The Weight of Him(43)

“What’s going on?” John asked from below.

“Nothing, everything’s fine.” She disappeared down the ladder, her head bowed.

Despite the stifling air and the taint of must, Billy remained inside the small, low-ceilinged space, re-reading every word. There had to be clues, messages. Won’t somebody help me? My beautiful forever, my perfect escape. He didn’t only need to understand why Michael left them, but how he could have left them. Didn’t Michael know they loved him? That they would have stood by him, no matter what? Would have done anything and everything to help him? In a whisper, Billy read aloud every last word his son had written, sending up Michael’s songs, his finger tracing the spiral of lyrics like a record needle.





Fourteen

Saturday afternoon, Denis sat next to Billy at the kitchen table, a laptop and two steaming mugs of tea in front of them.

“I thought we’d have received a lot more pledges by now,” Billy said.

“What’s the latest number?” Denis asked.

Billy reached for his paperwork, double-checking the amounts. “One thousand two hundred and fifty-nine euro and seventy-five cent.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Denis said. “Especially in this economy and what with all the other causes out there, too.”

Billy wasn’t convinced. He couldn’t shake the worry, the shame, that if he wasn’t fat and was doing any other kind of fund-raiser, like cycling around the country, he’d be getting a lot more support and pledges. He couldn’t get Michael’s lyrics out of his head, either. Won’t somebody help me? You are my beautiful forever, my perfect escape. Ribbons of love that tie us up, that can’t be cut. He rubbed his hand over his head. “I want to stuff my face.”

“You don’t mean that,” Denis said.

“Yeah, I’m going to need a bit more coaching than that, sponsor.”

Denis’s finger scratched at his eyebrow and he looked suddenly uncomfortable. “The thing is, I shouldn’t be sponsoring you. It’s a slight against every honest addict out there. If you really want to succeed, you need to be part of an OA group.”

Billy’s agitation worsened. “Of course I really want to succeed, but not that way.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Denis insisted on searching online for local OA meetings. “Give it a go, can’t you?”

Billy winced. Just that afternoon he’d searched the Internet for the fattest person in Ireland, terrified he would discover his own name. His search hadn’t shown any specific findings for Ireland, but it did name a man in England. The poor fella weighed almost one thousand pounds.

Billy had studied the man’s photograph—his arms, legs, torso, and stomach impossibly enormous and the hospital bed barely able to contain him. Billy looked almost good in comparison and had bordered on feeling smug. That was exactly the kind of response he didn’t want to elicit in other, less obese addicts at an OA meeting.

“Here, there’s an OA meeting in town tonight—”

“Stop! I said I’m not going, and that’s the end of it.”

Denis looked wounded. Billy sighed, remorseful. “Let’s just get down to business, all right?”

With Denis’s help, Billy pushed through his learning curve and purchased the domain name End Suicide Now! He then created a free website, and set up Twitter and Facebook accounts. The next crucial step was to find a filmmaker. He and Denis searched online, looking for every and any possible candidate in the country. Once the documentary was completed, Billy planned to get RTé and, ideally, BBC or one of the other big English networks to air it. From there, he hoped the documentary might go global.

The natural light fading, the men abandoned their online search and moved upstairs, to take “before” photographs for the new website. Billy pushed himself up the stairs. He was about to have his photo taken in his underwear. He was going to show all of himself, for all to see.

Inside the bedroom, he turned his back to Denis. He removed his shirt first, imagining his friend’s horror at the rear view of his sweaty crevices, rolls of fat, and the angry purple stretch marks. “Well, this isn’t awkward.”

Denis chuckled. “No, not at all.”

Billy dropped his trousers and stripped to his socks and underwear. He tried to suck in his stomach.

“Ready when you are,” Denis said.

Billy pushed back his shoulders, straightened as best he could, and turned around. His eyes wanted to close, which he also fought. “Okay, how should we do this?” He looked about the room—for inspiration and a hiding spot.

“We should probably get a shot of you full-on from the front, and then maybe a couple of profiles, yeah?” Denis said.

“You really need me from all three angles?” Billy asked. Maybe he didn’t have to put himself through all this. Maybe he was going overboard.

“Whatever you think,” Denis said. “We could just post two images, a front shot and a profile?”

“Yeah, okay.” Billy endured Denis ordering him to move about the room and pose ten, fifteen, twenty times, trying to get photos from his best angles and with the best light. He didn’t know how Denis could say “best angles” with a straight face.

“Work it,” Denis joked as the camera’s flash went off like tiny explosions.