The Weight of Him(24)

He ordered enough food to make a lesser man burst. While he waited, two girls entered the shop. About fourteen, they wore that furious, insolent look that seemed particular to their generation. After they ordered, they kept glancing over at Billy and whispering together.

After several minutes, a middle-aged woman in a shiny navy tracksuit appeared in the doorway. Much like Billy’s tracksuits, the two stripes on the sides of her polyester pant legs had turned a dirty white. With her matching orange-blond hair and thin black eyebrows, she was obviously the taller girl’s mother. “What’s taking so long?” The girls sauntered over to the woman. “It’s fatso’s fault,” her daughter muttered.

The three whispered together, a sound that mimicked sandpaper at work. Billy called to the server, the man hidden in the back, cooking Billy’s huge order. “Can you hurry up, please?”

*

Billy parked inside the vast bog. Fields and fields of peat, where nothing ever decayed, everything was preserved. Soil that saved. Alone in the dark, he devoured the chips with shaky hands, each hot, succulent chunk gritty with salt and drenched with sharp vinegar. Next, the spice burger with its crunchy outer coat of bread crumbs, and the lush, soft inside of beef, onions, herbs, and spices. The two pieces of battered cod he pushed into him also, the oil smearing his chin and hands. He moaned out loud with pleasure.

He worked his way through the box of chicken, more oil and bread crumbs and herbs and spices. He felt disgusting now. Loathed himself now. He ate faster, barely chewing, barely breathing. Not even tasting. Get it into you, you fat fucker, you. Between mouthfuls, he gulped the chilled Coca-Cola, a shock to his teeth after the heat of the food. Nothing, though, could stop the server’s voice going off inside his head. What you want?

As a boy, ever since he’d set about burying the wrong son inside himself, his parents, everyone, had harped at him to stop eating so much. He hated how others thought they knew when he’d had enough. He never felt he had enough. Not even when Michael was alive had he ever felt he had enough. If Michael were to come back right this second, even then he didn’t think he would feel he had enough. He brought the side of his fist down hard on the dashboard, making the contents of the glove box rattle. What the fuck was wrong with him?





Eight

Billy struggled onto the upturned dirty-white bucket used to slop cows. He grabbed at the rope hanging from the rafters and pulled the noose over his head, its fray hard and itchy against his neck. He couldn’t breathe right. He stepped off the bucket, letting out a wretched sound. The rope broke. He tried again, and again, but every time he stepped from the bucket, the rope broke.

Michael watched from the straw-strewn floor in the corner, his back pressed against the barn wall and his arms clasped around his knees. He struggled up from the ground, shaking his head and wiping the straw from the back of his jeans. He moved toward Billy, his arm reaching for the noose. “Here, Dad, let me show you.”

Billy awoke with a gasp. His skin wet. The sheets wet. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and pressed his palm to his heart, afraid he was having an attack. He’d had a bad dream. That was all. He breathed in and out, the tension in his body starting to loosen, the pain in his chest subsiding. He was all right.

Or maybe he wasn’t. He could still taste the vinegar and cold grease from last night’s pig-out. The server’s voice chased him. What you want? The image of Deveney stumbling and mumbling inside Kennedy’s, and the appalling pose he’d struck, also knocked about Billy’s skull. That Ben Kennedy, too, treating Billy like he was some kind of imbecile. And Thumbs Tom’s crack, about Billy being on reality TV. Ha, ha.

Billy’s thoughts quickened. What if he did go on TV? Not in a reality series, but in a documentary about suicide and its aftermath? A vein in his jaw pulsed. What if he made the documentary himself? If he got those left behind after suicide on camera, to let people know the pain. The horror. The senselessness. Along with his fund-raiser and the march, a documentary would really get the nation’s attention, and could save countless more lives.

He pushed himself off the bed and put on his trousers. When his hand glanced the soldier, the rush left him and that awful ache set in. He removed the toy and moved his thumb back and forth over its painted face. Some part of him half expected the tiny fella to come alive.

*

Billy flinched when he heard Lucy’s voice crackle over the speakers—an announcement about a car blocking the loading dock. He breathed a sigh of relief. All day he’d waited with dread for her to summon him to Tony’s office. If Tony called him into his office today, to give him a yes or a no on matching donations, either way Billy would feel ever more terrible about his epic fail at the chip shop. His stomach cramped.

He’d only allowed himself three performance shakes throughout the day and hoped to go for a long, hard walk after work, too, but his body was deteriorating fast. His head felt like it would split from the pain. He also felt faint and shaky. More than his hunger and the lack of sleep, though, his efforts at exercise had really messed with his body. He felt beaten up.

A stomach-staple operation would be so much easier than all this torture. That would feel like cheating, though. Besides, he doubted people would donate nearly as much money if he lost his weight due to surgery and not sheer determination. Then there was the expense of the operation. Money they didn’t have. They hadn’t taken out life insurance on the children. Hadn’t wanted to ever consider it. His stomach cramped again.