Fat Read online

  He waddled back into the cart, reached into a cooler for a beer and stuck a stogie into his mouth. It was just past nine o’clock. This is not a good step towards real exercise. Four hours lugging a thirty pound bag over five miles of rolling hills while stopping every so often to swing metal into rubber is good exercise. Letting a motorized vehicle lug person and clubs over five miles of rolling asphalt while stopping every so often to suck back beers and cigars between swings of metal into rubber is barely exercise at all. Xander is using golf as exercise in word only – he was going to probably gain weight during today’s round.

  I chunked a little wedge to the front fringe of the green. Xander proceeded to hit three more low skanks, and twenty minutes later finally skulled his ball onto the green. It had taken us as a twosome thirty minutes to get to the green. At this rate we would finish our eighteen in over nine hours. I looked around and thanked the golf gods that the course was empty of other players.

  Two putts later I was in for par. Xander lined up his putt standing, addressed his ball with elbows resting on his love handles, took a whack with all wrist, and banged it home off the back lip of the cup.

  “Yeah, baby!”

  As he gleefully shuffled the twenty-five feet to pick his ball from the cup, he left deep foot indentations with each step on the dew-softened greens. I hope every group that plays on this green after us today doesn’t mind putting over size twelve craters. The deepest footprint was left right by the hole as Xander leaned all of his weight onto his left foot when he bent over to pick his Titleist from the cup, nearly falling flat on his face, but catching himself at the last moment by gouging the butt end his putter into the green, leaving yet another pock mark. As he walked back to his cart, more imprints in the dew trailed just behind him, and he was casually using his putter as a cane, so now half the green had tripod stamps of feet and the bottom of a putter.

  The second hole is a short par three with a marsh fronting the green and a large bunker hugging the back. There is a bit of elevation to get to the tee box, which is a pain to walk because the stone stairs were built steeply, but Xander just pressed his pedal down flat and got his cart to lurch up the incline without effort. He finished his first beer and popped into another just as I put my bag down behind the right tee marker. I teed off first and skulled one into the back bunker. Xander chuckled, “Beach!” as he bent over to tee his ball. Xander suddenly jerked, grabbed his back and instantly crumpled to the ground. He was writhing in pain. I glanced at my ball in the back bunker in case the falling Xander ground shake from a hundred and twenty yards away popped the ball backwards onto the green. It hadn’t. I looked back at Xander and his writhing was rubbing the grass bald on the tee box. Golf was over for Xander today after one hole.

  As he gingerly got back up, Xander grunted, “Dr. Grant, could you get me my pills from the cart?”

  There was a prescription bottle in one of the cup holders. Vicodin. I walked the bottle back over to Xander and he popped his last two pills and swallowed with just saliva.

  “When did you start taking Vicodin, Xander?”

  “Last year sometime. My joints have been killing me for a while. Don’t really know why. Glad I had some left for my back today.”

  I caught myself laughing. He should be in pain. He’s always going to have pain. No human body would ever be able to be abused that much and remain unscathed. The Vicodin is trying to do its part to ease the pain, while Xander does nothing himself to lessen the cause of the pain, even by a pound. He’s probably in actuality increasing the pain by pounds every week. I’m betting he has had to up the pain medicine potency exponentially with his weight. He probably started with some over-the-counter stuff, then to some lower potency prescription meds, and then as the dosing started getting maxed-out and tolerance started to build, he went on the prescription medicine up-shuffle for more potency. I hoped his delusion as to the cause of his pain wasn’t making him too dependent on narcotics, and he was now using doctors as a drug seeker. Drug-seekers: the scum of the Earth. These are people that try to use the helpful nature of medical professionals as a vulnerability and hop from different doctors to clinics to emergency rooms and make up any story to get their fix of prescribable narcotics. Uh, I have an uncontrollable migraine that somehow no medication made specifically for migraines can lessen and I don’t want to take anything or do anything to prevent these migraines so I need only the most potent narcotics to alleviate this pain that I rate ten out of ten as I am explaining my condition without any apparent distress. Or, uh, I am a 300 lbs. slug with sketchy work accident related back pain that didn’t prevent me from casually ambling to this clinic, but has now worsened to such a degree precisely at the entrance of this clinic that I cannot move and can only cry out in pain. Or, uh, I somehow lost my prescription bottle full of narcotic or it was stolen during a recent home robbery, and now I need some emergency meds for my fibromyalgia until I can see my regular doctor, and even though when you checked the state prescription monitoring database with my exact name and birth date it showed that I have filled multiple prescriptions for this narcotic in the last few weeks from multiple doctors from different clinics across the region, I don’t know what those prescriptions are and it could be a case of identity theft where the thief used my name to fill the exact narcotic I am currently asking for now. The whine that these people are suffering from some addiction disease that makes their lies beyond their control is absurd, as if their deceit was part of their DNA and some basic human drive akin to breathing. The real disease is sociopathy – persons unable to consider anything other than getting what they want. They are consciously deciding drug addicts, actively directing all their human resources to scheme for their next high at the expense of all others. Series of poor decisions become behavior and habit, then lifestyle. Similarly, some claim the obese to be drug seekers of the drug of food, the excuse being that this is an addiction where one is forced to take some of the drug everyday just to live and that a ham sandwich is in the same vein as crack cocaine. If obesity really was a disease comprised of some uncontrollable urge to eat, then the obese would be real world zombies, mindlessly trolling for their food with empty abandon and all human free thought removed, not caring that they are inflicting increasing pain with every mouthful. Forty to fifty percent of the US population is obese, so if this zombie epidemic were the case, this country would be living a dystopia filled with drooling, disfigured humanoids with no other drive than to devour hamburgers and fries. But, everyone has a choice what they put into their mouths. No one is force fed fat. As it is, the obese are simple over-consumers in a society of over-consumption with poorly developed eating habits and poorly developed self-control, continuing their lifestyle by justifying every calorie bomb in their minds as entitled sustenance and excusing their appearance with nonsense: uh, I have a slow metabolism or, uh, I’m big boned or, uh, I’m too busy to exercise. The active, ongoing choice to repeatedly over-consume consequence in early death, humiliation, and negative social stigmas. The world could use less consuming.

  As Xander stood leaning against his cart, he started rambling, “You know, Dr. Grant, I had a weird dream last night. I was at a party at Arnold Palmer’s house, and was stuffing myself with all the hors d’oeuvres I could find. I then took a tray of pigs in a blanket and snuck away into one of his bedrooms. A little kid was napping in the bed, so I jostled the kid awake and literally kicked him out of the room. I snuggled myself into the sheets and started popping the pigs into my mouth, and they were so greasy that I had to wipe my hands on the white sheets. I must’ve eaten at least a few dozen. After I finished, I fell asleep and rolled off the bed onto the floor. As I snapped awake, Arnold Palmer burst into the door and asked where his grandson went. I said I didn’t know. Then he asked who had made the mess on the bed. I looked and the bed’s sheets were yellow and brown with grease. I said it was probably his grandson’s mess. Arnold gave my greasy face a look of disdain and just left. That was my dream. Maybe it means
I should give up golf.”

  Xander’s subconscious was a mess of shame. The dream of Xander bullying a child and befouling the golfing King’s bedroom sheets because of food should have at least warranted consideration that the dream was about food and his ills, but instead he interpreted it as a signal to give up golf, as if Arnold Palmer’s reaction to having the culprit of his greased sheets try to cover up his disgusting actions with an obvious lie was just about Arnie, as an embodiment of golf, frowning at Xander. Maybe all Senator Larry Craig’s troubles were just a sign for him to limit expelling his waste to his bathroom at home rather than public restrooms. I just shrugged back a smirk at Xander.

  As he gingerly got into his golf cart, he uttered between grunts, “Dr. Grant, my back is pretty messed up, I’m just going to head for the clubhouse. I have to get a refill for more pain pills to pop or I’m going to be bedridden. Sorry, I couldn’t finish with you.”

  I shrugged again, but with a smile. No need to apologize for that. This day just got a lot lighter.

  Xander popped another beer as he reversed back down the hill, then turned the cart back towards the clubhouse. As he disappeared down the cart path, I teed up another ball, for practice. I popped it up into the marsh. Whatever. I grabbed the plastic seed dispenser from next to the tee marker, poured turf seed over the missing grass from my divot and where Xander had writhed bald, then picked up my bag and headed towards the green.

  Another great day for golf. Maybe I’ll play 54 today.

  WEDDING

  Xander was supposed to scooter his mom down the aisle for our wedding. A destination wedding in Maui makes for a selfishly inconvenient and small wedding, so Xander was a big part of the ceremony’s plans, all 420 lbs. of him. But, this was the weekend he decided to be patchy with his insulin administration and go on a luau bender. It was real suspicious when he didn’t show up for the rehearsal dinner, when the last dinner he missed might have been so I wasn’t too shocked when Kate’s sister found him passed out in his hotel room, breath smelling like a fruit basket. So we postponed the wedding a week while Xander got tuned up at the hospital.

  When we went to visit him the day before he was first scheduled to be discharged, he was just starting his lunch. I saw a salad on his bed tray. It looked great for hospital food: crisp spring greens, bright cherry tomatoes, dewy cucumbers, julienned carrots, baby peas, cubed beets, and a wedge of pineapple on the side. Then Xander proceeded to rip open two large dressing packets and drench the greens with ranch – it was now ranch soup with a sprinkling of salad. When the farmer put all that care into the months of planting, growing and harvesting the perfect vegetable, little did he know that it would be used as a garnish for processed fat.

  The scene reminds me of a grocery trip I made about five years ago, when I last saw Xander attempting to be healthy in the flesh. He was strolling through Whole Foods with a cart full of oranges, grapefruit and strawberries, stopping by the grain dispensers and filling up a green plastic tube bag with organic oats. A three hundred and fifty pound guy at Whole Foods pushing around a cart filled with the groceries of a one hundred pound vegan woman. I continued to follow him to see what else he tossed into his cart. I don’t know what was more ridiculous: an old man peering around stacks of organic navel oranges and cheeses at a fat man’s grocery shopping or Xander at Whole Foods. He slowly meandered through more departments, like a barge rolling down the Chicago River, and continued by tossing a couple ready-made Indian frozen meals into the cart, passing by the pastries and cakes, eating a sample of some sharp white cheddar, grabbing a loaf of whole wheat artesian bread, downing a sample of some whole grain crackers, getting a pound of sliced deli turkey meat, and then he started heading for the checkout. As he loaded his items onto the conveyor belt, while I watched from behind a stack of natural dye free bar soap, I thought of how he must go home, cut his fruit into slices, arrange them between two slices of whole wheat bread alongside some turkey, dip the sandwich in butter and coat them in oats, then deep-fry the whole mess in chocolate sauce, and eventually down it drenched in ranch dressing. There is no way three hundred and fifty pounds are maintained with what he had in his shopping cart. This hospital salad is how big numbers can be maintained with healthy foods.

  I blurted, “Xander, take it easy on the dressing, you’re ruining the salad.”

  “Alright, alright, I will, but salad tastes like crap without this much ranch.” Xander smirked, then continued, “Hey wait a minute, you’re not my dad yet, so I don’t have to listen to that.” Xander started laughing as he threw a forkful down the hatch.

  Later that night, while Kate and I were having dinner, the physician taking care of him, Dr. Reebs, called and said Xander’s sugars had gotten too high again. They had noticed him looking more tired that afternoon and when they checked his blood sugar, it was 650. A nurse found some empty candy wrappers stuffed underneath his mattress – two king size Snickers, a Kit Kat, Milky Way and Twix. His discharge would have to be postponed. So we postponed our wedding another few days.

  Postponing for more time in paradise is a terrific consolation. Xander’s laissez-faire attitude about his diabetes is just giving Kate and I opportunity to stay in Maui longer. Our guest list was shrinking with every delay, but no matter to us. Xander was the reason we got to Maui in the first place.

  After Albert died, Kate got despondent. Xander told me that she didn’t leave her bedroom for a month. But somehow, he got her to leave the house by enticing her with golf, a game their whole family used to play together when he was a kid. Xander’s golf days were long over, as he hasn’t been able to coil a golf club around his body since cracking four hundred pounds soon after our couple holes together at the club, but he started riding in a cart while Kate walked eighteen. Kate’s mood started to lighten while walking fairways and greens. And Xander started inviting me to join their twosome. Eighteen holes once a week meant spending a few hours together once a week. That soon became playing eighteen a few times a week, which became post-round dinners a few times a week, became dinner and a movie on weekends, and became spending nights in with just me and Kate. That first night I spent overnight with Kate, Xander was there the next morning in the kitchen, dropping off a vase of fresh flowers for Kate’s dining room table, like he did every day since Albert died, and just quipped to me with a grin, “Hey, step-dad.” And he was right; I asked Kate if I could become Xander’s step-dad a couple months later.

  The Maui wedding was all Xander too. He was going to pay for our wedding and make it a five star affair. Kate and I fought him on it – we were both well enough along to pay for it ourselves – but Xander insisted, and said it would be his wedding present to us. So here we were in a Honeymoon Suite at the Four Seasons and Xander was putzing around in a 12x8 hospital room. He didn’t seem to be doing much to change that situation, though.

  The nurse started noticing Xander was getting overly winded when he got up to go to the bathroom. Initially, no one thought anything of it – someone weighing four-fifty was not going to impress with physical endurance. But, it started to get worse, where he started looking sweaty and pale, as if he just ran a marathon, after going to urinate. The doctor eventually ordered an echocardiogram. His heart was less squeezing than just jiggling in his chest. Xander had heart failure. He was struggling to pump out enough oxygen-rich blood to meet the demands of his mass and vital organs. What he needed was an elephant heart pumping in his chest.

  His health had been going downhill for the past few years before this latest finding, especially in the last few months, but he hated going to the doctor and he hated taking medicine, so he just toughed out his fatigue and general malaise regardless of anyone’s urging to go take care of himself better. That sentiment had been echoed by too many for so long that it was white noise to him. He was a grown man, after all, able to decide for himself whether to take his insulin and Metformin everyday instead of spending every waking minute on the couch watching every season of Lost back-to-back whilst d
owning two entire XXL cheese pizzas in one sitting. Now this grown man is stuck sickly on this island.

  Xander fast deteriorated. His sugars got harder to control and the doctors were having a hard time finding the right cocktail of medications to get his heart pumping better. Then he had a heart attack – a full coronary artery blowout at age forty-two. He got intubated, which took the head of anesthesia ten attempts due to Xander’s obstructive neck fat. Machines took over the basic human functions that define life and turned him into a mass whose only ability was to produce urine and stool. He even had to get fed through a central line, getting his vitamins and calories from a yellowish slurry one drip at a time. This was how he was going to go, without even his greatest love.

  The level of love Xander had for food was awesome. He passed on women, happiness and health – passed on life – to be with food. Food was the mistress that enticed him to lie and justify and cheat to the point of self-loathing. Food was the selfish mistress that only wanted Xander to herself, so she slowly fashioned him a fat man suit so he would never get other real opportunities to find or attract other loves. Xander stayed with food as his lover even though he knew that with his level of infatuation, food would also be his executioner. Would I be with Kate if I knew that the more I loved her, the more likely it is that she would smother me in my sleep? Food was crazier. Food was never sated with Xander’s love, and stalked him at every turn, constantly sending him pangs of messages that he always needed to have more. Xander will eventually have loved food to death. I have never loved anything as much as Xander has loved food. Not many have.