Читать книгу Hungry for Happiness - James Villas - Страница 8

I’d be lying through my teeth if I didn’t admit that Lyman leaving me for that white trash Tiffany had something to do with my decision to have the gastric banding. But I’d also be lying if I said my one and only reason was to look pretty and sexy—especially after what I was always led to believe about myself in the past. I mean, Mama made it perfectly clear when I was a child that I was just fat and plain, and even after I started middle school and was making all As and Bs, she was still telling me I’d only make a fool of myself if I tried to be like everybody else and gussied up like other girls to attract the boys. “Sweetheart, you’re happiest right here frying chicken and making gumbo with me, and I only want to keep you from being hurt,” she’d say in that sugary tone she can have when she wants me to agree with her. Yeah, sure. No wonder the other kids made fun of my oversized tanks and half sizes from Sears and Walmart, and snickered behind my back, and I never had many dates.

Actually, when I think about it now, I realize I probably wouldn’t have gotten through those times if it hadn’t been for Daddy. I really loved my daddy, and I don’t care what Mama said sometimes, he was a good man who called me Princess and always made me feel special. Like when he’d take me out to the rides at Texas Jubilee—just him and me—and hold me tight on the Tilt-a-Wheel so I wouldn’t be scared to death and scream my lungs out. Or when he got me my first dog—Cindy—to play with since I didn’t have that many friends. And later on when the music teacher said I had natural talent, and he bought me my first sax to play in the school band. Not that my main reasons for having the surgery included looking like the princess Daddy always thought I was.

My main reasons were so I wouldn’t die young, and so kids at the strip mall and outside the movie theater would stop mumbling “oink, oink,” and I could shop somewhere besides Big Country, and I wouldn’t have to two-step with other girls at Dixie Stampede, and I could maybe even ride the bull at Ziggy’s.

“Loretta,” my good friend Sally at the shelter said when I told her I’d made up my mind, “why put yourself through all that hell? You know we all love you just the way you are, honey, and the animals don’t know any difference,” and la-di-da-di-da. Shit, Sally’s up there herself way over 200 and doesn’t exactly have anybody banging her but that no-good Zach who she sees maybe once every other week or so when he needs somebody to light his firecracker. She stays on one diet after another, and I can tell you she’d probably end up going for the procedure in a split second if she qualified. One hundred pounds or more overweight: that’s the rule at the clinic—no exceptions, no excuses. What Sally wouldn’t go for are all the vitamins and mineral supplements you have to take afterwards. Or sticking to a tough exercise routine. Or having the painful reconstruction to tighten up all the loose skin. It took guts and all the money I could make working two jobs just to pay the first MasterCard charges. And avoiding lots of Classic Coke and suds and liquid foods like milk shakes and ice cream that go down so much easier than solids—that’s what takes real willpower and determination.

And much as I love Sally and consider her my best friend, I gotta say that willpower and determination are two things she don’t have. Like the time she and Zach went with me and Lyman to Lucky Strike lanes to bowl and she’s trying to stop smoking. Right off the bat Zach scores something like a strike on the first frame, then a turkey, then a couple of doubles and another strike. Lyman racks up a few strikes himself, and I do okay with a strike and some spares, but poor Sally’s having a bad night and all she can score is one split after the next. Well, by about the fifth frame, I can see she’s gettin’ real frustrated and nervous as she readjusts the mitt on her hand, and the next thing I hear is “Zach, honey, gimme one of ya weeds.”

“No, Sal!” I scream. “Please don’t! That’s not gonna help.”

“Oh, one’s not gonna hurt me,” she says. “I’m really pissed off and gotta relax more.”

So Zach lights a cigarette for her and she takes a few puffs, and, wouldn’t you know it, on the next frame, with that damn butt between her teeth, she delivers one hell of a spin and slams a strike.

“Now you’re bustin’, gal,” Lyman has to egg her on, and by the time we’ve bowled a few more frames, Sally’s almost chain-smoking and racking up more spares than any of us.

What Sally does have that I don’t have is lots of patience with people, which I guess comes from working checkout part-time at Country Foodarama the way she does and puttin’ up with those crazies at the Assembly of God where she goes every single Sunday morning without fail. First, I never put up with much shit from Lyman, but Sally will let Zach string her out till kingdom come when it comes to catching a flick, or fixin’ her Cavalier, or getting tickets for a Rockets game. This nice-looking couple from out in the Heights comes to the SPCA not long ago looking for a small dog for their five-year-old, and when Sally shows them this frisky Jack Russell mix we’d been trying to place for months, the father and kid go crazy about the mutt but the wife keeps asking if he yaps that much all the time. On and on she whines about not wanting a yelping dog, and worries how barking might bother the neighbors, and wonders if the dog will ever calm down, and what have you. Hell, I would have just told the dame straight out that all Jack Russells are pretty noisy by nature when excited and maybe something like a poodle or cocker mix might be a better choice. But Sally sees a chance for a good home with a reliable family, and explains patiently the various ways any dog can be trained to behave, and oohs and aahs over the way the child and dog are so compatible, and before you know it, the mother seems to have forgotten all about barking and is cuddling the dog like a baby, and telling her husband to write out a donation. Lord, what I’d give to have Sally’s patience. I remember when I was as fat as Sally and trying to lose all that weight, I was so anxious I couldn’t get to the scales fast enough every morning. If that had been Sally, she would’ve probably been real calm about it all, but not me. When I got my mind set on most things, if it happens tomorrow, that’s too late.