WHEN FAT MEN FLY 1978

On the morning of New Year's Eve Sookie and I ferried across the harbor to Staten Island. She loved the boat ride and passing the Statue of Liberty hung on the starboard railing to fall in love with France's gift to America.

The Statue of Liberty was bigger than I remembered from my last trip to New York. Nick met us at the terminal in his Mini-Cooper. He looked splendid in his hippie dealer clothing; patchwork leather jacket and shiny boots. We had breakfast at his parents' house in New Dorp.

His mother fried eggs in bacon fat. I loved them crackling crisp. She fed Sookie, until her tight belly extended over her hiphuggers. The skinny twenty year-old disappeared into the bathroom for several minutes. When she emerged, her face was red and she said, "I need some air."

After lunch Nick drove to Shooter's Island and we smoked a joint among the shore-wrecked tug boats and half-sunken barges. The three of us wandered across the rotting wharves. The water glistened with oil and the faint clouds in the blue sky hinted at an evening snow.

Only a few hours remained in 1971.

"What are you doing tonight?" Nick jumped from a rotting ferry to a half-sunken tugboat.

"No one's playing at the Fillmore, so we're watching the fireworks in Central Park." Wayne had mentioned this alternative.

"And your friend has some more of this reefer" Selling a pound here will pay my rent in Brighton.

"Yes, sure." My outstretched hand guided Sookie over a gap in the planks.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll drive you into the city." Nick climbed onto a stranded pilot boat. We followed him into the shattered wheelhouse. The walls were covered with moss.

"Can't we stay here?" The twenty year-old was in no hurry to get back to Manhattan.

"Why would you want to stay here?" Nick had lived most of his life on this island.

"She's scared of Wayne's friend." I stood at the helm. The wheel was slimy in my hands. "He's a little fat."

"A little fat" He weighs as much as a walrus." Sookie shivered from the cold. "I have a thing about fat people."

"One in a freak show tried to eat her," I joked, but she wasn't smiling.

"The clowns scare me," said Neil

"Clowns are scary?" I had been on the TV show BOZO THE CLOWN three times. I loved him.

"It's called Coulrophobia. One tried to pull me into the ring. I kicked him in the shin. My mother and father laughed and so did everyone else in the audience. The clown called me a little shit under his breath." A long-buried hatred burned his eyes. "I kicked him again. So I understand about the fears, but are you prejudiced against fat people?"

"You ever hear me call Wayne fat?" Sookie was the complete opposite of Wayne's friend. Eddie was probably five times her weight.

"Wayne's not fat."

"He is not thin," countered Nick.

"I don't see him that way."

“I’ve met Wayne.” Nick was a movie buff. “He’s like Ernest Borgnine in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. Borgnine’s character kills Sinatra for calling him ‘fatso’. And then Montgomery Cliff calls him ‘fatso’ and kills Borgnine.”

“Ernest Borgnine didn’t kill Frank, because he was fat. He killed him because he was mean. Wayne’s not fat.”

“What about Eddie?” Sookie cocked her head to the side.

“He weighs as much as a walrus and will have to drop 200 pounds before he can fly in a glider.”

“Glider?”

“Eddie wants to fly in a glider," I explained to my friend.

“He’s on a cocaine diet. He’ll never lose that weight," Sookie declared with a thin person's disdain for weight.

“Maybe you could teach him how to be thin.”

“What are you saying" That I'm too skinny."

"Not at all."

"Skin and bones. Maybe you don’t like me this way, but I don’t either. Let’s get out of here. I’m cold.”

She stormed away to the shore.

Nick clapped me on the back.

“You certainly have a way with women”

Sookie sulked in the back seat of the Mini-Cooper on the ride to Manhattan. I half-expected her to drive home, but once she was with Marie at Eddie’s apartment, Sookie reverted to herself again. She was even a little affectionate as she changed into tight jeans and a white turtleneck sweater for our excursion to Central Park. I helped her put on the silver necklace, which hung slack on her flat chest.

“I do like the way you look.” I brushed a wandering strand of hair from her face.

“I’m sorry about this afternoon.” She nestled her head into my chest. Her half-nakedness answered most men’s dreams. “I’m scared of fat people. I fear that one day I will be one of them I know it’s not right, but I can’t help it. Later I’ll be a good girl.”

We went into the living room and smoked reefer from a bong. I opened the two bottles of wine. Jolee Wayne showed up in biker gear. Outlaw life ran in Wayne’s family. She opened a bottle of tequila. Everyone had shots. Eddie cut us lines.

Wayne ignored Jolee’s flirting with his girlfriend, as he played DJ with his new LPS. BITCHES BREW lasted one track. The Stooges FUN HOUSE two. Spirit’s 12 DREAMS OF DR. SARDONICUS was our favorite, but at the end of the B-side Marie asked, “When you playing a record we can dance to?”

“Right now.” Wayne cued up Isaac Hayes HOT BUTTERED SOUL. The girls danced go-go style. Nick and I trotted the standard male two-step. Wayne wiggled his legs, doing the ‘funky Chicken’. The Black Moses infected Eddie and he rose from his lounge chair with a groan.

“Damn, I haven’t been on my feet in days. Thank God for cocaine.”

Eddie jelloed in front of the fish tanks and the floor trampolined under his weight. He lifted his arms as far as his shoulders. His face was flushed with blood and he wheezed with every breath. We couldn’t tell if he was about to have a heart attack, until he broke into a smile and sang along with Isaac Hayes. His soprano voice was hilariously out of touch with his 10X body.

“What? No one ever see the hippos dance in FANTASIA.”

“I love FANTASIA.” Sookie pulled Eddie to the middle of the room.

“You’re killing me.” He broadened his stance to support his shifting weight.

The two danced a polka to the Kink’s LOLA. I laughed at the spectacle of a fat man and a skinny girl swirling around the living room. At the song’s end Eddie’s lungs were scorched by the exertion, but he didn’t sit down.

“No way can I walk like a woman, but I can speak like a man.” Eddie lifted his coat from a nail banged into the wall. “It’s 10:30. If we’re going, then we should go.”

Everyone threw on their jackets and climbed down the stairs. Jolee cut out to a dyke bar. The descent for Eddie was more exercise than his body could handle at one time. I bought four bottle of wine before he reached the street. Nick waited by his Mini-Cooper. The girls and Wayne were squashed into the back seat.

“No way I’m getting into that tin can.” Eddie regarded the small car with a claustrophobic horror.

“You’ll fit.” Nick already had the car in 2nd gear, since shifting would be impossible once Eddie was in the car.

“I might fit, but I’ll never get out.”

We pleaded for him to get in the car. Several passers-by watched our circus act. Eddie was not happy with an audience.

“We’re not leaving without you. Get in back.” Nick opened his door and I squiggled underneath Sookie who said to Eddie, “Hurry up or you’ll miss the fireworks.”

Her smile prodded Eddie into a decision against his better judgment. He shrugged his layers of fat and he heaved himself into the passenger seat. The over-loaded Mini-Cooper tilted under his mass like the car might capsize, then it stabilized slanting to the right. A hippie closed the door. We flashed him the peace sign.

“We’re all in.” Nick revved the engine. “Eddie, one favor. No fast moves.”

Nick drove slowly to Central Park, fearing that a single bump in a pothole might tear the suspension off the chassis, but no one ribbed Eddie. He was longer fat. He was only big.

For Sookie too.

She had Eddie under her thumb.

My position was no longer # 1.

I kissed her on the back of the neck and she trembled on my lap.

New Year’s revelers surged through the 5th Avenue entrance across from the Plaza Hotel. The cops had erected a barricade across the road. Nick showed them this father’s MD pass. They waved us into the park and we drove to the boathouse. It was quarter to 1971.

Eddie got out of the front seat, breathless after this epic effort. We helped him over to a park bench with a clear view of the lake. Strains of rock music faded and rose on the wind. People headed in its direction. One group of hippies ridiculed Eddie.

I glared at them to shut up.

Eddie motioned for me to let it go. He was used to the abuse. The air whooshed in and out of his lungs. It seemed like another ten steps might kill him and he stopped by a bench, saying “You go on without me.”

“No way.” Wayne helped Eddie sit down. Nick pulled some blankets out of Mini-Cooper. I opened the bottles of Boone Farm. Wayne lit up joints. Sookie cuddled closer to me for warmth. Her body was starved for heat. Nick draped us with a quilt.

“All we need is a fire and we could have a picnic.” Nick rubbed his hands together.

“Try some of this to get warm.” Sookie handed him a small bottle of tequila. We each had a nip. The alcohol boiled in our stomachs. Eddie was about to light another joint, when a cop appeared behind him.

He was about our age.

Young.

“That looks like marijuana.” His nightstick tapped the bench.

“It is.” Eddie craned his neck without being able to see the officer.

“The rest of you hippie scum holding?” The thin cop beamed a flashlight in our eyes and seized Eddie's coat.

Other longhairs gathered around us.

“No, just me.” Eddie admitted his guilt. “You can arrest me and I’ll resist the only way I know. By being heavy. But if you shine us on, we’ll wish you a Happy New Year.”

“Let the big man go free!” one longhair shouted and the crowd chanted for Eddie’s release. The cop surveyed the shadows for back up. He was outnumbered 50-1. His hand twitched on his holstered .38, then an older cop pushed through the hippies and assessed the scene with veteran eyes.

“Is that a joint in your hand?” His flashlight shined on the reefer.

“Yes, officer.” Eddie excelled at playing ‘good boy’.

“And my partner wants to arrest you for possession.” He flicked off the light.

“That’s correct, officer.”

“You put away the joint.” He lifted his open hands to show this problem wasn’t a problem. “My partner and I will leave you alone.”

“Thank you, officer.” Eddie put the joint inside his coat and nodded his gratitude. “And Happy New Year.”

“Same to you.” The older cop escorted his fellow officer from the bench and the mob parted for the policemen to leave the area. The hippies cheered Eddie and two seconds later the first rocket for the fireworks arced into the night sky.

It was 1971.

The pyrotechnic display lasted a good half-hour and Eddie cried at the finale.

“What’s wrong?” Wayne stood by his friend.

“I haven’t been out of the apartment in so long I forgot what it’s like to be around people. To be with friends.” Eddie struggled to his feet and dried his eyes. “I don’t want my eyelids to freeze shut.”

“Eddie, you don’t have to stay in the apartment all the time.” Wayne was half Eddie’s size. His problems with weight were manageable.

“I can barely walk to the Mini-Cooper.” His steps were tentative, as if he expected the earth to crumple beneath his feet. “You should have seen me at Woodstock. I reached the rim of the crowd and gave up getting any closer. Wayne stayed with me the entire time.”

“It was nothing.” Wayne had never mentioned this sacrifice. He always spoke about the festival, as if he had been in the front row.

“You had to stick with me instead of seeing all those bands.” Eddie pounded his chest with his fists.

“I heard the music.” Wayne seized Eddie’s wrists. His hands barely reached halfway around the thick joints. “Plus Woodstock was more than the music. It was about peace and love.”

“Horseshit. I’m trapped in this body, but I wasn’t this way always. Chubby, but not fat like this, and when I was 12, I ate a Devil’s Dog. It was so good I would do anything to get them. I started dealing drugs on Jerome Avenue to finance my eating habits. Within two years I weighed 200. By the time I was 18 I was over 300. I have no idea how much I weigh now.”

Eddie was on the verge of crying. Wayne slipped under Eddie’s arm to steady him and I held his other side. He tried to shake us off, except his sense of balance wandered with every step.

“I’m a big fat fuck and I’ll never be able to get into a glider.”

“Shut up, Eddie.” Sookie stood in front of us. “Sure when I first saw you, I thought you were a big fat fuck, but you have a good heart. Fly or not fly, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll still be our friend. Do you really want to fly?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll help you starve. It's my specialty.” Sookie caressed his face. “Starting tomorrow.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was already tomorrow and said, “You have to start someplace.”

“I guess so.”

We drove back to St. Mark’s Place. Nick returned to Staten Island. We stood on the sidewalk. Eddie’s eyes were fixed on the 24-hour diner down the street. He turned to his apartment instead. We had to speak about anything else other than his hunger. Marie helped us push Eddie up the stoop. Wayne was red in the face. He wasn’t in such good shape either.

The climb to the 4th floor exhausted Eddie and he collapsed into the lounge chair like it was a sarcophagus. Wayne headed into the back bedroom and fell asleep without saying a single word. I read Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD. The girls went into the kitchen and it was a good 30 minutes before Eddie noticed Sookie and Marie emptying the cabinets and refrigerator.

“What are you doing?” he asked without any real desire to hear the answer.

“Cleaning out the junk food.” Marie held up ten bags of potato chips.

“You have to eat less and eat good. No more shit.” Sookie dumped the cookies into the trash.

“What will I live on?”

“Vegetables, fruit, no bread.” Sookie held up a shriveled lemon.

“That’s been here since I moved in.”

“It’s mummified.” Sookie dropped the lemon on top of the cookies. “Eddie, you want to be the fat fuck you are today? Maybe even fatter? You want that?”

“No.”

“You said the magic number was 200 pounds.”

“Yes.” Eddie had become her faithful slave.

“In six months.”

“Yes.”

“If you’re really serious, because if you are, then I’ll help you. And you’re asking why. You know I was scared of you at first. Scared because you reminded me of a freak show fat man. I was so scared by that man that I told myself I never wanted to be fat and stopped eating normal. I don’t eat. Same as you always eat. Opposite, but the same too.” Sookie peered into his eyes, as if to touch his heart.

“How can you help me?” Eddie was eying the cookies in the garbage cam. “You live in Boston.”

“What if I lived in New York?”

“Live in New York?” I had seen us in a Commonwealth Avenue apartment.

“I hate my home town. New York is more me,” Sookie said to me, then turned to Eddie. “My parents will understand. I have all my stuff in the back of the car. I have money. I can pay you rent. I’ll get a job too.”

“Helping me lose weight will be enough of a job.” Eddie’s reservation was an act of preservation for his fat.

“It’ll be easy.” Sookie flipped her hair off her shoulder. “I know how to not eat, remember.”

“Just yesterday you were scared of Eddie.” This didn’t make any sense. She had been horrified by Eddie. I almost loved her.

“That was yesterday. Today is a brand new year.”

“What about your car?”

“It’ll stay here with me. It's a good size for Eddie.”

“Great.” My exit should have a slammed door, instead I pushed through the beaded curtains and flopped on the sofa bed.

A second later Sookie followed and shut out the light. I didn’t plan on saying a word. She was a free human being. Her shirt came off first. Her finger and index finger popped open the brass buttons of her pants. Each one made a small noise. She used both hands to slink from the leather. Her skimpy panties were white. Sookie sat on the bed next to me with bony arms across her chest.

“This isn’t about you and me.” The hushed words couldn’t travel farther than the sofa. “This is about me. I want to live in New York. You probably do too, but you have to go to college.”

My draft number was 39. College kept me out of the army and I didn’t want to kill any Vietnamese.

“If you sell that pot fast, then you have all the more reason to visit me.” She undid the buttons of my shirt. Her fingernails grazed my skin. “And now I’ll show you one more.”

I lost my virginity that night.

Wayne wore a big grin in the morning.

“Everything cool"”

“I’m not sure.” I signaled Eddie and I had some talking to do.

“We have a problem?” Eddie was barely awake.

“No problem as long as you don’t give any cocaine to her.”

“I’ll try, but this is a free country.” He glanced at Sookie.

“I’m not into coke.” She sat on the sofa. It swallowed her whole. “It’s cool. Really.”

She was right. Everything was cool.

Two days later Sookie found a job at a used-clothing store. We made love again every morning and night.

On January 3rd Nick picked up Wayne, Marie, and me in his Mini-Cooper. I sold him a pound for $160. The second I sold to the other taxi drivers in Boston and the following week I returned to New York for two more pounds. Eddie was eating vegetables and fruit. Sookie ate bread.

“I could use the weight.” She had gained five pounds in a week.

“Nice.” She was more comfortable in bed with the extra flesh.

“What about me?" Eddie pulled on his loose shirt.

“You’re a shadow of your former self.”

That evening Sookie and I saw Buddy Miles and Big Brother at the Fillmore. We ate steamed vegetables with Eddie. In bed she was different from before. I didn’t ask why she closed her eyes. Some questions are better left unasked by those not wanting the answers and I certainly did not want to know any answers from a naked woman in 1971.

Description:Despite the threat of a mass transit strike that could leave them without transportation home at the stroke of midnight, New Yorkers gathered in droves at Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain on December 31, 1971.

WHEN FAT MEN FLY by Peter Nolan Smith / Chapter 2

Two days before New Year's Eve Sookie and Marie arrived at Wayne's house. The two girls wore matching white leather jackets, mini-skirts, knee-high boots, and turtleneck sweater. They were excited about their first trip to the big city and Marie asked Wayne's mom, "Do we look like sisters?"

"Like Eva and Zsa-Zsa Gabor." Wayne's mom puffed on a joint without explaining that the Gabor sisters were blondes. She liked smoking on the holidays. Her finger poked Wayne.

"Go visit your sister in New York. See if she's okay."

"Jolee's aMarine.” Wayne had grown a thick Castro beard in the last ten days and his hair was longer. "Nothing bad's gonna happen to her?"

"Just once could you do what I ask."

"Yes, mom." Wayne pulled on her Christmas gift, a black fake-fur overcoat.

"And shave off that beard before you come back." She hugged him good-bye. "You look like a runaway bear in that coat."

"It's nice and warm. Thank you once more" He waved to his stepfather, who was finishing a bottle of Zapple wine. "Have a Happy New Year."

We walk out of the house. The clouds were gray, but held no threat of snow. Wayne and Marie sat in the back of the LeMans. The gas tank was full. The bags were in the trunk. Sookie asked me to drive. I slid behind the wheel and turned on the radio. LAYLA was on Dave Summer's WBZ show.

"It would be so cool, if Eric Clapton was playing in New York." Marie loved Clapton.

"Sorry, he's in London jamming at Ronnie Scott's with Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr. The Fillmore has Mylon and David Rea." Wayne's connection with the whereabouts of rock musicians was a gift. He knew everything.

“We'll see some other band." Marie was only a little disappointed. This trip was about seeing the biggest city in the world.

"And we got the rest of the week off." Sookie clapped her hands, as we drove away from Wayne's house. The car skidded on ice. I swiftly corrected the spin with the steering wheel. I had been born in Maine. We knew how to drive in the winter.

"How you get off work?" Wayne rolled a joint on Aldous Huxley's book HEAVEN AND HELL.

"I told the 'Mr. Bigshot' that my mother was sick." Marie snuggled into the furry overcoat. "He called my house to check. My 'mother' said I was sick."

"Cough-cough." Sookie covered her mouth. "I'm a good actress, huh?"

"A regular Mia Farrow." She shared the same figure as Frank Sinatra’s ex-wife.

"What you tell your parents?" I was curious, since she never spoke about them.

"I told them I'm moving to New York." She toyed with a lipstick tube. "They thought I was kidding."

"Maybe you're not such a good actress."

"It depends on the audience." She smeared on pink lipstick. "Keep your eyes on the road."

"Merry Christmas." Wayne handed Marie a Billy Holiday 8-track, as we pulled onto Route 3. "I think you'll dig it."

She turned off the radio and slotted the tape in the stereo. Billie Holiday's voice travelled over time, as she sang of 'strange fruit'. Her other songs were better suited for the winter sun shining through fleecy clouds. Sookie put on Joni Mitchell next and the two girls sang a duet to URGE FOR GOING. They liked Tom Rush's version too.

The traffic on I-95 was light through Providence and Rhode Island's Pine Barrens. We stopped for lunch in New London. Marie, Wayne, and I ate apple pie. Sookie said she wasn't hungry and drank a glass of water. Back on the road Wayne outlined our trip to New York.

"We'll hang around the East Village and take the ferry to the Staten Island. We might even go to the top of the Empire State Building, but remember that this is also a business trip."

"No pleasure, Teddy Bear?" Marie tweaked his plumb cheek.

He had gained a few extra pounds over the holiday.

"Maybe a little." Wayne was comfortable with his weight and laid his head on Marie's lap. Within seconds he was asleep. Marie joined him before Mystic, Connecticut and Sookie dozed off a few minutes later. I turned down the stereo and pressed my foot down on the accelerator. The LeMans easily hit 75 on the dry roads, but I slowed down to five miles over the speed limit. Cops hunted the highways for hippies driving fast.

When the LeMans rumbled` over the Hutchinson River Bridge, Wayne woke up and rubbed his face. The girls sensed his stirring and blinked their eyes for several seconds upon seeing the blocks of high buildings.

"You are now officially in New York. The Bronx to be exact." Wayne pointed to an apartment complex next to a marsh. "My old man worked at Adventure Land."

"I saw it on the way back. I had begged my father to stop at the amusement park. It had looked like Disney World built on a swamp. My father had said, "Another time."

"So you never went?"

"No."

"They tore down Adventure Land to build Co-op City. We moved to Crow's Avenue"

"You want to stop to see friends?"

"No way." Wayne shook his head. "Crow's Ave is where greasers gave me fat-boy beatings. I hope they're all dead."

His voice was chilled by the memory of childhood bullying. I understood his anger. Three of my classmates had beaten me every day in 6th Grade. I turned up the radio. The DJ was playing the Stooges' WANNA BE YOUR DOG.

"This song is banned in Boston."

"This is not Boston."

"No, I can see that."

An elevated highway bisected the South Bronx and we crossed the Harlem River in Manhattan. Wayne gave a rolling tour of Central Park, 5th Avenue, the Empire State Building, and finally said, "Take a left on 8th Street."

The sun fell behind the low apartment buildings and the night mounted the sky to the east. The girls shivered in their thin coats and I turned up the car heat.

"A word of warning." Wayne scanned the passers-by like he was searching for someone. "Trust no one and tell no one our business. Say we're here for a vacation. Nothing else. Everyone understand?"

"Yes."

We traversed Broadway. The young people on the street had longer hair than the hippies in Cambridge and their clothing was ethnically cool.

"I feel out of place," said Marie.

"Don't worry everyone will love you." Wayne kissed the big-bottomed blonde, then he directed me to a parking garage.

"Better to park the car here rather than on the street."

"Parking tickets?" Cops everywhere loved sticking violations under the windshield wiper.

"That and car thieves."

"Park it in a lot." Sookie loved her car.

Wayne paid the attendant for three days. The air was slightly warmer than Boston. We carried the girls' bags down St. Mark's Place. After Altamount the hippie movement had deserted the cities, but head shops and clothing stores preserved the Summer of Love in the East Village. Marie and Sookie gawked at the dresses. Young men studied the two girls like they were dirty books to be bought from a porno shop in the Combat Zone. I held Sookie's hand tight.

"Eddie lives across the Street." Wayne stopped before the Electric Circus. "He's solid, but don't stare at him. He doesn't like that."

"Why would we stare?" Marie eyed the windows banded by the fire escapes across the face of the five-story building. A few windows glowed with light on the upper floors.

"You'll see." Wayne climbed the stoop and pressed the buzzer. The door clicked open and we stepped inside the worn-out building. The hallway smelled of cabbage dinners and the stairs creaked under our feet. On the 4rd floor the scent of marijuana overwhelmed the food odors. Wayne knocked on the door of 4A.

"C'mon in." A man's voice said loudly. "The door is open."

Wayne pushed the door and we entered a narrow apartment. The spotless living room was dominated by a TV surrounded by tanks of tropical fish.

A huge man sat in a sagging lounge chair.

Eddie was the same age as Wayne, but outweighed him by 200 pounds. His face was swollen to the size of a pumpkin and several ever-larger waves of belly sloshed over his torso. His jean overalls had to be specially made, same as his tee-shirt and shoes.

"Welcome." He made no effort to get out of the chair and lifted a 'black power' fist.

The girls had stopped at the entrance in shock.

"Brother." Wayne clasped the bloated hand and introduced us.

"My house is your house," said Eddie. "Help yourself to whatever in it. I sleep in this chair. There's a bed in the backroom and a fold-out couch in the front."

A thick curtain hung from that doorframe. It offered little privacy.

"I hosey the bed." Wayne had first dibs. Eddie was his friend. "Why don't you girls freshen up in the bathroom? We have some business to discuss."

Sookie and Marie recovered their teenage cool and disappeared into the back room. Wayne fingered through the record collection on the opposite wall. He pulled out BLIND FAITH to satisfy Marie's Clapton obsession.

"Nice girls." Eddie's comment was tainted by an honest appreciation for their innocence. "All the girls in the Village are old road."

"You have a girlfriend?" Wayne asked at the Dual 1245 turntable. The Bozak speakers were coupled with a Fisher amplifier and Marantz pre-amp. The system was top of the line. Eddie had money.

"You're joking. No woman wants me, but I have lots of customers." A sofa was shoved against the wall. "Please sit down."

"Thanks." I held onto the armrest to keep from slipping into the sofa's valley.

"Sorry, I'm a little hard on furniture. Let me show you the weed." Eddie pulled a brick of reefer from his shirt. Sweat dampened the plastic covering.

"No hiding place better than under fat. I never had a cop give me a full body search."

"When was the last time you stripped naked?" Wayne lowered the stylus onto CAN'T FIND MY WAY HOME.

"Last month my mother came over and washed me for the best part of an hour. She found an ounce of blow under my hip flap." Eddie reached under his left breast for a cellophane packet. "You want some."

"Sure, but let's keep it away from the girls. They go crazy on the stuff." For a fat guy Wayne was much hipper than most of my other friends. "You've never done blow?"

I shook my head.

"No sin. Eric Clapton sang about it on SPOONFUL?"

"Willie Dixon 'getting a spoonful' meant sex, although the origin of the song came from Charlie Paton's SPOONFUL BLUES. I've never done any."

"I'll change that." Wayne deftly cut six lines of white powder onto a small mirror and inhaled two. Eddie snorted two and handed me a straw. The cocaine burned my nose with an alkaloid torch. The majesty of the Inca flowed in my blood.

"Welcome to the world of serious drugs." Eddie stashed the coke inside his shirt.

"Isn't the blow cutting into your eating?" Wayne hid the mirror under the table.

"It's all part of a grand scheme." Eddie melted into the chair and his chest heaved like a whale out of water. "You know how I've always dreamed about flying in a glider and I have a plan to achieve my goal.."

A laugh spurted through my nostrils.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. How's a glider getting into the air with someone as big as me? The answer is that it can't be done, so I have to get smaller." Eddie lifted his pants from his waist, revealing an overlap of flesh. "I've already lost a bunch of weight. I figure if I keep doing coke, I'll get down to 250 by the 4th of July."

"That's 200 pounds in six months."

Eddie was aiming at losing almost two Sookies.

"35 pounds a month." Eddie tapped his left nostril and inhaled a white line of powder. "The only other choices are to undergo a drastic surgery to staple my stomach shut. It's a new technique and more than 5% of the patients die from complications. It's illegal in the US, but a Russian doctor will do it in Moscow for $20,000. My mother would lend me the money, but I figure for $15,000 the cocaine will take off the same amount of weight and I don't have to travel. You know I don't like to travel."

No airplane, train, or bus were equipped with seats his size.

"That's an ounce a week." Wayne was also good at math.

"I can handle it." He lurched forward with the grace of a whale trying to roll off a beach and pointed to the fish tanks. "I've been watching those fish ever since I got fat. I been telling myself I'll float like them one day, but not with this body. I'll have to lose that 200 pounds."

We wished him good luck and discussed our deal. His pot was better than most marijuana in Boston. Wayne later haggled the price down to $150 and convinced Eddie to front us each another pound. The profit on my sales would finance a deposit on an apartment in Brighton. Moving to Boston would make my life easier for school and work, plus give me someplace to romance Sookie.

"Then it's a deal."

The girls emerged from the bedroom; Marie as a lost flower child in fringed suede and Sookie a futuristic space vixen in midnight blue leather pants and a white silk shirt. Marie had worked magic on her friend's gaunt face and Sookie radiated an untainted purity.

"Wow." I kept my compliment simple.

"You girls will fit into the East Village fine."

"Then let's go. I didn't come come New York to sit in an apartment.

Wayne conducted on a tour of the East Village. We drank chocolate egg creams at the Gem Spa and watched a French film CANNABIS at a 2nd Avenue movie theater. The girls bought clothing at several stores and we ate a bowl of borsch at a kosher dairy bar. Sookie had a cup of tea. No milk. No sugar. Wayne brought us to her sister's small one-bedroom on Avenue A.

Jolee had just finished a second tour as a Marine nurse in Viet Nam. Her hair was short and a white tee shirt suited a body honed by boot camp. There were weights in the corner. None of us asked her about the War and she didn't tell any stories. She sat between the two girls. If she were a man, I would have forced her to stop touching Sookie.

"Were you jealous?" Sookie asked on the walk back to Eddie's place.

"Saddest thing in the whole wide world is to see your baby with another girl." Even more people were on St. Marks.

"I don't like girls. Not that way." She linked her arm into mine. "But I like flirting to get you jealous."

"Thanks." I had fallen for her trap like a 13 year-old boy.

"You're welcome." She kissed my cheek. I felt good. A band of Hare Krishnas canted their one-verse song in front of the Gem Spa. Their smiles seemed to have been lifted from God. I picked up two bottles of Liebefraumilch at the St. Mark’s Liquor Store. Sookie liked white wine.

The four of us entered Eddie's building. He slept in the chair. I put the wine in the refrigerator. Wayne and Marie went into their room. The door shut with a click. It was past midnight. I held the curtain aside for Sookie and undressed on the sofa bed. She lay down in her clothes.

"What's wrong?" This trip was supposed to be our honeymoon.

"I can't get naked with him in the other the room." She dropped her voice to an almost sub-sonic level.

"He can't see us." I pulled off my boots.

"But he can hear us and I can hear him. Listen." She cocked her head to the side.

Eddie's breathing was only slightly human.

"It's sounds like he's trying to suck all the air in the room." Sookie covered her ears with a pillow.

"Does he scare you?" Eddie seemed harmless to me.

"When I was a kid, I went to the circus with my family." She slid across thin mattress. "They had a freak show. A bearded lady, a midget, but what scared me was this fat man on a chain. Sometimes he lunged for children."

"And he looked like Eddie?"

Sookie nodded with half-closed eyes. Her fear dated back to childhood.

"Eddie's not a freak." I hugged her tight. "And no one's will hurt you as long as I'm here."

"Good."

We slept in our underwear. Her body was skin and bones. We didn't have sex. Tomorrow night I'd get a hotel room. It would be our honeymoon suite. Hippie girls liked romantic and so did I.

Cold As A Witch's Teat

Tonight's weather has been predicted to be the rainy, which will certainly be better that New Year's Eve 2018, the coldest end of the year in the history of New York.

I've been in other cold nights in this city.

Most memorial.

1971.

Doctor Nick, Wayne Shephard, Eddie Mickie, and Wayne's sister drove up to Central Park for concert.

In Nick's Mini-Cooper.

Eddie weighed 450.

He sat in the front.

The biggest man this side of Andre the Giant.

We parked by the Plaza Hotel. The cold wind was sharp as an ice razor. Every exhalation hung as frost before our faces. It was deep winter.

Eddie walked about two-hundred paces and then sat on a bench.

"I can't make it any farther."

"To the concert," asked Wayne.

"Either way." He was hyperventilating hard.

"You cold?"

"No, I just can't walk no more."

"Not in this weather."

We retreated from the park and returned to Eddie house.

It was nice and warm.

Tonight it's raining and I'm thinking of staying in, but there's always a chance I might gone out.

I do like the nightlife.