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?”
2
SASSY SAL
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