Chapter 10

As soon as Charlie stepped into the cool interior of the castle, he knew that when Artie Tedesco tells someone to do something that he just better well do it. Artie had his gym shorts on and a muscle tee- shirt that exposed a pair of meaty arms that could have been pistons in a V-8 engine. His body was bronzed from sitting out by the pool for most of the morning. Charlie spotted his open laptop and a pile of his legal papers spread out on a patio table that touched the edge of the pool. He must have been working out there all morning. But Charlie was led away from the pool area and instead moved down a long hallway towards the marble-floored pantry. The closer he came to the workout room, the more nervous he became. He simply felt like hanging around instead of doing anything that remotely resembled exercise. He was still tired from taking the bus all the way out from the center of town and would have liked to have talked things over with Artie a little bit before being thrown onto the treadmill or the weight machine.

Just beyond the mirrored dance hall where Artie’s daughter practiced her pirouettes, the workout room was just as Charlie remembered it. But there weren’t any excuses he could make to avoid the inevitable. There was nothing he could do to slow the process down, like asking Artie for a cup of tea or moving directly to the massage tables that he dreamt about on the slow bus ride over. The only relief came from the cool, air-conditioned walk from the front door of the castle to the workout room, and if he were lucky, Charlie would be afforded one of Artie’s Asian masseuses, but only after he ran a few miles.

“Good you came prepared today,” said Artie, grabbing a couple of Turkish towels, “and you were on time, which is a good sign. Right now I want you to weigh yourself on the scale over there. Keep your sneakers on.”

Charlie did as he was ordered, and once the scale measured his weight, he mumbled out a weak “230 pounds.”

“God, Charlie. I weigh less than you, and I’m about six inches taller.”

“I have a long way to go,” smiled Charlie bashfully.

“Hey, this isn’t a joke. People die from the kind of shape you’re in, you know that? Look at yourself in the mirror. Just take a good look and drink it in.”

They observed themselves in the large mirror on the wall that gave them a head-to-toe reflection of both of their bodies.

“Do you know what I see you as right now, Charlie?”

“No.”

“A fat fuck. You’ve turned into a lazy fat fuck is what I can make of it, and wherever you go, you’ll either be laughed at or ignored by the women unless you make a commitment to exercising and eating right. Fat people are on the lowest level of society these days, my man. They never get any pussy, and their denied jobs, nice places to live, all because they want to eat their Kentucky Fried Chicken and their Taco Bell, their Big Macs that have enough fat in them to feed half of Africa for a year. Fat people can’t fit in airplane seats, they can’t squeeze into movie theater seats, and they never can wear nice clothes, because none of them fit. A lot of fat people turn into serial killers or rapists, and they only get it into their heads that they have to stop eating when they’re locked up for life for molesting five year-old girls, most likely members of their own families. Do you get where I’m coming from? Is that what you want, Charlie? To never show your face at a beach or a pool unless you’re wearing one of those extra- extra large shirts that run down to your knees just because the rolls of fat that you have on are too disgusting to be looked at? Is that what you want? Always being a fat fuck? Always being compared to a pig or a whale? Always being denied opportunities because they don’t have chairs large enough to fit your two butt cheeks into? Is that what you want?”

“Of course not,” said Charlie, saddened by all of this.

“Well, then you have to listen to me, because I’ll show you how to get back to your former self, so that you can see your own pecker again, so that you can screw a girl without suffocating her.”

To Charlie’s relief, they started off with a brisk walk on the treadmill, which he found somewhat pleasant for the first few minutes. But then Artie ratcheted up the speed every few minutes, and after several minutes of walking briskly, Charlie huffed and puffed as sweat poured down his face, bringing the sting of grime to his eyes.

“Keep moving, Charlie. Don’t even think about stopping yet.”

“I think I’m about used up,” huffed Charlie, his arms hanging like weights at his sides and his legs trying to keep up with the moving mat rolling faster and faster beneath him.

“Now for the next five minutes, I want you to run.”

“Artie, I can’t,” he huffed. “I have to get off.”

“Get off? Are you fucking kidding me? Keep moving.”

“Artie, please. I’m about to fall off.”

“Keep running!”

“Artie ... I can’t. It’s too much.”

“Push it, damn you!”

“Artie ... please. Turn it off.”

“Keep your feet moving!”

“Artie!”

“Well, damn you, then!” he yelled.

The treadmill slowed to a halt, and Charlie hobbled off of it like a wounded animal. Artie’s anger stuck to him as Charlie rested his hands on his hips, his face beet-red, his body fighting to catch its breath.

“That was totally useless!” yelled Artie. “My six year-old daughter could do better than that. You’re not a pussy, are you Charlie?”

“No, no. I don’t want to be a pussy,” he huffed.

“Let’s try the weights then. Remember, fat is the enemy. You’ve got to fight it with everything you’ve got.”

The bench press loomed as a gleaming and slightly Medieval contraption that could have easily been mistaken for a torture device he once saw photographed in an encyclopedia. He slid his sweating body beneath the handlebars nervously after regaining some of his breath. He was relieved that the nightmare of the treadmill had ended—hopefully for the rest of his known life—and he assumed that he would fare better with the bench press. Artie set the weight above where he lay on the bench, the bench itself a hard and uncomfortable plank of wood with a thin cover for padding. It did little to ease his comfort, but at least he was lying down.

“So what do I do now?” he asked.

“When I say start, I want you to lift and then bring it back down as gently as possible. I want you to repeat this twenty times in a row, okay?”

Charlie tested the weight and found that it might be too difficult for him.

“Do you think you could lower the weight a little bit, Artie? I could do a few at this weight, but not twenty.”

Artie sighed, bent down to his ear, and said, “y’know what, Charlie? Let’s say you go into Greely’s one night looking the way you do now, and you see this hot, finely-dressed woman sitting alone at one of the tables. And she’s bored out of her mind. She’s got these amazing set of tits that almost pop out of that red dress she has on, and her skin is so soft that it glows. Her pussy tastes like honey, you think, and there’s no one in the bar but the two of you. So you walk on over to her and ask her, in the best way you know how, if she’d like a little company. But she says no. You then go back to your barstool and wonder, ‘was it the way I was dressed? Was it my hair? Was it my shoes? Is it because I’m broke?’ But why do you really think she said no to you, Charlie? Take a guess, if you will.”

“I guess because I’m overweight?”

“Because you’re a fat fuck!” he yelled into his ear, “and you wouldn’t be able to fuck anyway, because your belly would get in the way before your dick could get close enough. Now when I say ‘lift,’ you fucking lift this fucking thing twenty times. Ready? Go!”

Charlie lifted steadily the first few times, but when he approached his tenth bench press, his arms rapidly lost strength, and he had to struggle hard to get to eleven. Artie was still at his ear, yelling things like, “you want her, don’t you?! Push it!” or “you don’t want to be fat all your life, do you? Lift, you fat sonafabitch!”

But when he started to really struggle, Artie’s insults intensified. “You big pussy. My grandmother could lift that!”

And although his taunts took him up to the thirteenth lift, his arms simply gave out after that. The weights behind him came crashing down, a loud metallic clanging that bounced off of the walls of the workout room.

“You mother fucker! Are you trying to break my weight machine?!” Charlie, his arms limp and his body aching, couldn’t lift himself off of the bench. He was too exhausted to move.

“Very well then, Charlie,” said Artie matter-of-factly, “that will be all for today. Go take a sauna, if you’re up for it.”

Artie then got on the treadmill and started his own workout, leaving Charlie to lie there and slowly wiggle his way out of the handlebars. He must have lay there for twenty minutes or so as Artie continued his own routine. Charlie thanked God that Artie let him go for the day. “And the massages,” called Artie from the treadmill, “those are only for the winners. Not the fat fucks. But don’t worry, because by the time I’m done with you, my masseuses will be begging to do bodywork on you. You won’t even have to ask for it. Come back tomorrow. Same time.”

When he had regained his strength and slipped his tired body from the stranglehold of the torture device, he dizzily left Artie’s place without taking the sauna he could have taken. In the sunshine that accompanied his walk to the bus stop, he almost collapsed on the road, his body sickened from being pushed too hard. The heat didn’t help either, as he barely made it back to his apartment that afternoon, his body on the verge of shutting down completely just to save what little energy he had left. With his vision blurry and his body aching, he barely made it up the flight of stairs that led to his front door after a nauseating bus ride. When he arrived, he simply collapsed on his bed, his body wet and febrile, the room spinning all around him, and his bed with his exhausted body on it spinning in the opposite direction.

When he opened his eyes several hours later in the middle of the night, his eyelids seemed like the only part of his body that he could move without pain. His arms and legs were stiff and sore. His lower back ached as well. He had pulled and strained muscles in all sorts of places, even muscles he never knew existed. He hobbled to the bathroom but could barely bend down to wash off the residue of salt that the sweat on his face had left. He tried stretching a little, but even the slightest movements pained him, and so he hobbled back to bed, thinking about how to tell Artie that he couldn’t possibly work out with him anymore. One afternoon with him was not only enough—it was way too much. He’d have to be delicate about it, considering how intent Artie was to see him lose the weight. But it was too much of a leap and too much of a challenge. He thought he’d die if he returned to that workout room. And he also remembered that he’d have to talk to him about Renee under a different set of circumstances entirely. Maybe he’d like to go out for a cup of coffee? He called him in the morning after a deep, comatose sleep.

“Hey, Charlie, you coming over today?” asked Artie over the phone.

“Listen, Artie, about that—I really got very sick last night from hitting the weights too hard and running too much.”

“And?”

“And I think I better take it easy from now on and just stick to maybe walking around my neighborhood and dieting from now on.”

“Charlie, I hate to tell you this, but you’re talking about the slow boat to China if you take that route.”

“I know, but it’s the best for my health right now.”

“I’m still interested in helping you lose the weight. I’m still perfecting my method. But you decide what’s best, okay? I can only tell you that my way works.”

“I know, Artie, and I’m very appreciative of how much you’ve done for me so far, but I really have to take it easy for the next few days.”

“Suit yourself, but you know where to find me.”

“But I just wanted to ask you something, Artie—and this is more of a personal issue.”

“A personal issue? What is it?”

“Well, I would prefer it if we met for a cup of coffee or something. So we could talk.”

“I hate to tell you this, pal, but I really don’t have time for coffee any time soon, but I tell you what—I’m having one of my parties again this weekend. We can talk for a few minutes then, okay? But wear something nice to cover up the fat. I just don’t let anybody come to my parties. It starts on Saturday at around six o’clock. You should wear a tux if you can afford it.”

“You mean a tuxedo?”

“Listen, Charlie, I gotta get going here. See you this weekend. We’ll talk then.”

He then hung up the phone, leaving Charlie to wonder if there were a special kind of tuxedo that was specifically tailored to cover up fat on a man’s body. He had no way of finding out unless he went to the standard rental store that they had in town, as the party was only a couple of days away. He’d have to rent one immediately, but he could hardly move he was so sore.

With each step down the long staircase that emptied out into the sunlit lobby of his building, Charlie’s body throbbed in pain. His joints had stiffened, and the muscles he had pulled in his arms and legs made the walk into the center of town almost unbearable. He limped along the avenue thinking that he resembled an old man who tried to walk without his cane or his wheelchair—and he really could have used a wheelchair just then but could only hobble along and pause along the way to massage the parts of his body that hurt. At the uneven dips in the sidewalk he let out loud groans that made the passersby shake their heads and whisper things about him. He was a little embarrassed by it.

He arrived at the tuxedo shop drenched in sweat, as the journey had taken twice as much work and twice the length of time as it should have. He stood in the air-conditioned softness of the store, the coolness grazing his skin like breezes from feathered fans on either side of him. He longed to sit on anything resembling a chair but had no choice but to stand as still as a statue, afraid to make any abrupt movements whatsoever. He stood several feet from the sales counter where a tiny desk bell invited customers to ring it. He only wanted to stand there for a while until it was safe to move.

“May I help you?” said a rail-thin, balding white man who had appeared from the back of the store. He was in his mid-fifties, and he wore a pair of pressed black trousers and a starched white shirt. He smiled weakly, as it was the first time he had seen Charlie in the store.

“I need a tuxedo for Saturday night.”

“Certainly, sir,” he said. “What kind of tuxedo were you looking for?”

“Just a regular one.”

“Well, we have many different colors and styles.”

“Just one that’s black, white, and cheap.”

“I see. Well, how cheap were we talking about?”

“The lowest of the line, I’m afraid.”

“I see. Well, that gives me a better idea. And this is to rent, you said?”

“Yessir.”

The man brought out a large measuring tape, but when he tried to measure his waist, Charlie couldn’t lift his arms.

“Sir, I need to measure your waistline.”

“I can’t move very much,” said Charlie.

“Sir?”

“I can’t lift my arms right now. They hurt too much.”

“I see. Can you at least loosen them up a little. Let your arms slacken a little bit, in other words.”

The salesman nimbly slipped his measuring tape between his wrists on both sides of his waist. While doing this, he bumped him by accident a couple of times while measuring, and then bumped him a few times more. It was an uncomfortable procedure. After it was done, the salesman escaped to the back of the store with a sigh of relief and the tiniest trickle of sweat running down his temple. After a record-breaking ten minute search for a tuxedo that would fit him, he presented Charlie Zero the only tuxedo he could find.

“But I can’t try it on now,” said Charlie.

“And why not?” asked the salesman.

“I just can’t move right now. I’m in too much pain to try on the suit.”

“I see. Well, I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, then, because it’s the only tuxedo I could find that remotely matches your size. It doesn’t do it perfectly, because portly-stout is hard to come by.”

“But it will fit, right?”

“Oh, it will fit, but without trying it on, I can’t make any adjustments to it.”

“I’m sure you’re a good tuxedo-fitter and all. I trust you. It’s the cheapest you have, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take it then.”

He paid for the tuxedo and then crawled like a turtle along the avenue again, the tuxedo slung over his shoulder in its plastic sleeve, his arms paining him. He had aspirin at home, and during the hour- long walk he envisioned swallowing the whole bottle and maybe running a hot bath to loosen his muscles. They were all knotted and bunched like tender lumps of pain up and down the length of his body. He could have used that massage and sauna that Artie had denied him, but he believed him when he said that those perks were only for the winners and not for the amateurs, even though Artie had no problem giving him the Asian masseuse on his first visit. Charlie thought he’d resemble the great Quasimodo if his condition didn’t change soon, and perhaps this was the turning point where paths finally branched off into different directions. Staying the same just wasn’t doing it for him anymore. And suddenly this opportunity finally knocked on Charlie’s door—the grand soiree thrown by the wealthiest man in the county in a castle he had seen briefly but was always too timid to enter, too intimidated to involve himself with, and too closed in by his own anxieties and fears to give anyone half the chance to know him, as he had trouble sticking out his hand and never dared to approach that girl all alone in the corner of the room, sitting all by herself and looking stunning, because he thought that the world wouldn’t allow it. These shitty times had to end, they just had to, went his logic, and if he couldn’t find at least one woman at this party, then it was all over for him. He might as well start digging the ditch that would serve as his grave.

Actually, Charlie was already half-way there. Because it had been too long, the suffering too great, the pain too continuous for it to last any longer than it had to. This was the opportunity he had been searching for, the point of no return, the fight-or-flight challenge, the go-for-broke proposition that teetered on the universal cliff that was either all life or all death. And Charlie wanted to live, damn it. He wanted to live, and he would grab the first woman he could find at Artie’s party, and this time without the hesitation or the crippling paralysis that analysis brought. He would carry her off into his life, just so long as he could make it up the confounded stairs to his apartment, and then to his bed where she would relieve all of his pains for just one more day. They would live in the cocoon of their love until a pair of glorious butterflies emerged.

Saturday came quickly, because for the first time since his childhood he had something to look forward to. He remembered, as a child, he had looked forward to a trip to Disney World. His mother promised him this after his father died in the war. But they never made it to Disney World that year, as there was very little money to take the trip. It was simple economics—the turbulent years of a recession— that culminated in his mother’s death. He remembered the potential trip as the last time he had something to look forward to. And now he had Artie Tedesco’s five-star party to attend, only this time he was prepared for it. He didn’t know if Renee was invited or not, as she usually worked Saturday nights. Maybe Artie kept Renee as one of his in-town women on certain nights of the week. Charlie couldn’t be sure. He had had all of Friday to recover from his injuries, and so by Saturday afternoon and after plenty of aspirin, his body had recovered with only minor aches and pains remaining.