Misha Firer
E
Bobbie “Fat Cat” had no interest in eking out her serotonin or in
enticing
her mind to become chemically happy. She was here
just
to get laid.
The patrons of Club Xtreme, mostly black and Latino, but augmented by
white
college kids and curious senior citizens, considered it obligatory to
get
high. They even had a special Friday E-night, dedicated to Ecstasy
aficionados. That weekly party corresponded with Bobbie’s night out.
The post-modern problem, she thought cynically, is obesity. Affluence
begets gluttony; mechanistic society leads to sloth. Doctors have a few
remedies available and a bunch of pills to prescribe to perpetuate
their own
prosperity. But whatever. What it all boiled down to, Bobbie thought in
reference to her personal plight, was that we, the fat ones, despite
our
sheer numbers, are ostracized from the mainstream as non-achievers, and
relegated to the realm of the "non-sexy." Bobbie thought, how hard it
is,
nearly damn impossible, to procure even a one-night stand with this
unfortunate obsession with skinny girls.
At five foot three, Bobbie weighed about a hundred and eighty pounds.
She
was overly, shamelessly, disgustingly fat. In terms of diets, she had
tried
them all. She tried to starve herself for months, she stopped using
birth-control pills, she started smoking, she tried to jog. Nothing
worked.
It was there to stay, that damnable incurable affliction.
When it came to men, the weight problem opened and festered her
wounds. No
one would go out with her. Bobbie, an otherwise optimistic girl in
character, never admitted defeat. She heard about Ecstasy parties,
where
people of her age danced the night away, mentally and spiritually free
from
the shackles of a super-efficient and over-productive society. To use
or be
used was the only free choice one could exercise there. At these
parties
they became brothers and sisters, and experienced a chemical utopia for
as
long as the drug lasted, approximately five hours.
Bobbie came to the party fashionably late -- the drug takes about an
hour
to kick in. She flashed an ID that recorded her age at twenty-five. She
entered a space that looked sinisterly euphoric, with gaudy drawings of
magic
mushrooms on the walls sporadically illuminated by the shooting laser
rays.
The crowd bounced up and down to get used to a new state of being that
turned their socially preconditioned lives into a transcendent
experience
with their buddies. They were getting high all right.
Bobbie tried to make herself scarce, which was quite impossible in her
huge
dress (wearing no underwear underneath).
As the drug worked its way through their brains, it erased conventional
opinions, phony understanding, revealing something brand-new, maybe in
a way
true. Contrary to fraudulent school lessons learned by rote, but taken
as
gospel forever after, nothing is gospel under Ecstasy. Or so they
explained
to her. Bobbie never took any drugs, except aspirin, and the pill that
saves
the Western world from overpopulation.
Bobbie, thinking her cynical thoughts, sauntered across the dance
floor,
not dancing. Guys with bulging eyeballs and mouths wide open grinned at
her.
She searched for a single guy who would stand apart from the others,
bored
but alert, checking for a girl to spend his night with. Admit it, she
thought, I want a handsome, not overweight, kind of guy. To make
herself
believe otherwise would be the most hypocritical thing to do. She
wanted
someone unlike her.
OK, there he is, in the far corner, bulging eyes, frozen grin, head
bobbing
up and down in time with the beat coming out of the amp he is leaning
against, as if it were his girlfriend.
The trick is, Bobbie repeated to herself, when you are so happy, so
chemically blissful, fat or skinny is one and the same to you. "A lay
is a
lay" is guys’ basic outlook.
Only when Bobbie approached the lonely guy, did she realize that with
all
this commotion of sweaty bodies, laser beams, distracting thoughts, and
disturbing music, she didn’t really get a good look at him. From a
distance
he looked handsome. Here, now, close, face-to-face he wasn’t handsome
at
all. He was skinny, bent, sickly and be-spectacled. The kind of guy you
would meet in the less populated part of the library, but never in the
nightclub.
But it was too late, having resolved to approach this very guy, she
continued towards him on auto pilot.
Deo stood in the corner, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Three hours
had
passed since he had chewed E with his friends, or his so-called
friends.
They had abandoned him. This invisible gravitation towards the people
you
take drugs with didn’t quite work this time. Fortunately for him
because he
realized that these ‘friends’ didn’t care about him anyway. This
thought
registered on all levels of his mind. It made him content to stand
alone and
be happy with that now. The state of drug frenzy that in another
situation
would have driven him to seek the society of others turned him into an
immobile statue engrossed in self-reflection at the corner of the
dance-floor.
"Hi."
Confused and bewildered, Deo didn’t quite know what to say to the
woman who
spoke to him. Maybe I should hug her, he thought. But she was too
short,
five feet maybe, and he was six one. The tip of her head barely reached
the
middle of his chest.
"Hello," he said instead.
"I…didn’t...I mean, I took you for someone else."
"I bet you did."
"What do you mean?"
Deo felt like speaking the truth. Well, actually under E, you can’t
help
speaking the truth.
"They all say that, 'I took you for someone else.' They don’t like me,
not
one of them."
"Who do you mean?"
"Women."
"Really?"
"Yes. Did you ever feel that no one cares for you, that everybody is
busy
with their personal lives, irresponsible, cold, detached?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You didn’t take E, did you?"
"No."
"What are you doing here then?"
"The same as you."
"Trying to get lucky?"
"Maybe."
Bobbie wandered back into the dancing crowd. They were all drinking water
from
plastic bottles, grinning, and hugging strangers. In the restroom, the
stalls
were for lovers. A skinny woman stood in front of the mirror checking
her
grin, or her bulging eyes, or how attractive she looked. Bobbie felt
like an
outsider, like a shipwrecked survivor on an island with a bunch of
savages.
Disgusting, disgusting how far you have to go to get out of your
comfortably
boring groove, how many designer drugs you have to consume to re-tune
your
mind to the frequency of your spirit.
Right outside the bathroom door stood the same skinny guy.
He grinned and said, "I am attracted to you."
Now that was something new.
"I really am."
"I believe you." Bobbie said dishonestly, as she started to move away.
"If you don’t find a nice-looking guy who is into fat women, I’ll be
right
over there by the amp."
Chaos ruled on the dance-floor. She concentrated on achieving her goal,
gliding from one man to another, whispering, mouthing, proclaiming,
announcing, do you want me, do you want to spend the night with me.
They
looked so happy, so obviously unable to pretend, to stick to
conventions, to
society norms. To say "no" directly, would have been sheer hypocrisy,
something impossible to feign under the influence of E. But believe it
or
not, they went ahead and said just that, "No." Casually, irritably,
absently
they said, I don't, I would but, it’s not you. It’s just that....
They were who they were, and even fucked up out of their minds, they
would
never consider spending the night with a fat chick like her.
Bobbie’s last resort was the bent, sickly kid in the corner of the
dance-floor that was slowly losing its dancers to the pleasures of the
bed.
The be-spectacled, shy kid.
"Hi." Bobbie said.
"Hello again. Fishing’s been bad tonight, hasn’t it?"
"Lousy for you too?"
"I’m not good at it."
"Yeah, well it’s a man’s occupation. Fishing."
"You women are...."
"Don’t bother. I don’t want to be lonely tonight."
"Me neither."
"Let's just have sex and go our separate ways. What do you say?’
The sickly boy nodded tentatively.
"You can hug me, if you want." Bobbie offered.
"I’d rather not."
"You don’t want me at all?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, I don’t like you either."
"In that case we are even."
"Do you feel like making love?’
"Oh yes, I do."
"Good. I wouldn’t like to take a ride with you, only to have you go
dead on
me."
"Trust me, I won’t."
"OK."
"They are closing in half an hour. Let's leave now."
"OK.”
"You know, if you want it that much, I can give you a hug."
"You don’t have to."
"Let’s go."
"Sure."
"Hey, what’s your name by the way?"
"Bobbie."
"I'm Deo."
"Nice to meet you, Deo."
"Nice to meet you, Bobbie."
Outside on the street, Bobbie was crying, with her head on Deo’s chest.
They
stood by his car, she was sobbing and he was hugging her. The E was
wearing
off, Deo rode its last radiant wave, but after that passed what would
remain
would be the blues, deep, deep blues. Maybe if he went with this big
woman,
there’d be less of them. Bobbie was crying and crying, saying that all
she
wanted was to be herself, herself, but nobody wanted her the way she
was.
She was also saying something about those damn pretty women and those
damn
handsome men that ruled the world, and about how she was always an
outsider.
They consoled each other, two unattractive losers, standing in the
pouring
rain without an umbrella, and Deo was thinking about giving her a pill
of E
that he had in his pocket. The pill that would definitely make her
happy,
chemically happy, even if for a brief interval, so then later they
could
share the blues together. So they would stay longer than one night
together.
So that perhaps, some sort of chemistry would work between them, and
something long and sweet, maybe even loving, would come of it.
Deo stopped daydreaming, opened the car door, and motioned to Bobbie to
step
in.
©2004 by Misha Firer
