Part III: What Happens a Cappella? (Chapter 54)

I was a chubby child, and my family never let me forget it.

Danny and Jimmy O’Flaherty, my cousins, were especially innovative in coming up with creative names for my condition: “Sam the Ham,” “Heifer,” “fatty-fatty-two-by-four,” and “Piglet,” to name a few titles I bore throughout my childhood.

In other words, kid stuff.

Okay, so I’m being super sensitive. They were kids at the time, and…boys will be boys ‒

But it still cuts deeply.

Well, yeah. It still hurts. Maybe I can forgive them, maybe not. It’s moot, anyway, since I had decided long ago that I would have been perfectly happy to relegate those twits to relative obscurity ‒

You’re still angry?

That’s a bit strong, I think. Kids I can understand. Really, it was the adults who put me on my childhood diets, beginning when I was eight, and nagged me into sticking with them. I’ll never forget the day my grandmother took me to Dr. Noonan, and what she said to him: “We’ve got to do something about Samantha’s weight. She’s getting so big I can’t find school clothes for her.”

I see.

It’s weird, but when I look back on those snapshots, I don’t see a fat child ‒ I see a growing child going through a phase where her height hadn’t quite caught up with her weight. Dr. Noonan, who must’ve weighed about 300 pounds himself, should’ve seen that. Still, like the good family doctor that he was, he prescribed a strict diet: unlimited lettuce, celery, and carrot sticks; one-half cup cottage cheese; three ounces of broiled meat or fish a day; one cup of cooked vegetables; one fruit or juice; no starch; no sugar; and no fats. He sent me home with a packet of pink pills, one to be taken in “late” afternoon, when I was most likely to be hungry.

Those pills made me higher than a kite, and I used to lay awake at night, my thoughts and fears racing like crazy, longing for sleep like no other eight-year-old kid, before or since. When I complained of not being able to sleep, Dr. Noonan prescribed a red pill “to be taken before bedtime.” That pill would knock me out cold, and when my grandmother tried waking me up for school, I just lay in bed like a stone, unable to move or even open my eyes. This went on for three months.

And then what happened?

What do you think? The weight came off. It always came off easily in those days, and I was a thin child for a few days ‒ that is, until I started eating regular food again. I was so hungry that I attacked my food like a shark going after blood. I was a shark going after blood, the blood of rare steak, the elixir of chocolate, the slickness of butter melting down my throat. My voracious hunger frightened my grandmother, but I couldn’t help it. Really.

I believe you, Samantha. But I’m wondering: does Samantha believe Samantha?

What do you mean?

You protest too much.

Well, I think I was okay until Auntie jumped into the fray as her letters from California tried to embarrass me into losing weight.

Who’s Auntie?

My grandmother’s oldest sister. Gertie Stern, but no one called her that. I admired her, but I was afraid, too ‒

Tell me about that fear.

I-I-I can’t explain it. She never threatened me, or anything, no more than anyone else.

Well, then, tell me something significant about Auntie.

That’s really hard. She was such a character, I could go on and on with Auntie stories ‒

Start at the beginning, maybe?

Hmmmm. Oh, yes, I know. She once tried to talk my mother into changing my first name to Candy ‒ “Kane” is my natural father’s last name ‒ I don’t remember that incident at all, but I’m glad my mother stood her ground. It was hard saying “no” to Auntie.

How so?

She was strong-willed, and everyone thought she had money. Lots of it.

What about your relationship with her?

I wasn’t interested in her money, if that’s what you mean. Being independent was always more important. If the money came, fine, but if I had to jump through hoops to get it, I wasn’t interested. As it turned out, she wasn’t as rich as everyone had thought. When she died in 1980, I inherited about $15,000.

What’s your best memory of her?

Aren’t we getting off on a tangent? I mean, aren’t we supposed to be talking about dieting or body image?

If you’ll bear with me, there may be a tie-in.

I don’t see how, but you’re the shrink.

But not infallible.

Only the Pope, Dr. Garrett. And he’s suspect. Now let’s see...Ah, yes.

The year I turned 14, I spent my entire summer with Auntie. She lived in an 11th floor penthouse on Hollywood Boulevard, a very elegant place with white furniture and shag carpeting. Floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides that looked out on the Capitol Records Building, the only round building I’d ever seen for real. She had a shower gizmo that mixed soap and water together so that you wouldn’t have to bother rubbing bar soap all over your body. We didn’t even have a shower at home, only a bathtub, so I assumed just rich people could afford to build showers and then to have a gizmo on top of it...Wow. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I was always in the shower, it seemed. I must’ve been the cleanest 14-year-old kid around. I would’ve gotten sick of all that elegance ‒ after all, after a few weeks of standing in the shower, getting all wrinkled, I might’ve got bored ‒ but Auntie had this nutty side that I loved: she ordered tacky stuff from the Spencer’s Gift Catalog, things like boy dolls ‒ genitalia and all‒that you filled with water. When you squeezed him, he peed. Auntie used it like a squirt gun, chasing me all over the apartment as I shrieked and screamed. Then, when she wasn’t looking, I snatched the thing and chased her back. Sometimes, we’d laugh so hard that we’d fall on her bed, holding our sides and trying not to slide off the satin sheets.

She also ordered her toilet paper from Spencer’s: each square a $1,000 bill. She always made a big deal about being so rich that you could wipe your butt with money and not feel a thing.

Then she’d take me to Farmer’s Market where we’d pig out on enchiladas before they were popular in the east. After we stuffed ourselves so much that we could barely move, we’d go to the magic store and stock up on rubber spiders, snakes, vomit, and doggy-do ‒ the kind of stuff I loved taking to school, the same stuff that inevitably ended up in the nun’s confiscation drawer.

Auntie and her two gay boyfriends ‒ both bankers and both cute (I couldn’t decide which one I loved best) ‒ took me everywhere, sneaking me into places like the Playboy Club. Dining on lobster tails and sipping on Scotch and water. Auntie introduced me into an adult world and treated me like a cherished companion, instead of the unwanted kid I knew I was. For once in my life, I felt privileged, and, like Auntie, I stood haughty and proud. Sometimes, during the day, when we were logy and bored from all the running around, Auntie would toss two Swanson’s Turkey Dinners into the oven and teach me how to play poker. I mean real poker, the cutthroat kind, the kind they play in Las Vegas. She would hand me a stake, a roll of shiny nickels, and dare me to beat her. Sometimes, she even let me win. She taught me how to have fun. But, more than anything, Auntie taught me how to keep a poker face in public, how not to let my real feelings show.

Hmmmm...mmm. How about that.

And what is that supposed to mean?

Just a verbal non-fluency, Ms. Mallory. You seemed to expect a response, and I was drawing a blank. That’s all.

Well, it makes me nervous, like maybe the white coats are coming. Sounds like something a crooked lawyer would say before he scams you.

Now, now. What would you know about such things?

Oh, nothing. I was just spouting off.

Every utterance has meaning, Ms. Mallory.

Excuse me, Dr. Garrett? But isn’t your Freudian slip showing?

That’s a “gotcha.” In any case, I’m afraid our time’s up for today.

Just when it starts gettin’ good.

We’ll explore that comment next time.