Why Couldn’t He Have
Just Bought Her Flowers?
Dana Frazier
Creative Nonfiction
 
All by myself, I walk down Lowe Avenue, a street riddled with houses in disrepair and a sidewalk so cracked no one can ride their bikes on it. I am eight, on my way back to Gram’s house with my newly purchased baggie of little red Swedish fish swinging at the end of my arm. It’s the middle of a cartoonish day, crayola blue sky and clouds like cotton. My pale skin is slightly red from the July sun and my pink jelly shoes make tapping noises with each step. I see my uncle Bobby on the opposite end of the street dragging a huge rectangular box up the five steps on his front porch. “Hey Uncle Bob, what’cha got?” I yell across at him. “It’s a present for your aunt. It’s her birthday next week!” He’s visibly struggling, and the goofiness of his dance with the box makes me laugh a little. “What’d you get her?” “A treadmill. Come over anytime, Dane, and you can use it too!” He shouts in a tone that suggests he finds himself quite helpful in the offer. What? “Um… okay. Thanks?” “No prob,” he grunts as he sweats his way through the front door. It slams shut. I’m ashamed and don’t know why. I think I’m going to throw up. I want to cry. I don’t know what else to do so I run, my jelly shoes now scraping harder, louder, and faster than they were before. I make it back without tripping once. When I get to Gram’s, I don’t tell her about Uncle Bobby. I give the fish to my younger sister and watch TV. I notice when I sit that my thighs spread to the width of the LaZBoy recliner. It makes me nervous. How didn’t I see that before? * * * Twelve years later, I’m back at Gram’s. It’s Mother’s Day. Everyone is at the house: my parents, three uncles, three aunts, cousins, neighbors, old ladies…a mess of people in a two-bedroom, one floor house. I am seated at the dining room table, drumming my fingers on the plastic table cloth, pounding the pink and purple and yellow daisy pattern with my gnawed fingernails. Gram turns from my right and shoots me a stern “chill out or I’ll slap you” look. “Dana, stop with the leg.” She’s visibly annoyed, her mouth is squeezed tight, the thin white lip line is barely visible. I didn’t even notice I was shaking it. Silent in the midst of scattered conversations, I stare at the brunch offerings, knot in my stomach. Just one. I take a small piece of the walnut coffee cake and set it on my plate. Apprehensive, I glance around the room. Everyone else is eating more than me. Good. I’m just going to do it. I deserve it. I do. In seconds the pastry’s gone. I don’t even like it that much. Damnit. I sit, feel itchy allover. My eyes move faster than my head can follow. I’m losing focus. I want more. When no one is looking I steal bits of frosting and walnuts that hang off the remaining cake. I can’t handle it. I’m so fucking weak. Stop eating. I get up and walk toward the counter my two aunts are standing around and pour myself some coffee. My aunt Jacki asks me about school as I stir in my Coffeemate. Standard questioning from extended family members. I reply with the equally standard, “Fine,” and that seems to satiate her curiosity because she then returns to my aunt Chris and their in-depth discussion of taffy apple salad recipes. Good. Leave me alone. I keep stirring. My green eyes dart frantically like they’re on speed. Focus. Just one more thing. Vanilla wafers. The good ones. The Vortman kind with two layers of cream in the middle of thin perforated sheets that melt in my mouth. I just want one… you know, for my coffee. One is okay. It’s OK. I eat three. What’s wrong with me? I have to stop now. But, wait. I can eat some fruit…. And then if I just eat a salad at dinner the cookies balance out. It’s all in the goddamn mathematics. But it’s a holiday. Today it’s okay. Today it’s allowed. It’s Mothers Day. I have two Milky May mini bars, some circus peanuts and eat the rest of my sister’s coffee cake. When I’m done, I pantomime cleaning off the counter and look to see if anyone notices my feasting. They think I’m such a glutton. That I’m just lazy. I know they do. It’s none of their business. I wish they’d stop talking about me. Goddamnit I have no control. Why didn’t I get up for a run this morning? Why did I just eat that? What the fuck is wrong with me? I place my hand on my bare stomach, lifting my button-up shirt slightly, and rub it. It’s hard, and when I poke it I want to double over. It’s okay. It’ll go away. It’ll digest. Don’t do it. Fight it. It’s stupid. Oh god, fuck it. * * * Shutting out my surroundings, I march to the door, stepping over a couple of toddlers, a toy, a dead body for all I know. This is the last time, I swear. When I get inside I turn around and lock the door. Frantic and pressed for time, I get my things in order: hand soap, flowery lotion (to cover the smell), towel, toothpaste. All set. My hair is pulled back, sleeves rolled up. All business. I place each foot shoulder length apart and straddle the base of the toilet. Bending over, knees slightly bent, back arching to position my face properly above the bowl, I focus on my target, on the portal that would alleviate my situation, the mouth that would swallow up the contents of my bulging stomach and carry them somewhere the food would never find me, or my hips, again. At this point, my digestive system is destroyed. It’s been beaten so far into submission that it needs my permission to function. I stop the food mid-digest and keep it in the back of my throat, force it to wait patiently. I push my abdominal muscles inward, force the contents of my stomach through my esophagus and out my mouth. I keep my face close to the bowl at this point to soften the splash of vomit hitting water. The chewed up tube of mashed everything slides silently into the toilet. I don’t make gagging noises anymore. The pressure of my stomach, of the food, of the thoughts, of this day…they’re gone. I am clean and pure and empty. I cough and produce some bile and an apple peel. The bile is good—it means I got everything. My hands are shaking, but they always eventually stop. I flush the toilet and only half the food goes down, so I wait. I pace a bit. Wash my vibrating hands. Listen to the spoons clinking in the coffee cups, the kids’ bare feet slapping against the hardwood floors. The toilet is still running, not yet ready to be re-flushed. There are large chunks, shards of cookie and watermelon, a brownish tint to the water (most likely a combination of coffee and bile), remnants of my total lack of self control. I wash my hands again. I take an old towel, damp from the hamper, and quickly wipe the seat. Gripping the sink, bracing myself, I stare into the mirror, inspect my reptilian eyes, wipe some vomit off my cheek. I step back; caressing my stomach like a pregnant woman I inspect my work. KNOCK KNOCK. A muffled ” Why is this door locked?” Shit. * * * The thing is, I’d really like to blame my Uncle Bobby for all this. His comment spurned, after all, my earliest memories of bodily awareness. For subsequent years I would remember that day and how I felt the fat on my thighs and my stomach and my butt with my hands and imagined what it would be like to just cut it off with a knife. Would there be a huge scab; would it just peel right off? I would draw pictures of myself in my elementary school journal, circling my stomach, my thighs. I’d write on the pages what I could and couldn’t eat. What I should look like. I would hide it under my mattress and document my progress. I chastised myself for never succeeding. For eating that cookie and not that apple. Somewhere along the line I lost that journal, but never the practices it instilled. My folders from my early college years are covered in mathematics. Addition, subtraction, how many calories by noon? How many by 4:30? How many do I have left? The pictures and charts became more complex, but they all stemmed from that first draft. I thought they were normal. Apparently they weren’t. I had to leave school and they threw me in therapy when I lost all that weight. I never said a word about Uncle Bobby. I kept him all to myself, held on to him, on to my guiltlessness. I wanted to blame him for my misery, so I did. That way I was safe, I had no control, I wasn’t responsible because it wasn’t my doing. He did this to me. It’s his fault with his comment, with his treadmill. He could have bought her anything else. * * * “Hang on a minute.” I panic. I remember what the hell is happening. The AARP Magazine on the floor to the left of the toilet, next to the bottle of roll-on Ban deodorant. The homemade maroon curtains (I remember I helped make those) hanging on the small window above the toilet, the blood red shower curtain offset by the walls the color of cardboard (or perhaps a shade darker), the wooden soap dish, the distinct scent of ivory soap, mousse, and old lady, the toothpaste stain on the sink and the glossy white tile floor. I’ve been reduced to purging in my 65 year old grandmother’s bathroom. What am I doing? Now abruptly aware of my surroundings, I flush again and open the door to find my Aunt Chris holding her daughter’s hand, waiting. I shove past and power walk to the living room, avoiding everyone. I feel their glares sear into the back of my head. They know. I know they do. I sit on the LaZBoy recliner, turn on the TV, and notice the way my thighs take up the width of the chair as I sit. My skin is crawling. I am so disgusting. And now I smell. We leave a half hour or so later. I forget about the previous events, block them from my consciousness until all I can think about is the traffic on the expressway. Car after car I get further and further away from the food in the toilet until its memory is a mere flash scene from a dream. * * * “I have to talk to you,” my mom says. She’s lying on her left side with a Mary Higgins Clark novel resting on the bed. Her eyes are on the vacant wall as I come into her bedroom. She never has to talk to me. “Did you throw up at Gram’s?” When she meets my gaze, her eyes are red-rimmed, her brown irises drowning in pink. Shit. Am I going to lie? No. Am I going to admit to my mom that I’m psychotic? No. So I say nothing. I close my eyes and hope when I open them again she’s gone. “Aunt Chris said the door was locked when she went to the bathroom and you were in it. There was still some puke in the toilet when she came in. She told Uncle Kevin, who called Uncle Danny who told Aunt Jacki who called me.” Fucking great. My whole family knows. “Jesus, Dana… I thought you were done with this.” Ashamed, I crumple to the bed and cry at my mom’s feet. I’m relieved. I’m scared. I’m pissed. I feel my stomach fold over itself when I curl into the fetal position and I’m disgusted.