Pardon me for being obnoxious but when my job everyday involves getting people out of bed, teaching them how to walk again and making them perform their daily tasks with least difficulty, it becomes my duty to remind them to be healthy and maintain normal weights. I am not being critical for the sake of criticism or to add a goody-goody medal on my lapel, honey, I've had enough rewards earned in life. I am telling you, being obese makes everything for you and everybody difficult. Imagine what special hospital bed you would require, how many Nurses and staff are needed to get you from stretcher to bed, how back-breaking it would be for the Physical Therapist to get you up from bed the first time. I am talking in a clinical sense, oh-kay?
Not that I am without faults myself. I may be within ideal body weight but...If you were to ask Manuel and Mario about my taste in men, they'd answer in a duet, "He loves criminals." My taste is generally peculiar and I have a weakness for the tattooed criminal just released from jail, who is currently homeless and drunk and is making ends meet by working in a construction site who at the end of the day picks up a slut. Ok, I was exaggerating, but you get the drift. (I just can hear Mario screaming in the background, "No Alex, you are not exaggerating!")
I was internalizing all these thoughts as I watched Mark embrace Manuel with so much passion that for a moment I forgot about the balloons. Sometimes I get this xray vision of people around me naked, and among those over four hundred pounders, I see this blob of fat in their stomachs that sags all the way down, covering their pelvis and their dicks and their balls. And then I imagine myself lifting all that blob to dig and dig and dig only to find the tiniest wiener in the world crumpled like a dead rat....Oh, God, please ask the world to forgive me. I really don't know what I am saying now. And Manuel, if you read this, you know I am prone to exaggeration right? And Mario, if you read this, stop screaming "No you are not!"
Shut your mouth bitch.
Despite my reservations about their odd couple looks, I thought I saw a sparkle in the way they looked at each others. Yeah, I give credit where credit is due and I think that momentary sparkle meant real love between Manuel and Mark.
Love?
What is that? I know there is such thing as love but I don't really know anything about it. I thought in college love was merely an exchange of bodily fluids in a dark movie house or beside Manila Bay. I once thought I loved my masseur who did me a good massage (and extra) for fifty bucks. There was a time I thought love instantly developed between me and a spectacularly looking Toyota car salesman in the dealership bathroom as our eyes accidentally met while we were peeing in our own urinals. He actually wanted to sell me a new Toyota model. And that's all he wanted. So there is my concept of love.
Later on, Manuel would phone me about his love for Mark. He said it was not physical, that it had nothing to do with obesity or sexy body, that there are emotional and spiritual dimensions to it, that sometimes, love, real love, all it takes is simply holding each other's hands, or staring at each other's eyes or simply eating in a candle lit restaurant while talking about the latest book you both read.
While, me, yawning, (poor me)wanted to know only a few things: How do you have sex? Who is at the top or the bottom? How do you manage it exactly?
"Alex, stop it. Please, please, please." Manuel pleaded and I could hear the grating of his teeth. "I am very serious with Mark. I can tolerate the way you put him down because of his weight or the oddness of our partnership or whatever imperfection you don't fail to notice but don't make fun of our love. I know you're mocking at us to elicit a laugh for your own self and I know you can't help it, you're a clown, but don't dare clown around my serious relationship."
"Manuel, I am just joking." I hastened to say.
"I knoooow you are but I am not! I am telling you all these to explain my upcoming departure from our little group. Alex, enough of belittling gay love, you are beginning to sound ridiculous. This is probably my last phone conversation with you because I will spend most of my time with Mark. But be kind to yourself. I know you choose not to fall in love because of your many responsibilities but do not put down the others who find it. I am saying this because you are my friend. I'd like to be honest with you. "
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