Part V: Snakes – Lady Troddenhill #1 (Chapter 98)


F
rom the beginning, I will hate Lady Troddenhill.

There she’ll stand in the family room, large and imperious, her slim gray lines, her curves, her blinking green display, her nagging beeps.

Judgmental bitch.

Like a wild horse, she bucks, threatening to toss me off like a rag doll.

Who needs that?

Yet, for Sheldon, she performs perfectly: as Sheldon runs her tread – first at 4 mph, eventually reaching 5.5 mph, 15% grade – her well-oiled motor hums evenly.

For the past three and a half years, Sheldon has run in place for one hour, every day, wearing out three pairs of Nikes.

Damn him.

My song, defiant and zaftig, echoes:

 

Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady

What song would you want me to sing?

I’ll sing my song all over this place, praise Thee!

 

I’ll mix the blues with a symphony of paisley.

Tell me, Lord, what colors may I bring?

Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady.

 

Tell me, Lord, You think I’m red hot crazy?

Please bestow me with rainbow pitch, no strings.

I’ll sing my song all over this place, praise Thee!

 

I promise, Lord, to bend lines into curves – maybe

Not today, but surely tomorrow when the sun rings.

Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady.

 

My palette sings epics: russets of woe and malady.

But, Lord, my kaleidoscope spills bloodstone tidings.

I’ll paint my song all over this place, praise Thee!

 

Strip from me some slivers of red – now maybe

You know what happens when I, the fat lady, sings,

Naked before all. No, I’m not just another fat lady.

Yes, I sing: ruby rocks, all a cappella – praise me!

~ Fat Lady Phantasy in B-Minor

 

Who cares about all that fitness crap?

Aren’t I, after all, a healthy fat lady? Haven’t I made peace with my fat almost 10 years ago? Am I not that empowered woman/artist who decided she didn’t need to cultivate a Madison Avenue body?

Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady...

What does my song mean to my sister Sal?

It’s December 31, 2000.

In my 51st year, my life has been turned upside down.

I need Lady Troddenhill now.

She’s my salvation.

If turning 40 was traumatic, I absolutely had no clue what my 50’s would portend.

I’m not sure I can tell Sheldon about Sal’s betrayal.

Maybe because I don’t quite believe it myself.

The idea is just too incongruous.

Sal, who would die for her own children, a cohort in a scheme to rid the family of –

It just doesn’t make sense.

Candy and Sal have changed everything.

Still, I can’t blame them for everything.

I’m not fat because of them.

In the past year or so, I have noticed small physical maladies: shortness of breath when I walk short distances, a bum foot, an aching leg, creaky joints – my boobs, underarms, and thighs, pointing south...

Gray roots, red hair now courtesy of Lady Clairol.

Sheldon has noticed too, I can tell. But he won’t say, another tacit agreement between us.

My fat, my bodily state, is non-negotiable. Sheldon can take it or leave it.

Does he accept me the way I am?

He’s still, here, isn’t he?

And yet...I feel old, washed up, tired all the time. Just getting through the day feels like a major struggle.

The nightmare: trapped in a mechanized/computerized wheelchair, perhaps a Jazzy or a Hoveround carting me around. My ass plopped in a cushy, movable chair, one that will read my desires, take me around the world, perhaps blast me off to the moon...



Never having to propel my own flesh around, ever again.

I didn’t feel this way 10 years ago.

I, after running around all day, could dance well into the night and then get up early the next morning. When I exposed my core at that awful family reunion, I felt high, exonerated, reborn, powerful.

Still fat…

Thinking about France.

Are we ever ready for the big moments of our lives?

I don’t know.

But now...

Hot flashes.

 

Menopause is no fun....

Soon, I’ll be the woman I saw at the mall.

Her 400-pound body stuffed in a Jazzy, her flesh, bulging from the side rails like sausage stuffed in its casing, her chins blending into her chest, her breaths loud and labored. Her companion, a grizzled rail of a man, pushing the chair forward, his face red and sweaty, his hair mussed and spiky.



People stare, children point fingers:

“Oooh, Mommy, look! That lady is SO fat.”

“Hush, honey!”

But the look of disgust and blame on the mother’s face, the patina of civility worn thin, are unmistakable.

After all, aren’t fat women in wheelchairs responsible for their own state of being?

I want so much to move beyond the petty prejudices of the masses; I try to feel empathy for this woman, but I can’t.

All I feel is fear.

She’s about my age.

 

I want to hide, cry, feel sorry for myself.

I’m old because I feel old, my body about to betray me.

Maybe it already has.

Sal already has.


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