Man has aspired to flight from time immemorial.
In the winter of 1971 my New Yorker friend Eddie fantasized about soaring in a glider. He had one big problem. Eddie weighed 450 pounds.
THE FLIGHT OF A FAT MAN recounts Eddie’s achieving his dream thanks to a teenage girl from the South Shore. Sookie had the opposite eating disorder. She ate nothing and she helped Eddie do the same.
Here’s a sample of this tale.
THE FLIGHT OF A FAT MAN
By Peter Nolan Smith
CHAPTER 1
Fat people were a rarity in 1970. Jonathan Winters was the only one on TV, none resided in my suburban neighborhood south of Boston, and only a few attended my university. I had one fat friend. His name was Wayne.
We worked together at a chain discount store next to the Quincy Shipyard. Our duties consisted of restocking the cosmetic aisles with mouthwash, shampoo, deodorants, and toothpastes along a multitude of menial tasks. This job required little physical exertion and even less mental strain, which suited the chubby 22 year-old Bronx native just fine.
My parents had higher expectations for their second son and one December afternoon, as we collected shopping carts from the snowy parking lot, I asked Wayne, “Aren’t you looking to get more from life than working at this dead-end job?”
“Don’t knock it. My salary covers my needs. No one gives me shit, plus if God expected me to make something of my life, then he would have given me a rock star’s body instead sticking me with one better suited for a sumo wrestler.” Wayne weighed over 240 pounds. He was the only employee without a store uniform. None of the light blue shirts were sized for a XXX body.
“Too bad you weren’t born in Japan.” Sumo wrestlers were honored in that country like football players were in the USA.
“Then I’d have to eat raw fish.” Wayne shivered with revulsion and steered the line of shopping carts across the uneven asphalt. Perspiration stained his shirt. It didn’t take much for him to sweat.
“I ate whale once.” A fish shop in Haymarket Square offered it for sandwiches.
“That’s almost cannibalism. Whales are mammals.” He cleaned his smudged glasses with a paper towel. “You wouldn’t eat Flipper, would you?”
“No, and I only had whale once.” The meat tasted better than beef.
“Glad to hear it.” Wayne guided the carts into the store. “You coming over after work?”
“I really should get home.” I had to study for my German 101 exam.
My parent’s house was nine miles away. No buses ran to my hometown from the store. Hitchhiking home could take two hours.
“I’ll get my old man to give you a ride.” Wayne’s stepfather worked the late-shift at Shipyard. “I have the new Love LP.”
“Okay, but just for a little while.” I loved Arthur Lee and figured that translating Kafka’s DAS URTEIL could wait till midnight.
The store closed at 9 and we tramped up the hill to his street. Thousands of stars swam in winter sky. Wayne huffed every step of the way. It was a good thing he didn’t smoke cigarettes.
Wayne lived in a double-decker house with his parents. His mother was hillbilly thin and his stepfather was a sliver of muscle and bones. He welded steel plates on Navy ships.
Wayne gave the old man a bottle of Boone’s Farm and his mother $30 every payday. The rest of his income was spent on his extensive record collection.
“How was work?” His mother was happy to see us.
“Work sucked.” Wayne spoke his mind with her.
“Better than sitting on a park bench.”
His mother reheated meat loaf and mashed potatoes. They tasted good after the cold. Wayne had two helpings.
After dinner we went upstairs to his bedroom. It accommodated a bed, table, two chairs, a sofa, black-and-white TV, and a stereo. The windows overlooked the Fore River. His Pioneer stereo system was light-years ahead of my parents’ Zenith Hi-Fi. Nearly 2000 LPs were alphabetically stacked against one wall according to genres.
Wayne picked up a double LP from his coffee table and pushed back his greasy long hair. I had never seen him use a comb.
“You know I could steal records out of the store real easy.” My friend, Mitch, headed the record department.
“I don’t want any trouble and I got money for records.” Wayne unwrapped the plastic from Love’s OUT HERE and placed the LP on the turntable. The first song was SIGNED DC. I had heard it once on WBCN.
“I’ll do it then.” I owed him a good Christmas present.
“Don’t be stupid.” Wayne joined me on the sofa and lit up a joint.
“I won’t be stupid.” I should have realized that ’stupid’ was every 18 year-old boy’s middle name.
The next morning I took my final exam of the semester. I needed the full two hours to fill out everything I knew about Kafka in the booklet. I could speak German, but my spelling in that language was as bad as it was in English and I was counting on my teacher’s warm heart to avoid a failing mark.
Professor Klein knew my high school teacher, Bruder Karl. They both hailed from Bavaria. I handed in my test and wished Fraulein Klein ‘Wieher Christmas’.
The next day of school wasn’t until January 10.
A few days later my test results arrived in the mail. I had passed all my courses and Professor Klein had given me a C- in German. I was safe from the draft board for another six months.
There was still two weeks till Christmas and the store needed extra help for the holiday, so I worked double shifts Monday to Saturday. Wayne was also pulling overtime.
Three days before Christmas we punched out at closing. He buttoned up a thick overcoat with a fake fur collar and pulled a cheap Chinese Army cap with flaps onto his head. I wore a ski parka, jeans, and Fyre boots. As we passed the records department, I grabbed two LPs; Wes Montgomery’s A DAY IN THE LIFE and the Mother’s of Inventions’ FREAK OUT.
“You said you weren’t doing anything stupid.” Wayne waddled toward the exit. He moved fast for his size.
“No one will stop us.”
I waved to the two girls at the cash registers. They were counting out the night’s take. Marie was sweet on Wayne. Sookie was skinnier than the super-model Twiggy and I liked the way she looked, but twenty year-old girls weren’t so interested in younger boys.
“You’re on your own.” Wayne opened the glass door. The air was cold and he cursed under his breath. “Shit.”
The twenty year-old assistant-manager was trailing us into the parking lot. His title added 30 cents to the minimum wage of $1.45/hour. This extra wealth gave him the delusion that he was a big deal with the checkout girls. They called him ‘Mr. Pizza-face’ behind his back.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Wayne was holding an ounce of pot. Possession was a felony in the State of Massachusetts and I flicked the LPs under a black 1965 Thunderbird.
“Stop right there.” The assistant manager shouted behind us.
“What for?” Wayne’s words turned to frozen mist.
“I saw you steal those records.” The assistant-manager eyed our hands.
“What fucking records?” Wayne was tough for a fat boy. His older brother ran with a biker gang in Pomona.
“You can’t talk to me like that?” The assistant-manager stepped within Wayne’s reach.
“I can talk anyway I want once I punched out.”
“Tell me where those records are or you’re both fired.” The assistant-manager’s voice peaked an octave.
“Then fire me.” Wayne bumped into the skinny twenty year-old’s chest.
“That’s assault.” The assistant-manager spun toward the store. His loafers lost traction and he slipped on the snow, hitting the ground face-first.
Both of us laughed, as the assistant-manager scrambled to his feet like a duck running on ice. Blood streamed from his nose.
“I’ll show you funny. I’m calling the cops.” He stomped off to the store.
“It was funny.” Wayne pointed to the T-bird. “Get those records.”
“Are we giving them back?” This was my first act of larceny.
“Fuck no.” He walked off to his house. “We’re getting rid of the evidence. You take the back way to my place.”
I crawled under the car. A little snow was on top of the records. I brushed them off and then ran from the parking lot in a crouch.
Wayne was waiting on his porch. He checked the street for the cops and then ushered me inside. His mother had food on the table; a tuna-and-cheese casserole. We ate without talking about work.
After dinner his stepfather watched HARPER’S VALLEY PTA on the TV. A cigarette died between his fingers and Wayne plucked the smoldering butt out of the old man’s fingers. His mother waved for us to leave them alone and we climbed the stairs to his room.
“Merry Christmas.” I handed him the two records.
“And Happy New Year to you.”
Wayne laid FREAK OUT on the turntable and loaded the bong with Panama Red. We listened to HELP I’M A ROCK in a reefer haze and harmonized to the chorus.
Two hours later the checkout girls entered the bedroom. Marie threw off her long sheepskin coat and sat on Wayne’s lap. I hadn’t realized that they were seeing each other. Her friend, Sookie, stood in the corner like she had passed a curfew.
“You guys are lucky.” Marie’s breasts were nearly popping out of her store uniform. Some boys might have called her chubby. To Wayne she was the new Jayne Mansfield. He liked his girls big.
“Lucky how? We got fired.” No one in my family had been fired in two generations.
“The assistant manager wanted to call the cops.” The blonde cashier had graduated from Weymouth High School last summer. She planned on attending beautician school in the Spring. Her make-up was impeccable. “He said you beat him up. I told the management that he had slipped on the snow. The manager ordered him back to work.”
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