Fat kid rules the world Read online

  Meanwhile, I am a giant lump watching this virtuoso one-man performance. I don’t even have it in me to be the audience. All I can do is ache until my skin feels parched and stretched from wishing I were him. He’s on his knees leaning backward, making crazy punk rock faces and I swear he doesn’t give a shit what he looks like. I know without a doubt that Curt would play this guitar part in the same way no matter where we were. Live and in concert.

  I want that. I want it bad. I shift my huge rolls of fat until I’m poised to move.

  But then it’s too late. The song ends and Curt takes a couple ragged breaths before falling backward to the floor. He runs his hand over his guitar appreciatively.

  “Shit,” he says, “that was awesome.”

  It occurs to me then that the last time I let myself go—truly let loose—was a long time ago. In fact, it was third grade. Kelsey Drexler’s birthday party right before my mom died.

  Kelsey Drexler was the love of my preteen life, a cute little brunette, who’d invited me personally. Her little brother Wally started a water balloon fight and Kelsey and I ran around her yard half-naked, screaming bloody murder. I was eight and didn’t know enough not to be insanely happy. Mom was still alive. I was still a twig. People liked me. It’s been a lifetime and 230 pounds since I felt that way. Until today.

  Watching Curt, I make a conscious choice to try to let loose. I don’t throw myself around the room playing air guitar, but I do sing along and even scream a couple times when I forget not to. Curt cranks the music and every time a song ends we engage in vicious battles over what to put on next. I grin the whole time because no one ever fights with me anymore. Even Dayle just despises me loudly, but Curt swears up a storm when he doesn’t get his way, which ends up being never because once he gets around to calling me a “fuckface bastard with no musical intuition” I always give in. I have the distinct impression he’s enjoying my company.

  All the while it’s getting darker and darker, and in the back of my mind I’m worrying, truly I am, but I keep thinking, Carpe Fucking Diem. I am the Fat Kid and I am having fun.

  18.

  WHOEVER MADE UP THAT STUPID “seize the day” expression was never a teenager. Never a distorted mockery of a human being. There is no seizing. There is no control. Life gives, life takes away.

  Everything changes when Curt looks at the clock.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit. We’ve got to get out of here.” The clock hits the sixth chime and Curt morphs into Cinderella—the anorexic princess, not the heavy metal band with the big hair. He starts shoving records into boxes like a madman. He stands up, sits down, stands up again, gathers a bunch of CDs, lets half of them spill, doesn’t seem to notice…. He’s a flurry of motion. A cartoon character on fast-forward.

  “What? What’s going on?” I ask, but Curt doesn’t answer. He’s too busy being frantic.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit …” He dumps the CDs in an empty box and trips over me as he tries to get out the door. He sets down the box, runs back in, grabs his sneakers, and puts them on as he runs back out.

  I try to lift myself off the floor, but it’s a slow process. I have to disentangle from the records and claw at the wall to pull myself up. My stubby fingers have no grip.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask again as Curt digs through the CDs like a maniac. He takes out six seemingly random ones and shoves them in my hands.

  “Listen to these. A lot.”

  He stands still for approximately two seconds, then stashes his guitar under the piano and heads for the kitchen. My afternoon has just gone from idyllic childhood nostalgia to the wrong side of an episode of Cops.

  “What’re you doing?” I huff, my voice rising an octave. “Where are you going?”

  Curt ignores me. “Yeah, sorry.” He grabs a plastic Kmart bag, takes a Coke and a package of bologna from the refrigerator, and stashes them inside.

  “Back door,” he orders. He doesn’t say it to me, but I follow anyway. I want to jump up and down, wave my huge fleshy arms, but he’s busy unearthing a door to the back alley that just moments ago was blocked by the world’s entire supply of used mops. Curt lets them spill all over the floor then pushes the door as far as it will go. The alley is narrow, and the space created is approximately six inches wide. I stare at it forlornly, but Curt doesn’t notice because he’s madly squeezing his rail-thin body through the gap. I panic.

  “I won’t fit,” I say, huffing. “I won’t fit!”

  Curt pops out the other side like a watermelon emerging from the birth canal. The bologna falls out of the Kmart bag, and Curt stops for a fraction of a second to pick it up. He looks at me and grins sloppily. It’s a sorry grin. A hey-better-luck-next-time grin. But it’s still a grin. He turns and takes off running.

  I’m left watching the exact spot where Curt disappeared. I listen to the hum of the old refrigerator and wonder what the hell just happened. The kitchen is dark, but bathed in red neon light from the living room and green neon light from the microwave clock. Ho-ho-ho. It’s the Fat Kid Christmas Special.

  The evidence of our invasion is strewn everywhere and I realize if someone comes back now I’m dead meat. See page two for the subway scenario. Minus the preserved leg.

  I trace my steps backward, huffing as I go. The house is creepy and I have gooseflesh. Acres of it. I start toward the living room then realize my sneakers are still under the bed and have to turn back. I push my way into the minuscule bedroom, squat down, and reach my fleshy hand under someone else’s bed.

  My fingers close over first one sneaker, then the other. As I pull them out, the back of my hand brushes against something furry, something that feels like a severed head. Holy shit, I think, it’s all over. I’m going to hurl. I leap backward, crashing into the dresser, and a thousand perfume bottles tinkle to the ground.

  I put on my sneakers but don’t tie them, then bolt as if my life depends on setting the world record for cross-apartment sprinting.

  Imagine a rabid elephant. That’s me. I pound through the living room, shaking mirrors and antique ornaments as I go. A set of glass spangles tinkle loudly, and I knock over a green vase, splashing water onto the floor. I don’t stop. I head for the front door and don’t breathe until my sweaty hand grasps the doorknob. The door creaks open and then …

  Nothing. Silence. There’s no one there.

  I step into the brightly lit hallway looking for the distorted white mask of the serial killer from Scream, but there’s only a discarded umbrella, two sets of mud-caked boots, and an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. My panic subsides.

  I shuffle down the hall bolstered by the light, then open the two doors to the outside. A blast of fresh air carries the scent of exhaust. The quiet of the apartment is replaced by the sound of car horns and distant reggae. A man and woman are approaching the front door just as I exit. The man lurches forward and the woman is smoking a cigarette, digging around in her purse.

  “Fuck,” she says under her breath.

  I pass them and the man turns around to stare.

  “Holy shit, Hazel. You see that kid? That kid was, like, three hundred pounds.”

  The woman doesn’t look up from her purse, but she sighs so loud I can hear it all the way down the street.

  “Lay off the booze, Jake,” she says. “Ain’t no such thing as a three-hundred-pound kid.”

  19.

  I SHOULD BE PISSED.

  Curt left. He bailed. He stole stuff, made a mess, ditched me.

  But he also showed me his records. And talked to me the whole day, pretending I was going to be his drummer at a real gig. He set up my daring escape.

  I can’t stop grinning. I sit on the subway train taking up three seats while all the straphangers glare. I ought to be hating Curt, but all I do is wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

  I grin all the way home and arrive approximately seven minutes before Dad will walk through the front door. Dayle is waiting in the kitchen.

  “Where have you been?�
� he demands. He’s standing in his socks and boxers cooking a half dozen eggs. Dayle’s always on some special diet to gain or lose weight depending on the sports season. When it’s football season he has to gain weight, so he eats obsessively, but when it’s wrestling season he has to lose it all to wrestle in the lower weight class, so he lives for weeks on a carrot and a glass of water. It’s fall, so he’s trying to gain. The eggs sizzle in the pan and my stomach rumbles.

  “What do you care?” I snarl. But I’m hoping he’ll give me one of his eggs. “I was with Curt. Practicing. Hey, can I have one of those?”

  Dayle makes a face; the funny kind he used to make when we were kids. Back when he just pretended to be annoyed with me. I think that means he’s going to give me one, but he doesn’t.

  “Get your own,” he says.

  I reach for a donut instead.

  “You skipped the whole day, you know,” Dayle adds, as if he’s informing me of something. “I could totally tell Dad. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to have my senior sumo brother seen in public with that psycho guitar player?”

  I pause with the donut halfway to my mouth. Immediately, I sense that something has changed. Curt has progressed from homeless trash to a psycho guitar player. And Dayle is trying to converse with me.

  I put the donut down, and grab a plate and fork from the dish drainer. I stab one of his eggs and slide it onto my plate. “He is a psycho guitar player,” I say. “In fact, we almost got arrested today for breaking and entering … but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear about that.”

  Dayle glares at me and I smile. I turn and carry my plate into the living room, grabbing the donut on my way out. Fuck you, I think, trying to stifle a grin.

  FAT KID RULES THE WORLD.

  20.

  THURSDAY, A GIRL INTENTIONALLY speaks to me for the first time. She stands next to me with her silky legs crossed, holding her books to her chest. She says, “So, do you really know Curt MacCrae?”

  I should say, “No—who the hell does?” but instead I say, “Yeah. We’ve got a band.”

  She giggles. The books slide and I try not to stare at her chest.

  “I saw Curt play with Smack Metal Puppets once. He’s really good. Is it true he’s, like, twenty-one?”

  I don’t know the answer, but I nod as if I do. She bites her lip.

  “My friend thinks Curt will be on MTV someday. I said he wouldn’t sell out like that but she said it wouldn’t be selling out if he kept the intensity of his music. He’s real … authentic. You know?”

  I do know. I also know there’s a response expected of me, but I can’t imagine what it is. I can’t talk because I’m terrified I’ll huff and she’ll laugh. I say nothing.

  “Well, see you around,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say, watching her slide away from me. “See you around.”

  21.

  THE NEXT TIME I SEE CURT it’s by accident. I’m walking to the F train at Washington Square, daydreaming about the girl in the cafeteria, wondering if by any chance Dayle saw her talking to me. It’s Saturday and I’m coming back from a dentist appointment.

  I’m happy because I’m thinking about the girl, but I’m bummed because Dayle was supposed to go to the dentist, too, but he wouldn’t. No big deal. Except I keep remembering how it was after Mom got sick when he was too little to ride the subway by himself. I’d hold his hand and put his token in the slot like a real big brother. That was a long time ago, before I caused him mortal embarrassment. Before he turned into a self-centered asshole.

  We don’t talk about it, ever, but when Mom was dying and Dad had to spend all his time at the hospital, it was me and Dayle. Buddies. Pals. I swear to God he looked up to me. I don’t have any proof, but I remember the way he’d follow me around the apartment and try to get me to play basketball at the park. I was never good at sports, even when I was thin, but in those days I could still make it to the court and back.

  Now Dad plays basketball with Dayle. Twice a week. And I invite him to the dentist’s office. No wonder he hates me….

  Still, he could’ve come.

  The whole thing makes me tired and I wish there were someplace to sit down. My flesh moves like silicone weights around my waist, arms, and legs, and I feel people’s eyes boring into me. I feel my body growing larger as they stare and can’t help thinking about the last time I went anywhere with Dayle. That was last week, right before I met Curt. We were walking together and Dayle was pissed because he had to walk really slowly. As if that’s a crime … Then there was this group of kids near the stairs.

  I mentally rewrite the whole scene. Next time, when they laughed, I wouldn’t let them laugh at Dayle, too. I’d say something. I’d defend us…. I’d say, “Fuck off, morons.” Or else maybe I’d say, “Get a life.” No, wait. Those sound stupid. I try to think what a punk rock drummer would say.

  I’m about to come up with the perfect retort when I hear this amazing voice filling the underground passage. There’s a guitar grinding away and the voice is deep and tortured, filled with a rage that sounds real yet amazingly melodic. There’s something raw and familiar about it. Something I recognize. I round the corner and shuffle faster.

  Sure enough. There he is.

  Curt’s got his amp plugged into the floor socket and he’s intent on his guitar. He looks small and pale behind it, but he’s got a large crowd standing around listening. More people stop as he breaks into a cross between a wail and a shout and the guitar crescendos like a siren. It’s a primitive blending. Makes me think of wild animal orgies.

  I try to listen for the things Curt told me about music. I hear some of them—the way the chords and the chorus don’t quite fit, and the rhythms sound angular and unbalanced. It’s intense, almost obscene, but women in power suits and men in horn-rimmed glasses are clapping enthusiastically, throwing money into the waiting bucket. Curt doesn’t thank them. He doesn’t even acknowledge them—just leans down and scoops out their dollar bills.

  I stand there, a mute idiot agonizing over whether to speak. I decide I won’t say anything because I don’t want him to think I searched him out. Good decision, right? Don’t want him to think I need anything more than he’s already given me.

  Curt sees me right away.

  “Big T!” He’s about to start another song but stops and unplugs his guitar. Just like that. He picks up the bucket and shoves his amp awkwardly inside. Apparently, the show’s over. Moms with strollers and little old men linger, confused, before dispersing.

  “Hey,” Curt says, jogging up to me. “I’ve been, you know, looking for you.”

  Of course it’s a lie but the tips of my ears turn red anyway. Curt hands me the bucket and amp. “Carry this for me?” He flips his guitar onto his back while I glance around hoping everyone sees that I’m now carrying Curt’s amp. They don’t seem to care.

  “You were good,” I say at last. Curt grins.

  “Wait until we get your drum part in there, man. Oooh, yeah. Couldn’t you hear it? I hear it in my head … when I’m playing. You’ll be perfect, T. Perfect.”

  He’s hyper today, dancing ahead of me, running back to let me catch up. A kid without his Ritalin. I wonder where we’re going.

  “Curt,” I say at last. “I’m not so sure I can really, actually, well, play the drums.” I lick my teeth.

  Curt misses a beat, but only one. His smile returns like a boomerang.

  “No way, man,” he breathes. “All you gotta do is hit ’em hard. That’s all you gotta do.”

  I want to argue. If I wasn’t such a pathetic stooge I would argue, but Curt keeps nodding to himself, so I let him. I shuffle along, grinning a clandestine grin while Curt darts ahead, a denizen ferret of the underground, huge black guitar slung over his shoulder.

  22.

  WE END UP AT MY apartment building. Curt’s suggestion.

  Actually, he gets on the subway with me and follows me all the way home. We’re secret agents on the same mission, both prete
nding we don’t know where we’re going. DOUBLE-O FAT KID AND CURT POWERS. Minus the chicks. Every woman who gets on the subway migrates quickly to the opposite end.

  We get out at the Second Avenue station, then walk to my apartment. It’s not far, but Curt has to walk real slow in order to pretend he’s not following me and I can tell it’s hard for him. After a while he gives up and walks ahead of me.

  I hesitate when we reach the front steps, but Curt doesn’t. He waits for me to unlock the security door, then walks right inside like he belongs there. I’ve lived here seventeen years and still can’t do that. Curt even nods at my downstairs neighbor who’s standing in the hallway. She nods back but stares at me with disgust. Skinny old hag … I ignore her and carry the amp up the stairs.

  I’m soaked in sweat when we get to the top. I’m breathing heavy and my T-shirt is clinging to my chest. Curt takes the bucket back while I open the door with my key. He slips inside as soon as the door is open, looks around, and nods in satisfaction at the empty apartment. I double over, catching my breath.

  Curt doesn’t wait. He moves straight toward my room, takes off his guitar, props it against the wall, then pretends to be scanning my stuff while really he searches for his CDs. I watch from the hallway as he spots them on the floor next to my mattress, scoops them up, and drops them in his bucket. He looks relieved, then sheepish.

  “You have got to … I mean, really you should do something about this room,” he says. “You’ve got nothing up here. No Big T trinkage or any such sort of thing. Where are the band posters? Where’s the graffiti?” He frowns disapprovingly, then turns his gaze to me. “And you must spice up those clothes, man. Not for the sake of spiciness per se, but simply because they’re not you. There’s no Big T in your big Ts.”