Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [154]
“You know what I mean when I say I dream crazy concoctions, that such inventions promise the same bliss as great sex. Forget Subway, my friends. I am the sandwich artist. Slice a Krispy Kreme in half, add a thick layer of jelly, spread the other slice evenly with whipped cream cheese. And you’re not going to believe this, but trust me: Add bacon. Add bacon to anything! Peanut butter—I can’t eat it but I can dream—and banana between the halves of a sliced New York pretzel. Prosciutto and fried eggplant between two slices of Sicilian. Cut away any crust. Give me tenderloin only.
“You know what it’s like to eat the things other people neglect. The chipped chunks of fried batter from KFC, the white knuckle of ligament at the end of the drumstick, the rind stuck to the last remnants of a round of brie, the pieces at the bottom of any bag of chips poured into bowl of guacamole like it was cereal, the plastic string hung with niblets of meat that circles your bologna. You know what I mean when I say that Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A.
“You know shame. You know the laughs that make you fart, so you also know the double fear of laughter. You know the slip and slide of a permanently dirty ass. You know underwear as wide as a kite. Bra sizes lettered like cattle brands, with names like dude ranches: the Double F and the Triple E. You know the urban legend about the morbidly obese woman admitted to the hospital, so fat they found a rotting tuna fish sandwich under the fold of her tit. You know what it’s like to check those folds to find strips of pink, inflamed, sunless flesh caulked with that gunk down the trench, the same yellow, hardened accretion you find behind babies’ ears. You know the sting of a hot rag when you scrub it away. You wonder: What if I just let it grow?
“But permit me a list: You know what it’s like to look up from your plate and see people looking at you. To get into a car ass first. To dread going to the movies on opening night. To have permanently forsaken wearing boots. To resent shoelaces, loathe stairs. To know that if you were accosted, you couldn’t run. To see a report on obesity on CNN, the teaser when they show people from ass to neck and think, ‘Oh my God, that midsection’s me!’ To see everyone look down when you board a plane. To see the humped space between seats on a bus and think it’s for the crack of your ass. To weigh more than your husband. To be woken by your own snoring. To think you look like a pig when you’re wearing the mask of your sleep apnea machine.
“You know what it’s like to feel trapped in your own body. To feel as if you’re a cripple. An addict when it comes to food. To say, ‘Today, I’m going to get this under control.’ You know when the pain of hunger is so bad those first few hours that you want to cry. You know the relief of breakdown and gorging. You know the guilt afterward. You know the fear of thinking you may continue to grow and grow, like Alice in that house in Wonderland. You could become like one of those poor people too big to leave a room, in need of a winch when the ambulance arrives, in need of firemen with