been. To part with one’s fat! I must have been in league with the Devil!” I think that the point of the story is obvious.
Now the reader is probably thinking, Why, then, if you are Lard City, have you not joined a circus? Because- and I confess this with no small embarrassment-I cannot leave the house. I cannot go out because I cannot get my pants on. My legs are too thick to dress. They are the living result of more corned beef than there is on Second Avenue-I would say about twelve thousand sandwiches per leg. And not all lean, even though I specified. One thing is certain: If my fat could speak, it would probably speak of a man’s intense loneliness-with, oh, perhaps a few additional pointers on how to make a sailboat out of paper. Every pound on my body wants to be heard from, as do Chins Four through Twelve inclusive. My fat is strange fat. It has seen much. My calves alone have lived a lifetime. Mine is not happy fat, but it is real fat. It is not fake fat. Fake fat is the worst fat you can have, although I don’t know if the stores still carry it.
But let me tell you how it was that I became fat. For I was not always fat. It is the Church that has made me thus. At one time I was thin-quite thin. So thin, in fact, that to call me fat would have been an error in perception. I remained thin until one day-I think it was my twentieth birthday-when I was having tea and cracknels with my uncle at a fine restaurant. Suddenly my uncle put a question to me. “Do you believe in God?” he asked. “And if so, what do you think He weighs?” So saying, he took a long and luxurious draw at his cigar and, in that confident, assured manner he has cultivated, lapsed into a coughing fit so violent I thought he would hemorrhage.
“I do not believe in God,” I told him. “For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of the race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered? Answer me, Uncle. Or have I shocked you?”
I knew I was safe in saying this, because nothing ever shocked the man. Indeed, he had seen his chess tutor’s mother raped by Turks and would have found the whole incident amusing had it not taken so much time.
“Good nephew,” he said, “there is a God, despite what you think, and He is everywhere. Yes? Everywhere!”
“Everywhere, Uncle? How can you say that when you don’t even know for sure if we exist? True, I am touching your wart at this moment, but could that not be an illusion? Could not all life be an illusion? Indeed, are there not certain sects of holy men in the East who are convinced that nothing exists outside their minds except for the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station? Could it not be simply that we are alone and aimless, doomed to wander in an indifferent universe, with no hope of salvation, nor any prospect except misery, death, and the empty reality of eternal nothing?”
I could see that I made a deep impression on my uncle with this, for he said to me, “You wonder why you’re not invited to more parties! Jesus, you’re morbid!” He accused me of being nihilistic and then said, in that cryptic way the senile have, “God is not always where one seeks Him, but I assure you, dear nephew, He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance.” With that, he departed, leaving me his blessing and a check that read like the tab for an aircraft carrier.
I returned home wondering what it was he meant by that one simple statement “He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance.” Drowsy by then, and out of sorts, I lay down on my bed and took a brief nap. In that time, I had a dream that was to change my life forever. In the dream, I am strolling in the country, when I suddenly notice I am hungry. Starved, if you will. I come upon a restaurant and I enter. I order the
Now the reader is probably thinking, Why, then, if you are Lard City, have you not joined a circus? Because- and I confess this with no small embarrassment-I cannot leave the house. I cannot go out because I cannot get my pants on. My legs are too thick to dress. They are the living result of more corned beef than there is on Second Avenue-I would say about twelve thousand sandwiches per leg. And not all lean, even though I specified. One thing is certain: If my fat could speak, it would probably speak of a man’s intense loneliness-with, oh, perhaps a few additional pointers on how to make a sailboat out of paper. Every pound on my body wants to be heard from, as do Chins Four through Twelve inclusive. My fat is strange fat. It has seen much. My calves alone have lived a lifetime. Mine is not happy fat, but it is real fat. It is not fake fat. Fake fat is the worst fat you can have, although I don’t know if the stores still carry it.
But let me tell you how it was that I became fat. For I was not always fat. It is the Church that has made me thus. At one time I was thin-quite thin. So thin, in fact, that to call me fat would have been an error in perception. I remained thin until one day-I think it was my twentieth birthday-when I was having tea and cracknels with my uncle at a fine restaurant. Suddenly my uncle put a question to me. “Do you believe in God?” he asked. “And if so, what do you think He weighs?” So saying, he took a long and luxurious draw at his cigar and, in that confident, assured manner he has cultivated, lapsed into a coughing fit so violent I thought he would hemorrhage.
“I do not believe in God,” I told him. “For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of the race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered? Answer me, Uncle. Or have I shocked you?”
I knew I was safe in saying this, because nothing ever shocked the man. Indeed, he had seen his chess tutor’s mother raped by Turks and would have found the whole incident amusing had it not taken so much time.
“Good nephew,” he said, “there is a God, despite what you think, and He is everywhere. Yes? Everywhere!”
“Everywhere, Uncle? How can you say that when you don’t even know for sure if we exist? True, I am touching your wart at this moment, but could that not be an illusion? Could not all life be an illusion? Indeed, are there not certain sects of holy men in the East who are convinced that nothing exists outside their minds except for the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station? Could it not be simply that we are alone and aimless, doomed to wander in an indifferent universe, with no hope of salvation, nor any prospect except misery, death, and the empty reality of eternal nothing?”
I could see that I made a deep impression on my uncle with this, for he said to me, “You wonder why you’re not invited to more parties! Jesus, you’re morbid!” He accused me of being nihilistic and then said, in that cryptic way the senile have, “God is not always where one seeks Him, but I assure you, dear nephew, He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance.” With that, he departed, leaving me his blessing and a check that read like the tab for an aircraft carrier.
I returned home wondering what it was he meant by that one simple statement “He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance.” Drowsy by then, and out of sorts, I lay down on my bed and took a brief nap. In that time, I had a dream that was to change my life forever. In the dream, I am strolling in the country, when I suddenly notice I am hungry. Starved, if you will. I come upon a restaurant and I enter. I order the
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