Kex, Judy Colella [good books to read for beginners TXT] 📗

later.” He repositioned his backpack on his shoulder and went downstairs to his room – yup, he had the quintessential geek-child-in-the-basement setup. And he loved it. This was the one truly bright spot in his day, the moment when he could escape to his “cave” and be totally himself without anyone to criticize what that meant.

After changing into something less blood-stained, he went to his laptop which he’d set on an old metal desk his father had brought home several years earlier to replace the the rickety wooden one Erik had been using. He got online and checked his emails, almost none of which were personal. A lot from art supply companies, gaming stores and internet gaming suppliers. One or two book clubs, mostly science-fiction, and a store that sold old-fashioned, hard-to-find food items. As he moved the mouse to open this last email, his gaze rested on his hand.

His fat hand. Fingers like sausages. Pudgy and annoyingly large. His mother told him that he was like a big, fluffy puppy (oh, how he hated that description). She said his oversized extremities meant he would one day be very tall. He thought about this for a second.

“Yeah, or just very badly-proportioned,” he then muttered nasally in continued disgust at the way his hand was swallowing the mouse. After fuming over this for a few moments more, he impulsively deleted the email. “That’s it! I’b over it! Erik the Round, Erik the Fat, Erik Extralarge, Erik the Derrick, Chubby-Wubby Wexxie…doh bore!”

He meant it, too. Determined suddenly to break whatever cycle had begun when his appearance on the planet had changed his parents into caricatures of who they should have been, he decided to research ways to change who and what he was. Starting with his weight, of course. No more fantasy for a while. No more snacking on garbage, either. His Sweet Tooth was being extracted immediately, by heaven, and he was going to take control of his own destiny! A destiny in which he could finally fit through the door, as it were. A destiny in which no one would feel compelled to tell him to eat broccoli, or in which his ass was too big to fit in the roller-coaster seat! A destiny wherein he could go on vacation and not have his parents pay for two plane seats just for him (assuming they could ever afford plane tickets).

He knew this would take some time, but now that he’d set his mind to it, nothing was going to stop him.

“Erik! I bought you some Little Cutie Snacks – the chocolate-covered marshmallow ones! Come up and get them, dear!” came his mother’s voice from the top of the basement stairs.

Yeah, well, almost nothing…

II.

They’d lost the house. Helga had developed some medical problems associated with her eating habits (severe gall stones, one huge kidney stone, and a near-fatal blockage of one of her arteries), which took every penny they had remaining from before William’s “retirement” (the construction company had to fire him finally, unable to justify his coming in on time but drunk every day without fail). Government assistance had only handled so much, and in the end, they had to sell the house.

Erik was actually okay with this. It meant a chance to start over, to correct some of the social mistakes he’d made. Mostly, though, it represented a chance to go someplace where his past was an unknown quantity, which meant no preconceived prejudice or expectations. He was still obese, having only begun exercizing and dieting in earnest two months earlier. But he had, in fact, lost several pounds and was getting stronger. Slowly, yes, but inexorably.

His few friends expressed regret at his going, but he knew they’d pretty much forget about him before too many months had passed – just as he’d probably forget them to some degree.

Helga was devastated. That house had been her husband’s wedding gift. She’d cared for it almost as tenderly and well as she’d cared for her little family, and now it was going to belong to someone else. She was nearly inconsolable, her crying jags only interrupted when she’d take a bite of something. Actually, she didn’t really do all that much crying as she went through eighteen boxes of candy in two days.

William, on the other hand, was mortified, plain and simple. He began to see how foolishly he’d behaved to bring his family to this, and for nearly a week after putting the house on the market, he’d hardly touched his beer. But then he decided he’d had enough self-recrimination, told himself there was nothing he could do, so why risk becoming as depressed as his wife, and started drinking again in earnest.

At least he was an amiable drunk.

Several states north, they found a reasonably-priced home in a trailer park. The doctor bills would probably never get paid off, so they used the proceeds from the house to purchase the trailer and pay a year in advance for the lot rental. Only some of their furniture fit in this smaller structure, which meant having a garage sale. The profits from that went toward bills and moving costs, and on a hot, sticky Saturday in June, they moved out.

To Erik’s utter astonishment, he found himself thriving in this new environment. The school he attended there was filled with the obese, the poor, and the geeky. He was practically in paradise, and almost rescinded his decision to get healthy and slim. The fact that he didn’t, had everything to do with their new home – it was so small, avoiding one another was impossible. One evening he came out of his closet-sized room to find his father snoring loudly in his chair, the TV still on. Erik started to cover him with the crocheted throw his mother kept draped across the back of the sofa, and then stopped, staring at this man who according to the wedding and other early photos was once tall, strong and handsome. Now he was gross. Overweight in all the wrong places, his face badly-shaved, his dark hair greasy and streaked with yellow-grey strands, his fingernails broken and dirty. Was this how he himself would look one day? Erik wondered, shuddering at the idea.

Little Cutie Snacks indeed! He tossed the coverlet over the sleeping man and went into the teensy kitchen. There, he pulled the offending snack items from the narrow cupboard and took the stack outside to the community dumpster. “I love my dad,” he grumbled, “but I am not him. I won’t be, either.” He tossed the boxes in, ignoring the little voice in his head wailing over their loss, and went back inside.

“What were you doing?” asked his mother who had appeared from somewhere on the other side of the trailer.

He took a deep breath. Poor mom, he thought. She deserves better than this. “I’m taking care of us,” he said. “Love you.” He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, realizing as he did that he was already taller than she, and went back to his room. Who said a geek couldn’t be healthy and buff? Not yet, but some day…

That “some day” took its sweet time, but he never gave up trying. He got through the rest of high school without trauma – he’d even managed a date for his Senior Prom. His graduation saw him giving the Valedictorian speech, and his parents were so proud, they showed up at the ceremony looking like a normal, if quite large, happy couple.

A month later, he was getting ready to go take his road test. He had saved some of his money from the job he’d gotten at a local convenience store two years earlier and with which he’d be buying his neighbor’s old Chevy later that week. Erik was now eighteen, and having earned a full-ride scholarship to the local university, he’d need a car to get there when classes began at Summer’s end. Between school, work, and taking care of his parents without them realizing he was doing so, he’d had no time to pursue his drivers’ license until now. He had passed the written test two days ago, and wanted to finish the process as soon as he could. Once that was done, he could get a second job and maybe some of their bigger bills could finally get paid off.

Helga’s health hadn’t gotten any worse, but William was struggling. He’d gotten so big, he could barely get out of his chair now. The doctor had told him his liver was pretty much on the way out, and that he seriously needed to quit drinking. The likelihood of that ever happening was the opposite of what he was - slim. He’d justified his poor health and habits by declaring, “At least I don’t smoke!”

As if that took care of everything…

The Exfords had made a place for themselves in the trailer community over the years, which meant they had a network of friends always nearby and willing to help whenever either Helga or William had a flare-up of health problems. Everyone liked Erik, who had never neglected the well-mannered upbringing his parents had afforded him. They had perhaps failed him in other ways, but at least he had been able to develop good social skills. These were the result equally of his parents’ input and his own efforts to stop saying and doing all the wrong things at the wrong time.

“Be back later!” he said, opening the screen door.

“Good luck!” his father called from the livingroom. “Don’t run over the DMV guy!”

“Yyyeah…” He rolled his eyes and went out.

The DMV was only several blocks away, and he got there in plenty of time for his appointment. As usual, the place was overflowing. Among the sweating throng were two or three guys from school and a couple of girls who had befriended him over the past couple of years. He went to the desk to give them his name and was told the test instructor would call him in a few minutes.

“Erik, hey, man!”

“Rick.” He put out a hand.

Rick Edgemon, a fellow-senior, shook it and grinned. “Road test?”

“Yup. You?”

“Nah. Did that last year. I finally got a car yesterday, though, and need to get a replacement license.”

“Uh, - ?”

“Yeah, lost it somewhere. Probably at the game last week.” Rick was referring to the baseball game he and Erik had attended to watch his little brother play.

“Did you make an appointment?”

“Nope. Stupid, right? I’ve already been here for two hours, and probably won’t get out for another three. You?”

Erik nodded. “Wonder if they’ll ever get air-conditioning in here.”

“Who knows? Most of our tax money goes into government pockets. Hey, you going to the gym later?”

“Much later. Once I get this test over with, I have to go home and do some yard-work.” Four years ago, Eric never would have believed he would one day use the words “I” and “yard-work” in the same sentence. “Then I’ll help my mom with supper, and after that, yeah. You?”

“I suppose I could wait – I hate going by myself, mainly because I give up after like thirty minutes.” Rick wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he was far from where he wanted to be. “I could walk over there with