truth became known, and the world was now some kind of insane
Sustiva nightmare. Though I had uttered this awful truth before,
yes many times, it is my college-dropout guess that I had
been previously unable to pierce the dense layers of his denial,
self-absorption and time-share on Fire Island with the “right
people” mentality.
Ya know, you’d have thunk
I’d admitted to selling orphaned seven-year-olds from
Sierra Leone to Saddam Hussein who
in turn harvested their organs for cash to buy strippers for
Osama.
You’da thunk.
You’d have thunk I said,
“I have no desire, WHATSOEVER, to ever, EVER live in
New York.” Which I have said, more than twice, but even
that is not as scary as what did issue like antiretroviral
vomit from betwixt my foul, pursed lips.
Who knew I could be so shocking,
so gelatinous, so outré.
“Well doll,” I said,
calmly responding to his rather ludicrous proposition that
we meet at the gym, “my” gym. “As you may or
may not recall,” I continued clearly, firmly, “I
have no gym to call my own—as I have not worked out nary
a single day, Mary, since a cold gray May in 1994 when I said…
no more.”
Stunned. A shriek, followed
by a pause pregnant with Siamese octuplets, and then, “You
don’t work out?” The
desolation, the despair in his voice—was he crying? Mind
you, this is the man who used to laugh hysterically about
nipple ponies and steroid sissies, who was convinced pecs
and biceps were for other people. This is the man who is now
so deeply traumatized by my, “I don’t belong to
a gym,” announcement. But underneath the shriek and the
fertile
pause, there was a dash of hope, that perhaps I was just joking,
that, surely I was only acting like a silly nelly… “Oh
golly, there goes that wacky and unpredictable sense of humor,
oh you slay me! I thought maybe dementia was
setting in… like you don’t have a gym.”
“No hon… I…
DON’T…”
Nope. I don’t work out,
aight? My six-pack’s on the inside, umkay? I’m eating
for two, maybe three now. And no matter how many times I “accidentally”
fall down the stairs or loll in chemical spills, I continue
to eat for two, maybe three. Babies are tougher than we give
them credit for.
I don’t have time neither,
anymore, like I used to, back in the old days, back when things
were different. I have a fascinating career now, that takes
me to fabulous places like Omaha and Springfield. The Simpsons
are on three times a day during the week now. I have more
lying on the couch to do, more naps to take, more stalking
on the internet, more downloading of porn, more international
long distance phone calls to dial than ever. And I require
a lot of time for reflection. It’s about balance. There’s
simply no room in my life for “working out.” Yes,
if I made it a priority, I’d make time. I could make
cuts. I could combine my couch time with my reflection time.
I could find twenty or thirty hours a week to go pump on the
iron, to go work, work, work, my body, to lie in wait in the
steam room, patiently, for hours…and hours… and
hours.
But ya know what? I don’t
fucking care. My couch is lovely. It’s a Jennifer convertible,
and I love her.
I buy my underwear on sale
at Marshall’s, my flat-ware is from the dollar store,
and I don’t know WHERE the hell the gym is anymore. And
despite all that, somehow I continue to survive—a big
fat cockroach clutching a can of Pringles and a nicely chilled
liter of Coke.
Hate me because I’m bigger.
Hate me because I’m better. Hate me because I will always
beat you.
But don’t hate me for
being bountiful.
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