Funny, that's how I thought of myself. I mean here is this
kid trying so hard to fit in with the in-group, wanting to be so
normal that people will accept him instantly. but it arrived
before him bouncing on the floor. "Hey look," they would call,
"here comes the world's heaviest boy." That hurt. I really wasn't
that fat. It just seemed that way. Did you get the picture?
During all the years of my youth there was this constant battle
with my weight. All the diets in the world just could not reduce
my belly. All the exercises that were ever created could not make
an impact on the incredible bulk I was carrying. It was useless.
Let's face it. I was cursed by the gods to be grossly overweight
for the rest of my life.
Did I really say "funny" earlier? It certainly wasn't funny
to me. I was constantly being made fun of and ridiculed. "Hey
Pete, can you hit the broadside of the barn?" a kid would ask.
Then Pete would answer, "Why no, that's too small, but I can hit
the broadside of the Paul." Tell me, what is so funny about that?
Or how about this observance: "Why Paul, you can't ride the
elevator. You'll just cause it to break down." Yeah, right!
That's like totally funny. In a pig's eye!!! What gives them the
right to make fun of somebody's appearance? Didn't they realize
the harm that can do to a person's karma? Especially to a kid's?
They did not care.
To be fat just wasn't accepted. If you were fat, you were
considered dumb or retarded. If you were fat, you were also
considered ugly. At least that was what my classmates thought. I
remember a particular kid, Steve, in my class that was extremely
obnoxious towards me. I don't know why. I guess that he was just
jealous of me. I may have been fat, but I was also smart. He just
could not stand the fact that I was smarter than him. Anyway, he
would stress over and over the one fault that he perceived: my
weight problem. One day the school was taking photographs for I.D.
cards. Everyone needed to be photographed. There was no exceptions.
Of course Steve seized the moment. He told me that I could not get
my picture taken. I was so large that it was impossible for a camera
to focus on me. If it would try, the camera would break. Guess what
happened? That's right. The camera did break. There I was sitting on
the chair, waiting for the photographer to make his final adjustments,
feeling positive. The photographer hit the button, and nothing happened.
For some unknown reason the camera picked that moment to break.
No further pictures could be taken. And I was the butt of cruel jokes
for a month. Steve, of course, lead the chorus of jokes.
The above story did happened exactly like I wrote it. I did change the
name of the guilty classmate to protect him. For that matter everything
I write in this essay is true. I needed to write about the camera
incident because it was the perfect example of what usually happened
to me. I was doomed to suffer some strange incidents in my life
for I was cursed by the gods. To be fat was my lot in life. To suffer
eternal anguish was my fate in life. There was nothing I could do
to change it. Or was there?
I learned early in my life that I could use people's prejudices against
them. I would emphasize whatever they thought. If they thought I was
fat and dumb, I lead them in that belief. If they thought I was fat and
slow, then I would lead them in that belief. I enjoyed stringing people
along. Then, if they were particularly cruel or offensive, I would put
them away.
Here is an example. One day later in my life I got tired of listening
to a football player brag about how fast he could run. Quite suddenly I challenged him to a race. He looked at me and tried to hold his laughter.
He wasn't successful. Picture it, you are a star athlete and suddenly a
big fat slob challenges you to a race. At first he didn't take me
seriously. When he discovered that I was totally serious, he looked and
acted offended. He was so positive that he could blow me away in a race.
We took our places. He jumped to the starting blocks, while I was having trouble dragging my poor ol' fat body to the starting blocks. The race
was to be well witnessed, everyone of them knowing I was the turtle to
his rabbit. I could only be totally humiliated yet again. The race started.
My opponent shot like a bullet out of the starting blocks. Me? Well, I
sort of dripped out like slow molasses. He was a quarter of the way done,
and I had barely got started. At the half way point I managed to gain a
few inches, but I still wasn't a real threat to him. At the three quarters mark, I gained a few feet on his lead and was coming on strong. My opponent glanced back and looked surprised at how close I was to him. I thought I
heard him say "Oh shit." I was getting faster and faster. At the end of
the race, he won... by a neck.
But in a strange way I won. A fat man should easily be beaten by an athlete.
I won his respect. That's all I ever wanted. To be respected as an equal
is my only goal. I have never shed the excess weight, and probably I
never will become thin. I weigh now 260 pounds and have high blood pressure because of my weight. This is a real problem, but I have come to accept it. Most of the early problems that I faced was with myself. I certainly did
not respect myself. I felt that the gods had cursed me unjustly. With age,
my view steadily changed. I was able to do things other people wouldn't be
able to do; for example, I once kicked down an old rotted shed all by myself.
But most importantly came this thought: I am the way I am for a reason. If other people wanted to make fun of me, that was okay. Only two people know
what I am inside-- God and me. I was not cursed by the gods. If other people laugh at me, it only means they are less than me. They are less than me
in more ways than the obvious.
