Less Of Me

by Edward Goble

  Chapter 3

  Tears had dried on his cheeks as he circled back to Chestnut Street. The indigestion was gone but the song wasn’t, and he would gladly trade back, “Heartburn for depression, any day,” he thought. He slumped down on the overstuffed couch opposite the big bay window in the living room and sat rubbing his tired eyes. In a few minutes he was asleep.

  Dreams came easy, which was one thing of the few things Andy loved about his life. In dreamland he was always laughing, he would solve mysteries, and run, and save children. In his dreams he was fit and trim a man’s man. In his dreams he was a lot like Rance Broadback. The truth was, several of the Broadback plots were conceived in the fertile world of Andy’s mind during a dream. He would wake up, wipe the drool from his face, and write down the scene. Andy figured that these things happened to everybody, and he secretly hoped nobody would catch on to just how easy it was - “Jig’s up, Boyd. You’re a phony.”

  Today the dreams came fast and disjointed. First he was Keith Partridge, singing that stupid song to a crowd of adoring girls. Then he rescued a long legged Rockette who was tied to a train track. Then he was a bicycle messenger; next a vice detective that fell in love with an informant; a young, aspiring actress; then a dozen snippets he couldn’t quite remember. When he awoke, he wished he wouldn’t have remembered the Keith Partridge bit.

  The clock on the microwave glowed 3:00 p.m., the house was quiet and dark and the workday, for most people, was winding down. Andy longed for someone to talk to.

  His parents divorced when he was five, his mother retained full custody and never remarried. His father moved to the east coast and was never a part of their lives. To Andy’s knowledge, his father had never remarried. He died when Andy was thirteen, just as Andy was finishing the 8th grade at public middle school in South San Francisco. The 7th and 8th grades were the low point in his short life. Andy would come home every day to an empty house where he would cry himself to sleep or graze on snacks till his mother got home from work. During those two dark years he was roughed up, laughed at, belittled, kicked and ridiculed by every bully in the school. With no father or brothers at home to stick up for him and a mother that was working too hard to burden, he just absorbed the pain, and sunk further into himself.

  He didn’t really remember his father, so the news of his death didn’t bother Andy too much. But his mother took it hard. He was the only man she’d ever loved, and, while they ultimately couldn’t live together, she always held a place in her heart for the guy. Andy believed his father must have been a real idiot to leave a woman like Janice Boyd. One thing decent the old man did, though, was he carried a pretty nice life insurance policy on himself with Janice as the sole beneficiary and the first thing she did after receiving the proceeds was find the best private school in the Bay Area for Andy. Though they rarely talked about it, she was well aware of the hell he went through in middle school and, now that she could do something about it, she did.

  Private school had been great in the sense that he didn’t get beat up anymore. The problem was, since the school was located in the East Bay, Andy might as well have been a foreign exchange student. He didn’t have one phone number from anyone in his high school class. The only person he had even spoken to since graduation was his English teacher, Mrs. Kyritsis, who inspired him to become a writer. She was a stumpy little Greek woman about the age of Andy’s mother who saw Andy’s creative ability and spent four years encouraging it.

  “You write these stories down, Andrew Boyd. You write them down. And here’s what I want you to do; you bring me a signed copy of your first book! Okay?” And he did. If fact, The President’s Reception is dedicated to Mrs. Kyritsis. But it had been years since he’d spoken to her. He didn’t even know if she was still at the school. She’d be, what, sixty by now? He sang out loud:

  “Oh, doesn’t somebody want to be wanted like me? - Where are you? - Doesn’t somebody want to be wanted like me - Just like me - Dmmm, Dmm-Dmm-Dmm Dmmmmm!” Arrgghh!” He stood from the couch, shaking his head to try and fling the song out onto the wood floor where he could crush it. “Anything but Keith Partridge. Please!” he shouted to the ceiling. He walked the familiar path to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, a habit embedded even deeper than the song-of-the-day. As he scanned the selection, probably just for comfort since he wasn’t the least bit hungry, he thought about starting another diet.

  He grabbed a can of Diet Coke and mulled the thought of a diet as he walked back toward his office. He used to call it a guest bedroom, but since he had never had a guest, it just became the office. He decided to work his thoughts, and hopefully that god-awful song, out of his mind by writing another blog entry.

  Andy’s Weblog, November 1

  A Weighty Problem

  As much as I hate to admit this to the world at large, I have a weight problem. There, I said it. Of course, this isn’t news to those who know me, or to the people who read my books—that’s me on the back cover, not the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Believe it or not, being overweight is something I realize and dislike. I think some people look at guys like me and think, “I wonder if he knows how big he is?” I know, trust me. While some big people are comfortable and happy with their size, I am not. Those folks are either blinded by addiction or have such a strong self-image that they realize that the scale doesn’t determine worth and value in society. I’m not that blind, or that secure. I wish I were, because then I might invite others to dine with me at writing conferences instead of ordering room service so no one can see that I actually eat. My weight is on my mind, like a song that won’t go away.

  So, since it is established that I am fat, weak and insecure, what can I do about it? That’s the question, right? The drill sergeant would say something like, “Well, good. Glad you finally noticed. Now get off that lard butt of yours and do something about it.” Of course, he would be right, but it’s not that easy, as many people like me have discovered.

  I’ve tried all the diets. I’ve done the Grapefruit Diet, South Beach, Atkins, No-Carb, Low-Carb, No Fat, High Fat and Low Fat. I’ve done Jenny Craig, Nutri-system, Opti-fast, Medi-fast, and Weight Watchers. If it’s out there, I’ve probably been there and got the t-shirt. I’ve tried everything but surgery (another phobia.) If I lose ten I gain back twelve. I know what the problem is. The core issue is that I have a food addiction that can only be broken by a lifestyle change; everybody knows that even though Dr. Phil and the other pros announce it like it’s some kind of revelation. They make it sound so easy. I’ve got to change the way I look at life in general, no sweat, right? But, if you knew me, you would know what a steep hill that is, because I’m a pretty screwed up guy. Not screwed up in the sense of abused or anything like that, on the contrary, I’ve had it pretty good, really good, actually. It’s just that, after thirty-five years, a person has become someone specific. You are a collection of experiences and events that are uniquely you. It’s not like any of us can start over, we just have to start from where we are, and where I am is a mess that was made over the course of half-a-lifetime. You can’t change your perspective of that over night or with a bottle of metabolism boosting herbal miracle pills.

  I’ve got to start from here and make some good choices if I ever hope to find the kind of life I think I want.

  I’d like to think I could start right now - Andy

  He looked up at the screen and read what he had just posted for the world to see. “What does all that even mean?” he asked himself out loud, burying his face in his hands with a sigh. It was 5:30 pm and the evening sun had nearly fallen into the ocean somewhere behind Andy’s place, and while the view from his office window contained little more than the brick facade of a three story warehouse on the next street over, he could still see enough sky to watch the blue give way to a beautiful purple as the shorter days of fall descended on the city.

  He sat back and swung mindlessly from side to side in his big leather desk chair, a housewarming present, along with the simple bla
ck desk, from his mother. “Start right now,” he said with closed eyes. “I’m starting now...” He pondered the implications of the declaration. He pictured the start of the Men’s 100 meter dash at the Olympics, all the runners stretched out in the blocks; the Bay to Breakers road race with thousands of runners poised at the start line, straining to see, waiting for the starters gun to pop; the Indy 500, the green flag and the sound of a thousand thunderstorms as the drivers accelerate into the racing marathon, hundreds of laps, pacing themselves, relying on their team mates, watching the equipment. Thoughts of the starting line gave way to the realization that all those athletes don’t really start there. The race starts there, but the racers start months and years earlier. Any runner that steps to the start of a marathon had better be well prepared before he even gets near the line or he’s in for disaster. Preparation is everything. Training. “I haven’t done crap. Why do I think I can start a race for which I am completely unprepared?” He thought about that one. His mind was spinning, but not sending forward any data that was particularly germane to the issue at hand. But, every racer and runner and boxer has to start somewhere, right?

  He got a mental image of Rocky Balboa in his grungy grey sweat suit in the dimly lit one-room apartment, prying his eyes open before daylight, breaking those raw eggs into a glass and chugging the whole mess. He could see Rocky exit the door of his little Philadelphia apartment and start running in the pre-dawn light - for the first time. He had to start training well before the start of the big fight against Apollo Creed. If he didn’t, he’d be a punching bag. So he started. “Yo Adrian,” Andy whispered.

  “So what is my equivalent to a glass of raw eggs and running though the streets of Philadelphia? How do I start?” he said, still swinging from side to side in the chair, rotating back and forth on the balls of his Nike-clad feet. “Choices,” he said, his head resting against the high back of the chair, his eyes closed. “Choices... Rocky chose to get up that first morning, and the next and the next, and prepare himself for battle. That little kid in Kenya chooses to run up the side of a mountain years before he ever gets a shot at Olympic gold. They make the choice, daily, to push themselves past their limit for the sake of achieving a higher goal.” Andy was talking freely to the empty room and was becoming kind of excited by the way he was working through this puzzle. At the same time he was beginning to realize that the implications of this line of thinking was probably going to be uncomfortable. Something he usually avoided like a plague.

  He clicked open a ballpoint pen and opened the little notepad he kept handy for Broadback notes. He found an empty page and tore it out, in the middle of it he wrote “Choices.” He clicked the pen open and shut several times and then wrote under the word; “Begin by making a good choice. And then make another.” The paper was mounted by pushpin to the wall just to the left of the desk. As he looked at it for inspiration he thought, “A good choice right now would be to finish the friggin’ book.”