“This prescription is for the yellow kind and I need the pink kind. The Percodan,” she was saying.
I had a thing about fat people. It was the same thing I had about skinny people: I hated their guts. After a few minutes, a nurse told me to follow her through the office. We passed an unframed poster of hot rods and another poster of kittens inside a top hat. The nurse pointed to a man in a flannel shirt holding a yellow legal pad. He resembled a retired WWF wrestler. His eyes hid behind folds of skin and raised moles and eyebrows badly in need of plucking. He needed a shave too. Most men have no idea how to groom themselves. From where his shirt puckered between the buttons, I could tell he wasn’t wearing anything under the flannel. Wiry black hairs lay across his gut. He smelled like old food.
“Are you a real doctor?” I asked him.
He steered me onto a greasy examination table.
“So you’ve got something wrong with you,” he said, looking at the form.
“I try to throw up all the food I eat, but I’m still fat,” I said. “And the rash.” I pulled up my sleeve.
The doctor took a step back. “You ever wash your sheets?”
“Yes,” I lied. “So what’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not one to judge,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
? ? ?
As good-looking as I was, I was scared nobody would ever marry me. I had small hands. They were like a girl’s hands, but with hair. Nobody marries men with hands like that. When I fit my fingers down my throat, it’s easy. My fingers are thin, soft. When I put them down there, it’s like a cool breeze. That’s the best way I can explain it.
“Uncle,” I said on the phone. “Can I do some laundry at your place?”
“Sure,” he replied. “Come on over. But bring your own laundry detergent. And some Diet Coke!”
My uncle lived off the 101. I stopped at Albertsons for the detergent and Diet Coke. I also bought a cheesecake and a carrot cake. I used my EBT card. I never had any shame about that damn EBT card. I got a large coffee and some cigarettes from the gas station next door, too. I didn’t really smoke. I just lit the cigarettes and carried them around my uncle’s house. It covered the smell decently.
“Look at my boy,” hollered my uncle, wobbling up out of his recliner. He had a pair of spruce green leather recliners about a foot away from a gigantic television. It was the kind of television they put in hotel lobbies. All he did was watch TV or talk on the phone or eat. He loved game shows and cooking shows. I’m not saying he was an idiot. He was just like me: anything good made him want to die. That’s a characteristic some smart people have.
“Hi,” I said.
My uncle’s robe was hanging open. I could see that damn colostomy bag.
“Tell me,” he said as I took out the cakes. “You seeing anybody these days?”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to jinx it,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You always let me down.”
We sat in the recliners. I ate the cheesecake and my uncle ate the carrot cake. We watched the end of a movie called While You Were Sleeping. My uncle emptied his colostomy bag, and then I sent that cheesecake down the toilet. I put the laundry in. I drank some coffee and went back to the toilet to throw up some more. When I was done, I picked up my uncle’s razor and shaved the hair off my knuckles. I showed them to my uncle.
“Somebody should rub my feet with those hands, but not you,” he said.
I sat down, sniffed the air, and lit a cigarette.
“I’m still not feeling well,” I said. “And I’m broke.”
“I won’t give you any money,” he answered. “But if you cut the grass, I’ll pay you for your time.”
“How much time?”
“Twenty bucks’ worth.”
“I’ll consider your offer and get back to you,” I said. My uncle liked official talk like that.
“Looking forward to it,” he replied. Then he reached under his robe and shuffled the bag around. My eyes rolled.
We watched Law & Order, then Oprah, then Days of Our Lives.
I cut the grass.
? ? ?
I’d gone out on dates before. Nothing really spectacular ever happened. One girl had been a nun when she was younger. I liked her, but she was always talking about herself. It was like she was waiting for something in my face to light up, and nothing ever did.
“I am not a character in a television show,” I explained. “All I want to do is see your naked body, then reevaluate.”
She followed me to the restroom. We were at an Asian bistro in Century City. The bathroom was polished concrete. The lighting was cold and dim. She revealed herself one half at a time. First the shirt off, then back on, then the skirt down, then back up. We dated for a few weeks—just heavy petting, nothing in and out. Finally I lied and told her I had contracted cat scratch fever from a neighbor’s kitten and needed time to recover, alone. She stopped calling eventually.
Only once did I pick up a prostitute. I found her sitting on the curb outside the Super 8 near Little Armenia. She had a clear plastic bag for her belongings: a small makeup case, a pair of running shoes, two bananas, and a plastic flower.
“How do I seem to you?” I asked up in the motel room. “How do I smell?”
“You smell like air freshener,” she said. “You smell like nothing.”
“Great,” I said. I took my shirt off. “Am I fat?” I asked her. She squinted her eyes and smushed her lips together.
“You’re not skinny, and you’re not fat,” she said. The way she pointed her finger reminded me of my high-school principal.
“Does my face look swollen?” I asked her.
“What do you mean?” she said.
She pulled a banana out of her plastic bag and started to peel it.
“Can you see my pimples from there?” I asked. She was sitting on the linty bedspread. I went and stood by the window.
“Yeah, anybody can,” she said.
I took a few steps away into the shade. “How about now?”
“I can still see them,” she said.
I drew the blinds and asked again. She nodded.
Then I sat down next to her and splayed my hands out on the bed.
“What do you think about these?” I asked.
Nobody ever gave me the answer I wanted. Nobody ever said, “Oh, so beautiful!”