Free Eating My Feelings by Mark Rosenberg Page B

replied.
    “I’ve heard a lot about you from Carl,” he said.
    Apparently my extortion plot gone wrong was all over the front pages of the
Hidden Crest Tribune
that morning. I was wondering where my copy was and why I had not been interviewed for my side of the story.
    “I’m sure,” I replied.
    “Okay, Mark, we are doing some simple exercises so I can determine what work needs to be done and on whom. This will be quite grueling, but the results will be amazing and maybe you will begin to like yourself again.”
    “I am pretty amazing just the way I am. Don’t you think?” I asked.
    He sniffed around me, obviously wondering what intoxicating scent surrounded my body.
    “It’s cologne. From
Melrose Place
,” I said. He looked confused, so I continued. “You know, the TV show.” He looked dumbfounded. “But you can buy it at CVS, I think. It’s not like from Melrose Place in L.A.”
    “No cologne. It attracts bugs.”
    “You’re telling me, I have like ten thousand mosquito bites.” Apparently I had acquired about three thousand more mosquito bites from when I wrote my mother the night before.
    “So don’t wear it and you’ll be fine,” Kurt replied.
    “I am trying this new thing,” I said.
    “Oh, and what’s that?”
    “I think the French do it.”
    “What? Not shower and bathe in cologne?”
    “Exactly,” I replied.
    “Well, no more of that. When you are done here, you are going to be dying for a shower.”
    Doubtful.
    Kurt gestured me toward the other fat-asses who were bouncing up and down attempting to do jumping jacks. All I could think about was food. I was so fucking hungry. And thirsty. I would have loved a Coke and was wondering if there was a waitress anywhere nearby. I was also hoping there was one fierce fat girl around who I could talk shit with, but therewasn’t one for miles. I watched all of the fatties jump up and down and suddenly realized that the second I joined them, I would be one of them. Perhaps it was time for me to start thinking about my health. I was fat, but was I as fat as the rest of them? As I began weighing in on the rest of the troupe in my head, Kurt began explaining what exactly was going on.
    “So what we have here is a test of endurance,” Kurt said. I was watching and waiting for the fatties to drop like flies. “We are going to be testing your strength and we are also going to be testing how well you fare during a series of tests.”
    “Can I please eat something first?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “But I am so hungry.”
    “They’re all hungry too, but they aren’t complaining about it.”
    I looked at the fat boys and all I could see was a look of sheer famishment. They were hungry too. They were just pussies and wouldn’t ask for food. But I would start a fat boys’ revolution and feed all of us. If Joan of Arc could do it, I certainly could find some hot dogs for these kids.
    “Not so much hungry as starving.”
    “All right, we’ll start jumping jacks and we will discuss food later.”
    “I hate my life,” I said as I began jumping jacks with the rest of the fat kids. I did about four and suddenly a bead of sweat rolled down my face. It was something I had never experienced before. The only time I had sweat was while standing in front of an oven, and now here I was doing jumping jacks with twenty fat kids. Seeing the determination in the rest of kids made me think that I could do this after all. If I couldn’t beat them, I figured I might as well join them. My constant bitching wasclearly not going to get me out of actually working out. As I continued jumping jacks, I noticed that the ground was very soiled. The mud was sticking to my shoe and with each jack I jumped, the muddier my shoe became. I also couldn’t help but notice it smelled like my bathroom the day after I realized I had irritable bowel syndrome.
    “Excuse me,” I said as I stopped jumping. “Uh, Kurt.”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “There is some serious mud going on up