The Fat Man
These are the tales of a man attempting to save the world. These are the stories of a man who sees the darkness and has chosen to fight rather than stand idly by. He is a bastion against entropy, evil, and the apocalypse that they threaten to incur. He is not a superhero. He is a simple man, who believes above all else that he can shoulder the burdens of the destitute, that he is obligated by birth to rescue the innocent and defenseless. These burdens will break him in the end, but not before he makes a difference.
The Fat Man
Every Saturday he dresses up for a day in the city. Today he grunts a bit and sweats a little as he bends to put on his pants. His shirt has been specially tailored to fully cover his belly. His belly freely hangs to his knees. The shirt has been made to conceal his unsightly obesity and tucks into his pants, which require no belt, as they are held up by the friction between the underside of his gut and what would be his lap. He is careful not to tear the seams as he slides on his sport coat. He has a little gel in his hair, and as he gives himself a light spray of expensive cologne (bought in France from a parfumerie that crafted its spicy floral balance just for him) he checks himself in the mirror. If he were 200 lbs lighter, he would be the kind of guy most women ask for. Well groomed, well dressed, his teeth are straight and clean, his eyes are green and lucid, chivalry and manners are integral factors of his nature, and he speaks with passion, and thought, and honesty, for the most part.
Today though, he is going to learn the same lesson that he learns every Saturday, when he leaves the safety of his home and drives into the city. He will deny it, ignore it, set his mind against it with all his might, but at the end of the day the lesson will win, and the dark truth will beat him down. The truth is that nobody will notice how well dressed he is. Nobody will notice his expensive watch. Few will come close enough to smell his delightful perfume. No one will notice his bright-eyed smile. Of the few who will have conversations with him, none will last more than a couple sentences, mostly obligatory pleasantries. He won’t admit it yet, but at the end of the day, as he drives home, he will be broken. Not from arguing with the throngs of misguided fools, but from walking amongst hundreds of people and not being able to connect with even one, for even the briefest moment.
As he enters the city the sun is climbing in the sky and he has his window down to let the cool autumn air rush over his arm. Like a child, he occasionally plays with his hand in the wind stream, moving it in a serpentine motion with the resistance of the wind. It is a beautiful day. He pulls off of the highway, and at the stoplight he notices the people in the car next to him staring. He is wearing sunglasses so they do not realize that he sees them staring. They are young people, probably in college or just graduated. They do not make any lewd gestures, but by their expressions he guesses that they are discussing what a tragedy it must be to weigh as much as he does. They might be wondering how he fits in his car. His seat is as far back as it will go, he has a special extension for his seatbelt, and his belly rubs both the steering wheel and the floor between the seat and the pedals. They are likely talking about how it must hurt, how life must suck. The light turns green and he pulls away.
He parks his car on the 6th floor of a parking structure, and walks over to the elevator. The elevator doors open and the car is empty. He pushes the ground floor button, but then, as the doors begin to close, he hears hurried footsteps approaching. He holds the door open with his arm as a couple with a young girl approach. The man stops abruptly, a slightly surprised look on his face.
“There’s still room folks!” He says with a jolly smile.
“We… uh” the husband starts. His wife clutches his arm and whispers something about walking.
“We were going to take the stairs, But thanks anyways.” The wife says with a fake smile stretched so wide it makes her eyes squint.
They grab their little girl by her hood as she waves at him. She is maybe six years old, and doesn’t realize yet what an abomination he is. They turn around and start to walk back the way they came, back toward the stairs.
He strolls down the sidewalks for a couple blocks until he reaches the market. Perusing through the stands of handmade crafts and homegrown produce, he stops occasionally to buy some organic fruit, and fresh herbs, and small package of spice which the merchant insists will improve any meat dish. None of the merchants talk to him more than asking for their prices, and thanking him for his business as they hand him his change. When he asks simple questions about products he gets only short answers and it would seem that they suddenly have more important business than convincing this customer to buy their goods. He wanders on.
He is met with the same service as he stops in at various shops and stores in the shopping district. In a very reputable women’s clothing store he finds a jacket that he knows his assistant has been eyeing for over a month. Her birthday is next week. When he is finally able to get a sales associate to help him, he requests the jacket in a small size and waits patiently while it is retrieved. He hears the whispers in the back of the store, as the girls who work there are deeply confused at whom he could possibly be buying this for. While signing his credit card bill, he says with a warm smile,
“Thank you so much for your help ladies. I know she is going to love this.”
They smile their most professional smiles, and hand him his bag, with the jacket neatly folded inside. He walks out the door and into the cool evening air.
It is already late afternoon and the sun is hanging low in the sky. Having skipped lunch he decides to have one of his organic Asian pears as he walks back towards the parking structure. He has several blocks to go, but the stroll is pleasant as he waddles with shopping bags in one hand, and the pear in his other. The pear is sweet and crisp, and the grainy texture compliments it’s juiciness perfectly. Pears are a simple pleasure, that he simply loves.
For a few blocks he is the only person within eyesight, and this is when it happens. He comes to the corner of an alleyway and hears a scuffle in the shadows behind a dumpster. As he turns to look closer he sees the little girl from the elevator as she starts running toward him with wide frightened eyes. A hand reaches out and grabs her by the hood and pulls her back off of her feet. She lies on the dirty ground choking and crying. He now hears the father’s voice in a meek and negotiating tone, while his wife sobs in panic. He drops his bags and pear and walks into the dark alley with a powerful gait.
“What’s going on here?”
Two young punks have the parents cornered between the wall and the dumpster, both are wielding switchblades. One turns nervously to look at him.
They laugh nervously at him, and amidst a wave of profanity, they tell him to get out his wallet as well.
“I think these folks would appreciate it if you didn’t use such foul language around the little girl”
He moves closer to the girl who has gotten to her knees and is crying into her hands. He reaches down and touches the back of her head and she instinctively wraps her arms around his leg. The mother is only more scared and confused by this, and the father is so blinded by both his fear and his frustration that he obviously can’t think straight and is likely to make a very bad mistake very soon.
He takes his wallet from his jacket pocket. He pulls his keys from his pocket with his other hand and twirls them around his finger.
“You can have my wallet and my car if you leave these folks alone and refrain from swearing around the girl.”
They think this is funny and turn all of their attention toward him. They let him know that they can take the money and the car and still talk however they like, because they are in control. They punctuate this statement with even more profanity. They do not realize it yet, but they are starting to lose control. He gently pushes the girl off of his leg and looks down at her, smiles and tells her it will be all right.
He tosses the wallet over his shoulder away from the thugs and says “I asked you not to swear around the girl, can’t you see you are scaring her?”
They snigger at him with incredulous looks on their faces, and let him know, with more profanity that he has just made a costly mistake. He steps farther away from the girl so that the thugs’ rage is aimed well away from her. He now has his back almost to the opposite wall of the alley. One punk takes two quick steps and lunges toward him with his knife held out in front of him. He is much faster and more nimble than one might expect and he easily dodges the blade, taking the miscreant’s arm, and with one fluid motion he twists and thrusts. The foul-mouthed attacker’s head smashes against the wall at the same instant that his wrist snaps and the tendons in his shoulder begin to tear. The villain is out cold.
The second hooligan is surprised but not completely deterred at the sight of this. The mugger sidesteps in a very lupine fashion, looking for an opening, feeling for his chance.
He grasps the keys still in his hand, and stands up straight apologizing for hurting the first mugger. He begins to explain, but is cut short when the villain springs at him and stabs him just under the ribs.
They both tumble to the ground. The wind is knocked out of him as he stares up into the wild eyes of the attacker. In those eyes he sees little more than fear and anger, but mostly fear. The vile wretch straddles his gargantuan belly and slides the knife in to the hilt once more. He smiles and when his breath returns he whispers,
“I asked you not to swear around the little girl.”
His fist explodes into the underside of scoundrel’s jaw. The keys between his fingers pop through the skin and impale the vile tongue from through the mandible. Quickly he pushes the mugger off of him, before he can gurgle and spew blood on his nice shirt and jacket. It doesn’t matter though, his fine outfit has been ruined in the scuffle.
Slowly climbing to his knees and grunting to stand, he looks over at the family huddled behind the dumpster they are too busy sobbing, and grabbing, and hugging, and inspecting their daughter to stop him as he hobbles back to the corner, picks up his shopping bags and leaves.
In something of a trance, he walks to his car and then drives home. It is dark when he gets home, and as he walks inside he sets his parcels on the counter and goes straight to the bedroom. He pulls off his jacket and unbuttons his shirt. Inspecting his wounds, he lets out a disappointed grunt. After taking off his trousers and draping them over a chair at the foot of his bed, he unzips his back.
The padded suit falls off in a heavy thump, and lies like a big misshapen donut on the floor.
He never wears makeup or other prosthetics. The simply fact is that when people see his silhouette they don’t care enough to give him close inspection. Even if they think his face or hands are disproportionate to his body, it never warrants any ideas that he may not be anything other than what he seems to be. Certainly he is nothing more than a fat, gluttonous, disgusting slob.
Today was different though. Today something happened. Maybe the little girl will be different, maybe not. The parents may be confused, but that will pass and they will soon return to their habitual practices and beliefs. What was different today, the thing that was new, was that he felt the knife sliding in. The body he has pretended was his for so long, was his for an instant. He was the fat man.
He takes a long hot shower before going to bed. He will wake in the morning and go about things as he often does, without the suit. People who know him in his regular body will wonder why he seems so tired and dysphoric. They will rumor that he might be using, boozing, or wasting his nights with “professional company”. None of them will guess that he is burdened with the heavy truths of the world. None of them ever recognize him when he bumps into them on Saturdays. None of them know that his personality is tearing itself asunder. While his mind schisms, part of him stays grounded, while the other parts form plans for becoming a hero, for doing something good enough to justify his comfortable “normal” life.
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