year, a time when most school friendships are already cemented.
To Lori’s and my credit, we began to counter the negative feelings at home by excelling in theater programs at school. Lori had the advantage of being thin and beautiful, assuring her of leading roles. My weight kept me relegated to the “ha-ha” character roles or in the last row of the chorus. But that was good enough for me. Even without any lines to speak, I could still be someone else on stage. Not being me for an hour or two felt like an enormous relief.
When my mom and dad did direct their attention toward me, they were on me to lose weight. One day they’d yell at me, the next they would try and bribe me with the promise of some new gadget just to “encourage” me to lose weight. None of it worked. For in the world of junk food, I was safe, warm, and loved. No one could harm me while I was eating candy and chips, no matter how sick I felt after eating too much of them.
There were some surprising benefits to bingeing. When all I could think of was how sick, bloated, and close to “exploding” I felt, I wouldn’t have to think of anything else. I didn’t have to think about being ignored by my parents, or about being molested by the babysitter, or about the fact that most kids at school wouldn’t look in my direction, much less talk to me. I’d discovered a safe, if physically painful, haven where not even my thoughts, memories, or fears could do me any harm.
I continued taking money from my dad’s wallet to fund my ever-growing junk-food habit. He must have been confused about what amount he’d spent at bars the previous night to notice that money was missing. And that was fine by me.
By sixth grade, I was spending roughly ten dollars a day on junk food, which bought quite a bit on a military base since food prices are discounted for service people and their families. I would turn down offers to go play with my few friends after school so I could buy junk food instead and go home and eat it in front of the television.
Sixth-Grade Gregg’s Typical Binge
1 “party size” bag of Hershey Miniature Candy Bars
1 large bag of Lays Potato Chips
1 bottle of Barbecue Sauce (for “dip”)
1 can of Whipped Cream
1 gallon of Neapolitan Ice Cream
6-pack of Fanta Orange Flavored Soda
My fondest memories of being in sixth grade are when I pretended to be sick and stayed home from school. I would be home alone since both my parents worked, so I would go to the store to buy a ton of junk food and then watch Brady Bunch reruns during the noon hour.
Oh, what joy I experienced—until the day when my dad came home midday and caught me sitting up, eating nine different things and watching TV. Being sick in our home meant you were supposed to stay in bed all day without any television.
Dad asked me for an explanation. I said I had just woken up and that the TV was already on and that it was somebody else’s food on the coffee table.
Dad stared at me for about a half a minute and then proclaimed, “Somebody must be setting you up.” He told me to go back to bed and never mentioned the incident again. He did confiscate my stash of junk food, however. But no matter, one quick trip to his wallet the next morning and I was able to replenish my supplies.
My “chronic sickness” bit me in the butt when my parents finally consulted a doctor, who checked me into the hospital for two days to undergo a series of tests, determined to find out what was wrong. I was terrified the tests wouldn’t find anything physically wrong with me, but I have happy memories of being in the hospital for those two days. It was Easter weekend and candy stripers kept dropping by with candy and cookies. Even in the hospital my binge behavior worsened; just ask the sick kid I shared my room with who had his Easter basket ransacked, while he was sleeping, by the “sick” kid lying in the bed next to him.
The tests didn’t reveal any hidden sickness, but they did confirm a severe dust allergy. I was relieved the doctor’s found “something,” so I wasn’t exposed as the kid who was just constantly playing hooky.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
By seventh grade, we went to live in Singapore for a year. Having clothes tailor-made there was cheaper than buying off the rack, and as a result I don’t think anyone in my family noticed that I kept getting bigger and bigger. There were no bothersome size labels to document my progress.
My father’s drinking continued to escalate, as did my mother’s affairs. I was only eleven years old at that point and didn’t yet have the mental capacity to understand the reasons for all the angst in our home, but things were getting so dysfunctional that in between eating and bingeing, I would often attempt to run away from home.
The problem with running away from home in Singapore is that the island is only twenty-six miles wide and sits in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Where did I think I was going?
I would take a bus to the edge of the island, get scared, and then take a cab back home. Of course I didn’t have money for the taxi, so I’d have to go into the house and ask my parents for the cab fare. Then I’d get in trouble not only for running away, but also for needing the cab money.
I ran away from home more than seven different times over the course of the year we lived in Singapore. One night I tried scaling down the side of our house from the second floor. Needless to say my 225-pound girth kept me from being successful. I got stuck on a window ledge and had to call for help until my parents finally heard me and grudgingly came to my rescue.
Seventh-Grade Gregg’s Typical Binge
4 Hot-Dogs-with-Everything at the local A&W
2 large orders of Onion Rings
1 large A&W Root Beer
1 Chocolate Milk Shake
1 Vanilla Milk Shake
My favorite friend in Singapore also happened to be named Sue. She was our full-time housekeeper—a luxury far more affordable in Singapore—and boy, oh boy, could she cook. What’s more, she was delighted to see me enjoy food as much as I did, and she was always willing to fix me something to eat. Food equaled love. And I wanted all the “love” I could get.
My father’s drinking continued to affect his career in the Air Force, and it wasn’t long before we were transferred again—this time to Landstuhl, Germany. This was about the time all hell broke loose at home.
My father was on TDY, meaning “Temporary Duty Yonder,” the military’s slang for a business trip, which kept him away from home most of the time.
Meanwhile, my mother was plotting to become the most desired “natural” blonde in our small military community. We were sternly instructed to say that blond was my mother’s real hair color even though we knew it came from a box. She was working for the public affairs office at Landstuhl Hospital, where she became the belle of the ball. Men, both single and married, began calling the apartment in droves. It was at this time that my mom hatched what she thought was an ingenious plan for me to screen her calls.
Mom insisted that whenever the phone rang, no one was to answer it but me, and that I was to assume the identity of Sue, our female maid in Singapore, who still lived there and had not traveled with us to Germany. My still-high-pitched voice and tendency toward theatrics fit into her plan very nicely. Being twelve, I had no real understanding of what I was doing.
So I would answer the phone, pretending to be Sue, the female maid, and basically handled my mother’s dating schedule. It got to a point where various men would call “Sue,” i.e., me,