Fat kid rules the world (2 page)

Since then, no one’s actually
seen
Curt MacCrae, and that was last year. The school newspaper took a poll and three-quarters of the student body think he’s dead. Everyone refers to him as the Blair Witch of the Lower East Side. And I just shook his hand.

“Troy,” I say. “Troy Billings.” It comes out starstruck and I frown a little to compensate. “I know your music. I mean, I heard a bootleg of a show you played with Smack Metal Puppets. It was so great. Really great. Really, really great.”

Curt makes a face, then glances at the tracks. He walks sideways two steps and cocks his head, thinking hard. The F train speeds into the station and the Sunday afternoon crowd climbs into the empty train. I should’ve thrown myself in front of it, but now I’m left standing there, awkward.

“That’s my train,” I say. I need to split before I do anything stupid. Anything
else
stupid.

Curt grins. “Hell it is.”

“What?”

“You owe me lunch.”

“What?” This, the only word in my vocabulary.

He hops twice.

“I just saved your life. It’s the least you could do.”

He says it matter-of-factly and I’m confused. I’m standing there sweating and I wonder if I smell. God knows he does. He reeks.

“I owe you lunch?” I say, further solidifying the impression that I am a moron incapable of conversation.

“Yeah.
Mmm-hmm
. Handicapped elevator’s this way.” He shrugs in no particular direction and takes off. I’m insulted about the elevator comment and he’s completely wrong about saving my life, but I’m hungry and by some freak occurrence in the universe Curt MacCrae appears to want to have lunch with me. So, I go.

WE EMERGE OUT OF DARKNESS
into bright sunlight and Curt points like an explorer declaring land in the distance.

“Diner,” he says, as if the word explains it all.

I’m way out of breath, so I just nod. I think about catching a cab back home, maybe just handing Curt the money for lunch. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since ninth grade, when Dad dragged Dayle and me to his military retirement dinner. It was a fancy restaurant and I had to wear a suit. A fat kid in a suit is definitely funny. But this is worse. Huge Fat Kid and filthy, skinny, blond ferret. Half of New York City stops to watch. Curt is oblivious, intensely focused on the diner’s front door.

“How much money you got?” he asks as we wait to be seated. I’m thinking this isn’t such a hot idea even if it is Curt MacCrae. I’m thinking I should have jumped.

“Twenty,” I say. I really have thirty.

The waitress approaches and gives us the look—the one where her eyebrows shoot up to half the height of her forehead. At this point she makes an effort to control them by turning them down into motherly concern. Doesn’t work. She doesn’t look like a mom—she’s got big hair, big earrings, and big breasts.

“You boys want a seat?” she asks, as if it’s something special she’s doing just for us. Curt doesn’t hear. He’s too busy rubbing his hands together like one of those madmen in the old monster movies. Dr. Frankenstein bending over a collection of body parts.

“Twenty, huh?” He licks his lips and grins, slides into the booth beside the window even though the waitress is clearly leading us to a table in the back. He picks up the menu and stares at it like a wild man. Somehow his staring does not give the impression that he’s actually reading. He stares too intently at one spot.

I force my body in across from him and catch several men at the counter watching us. They look away and I think this place feels cramped and smells like alcohol at 2:00 in the afternoon. I think,
I’m about to eat lunch with Curt MacCrae at a Bleecker Street dive
. Me and the psycho Elvis of rock, hanging out.
Not bad for the Fat Kid, right
?

The waitress comes back with our waters. She’s wearing one of those authentic-looking diner outfits. Short black skirt, white blouse. The buttons on her sleeves are undone and when she sets down our glasses I can see her bare wrists.
Erotic
. I’m practically salivating just looking at them, but Curt says “Grilled cheese” before she’s even set his glass on the paper place mat. She smiles and the eyebrows go up again. Curt takes a deep breath.

“And french fries,” he says, then contorts his face as if he’s just made an agonizing mistake. “No,” he says with resolve. Then, “Yes.” “No” again, then, “Damn, damn, damn, shit. Yes. French fries and ketchup. Lots of ketchup. Oh, man.” Curt grins so big I think his face will split and the waitress laughs. I make a mental note.
Skinny blond kid excited about food. Very funny
.

“And for you?”

The waitress wants my order. Is she mocking me? God, I want to touch her. Her legs are full and long and if I could just reach under that skirt … I need to control myself.
Must. Not. Be. Sex. Starved. Loser
. A drop of sweat lands on my menu. I stare at it, then wipe it off with my shirtsleeve.

“Same, no fries,” I say. I try smiling to compensate for my uncontrollably lewd thoughts, but my cheeks turn red and I huff instead. The waitress doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too busy smirking at my order.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

I’m not. In truth, I want to order everything on the menu but
can’t stand the pressure. I’m convinced everyone is secretly watching me and no matter what I order I cannot win. Too much and they’ll nod knowingly. Too little and they’ll think,
A bit late for that, now isn’t it
? I huff again before I can help it and with the release of that little puff of air I think,
Aw, screw it
.

“Give me the french fries,” I say, “with lots of ketchup.”

Apparently that’s the correct answer, because she nods and heads for the kitchen. Once she’s gone I want to make small talk, but Curt’s too distracted. I ask him a bunch of questions about music, things I’ve always wanted to know, but all I get is “Hmm” and “Yeah” in no particular relation to anything I ask. Furthermore, every time we nearly make eye contact Curt’s head whirls around as if someone could be getting away with the Great Food Heist behind us. Watching him makes me motion sick, so I give up all attempts at conversation until the food arrives.

The waitress sets down the plates of grilled cheese and fries and Curt actually gets tears in his eyes. He leans close to the table and puts his dirty head near the food. It appears as if he’s listening to it. The waitress hesitates. She can’t keep her eyes off him. For that matter, no one in the whole goddamn diner can take their eyes off him.

Curt goes straight for the ketchup bottle. He pours a dollop of ketchup onto his spoon and eats it directly.

Watching Curt eat is somewhere between appalling and torturous. It’s appalling because he puts so much ketchup on everything. I imagine I’m eating lunch with Hannibal Lecter. It’s torturous because he enjoys it so much. He’s extremely emotional about everything he eats.

“Well … uh … you boys … yell … if you need anything.”

Our waitress backs away for fear she will miss something. I can’t blame her. I don’t touch my food the whole time Curt is eating. No one but the cook makes any noise while Curt fills his skinny body
with ketchup and processed cheese. The world stops while the skinny kid eats.
Fuck that
, I think. But I also think,
God I wish I were him
….

When he’s done Curt leans back, drums on the table with one finger, and practically weeps again. The waitress has been hovering and now she asks if he wants dessert. Curt looks up as if he’s surprised to see us, then shakes his head.

“No, thank you,” he says. The waitress leans forward.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “On the house?”

“Can’t,” he says, then looks at me. “Besides, Troy hasn’t eaten yet.”

He’s right. For once, I haven’t eaten a thing.

“LUCKY FOR YOU
I was at that station,” Curt says as he watches me eat. “I mean, since I saved your life and all.” His eyes track each bite I take, but when I offer him my fries he won’t take any.

“I wasn’t going to jump,” I say, holding a french fry in the air. I’m lying, but only halfway.

Curt scoffs.

“Were,” he says as if there’s no argument. “I was watching you for, like, an hour. That rude, twirpy kid left, then three trains passed and you never looked up from the tracks. Then the insane laughter and I knew you’d lost it. I said to myself, Curt, you save this kid’s life and he will surely buy you lunch.”

He says all this with a deadly serious expression and I wonder if he’s mocking me. But it makes sense. Why else would someone save the Fat Kid before he takes the leap? And Curt does appear to be starving.

“I wasn’t going to jump,” I say again with my best resolute look. “I was just thinking. Just
thinking
.”

Curt considers this at length.

“How come?” he finally asks.

The question is absurd. Unless he means how come I decided against it. But I don’t think he does.

I want to give him the you-moron look the kids at school have perfected. Maybe say something sarcastic like, “Use your imagination.” I want to say, “Open your eyes. I’m a fucking three-hundred-pound teenager living in the most unforgiving city on earth. I’m ugly and dumb and I make stupid noises when I breathe. I annoy and bewilder my only living parent, mortify my little brother, and have no friends.”

I shrug.

To which Curt shrugs back. We sit together in silence, then he stands up quick.

“Oh, man, I’m sick,” he says. “Shouldn’t have had the french fries.” He slides out of the booth and disappears, leaving me stranded, wondering how my life became so absurd.

I’M CONVINCED HE’S SHOOTING UP
in the bathroom. Maybe he is. Who knows? All I care about is that it’s tight in the booth and I’m sweating again. Any minute now the waitress is going to come over and see me perspiring like I’ve just run the New York City Marathon. I imagine her face as she hands me the bill. A grimace. Maybe she doesn’t even hand it to me, just drops it on the table.

I wish I were home in front of the television. It occurs to me that my brother is home already, thinking I’ve killed myself. I wonder if he’ll be disappointed.

There’s time to pay the bill and slip away while Curt’s in the bathroom. I agonize over the decision and by the time I look up to signal our waitress I see Curt instead. He slumps across the diner and slides back into the booth, curling into one corner.

“Order something else,” he says. “I don’t feel good. We gotta stay until I feel better.”

We
? I think. But he really doesn’t look good. Still …

“I’ve got to get home, Curt. I’ll order you something else, but my father is expecting me.”

Curt looks directly at me for the first time since the subway station. “Come on, man,” he says. “Please? I gotta stay until I feel better. Just order a soda or something.”

It’s the “please” that gets me. No one has said please to me in a long time. There’s something about being fat that makes everyone think they’re doing you the favor.

I look to our waitress, who is barely restraining herself from coming over now that Curt is curled into a tiny ball, stick-thin arms twisted around filthy jeans. He’s confined to one-eighth of the bench. The exact width of one-half of my butt cheek.

I nod. “Okay.”

Curt grins and reaches deep into one pocket. He pulls out a pile of lint and a whole slew of tablets. Of course they’re not drugs. Drugs don’t come in individually wrapped pharmacy-sealed silver packets, do they? Maybe they do. I freak. I’ve never seen drugs before and I can see the headline:
FAT KID ARRESTED FOR POSSESSION
. Beyond humiliating.

Curt sees the look and scoffs. He holds up one foil packet and says “Imodium” really loud. “Not heroin. Imodium.” Then he grins,
having cracked himself up. I blush with embarrassment. I’m not going to ask him about the other pills, the ones that are
not
Imodium. Not after that. Besides, Curt’s too pleased with himself and I’m too mortified.

Curt closes his eyes and chews the tablets, then leans his head back and settles in.

After a while he says, “Let’s just state from the beginning that I don’t have AIDS or some mysterious disease. I’m not dying. I’m not even homeless all the time. No one beats me or fucks me without my permission. Got that?” He pauses. “This isn’t some after-school special where you learn to love yourself by saving my sorry ass. I saved you, remember? Let’s keep that straight.”

My eyes can’t find a single safe place to look. I’m so red I’ve turned purple and I keep making that stupid huffing sound. Curt digs farther into his pocket and rescues a cigarette butt from the lint. He relights it and takes what would be a long drag if the butt weren’t so bedraggled.

“I like to lay things on the line,” he says. “Life ain’t Hollywood.” He curls up tighter. “Life is shit.”

I WANT TO LEAVE,
but Curt wants to talk. He’s entered this strange zone between hyper and comatose. He runs his fingers obsessively through his greasy hair, but keeps his eyes shut the whole time he talks.

“Where do you live?” he asks. I shift nervously.

“Lower East Side. Just off Stanton Street.”

“Yeah?” he says. “What school?”

“W. T. Watson.”

“No shit?” One eye opens. “That was my school.”

“Mmm,” I say, unsure how to respond.

“Like it?” he asks.

The question throws me, in part because no one ever asks me that, but mostly because it seems legit, as if Curt’s mind can honestly conceive that I, a six-foot-one-inch, three-hundred-pound seventeen-year-old could possibly enjoy public school in a city full of aspiring models. It’s an astounding mental leap that cements in my mind the fact that Curt MacCrae really is insane.

“No,” I say.

Curt doesn’t respond. After a while he says, “I liked school. It was okay.”

I’m thinking,
Of course you did. You had a band. You were cool. Everything you did was a statement. People wanted to be you
.

I don’t say that. Instead I say, “Where do you live now?”