Thinner Than Thou

by Kit Reed

  We’re not going to take it any more.

  Not going to take it any more.

  Not going to take it any more.

  The underground army is on the march.

  We’re going to blow this place sky-high.

  At a signal from Ahmed, the big people close in.

  They move as one, broaching the showy white picket fence that surrounds the clubhouse and outbuildings, the pool, the glistening barn. In seconds, the nicely turned four-by-fours that stand as fence posts snap like toothpicks and the fence goes down. It happens so fast that the only sound is a single report that guards might mistake for the crack of a rifle—some lone hunter bringing down one of the raptors that circle above the Christmas-card-perfect building that houses the Reverend Earl’s pilot project: Solutions. Deep in the clubhouse, the evangelist’s special precious chosen jerk awake at the snap, and when nothing more happens, yawn and roll over and go back to sleep. Thanks to Ahmed’s inside contact, no alarm sounds.

  When the fence comes down, the Reverend Earl’s elite corps is in the clubhouse kitchen, overseeing the special meal he’s having prepared for his new queen. Today he welcomes the young fat girl the Deds have sent over. They’ve been grooming her for weeks. The angels are a little drunk now, too buzzed to hear the crack as the fence posts break. The truck delivered the new girl from the Deds’ compound in the night, so what with this meal and the consolation souffle the Rev ordered for old Betty, whose days here may be numbered, there’s a lot to do. It’s a nice detail, really. The privileged angels lounge against counters while the night crew brings out dish after dish for testing, and—the insiders’ perk—they drink vintage port while one of the chefs passes samples of every dish for them to taste.

  If any of the elite corps did hear anything, it went right by. They’re all boiled now, or is it hammered, on the combination of food and port and Special Herbal Formula—and, oh yes, the pills the Rev hands out to his special chosen ones so they can eat like shoats and still stay thin—they’re definitely too loaded to notice what’s going on outside the clubhouse kitchen. If even one of the angels was aware of a disturbance—if he heard or thought he heard something go snap, face it, everybody’s feeling all loose and easy, too fried to care.

  The Reverend Earl himself is elsewhere. He is preparing a.special welcome for his newest acquisition in the far recesses of the barn. My Pretty, he thinks. Quickly, he corrects. My new queen. Why do they have to think they’re queens when I know there was only ever one queen and she died?

  Perhaps with this in mind, Earl had the barn constructed on a T pattern, with the entrance at the foot of the T. Let the new girl think she’s his one and only, until he goes for a threesome, she won’t meet Betty at all. He intends to keep his fat girls separated, with Betty at the far end of the corridor that crosses the T, and his new sweetie at this end. If it works out, he can enjoy them both and if it doesn’t? Betty goes. The new stall has been ready ever since he first heard from Dedicated Mother Imelda. His old pal Imelda’s been keeping tabs on the new one for him. “Very promising,” she wrote when the child first came in. She sent progress reports on that familiar, black-bordered paper with the logo in black. Weight. Measurements. She sent tapes. Earl studied them closely. In certain lights his new big beauty looks like his dead mother.

  This is so perfect, he thinks. This is wonderful. Yes he is pleased and excited. He can hardly wait.

  Flowered sheets and giant flowered comforter—he special-ordered them for his new darling, matching pillow shams and beautiful yellow quilted pads to obscure the fact that she will be living in what is, essentially, a stall. Nice HDTV just like Betty’s, and with video capabilities—standard in the clubhouse, why not here, and what else does he have for his new, sweet girl? Shorty nighties. Teddy bears, CD player with discs from all the hot new bands, Game Boy, computer with everything but Internet access, who knows what the child is going to want? Note to Earl from Earl: remember she’s only a child. Never mind. Except in the case of his late, sainted mother, whom he worshiped, but from a distance appropriate to their respective states in this world of pain and arousal, Earl Sharpnack has always liked them young.

  Now that the brightly decorated stall is in order, he is securing the finishing touch. The welcome gift. Absorbed, he has left the stall and gone on to the next thing. His new sweetheart is waiting in the truck out front but remember, they are going live with this first meeting, good for business. With a new lover to impress, with his global audience watching, everything has to be right. Even with people as rich and powerful as the Reverend Earl Sharpnack, first impressions count for a lot.

  The fat little girl is here now, she’ll be coming in here, he thinks in that acute, precious mixture of love and revulsion. She will eat and sleep for me live and in person and for the cameras, and if I want to, I can watch her when she laughs and I can watch her cry and I can see her quiver, I’ll see that sweet body heave with every breath she takes. He can hardly wait! In love as in the rest of his global enterprise, the first meeting is central: Everything hangs on it.

  The whole world loves a cute meet.

  He needs to greet her with a gift. Jewelry, he thinks. Jewelry’s good. If Earl had still been in the stall putting fresh flowers in the bud vases, if he’d been opening port and filling the crystal carafe, he might have heard the slight disturbance when the fence came down. If he’d been where he could hear he could have raised the alarm, but Earl has more important business. He is in the vault. Clever, he thinks, locating the vault in the most obvious place. The entrance is in plain sight in the office next to the barn door. He moves the prayer rug, opens the trap and goes down. By the time the fence posts snap, the Reverend Earl is on his hands and knees in front of the velvet-lined jewel chest, looking for just the right object to please his new queen. Should he give the girl yellow topaz or citrine to match the decor or should he start her with emeralds, he wonders, or would that be too much? Would it be more appropriate to begin with something his mother would approve of, something simple, like pearls? He can’t decide! With a queen as young as this one, you have to move carefully at every stage. Gain her confidence with just the right gift. Use the old magic to make her fall in love with you. Make her smile.

  He’s come too far to let this go sour.

  He’ll start with the gift and then he’ll keep his living treasures separated until he’s sure that the new girl is happy here. Then she and Betty can meet! Just imagine, his two big girls giggling and sharing confidences as they chow down in one gigantic stall. The very idea makes the Reverend Earl’s mouth flood and his hands go slick with anticipation. He envisions them side by side on the giant water bed he’s had constructed for the occasion, with little Earl neatly sandwiched between, all warm and sleepy as love and lust and mother love and married bliss all mingle and fuse, Earl Sharpnack, happy at last. Imagine the rush as his monumental longtime squeeze and this sweet child eat together and go to sleep together with Earl snuggled between them, all three of them smiling and drowsing the whole night long, warm and, at last, he thinks, completely happy, side by side by side by side by side.

  Journal sylphania, AZ

  There is no more journal. There is only now.

  Jeremy Devlin and his new love Zoe have absorbed everything Betty has to say.

  “God,” Devlin says when he can speak again.

  Big Betty looks at him in a mixture of scorn and compassion. “This doesn’t have anything to do with God.”

  “I know.”

  “Never mind. I’m going to get him,” Betty says. “I may not look like it, but I think ahead.”

  Zoe is on tiptoe, craning over the edge of the stall. “Jerry!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Zoe, not now!” The mattress billows as she lets herself down. He turns to Betty. “You have plan?”

  “Why did you think I had you sitting here watching DVDs?”

  “Sharpnack was in t
he building.” He was never a reverend. He is the enemy now. “We had to wait.”

  “You had to see! You don’t think I showed you all that just for the hell of it, I hope. Listen.” Betty’s voice drops to an insider’s rasp. “I have a friend in the TV truck.”

  “Somebody who can get us out?”

  “Better. Somebody who can help me finish him.” Now that she has their full attention, Betty begins. “You know I wasn’t the first queen in this menagerie, right? My brother Bo warned me, but I wanted to believe. I sent him away because Earl loved only me, I was so sure! Then I found her initials underneath the quilting. The last fat girl. You can still see them. Not there,” she says as Devlin lifts the quilting. “Back there. She carved them into the back of the stall. Initials, E.G.H. and the date, so we’d remember her and then, oh shit, the poor girl carved: HELP. And REMEMBER ME. It makes you think.”

  Zoe isn’t following. Alarmed by the snap, she looks here, there.

  Betty says, “You start to plan ahead.”

  “Zo, what is it?”

  “Nothing. Just something I thought I heard.”

  “When you’re my size, you definitely learn to plan ahead. See, people like me, we know. Even when you think you’re happy, you’re never happy for long. Ordinary fat guys like you used to be, you just go along all lalala, but people as big as me? We know.” There is a long silence while Betty broods. Her sigh is so heavy that Devlin wonders whether there’s any breath left in her.

  “Are you OK?”

  She sucks in air and resumes. “I didn’t know Earl had a new girl coming tonight or ever, but in a way, I did. After I found the initials I did what I had to, in case. When you’re my size, you have to be prepared.”

  Devlin’s mind is running here, there. “And you got in tight with this guy in the TV truck because?”

  “It wasn’t easy.” Instead of answering his question she gives Zoe a long, hard look. “Sweetie, you’re not the only friend I’ve been sharing with. You know. The cool desserts? The extra food?”

  “The food?”

  “Works every time,” she says to Zoe. “It worked with you.”

  Zoe turns to Devlin.

  “She’s right,” he says, grinning. “We’re here!”

  “Exactly. So I’ve been sneaking goodies to this guy Noah, the TV tech, in case. He was the cameraman the night I came in here, he taped me moving in and me getting settled. We started talking and we got friends. I pulled him into the tent with good conversation and I kept him here with food. Now I’m in tight with this Noah, OK, so what if it sounds calculating? Hey, we’re all in this together, right? I got in tight with him in preparation for this day.”

  “And you got in tight with us because …”

  “Because everybody needs a friend on the outside. Go into my cabinet there, Jerry, will you? That’s it. See the VHS tape on top?”

  Nodding, he pulls it out. Odd to keep tape in this era, when everything’s digital. In this light, the cassette looks antique. He skims the shelves. There are dozens more.

  “That’s it,” Betty says. “As you can see, I have gangs of them. I pass them to Noah and he transfers the best moments to DVD. Now look up. Up there, see my little gilded angel, hanging on the hook? It’s my special present from Noah.”

  They look up. The angel hangs above a bridle nailed to the central post.

  “Smile, kids.” Their big friend’s voice bubbles into borderline laughter. It is sudden and delightful. “You’re on TV.”

  In the mouth of the angel, Devlin sees the wink of a small red light. The camera. Recording everything. Now. “Brilliant.”

  “He couldn’t spring a digicorder so we settled for tape. We’ve been taping all the big stuff ever since.”

  It doesn’t take Devlin long to complete the thought. “Which means everything Sharpnack said to you and everything he did to you …

  “It’s all on tape. Months and months and months of the feeding and the groveling. The begging. Waiting for the right moment. Now we’re there, or it’s here.” Betty says heavily, “Rather, she’s here.”

  Zoe says, “The new girl!”

  “Yes. And this morning Earl takes the show live—whole world tuned in for the big event. All his believers glued to their sets waiting for the mandatory confession, the obligatory groveling. The begging for forgiveness and him all sacred and holy and … That’s where we come in.” Recovering, she smiles. “At exactly the right moment, my friend Noah goes to a split screen. We big people may be slow, but we are by no means stupid.”

  Zoe nods. “I’ve been there.”

  “We’ve both been there,” Devlin says. “And we know.”

  “Of course you have,” Betty says apologetically.

  “Just like you.”

  “Face it Devlin, you’re nothing like me. All right. The split screen. On one side, all the television faithful see the Reverend Earl preaching, then they see this new girl sobbing out her confession, just like in all the Infomercials, the show he wants them to see. And on the other side of the screen?” She waves at the cabinet full of tapes. “The real Earl Sharpnack, up close and personal.”

  There is the brief moment in which Devlin and Zoe relive the scene the Reverend Earl played with this woman only last night. The slobbering. The reproaches. Reviling. Sadly, Devlin offers Betty his hand. “Won’t it be hard for you?”

  Smiling, she grips it for support. “I’ve been through worse.”

  “You don’t have to humiliate yourself like this.”

  “Hey, it’s worth it, right? Anything to let the people know. When they see what he’s like, what he’s really, really like …”

  Devlin’s head comes up. “He’ll be finished.”

  “I hope so.” Betty rakes him with a savage grin. “They’ll hunt him down and drive him off the face of the earth.”

  Zoe asks, “Because of one show?”

  “Trust me, this will ruin him. Think about it. Who you thought he was when you bought into the mystique. What it cost you. What you lost. Then look at me. The way he treated me tonight.”

  Devlin grimaces. “Ugly.”

  “That’s nothing, compared to what Noah’s got on DVD. We’ve been compiling for months. After all this suffering and paying through the nose because they don’t measure up, the poor, stupid, gullible faithful are going to see their high-and-mighty Reverend wallowing in me like a pig in shit.”

  “Really ugly.”

  “And just as he winds up his pitch for sanctity in the Afterfat, just as he. goes into the final, ‘Come on you faithful, get to those phones and call in your pledges,’ all those poor suckers out there in televisionland are going to see their sacred, holy leader on the split screen, and they’re going to see what he really is. When he hits that last note, the highest and holiest, they’ll be looking at the real him. They’re going to see Earl Sharpnack get down on his hands and knees to me and come begging like a dog.”

  Zoe raises her hand: no more. “You don’t have to tell us.”

  “Yes I do.” Betty isn’t about to stop. “And the last truck you heard rolling in tonight? The flatbed with the giant monitor. So Earl may be able to cut off the live feed, if Noah can’t stop him. Which I sincerely believe he can. But the people here? All the faithful and the trainees and his angels and shit? Everybody on the place will see the whole show on the giant screen because that, nobody can stop. So wait for it, and don’t worry. If I can’t have him all to myself, I can sure as hell bring him down.”

  The sound Devlin hears next is sudden and alarming.

  It’s Betty laughing. “Noah’s got the top of the pops on DVD out there in the truck. Loaded and ready to roll.”

  Gavin Patenaude has removed the bolt and cracked the van door to look outside. Everything has changed. Where moments ago the soundstage and the area surrounding the mobile TV unit were deserted, the place is crawling with technicians and Sylphanian angels in glittering workout suits, with their skin oiled and their hair brushed to a high she
en. Somebody has brought out the Earlettes, who are fixing their makeup while angels-in-training brush flecks off their silver lamé robes. The little area in front of the barn is filled with people preparing for the big show. Their escape route is closed.

  Behind him, Kelly says, “What’s going on out there?”

  Gavin motions to the little party gathered at his back. “Wait.”

  Marg Abercrombie puts out her arms like a crossing guard and moves the girls back into the truck. “Shhh.”

  Gavin whispers, “Hang in for a minute. The Plan for the Day had this slotted for ten a.m., but somebody up there was lying. It’s soon.

  Marg asks in a low voice, “What are we going to do?”

  “Not sure yet.” When he and the group he’s trying to rescue are shut of this place, Gavin Patenaude will have to think through this particular change in plans and he’ll have to think through the Reverend Earl’s motives, as in, is he, Gavin, some sort of patsy and did the Reverend set him up to take the rap if Solutions is exposed? There isn’t time to think about it now. There’s no time to wonder how, exactly, he is being betrayed. Through his crack in the door Gavin watches the accelerated activity: lights going up on the portable soundstage. Organist and choir in place. The pin spot wobbling until it fixes on the spangled pedestal which looks rather like the stool elephants pose on in the circus ring. Digicams riding on technicians’ shoulders like monkeys and the stationary cameras rooted on tripods at the bottom of the ramp leading out of the van. The senior archangels waiting at the bottom, poised on either side with trumpets raised. The enormous monitor bolted in place above the entrance to the barn. It is angled so Sylphanians for miles around can see.