Читать книгу Hungry for Happiness - James Villas - Страница 7

I reckon I do love my mama, but I gotta say sometimes she can be the most spiteful human being on earth when she pitches one of her hissies. You know, a real bitch. I mean, what I could use at this point in my life are just a few kind words of encouragement from my own mother, and what do I get but the same ridicule she’s been dishing out ever since I decided to have the surgery—and before. I figure any other mother would be proud of a daughter who’s determined to improve herself and overcome what I can only call a family curse. I also figure Mama’s just envious of anyone who gets sick and tired of looking like a tub of lard and has the guts to finally do something about it.

Yeah, I used to be fat and make no bones about it. None of this wishy-washy crap about being full-figured and curvy and having a weight disorder. I’m talking about fat, disgusting fat—pure and simple. Like five foot four and 280 pounds. Hell, I was fat my whole goddamn life till I took the bull by the horns. I ate when I was happy. I ate when I was sad. I ate when I was disappointed or scared. If there was any reason to eat, I found it. And diets? You name it, I tried it. Weight Watchers. South Beach. Atkins. Nutrisystem. Tubular pasta. Even a stupid sugar-water diet I read about in Reader’s Digest. Fat pills? Whatta joke! Also tried a MultiFlex for two months I ordered on the Internet, then weeks of purging, then some stupid support group, then heaven knows how much counseling and therapy. Nothing worked, and I hated myself, and all Mama could say was “Loretta, you’re nuts,” or “Sugar, why can’t you just accept the way the Good Lord made you?” or “Loretta, nobody’s ever gonna mistake you for a bathing beauty”—awful things like that.

Fat. As I say, it’s always been like a plague on my whole family. Maybe it’s partly genetic, but the truth is, we all love food more than life itself, and, myself, I love to cook and fool around with food and watch the Food Network almost as much as I love eating and blowing the sax and finding good homes for our animals. Guess I learned to cook mostly from Mama, but show me something like Helen Corbett’s Cookbook and I can spend days just reading it, and gettin’ ideas, and fixin’ dozens of great dishes. Of course I’m best at Southern and Tex-Mex, but when I wanna do real fancy foreign things like beef burgundy and chicken cacciatore, I couldn’t do without my messed-up copy of Joy of Cooking that Mama once gave me for my birthday. And I wonder why I could never lose weight.

Anyway, my sweet daddy died of a heart attack when he was only forty-eight. Mama’s up there at about 250 and has diabetes and hypoglycemia and obstructive sleep apnea. And my older sister Gladys, who’s a year older than me and married with a fat husband and four chubby children…well, Gladys is only thirty-seven and has already had one knee replaced, and she’s still about Mama’s size. I’ve begged and begged Mama and Gladys both to bite the bullet the way I finally did, but they’re both scared as chickens. Just terrified of the idea of having their stomachs banded—banded gastroplasty they call it. I told Mama she wouldn’t be around many more years to bake biscuits and put up preserves if she didn’t get over to the bariatric clinic, but then she gets on her high horse again and says things like, “It’s not natural fooling around with your body like that, young lady, and you could end up paying a price worse than death.” I do something like pat my tummy and hips and say, “But, Mama, look at me now. Just look at me and see how much healthier and happier I am.” And she just makes that mean face the way she does when she disapproves of something and says, “Loretta, child, I liked you a lot better when you had more flesh and sometimes wonder who you really think you are.”

Well, goddammit, if Mama and Gladys want to eat themselves into an early grave and spend the rest of their lives waddling around Houston like stuffed ducks, I’m out the door and can’t keep worrying about them. Not after all the crap I’ve been through this past year and a half. Down from 280 to 162 and still have a good 30 pounds to go. It’s been hell, though, I can tell you. Five-hour operation, gallbladder removed, a silicone ring cinched around my stomach so I have only a small pouch, hair falling out the first couple of months, thyroid problems, and now I’d probably upchuck if I ate more than an ounce or so of chicken Parmesan or fries or salami wrap or trail mix or lots of other things I’ve always loved. And this don’t even count all the body contouring, and the expense, and the frustration of being around my wonderful cheese biscuits and chocolate-pecan balls and jelly treats the bank sometimes pays me good money to make for one of their fancy shindigs. What I do now is keep these little chocolaty candies called Nips with me at all times and suck on one if I have hunger pangs.

It’s been no fun and takes lots of mental adjustment, that’s for sure, but it does me good to remember what it was like before. Size 30 and Lane Bryant and Avenue. Gasping for breath when I picked up even a beagle at the shelter. Couldn’t cross my legs to tie my shoes. Heart palpitations and sky-high cholesterol. Festered open sores inside my thighs. Saxophone balanced way up on my boobs when I played a gig at Ziggy’s, and audiences calling me Bubbles. Even climbing the stairs at home on my hands and knees. And if I fell down, whoooa…! One time, the small metal step stool in the kitchen just collapsed when I was fixin’ to make some divinity fudge and reached up in the cabinet for some brown sugar. Had to lay there in the middle of the friggin’ floor till Lyman got home and called the neighbors to help me up. Nobody can imagine the humiliation.

Worst, I guess, was the binge eating. Let me at a Dunkin’ Donuts, say, and it was nothing for me to knock off maybe four or five with a couple of French vanilla coffees without blinking an eye. I was always crazy about any Chinese takeout since everything on those long menus is so tempting, but when the craving really hit, the folks at Panda Delight over on Richmond almost knew without asking to pack me up an order of wings, a couple of egg rolls, shrimp dumplings, pork fried rice, and the best General Tso’s chicken this side of Hong Kong. When my friend at the shelter, Eileen Silvers, got married at Temple Beth Yeshurum, I had a field day over the roast turkey and lamb and rice and baked salmon and jelly cakes on the reception buffet, and when me and Lyman would go out to Pancho’s Cantina for Mexican, nothing would do but to follow up margaritas and a bowl of chunky guacamole and a platter of beef fajitas with a full order of pork carnitas and a few green chile sausages. And don’t even ask about the barbecue and links and jalapeño cheese bread and pecan pie at Tinhorn BBQ. Just the thought still makes me drool.

And sex? Oh, before I hit about 230 I could still go on top of Lyman pretty easy, but when I reached my peak…well, I don’t mind saying that when I reached my peak my thighs were so goddamn big I couldn’t even get a grip on the bed. Guess I really couldn’t blame the man for finally wanting to take a long walk.

Not that Lyman was ever any special catch, believe you me. Lyman’s what you call an insecure girl’s guy, not a wild woman’s guy. Already balding with thin, frizzled hair, a stupid lizard tattooed up his left arm, geeky long boxers and shiny fake leather boots, and kinda bony and underdeveloped in the wrong places—if you know what I mean. Loves to play Grand Theft Auto and poker on his computer when he’s not working at the muffler shop or riding his Hog. Dumb things like that. And the goat roper’s so awkward on his feet he couldn’t do-si-do around a chili pot without falling in.

But what in heaven’s name was I supposed to do when Mama and Gladys kept saying that men weren’t gonna be beating the bushes to my door, and that if I didn’t grab Lyman and marry him while I had the chance the way she did Daddy and Gladys did Rufus, I’d just end up lonely and miserable the rest of my life. Of course, Lyman didn’t fool me a minute, not one minute when he’d say, “Oh, Let, I like plenty of butter in my vinegar pie and lots of meat on my ribs, and, besides, it’s what’s inside that counts most.” Yeah, sure. I mean, who doesn’t know some guys hit on fat chicks because they’re easy and available? And, boy, was I ever available.

So, yeah, I went ahead and married the jerk when he told me I had a great personality and was fun and all that malarkey. Wanna know Lyman’s idea of fun? Dragging me and Mary Jane and Sam to Long John’s Chili Parlor way out on Liberty for a bowl o’ red and to listen to some crappy banjo quartet for hours on end. Or shootin’ birds up at Sheldon Reservoir, which made me sick at my stomach. Or me riding behind him on his Hog along Buffalo Bayou while he and some of his trash friends with their gals tried to outscratch one another in the sand pits. Well, he changed his tune big-time when I got to be more than he could handle, and that brainless powder puff who worked down at Champagne Video sank her claws in him. Good riddance, I said at the time, and I remember also thanking my heavenly stars we’d decided to put off having any kids till we could afford something besides a mobile. Now, if I didn’t have more manners…now, I’d love nothing more than to drive over to Sutt’s Mufflers in my Ford Focus and just stand there in front of Lyman in my size 14 white ducks with my goddamn hands on my hips and say, “Wanna make some big-time, Bozo?”