Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Up to the park and around once, up the cruel hill, at which point I was tired.

P₀: Well that will just about do that right there. Legs all stretched; cardio satisfied; time to head home.

P₁: That's what you say if you want a happy noontime ridey-bide, you chubby bitch. I think you're going round again.

P₀: No need.

P₁: Your choice, fattie. I guess that weight will come off by its own. Tell it to WASPGEL tomorrow before you go back to your job. I'll be here, shining up the bullets for your brain.

WASPGEL is what I call my scale. Wrath, Avarice, Sloth, Pride, Greed, Envy, Lust.

So I went around the park again except I had this very small chest ache about halfway down. Now, I know and you know it is nothing--for not only do I reduce my blood pressure by use of pills, but this ride was no more challenging than many others, and the pain was external, not the sort of shooting serious pain that all reports say indicates heart explosion, and most likely an artifact of the fact that my messenger bag, weighed down by a heavy chain, was strapped across the area that was the area that hurt.

(Understand too that pain makes me nervous because at my size I can, very quickly, ruin a joint. There's a lot of me rubbing up against itself. If I wear myself out too fast I won't be able to ride my bike every day. One-quarter, one-half pound per day, this is more than enough weight to lose. Ritual, not revelation.)

P₀ got worried. P₁ argued with him, but in the end they both decided to sit on a bench and watch the world, drink some water, and see how they felt.

In a moment they both felt fine. So they watched the world go by and noticed that in fifteen minutes not one bicyclist was as fat as they. Only one was close: a middle-aged fellow with a beard, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and long grey trousers with tzitzit blown back in the wind. He was working it. He went around twice in 15 minutes.

Science, then: if I am the fattest then am I doomed to failure? I saw perhaps 200 cyclists. Why are so few even a little chubby? Even the joggers were fatter. How to interpret? Some ideas:

1. Fatties don't bike.

2. Fatties bike but fail and give up.

3. Fatties bike but lose weight so quickly they aren't fatties any more.

4. The sample is too small. Do more fatties bike in the dark when they need not feel so vulnerable?

The other day I found myself yelling at a friend for smoking. Hey, hey, he said. But I couldn't stop; I had to tell him how I felt. Awful to be in that position, to be the one doing the lecturing. Finally I said, "you know what, let me get back to you after a year or two."

Or twenty years. That's how long it took me to organize myself enough to count every (or very close to every) calorie. And two months later. Twenty years eating; 1/120th of that time dealing, paying the price.

I think of this fable, sometimes three times a day:

The Bear Who Let It Alone

By James Thurber

In the woods of the Far West there once lived a brown bear who could take it or leave it alone. He would go into a bar where they sold mead, a fermented drink made of honey, and he would have just two drinks. Then he would put some money on the bar and say, “See what the bears in the back room will have,” and he would go home. But finally he took to drinking by himself most of the day. He would reel home at night, kick over the umbrella stand, knock down the bridge lamps, and ram his elbows through the windows. Then he would collapse on the floor and lie there until he went to sleep. His wife was greatly distressed, and his children were very frightened.

At length the bear saw the error of his ways and began to reform. In the end he became a famous teetotaler and a persistent temperance lecturer. He would tell everybody who came to his house about the awful effects of drink, and he would boast about how strong and well he had become since he gave up touching the stuff. To demonstrate this, he would stand on his head and on his hands, and he would turn cartwheels in the house, kicking over the umbrella stand, knocking down the bridge lamps, and ramming his elbows through the windows. Then he would lie down on the floor, tired by his healthful exercise, and go to sleep. His wife was greatly distressed, and his children were very frightened.

Moral: You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.