Stories I'd Tell in Bars

by Jen Lancaster

  “I’d now like to read to you from First Corinthians.”

  We gasped in unison, much like we did at the credits of Raising Arizona, only this time there was a dearth of joy, the absence of delight. I’d never discussed my contempt for First Corinthians so I had no clue that he despised it, too. As the minister launched into Love Is, Fletch and I locked eyes and we began to squeeze all the blood out of each other’s hands.

  “A goddamned nightmare,” said my internal monologue.

  I noticed the clench of Fletch’s jaw and the pinch of his lips and he could see me screaming internally.

  Then we both smiled.

  At that moment, we knew that we were truly, finally one, suffering the same burdens and it was all worth it. We could already tell that whatever life had in store for us, whatever was to come next, whatever storms we might encounter along the way, we’d be okay if we stuck together.

  While love is patient, love is kind, and love never fails, sometimes love is hating the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  FLETCH’S LAST WORD:

  “Do you see that crazy-ass bird? That’s the craziest lookin’ bird I’ve ever seen!”

  Except for immediate family, I don’t generally describe things as “crazy” because it’s just too vague; however, in this case it was the only adjective that worked. Like a pair of Vise Grip pliers, it’s rarely the right tool for the job – but when it is, it’s the only tool for the job.

  Our yard is generally populated with robins, cardinals, and blue jays. Their songs become repetitive to the point of familiar, even the blue jays with their loud jeering that reminds one of a hawk. So, when I heard what sounded like a crying baby stuck in the top of a forty-foot tree while floating around our pool on our two-person inflatable rubber ducky, it caught my attention.

  I looked skyward, thinking, “If that’s a baby, it’s in trouble because I don’t have a ladder tall enough to reach it. And I’m not climbing a tree to save a baby.” Fortunately for all involved, there were no babies or other ground-dwelling mammals dangling from the forest canopy. But there was the strangest – no, craziest – looking bird I have ever seen.

  For a moment, I thought it might be a small griffin. It had the proper eagle’s head, but the body that should have been lion-esque was covered in feathers, had two bird feet, and was about ninety-five percent smaller than a lion. In retrospect, the body was more like a small owl, but the head was definitely from an eagle. Except for the beak, which resembled an anteater.

  And then it opened its mighty beak like a strange, feathered caiman that could live treetops instead of jungle rivers, and let out a cacophonous, “Yeeeahhhoulll!” It reminded me of Howard Dean in that legendary campaign speech, and I wasn’t the only one. I swear all the robins, cardinals, and blue jays fell awkwardly silent, and looked at each other all side-eye and muttered, “What the fuck did he just say?”

  About that time, Jen wandered out to the patio, yammering something about our wedding, and all I could manage was “Do you see that crazy-ass bird? That’s the craziest lookin’ bird I’ve ever seen!”

  Five

  Lose To Win

  “I’m not sure how healthy bacon is general, but I know it’s incredibly delicious.”

  - Gwyneth Paltrow

  “No beans, no cheese, no corn salsa, dressing on the side, please,” I instruct the waiter. I hand over my menu with a smile, taking a sip of my sparkling water. Look at me, a paragon of clean living! The adage about, “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels,” is wrong. Really, it’s more like, “Nothing tastes as good as smug self-satisfaction feels.”

  Joanna and I are here at our ritual pre-opera dinner. Instead of ordering what looks good – the filet mignon medallions with blue cheese and veal demi-glace (with optional side of macaroni and cheese) and eating a reasonable portion – I’m having a blackened chicken salad with every bit of joy, flavor, and frivolity removed, or served on the side.

  Joanna’s a registered dietitian, so she helped me select the healthiest item on the menu. I’m trying to cut calories because I’ve started my gym’s Lose to Win program and I want to put up a good first number to start off 2015 right.

  I’ve been working out hard this week as my official beginning weight’s already been logged. Oddly enough, I was disappointed when I found out we’d step on the scale in private. I figured nothing would motivate me more than being cheered on by the rest of my team as I stepped on the scale.

  [Never thought I would speak such blasphemy.]

  What’s so ironic is that I’ve lost fifty pounds without restricting calories or doing formal workouts so I should be able to crush it now that I’ve joined an actual program.

  A year ago, I’d challenged myself to lose twenty pounds for a chapter in I Regret Nothing, a memoir I’d recently finished writing. I thought if I approached weight loss from a wellness perspective – meaning if I addressed not only the physical aspects, but also the spiritual, emotional, social, intellectual, etc. that I'd see more success.

  [For those unfamiliar, my first memoir to hit the New York Times bestseller list was Such a Pretty Fat, a weight loss book in which I did not get any less fat. In fact, over the past few years, I’d become bigger than I was when I’d started.]

  Turns out my wellness theory was right. Instead of sweating it out on the treadmill, I spent the year in introspection, looking at my habits, figuring out my triggers, finding ways to fill the gaps in my life without defaulting to treats. I met with an emotional eating therapist and started taking responsibility for my own choices and actions.

  Ultimately, my being overweight was no one’s fault but my own. Yet the paradox was in knowing that I was good enough, that I was a quality person, that I could accomplish anything, that I had value, regardless of my pant size. While I think it’s easier to initially lose weight via self-loathing, the way to see lasting results are through self-admiration and self-care.

  [Self-love is a creepy term and I avoid using it.]

  Training myself to ask, “Are you hungry or are you bored?” was a game-changer. I denied myself nothing. If I wanted a burger, I’d have one. Not huge, and not all the time. I left every option on the table. If I wanted mayo on my sandwich, I’d add mayo. Not shitty diet mayo, but the best kind, I’m talking Duke’s if I’d remembered to order it from Amazon, or Kewpie if I’d recently been by the Japanese market. How about cream in my coffee? No probs. Again, real cream, none of that powdery NASA bullshit.

  I figured having some of exactly what I wanted would be more satisfying than endless helpings of “healthier” foods that didn’t excite me. My parents used to buy these disgusting plastic tubs of yellow bread spread so artificial it couldn’t even be called margarine. The difference in fat and calories between it and real butter was negligible, especially for what tasted like bathtub caulk.

  What worked for me is taking the emotional element out of eating. There was no good food, no bad food, just food. However, I did watch my sugar intake. I told myself I could have dessert if I wanted and I kept a jar of Italian Nutella f on hand for whenever I needed a bite of something sweet. [Supposedly the same recipe as the US jars, but the European version is better. Trust me.] I tried to save dessert proper for special occasions.

  One night, Fletch and I were out for a celebratory dinner and I was taking forever to decide between the carrot cake and key lime pie, both perennial favorites.

  “I’m just not sure which memory I’d rather store in the ol’ dessert spank bank,” I told him.

  A woman at a neighboring table choked on her wine.

  “You might want to think about how that sounds before you say it out loud again,” he’d replied.

  I picked the carrot cake à la mode. Worth it.

  The whole restriction-and-denial thing at tonight’s dinner? This is new. But I’ve been killing it in the gym this week, so I might be okay with it. Every muscle is sore, but a good kind of sore, a Yeah, Girl, You Got This ache. In the car on the wa
y to the train, I kept crowing to Fletch about how tight my quads were, how my hammies were humming. He told me I probably wasn’t warming up or cooling down properly, and should use his foam roller when I got home.

  The waiter delivers Joanna’s glass of cabernet. Hmm. I do like the looks of that. So red, so velvety. So not a frigging glass of Perrier.

  Going to the opera stone sober is new, too. Usually, we both meet up, having taken the train in to the city from our respective suburbs. Then we split a bottle of wine at dinner and quaff festive champagne cocktails between acts, which gives every performance a hazy, dreamlike quality, where the music envelopes us.

  When our meals are served, I eat my stupid, boring, dry food, but spend the whole time watching Joanna’s place. She ordered the braised short rib with gnocchi.

  Oh, I bet that pairs nicely with the wine.

  “Would you like some?” she offers.

  “No, I would not like some, I would like all, but I’m never going to accomplish anything if I quit and eat gnocchi on my very first test of will,” I say.

  After dinner and more wine (for one of us,) we head across the street to the opera. We’re seeing Madam Butterfly, which is a Puccini opera. I normally love Puccini, but there’s something about this production that’s off, maybe because it’s so minimalist and stripped down, but more likely because I don’t have my beef and champagne buffer.

  Champagne makes everything better. Fact.

  There’s one scene where the protagonist Cho-Cho-San is scanning the horizon for her beloved Lt. Pinkerton’s ship. Her angst is almost palpable as she waits, but he never comes. She literally stares out from her perch for what feels like a lifetime. The stage rotates ever so slightly, revolving around in a giant arc that takes about the same amount of time as it does our earth to circle this sun. There’s no singing. Just spinning at a snail’s pace. Beside me, Joanna gently dozes off, wafting away on a raft made of gnocchi, in bobbing in a cabernet sea.

  I am wide awake, hungry, and bored to death.

  This is why Lyric Opera House has ten bars set up in the lobby alone. They should print warnings on the tickets, like they do on prescription drug bottles. CAUTION: Production may cause extreme drowsiness. Show must be consumed with no fewer than three alcoholic beverages.

  Finally, blessedly, the opera ends and Joanna and I part ways. Because the opera wasn’t just painfully dull, it was long, I have to take the train line that goes to the east side of my town, instead of my usual that goes to the west side.

  When I exit the train, Fletch is waiting on the opposite side of the tracks, as neither of us are familiar with this station. I figure I can cut across and get to him faster than he can go all the way around, so I motion for him to wait and I begin to cross the tracks.

  The snow on the rails is level with the platform, so I step out on the area where I’m supposed to cross between the two shelters. Except this is not the area where I’m supposed to cross and I can’t tell because an overhead light has burned out. When I step, expecting to connect with platform, or at least a hard crust of packed snow, I immediately sink into fluffy snow down to my knee. My boot heel strikes the rail and I feel the impact all the way up to my spine because my calf is so tight from not having stretched. I lose my balance, landing face first onto the tracks, but there’s so much fresh powder that my fall’s broken.

  Of course the one time I take a header like this, I’m completely sober. As this was the last train of the night, I’m completely safe in this spot for the next five hours, so I lay there for a second, laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

  There are two teenage boys behind me on the platform, freaking the fuck out. They think I’m having a psychotic break because of the laughter. They hustle over to me, assuming I’m trying to commit suicide.

  Their reaction stops my mirth right quick.

  I feel terrible that I’ve made them panic. You see, Lake Forest has the unfortunate honor of being the train-suicide-death capital of the world. Too many of their classmates have chosen this as a way out when academic pressure gets to be too much and that is tragic.

  I assure the kids I’m fine and I get up, nothing damaged but my pride and maybe my ankle. I shake the snow out of my hair and brush it off my coat. I’m so glad this didn’t happen when there were any commuters out here, I’d have been mortified.

  I hobble to car, where Fletch is waiting.

  “I’m totally sober,” I say by way of greeting. I have to angle/hop into the car sideways because my left ankle isn’t cooperating. I sprained it once in college and have twisted every couple of years since then, so I’m not surprised.

  “Your fall scared me,” he says. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, just my stupid ankle again.” I explained how I misjudged the step, what with the lights having been so dim. I’m sure they’re already kept at an ambient glow, as to not create light pollution in the downtown area, so it was extra-dark.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Eh, not so bad. My muscles are still more sore than anything.”

  I can’t seem to flex my foot, but it’s probably just swelling.

  I’m sure it will be fine.

  The orthopedic surgeon is incredulous. “I’m sorry, how long ago did this happen?”

  “Lemme think. Um, I did my weigh-in yesterday, down seven pounds, thank you very much, that would be Sunday, so... two weeks. Two weeks as of Saturday.”

  I’ve been hitting the gym in a foot brace as this thing isn’t healing very quickly. I went to Acute Care the day after I fell and they said it was probably a sprain. My motion’s somewhat limited but I can still ride the exercise bike. I also go to water aerobics and have been doing upper body workouts. My team coach would like to see more weight loss from me, but I think I’m doing well, considering.

  Yesterday I was on the recumbent bike next to this loud-mouthed guy who was grousing about how many extra people were in the gym, due to participation in the Lose to Win program. He was all, “If you’re fat, you should just put a piece of tape over your mouth.”

  The only thing that kept me from speculating aloud about his package size was that if I were to become a gym regular, I’d run into him all the time. I figured that I could be all sarcasti-bitch in the moment, or I could shame him by showing him my newfound healthy living every day. [For once, I take the higher road. Never observed the view from up here before; I can see rooftops and everything!]

  The doctor shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve been walking around on a ruptured Achilles for two weeks.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” I ask.

  “That means you are either the toughest person I ever met or the dumbest.”

  Suspect I do not want to know the answer to this question.

  “How’s it going in there?” Fletch asks from the other side of the bathroom door. He sounds scared.

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. I’m woozy from the morphine, but otherwise fine. Wait, not entirely true. My whole left side is numb. I don’t like that, but that doctor assured me I would prefer this to the alternative. He said I’d get feeling back in a few days.

  Fletch and I have just returned home from the hospital for my Achilles surgery. Can you believe this isn’t even an overnighter? The doctor made me come in for repair today, after diagnosing yesterday – said I couldn’t hobble around on it a second longer. Luckily, having twenty-four hours’ notice gave me enough time to order one-day shipping on crutches, a walker, and a knee scooter.

  As I completed my one last workout on the bike last night, I cried, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to exercise for a while, maybe a long while.

  Ain’t that something?

  I spend my whole life hating the idea of movement, doing everything I can to avoid it, and then I finally figure out, “Hey, I’m sort of into this,” and now, it’s all taken away. The timeline for full recovery is unbelievable. I’d have been better off breaking a bone. I won’t even be able to stand on this leg for months. I�
��m going to have to learn to walk again.

  Let that sink in, won’t you?

  I won’t know how to walk.

  I’m not sure the full impact of what I’ve done to myself has hit me yet.

  Fletch is still on the other side of the door. “When you say everything’s fine, you mean...” he trails off.

  “I mean that everything is fine.”

  I finish using the bathroom. I hoist myself up with the walker as I balance myself on my right leg. He’s waiting for me in the doorway but I wave him off. I make it over to the bed myself.

  Watching me, he says, “Thank God.”

  “For what?”

  “When you were in there, I thought, ‘I would take a bullet for her. I would lay down my life for her. I would kill for her. But if she needs me to, like, clean her, she’s gonna have to go ahead and die in there, because I can’t. I cannot.’”

  I am still half-anesthetized and slow from the opioids, but I muster up the strength to be appalled. “What would you do if I couldn’t wipe my own ass? And you know I’m only wrapped from the knee down. I’m not sure how you think ladies use the toilet, but feet are not involved, they are not a part of the process. A lot of the magic between us is keeping the bathroom portion a mystery, but you’re aware of basic biology, right? So, I’m curious, what was your plan?”

  “I was going to call Joanna.”

  “You were going to call Joanna. To drive an hour. Each way. To wipe my ass.”

  “Yes.”

  “That is good information to have,” I say. “Please double check the long-term care portion of our health coverage.”

  “Done and done.”

  “Hey, Fletch?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a good thing I can only kick with one leg right now.”

  I sleep until the next day. When I wake up, Fletch is setting up brand-new, plug-and-play TV in the little sitting room where I’m stationed. He uses Velcro to attach the remote to the nightstand so I can’t lose it. He doesn’t want me to get bored or lonely and is afraid I’ll hurt my neck staring at my iPad.