The Befores: Part I: Chapter I

Anthony lied in bed and stared—blood-shot, sleepless—at the three large cracks that snaked out from the center of his ceiling fan.

The blades taunted him as they swung past. With every uneven, tilted swing, a reminder. Woosh. A wave hello. Woosh. A wave goodbye.

The fan, ready to meet Anthony face to face at any moment, seemed to absorb the intensity of the high school boy's sleepless, desperate stare. Anthony's eyes pleaded with utter mercy, the fan's motor hummed louder with every wobble, the fans swung harder with every turn.

Woosh. Hello.

Woosh. Goodbye.

Woosh. Get up.

Woosh. Goodbye.

Woosh. Goodbye.

What he thought was ceiling debris graced his eyelashes, tickled his cornea, rested gently on his cracked bottom lip.

Anthony gripped his sheets, a grip rigor mortis would envy. He forced his large, uncooperative body to turn away. His unwashed bedspread wafted further reminders, seeped deep into nostrils, attempted to unlock something in his brain. The faint smell of vomit, of vanilla, of strawberry. He grunted, brought his entire body with him, stage by stage, to his other side. His eyes met the old guitar shaped clock.

It quietly clicked, second by second, and approached four a.m. School. Three hours. Have to run. Have to eat. Shower. Get up. Say goodbye. Today's your actual big day. This is it. Gotta run. Gotta.

He strained, propped his top half on one elbow, then swung both legs out. His feet met the floor like bowling bowls. Anthony squeezed his eyes shut, hard as he could, then opened them again. And again. And again.

His arms dropped, elbows clicked and popped. The nightstand drawer stuck as his hand pulled at it with all his might, an admitted rather weak force. After three tugs, the drawer hurled out of its home with aplomb! A wild celebratory spray of pencils, a half-used lotion bottle, and one wrapped cupcake.

The racket ceased, Anthony paused in fear of human retaliation. He stared out his window, glanced at his ceiling. All was silent.

The glint of the tin foil that adorned the cupcake--engulfed its moisture in warmth--pulled Anthony's gaze toward its position on the floor. It quietly welcomed his ravishment. With a grunt, he lifted his body away from the bed and knelt, slow, at the alter of the cupcake.

On both knees, he lifted it to nose level. A quiver slowly grew at the corners of his mouth. He peeled back the tin foil and was immediately reminded of the joke, Sure, sex is great, but have you tried... Not that he would know if sex were indeed great. At this point, he barely gave it any thought.

He remembered the cupcake's two comrades the night before. Their celebration muted as onlookers limited his ability to give them a proper goodbye (his stepfather’s birthday marred the occasion.) Like a burial by dumpster, he shoved two down and watched his stepfather—covered in sweat and whiskey from a long day with his own comrades at Olympia Aerospace Technologies—blow out all 45 candles. A master thief, Anthony pocketed one more cupcake in his sweater as his mother—a short, Portuguese “peanut,” as one mother once dubbed her—drunkenly smudged cake onto his stepfather’s face and stuffed a melting candle in his mouth hole. His stepfather smiled, the lines on his face suggested a very different emotion.

Gritted teeth, pursed lips, blink after blink that silently confirmed reality. My mother’s cupcake, a culmination.

En route to fulfill its destiny, you could almost hear the roars from the grains of sugar that lined the endless stands of their sweet, cloud-soft open-air coliseum—if you only believed. I believe. I believe in you. His mother’s cupcake traveled up its imaginary roller coaster track, the click, click, click of the track made Anthony quiver. This is the ritual. This is the descent, he repeated quietly in his mind over and over.

My mother’s cupcake, a culmination.

Teeth gnashed through the now dry, ever-so-slightly mealy cake. It crumbled in a flood of saliva and ivory—patient, violent mastication. A slow death.

He thought he was home alone. Pillow to face, Anthony the boar bellowed deep, bellowed hard. Tears formed at the edges of his eyelids, the dryness began to subside. From above, a pounding.

“Fuck.”

“Shut the fuck up, Anthony! Jesus fucking Christ, you fuck!”

“Fuck.”

Anthony gathered his poorly fit body and swung it toward the door. His fingers met and turned the lock on his door and the words Goddamnit and Idiot traveled in circles around the central cortex of his now hyper-functioning brain. Gumption still gained however, only slightly interrupted.

He hesitated for a moment. The socks beside him on the bed, the shoes on the floor, the real challenge began. Have to run. Have to eat. Shower. Get up. Say goodbye. Today's your actual big day. This is it. Gotta run. Gotta. Gotta fucking run.

Weeks earlier, Anthony twisted his ankle on the first real run of his relatively short life. Foolish enough to believe it was the start of a new era for Anthony Ramos (Gone are the days of flab and fat-fuckery!), he stepped on a rock that had rolled onto the sidewalk, as if meant for his destruction, courtesy of a neighbor’s lawn décor. On the concrete there, he admitted to himself, Yeah, maybe not. This is hopeless.

His weight loss efforts ran the gamut from simply trying to jog down the street to a variety of diet pills which contained high amounts ECGC--a compound commonly found in green tea that promotes weight loss. The hunger grew furiously over time, nothing could hold back the beast. In the week after the great ankle incident, he laid awake in his bed, foot elevated, Cup O’ Noodles by his side (Thanks, mom), and he wondered about the futility of…well, everything. In an increasingly sex positive, women-first world, he didn’t like he was still a virgin but was willing to accept the fate for now. After all, they did call him the “Woke King” at school (though not for reasons he’d like to admit.)

With every cupcake, he could feel his body change and morph into something slightly more grotesque, at least in his eyes. If only he could project the thoughts of others into his mind! O, what he would see! They looked at him like they would look at any other fat kid. I hope he helps himself, but he’s funny.

Was I funny? I make the occasional joke and try and stand out but was I even funny? What were they laughing at? I mean, like, really? Did my friends even like me? The cupcake went too soon. I blew it. I blew it and we are all out of cupcakes.

The ritual ruined, he forged ahead anyway. The sugar churned to fat and gave him a boost of energy that made his heart say, Okay, calm down. Anthony rolled his ankle gently in a counter-clockwise motion, slowly…slowly… he heard the slightest click and smiled. He made his mother buy him brand new Adidas Ultraboosts, completely with matching performance pants and track jacket. An early affinity for both Korn (“All Day I Dream About Sex”) and Run DMC (“My Adidas”) as well as a love for James Bond ("Look at that fucking outfit in Skyfall!") coalesced into a light Adidas and soccer wear obsession. An obsession that was about to be cut tragically short (god-willing) very soon.

He thought about going upstairs to say sorry to his stepsister but she, no doubt, would bitten off his nutsack and stored it with, what he assumed, were the nutsacks of other men who dared cross her. He waved to no one before exiting the home, then wondered why he waved goodbye to no one. One more thing: He grabbed earbuds from his night stand and synced them with his phone. First, music for a light stretch: “Optimistic” by Radiohead.

In his front yard, he stood in the middle of their patch of grass, encased by a prison-like chainlink fence—the same kind Clive Owen grabbed at the end of BENT, which fried him to death, after his lover died and he had nothing left to live for. Anthony took in the quiet, sleeping giant of suburbia around him. He did not appreciate the distance from culture, being The City was still 1 hour north. He did appreciate this was one of those towns whose suburbs still had an ounce of character to them. The houses were eclectic,, not governed by the arbitrary rules of housing developments that seemed to be slowly taking over the nation, one by one. He could smell the central coast—or so he imagined—and he could see in every neighbor a sense of pride about their town. Their grandparents likely built the home with their own two hands and each neighbor had the same memory. Grandpa slapped the doorframe of the house every time he visited and proudly exclaimed, “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.”

He could smell the central coast… Salt particles wafted in the air and Anthony almost imagined seagulls charging down to peck at his dead body. Once, in The City, Anthony’s crab roll was stolen by a group of seagulls right from his hands. It ranked among the saddest days of his life.

Quadricep stretch… eight, nine, ten… the other side… eight, nine, ten… Then to the calves… eight, nine, ten… Other side… Experts on YouTube always recommended a light stretch before a run and before they could explain why, Anthony was onto the next video, trying to find a quicker, smoother path to Happiness City.

He unlatched the fence door and made his way to the sidewalk. Was he ready to do this again? Was he going to see the rocks in his path, the tiny assassins? He changed the music. The song? “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” by Funkadelic.

Shit.

Goddamn.

One foot in front of the other. 1.5 mph, then up to 2.5 mph, then to a stagging 4 mph. Considering his relatively low tolerance for exercise, endorphins already started to take effect. Past the tall oaks that lined his street and his waking neighbors he quickly sauntered, most of which belonged to the metal factory across the railroad tracks from his home, the clanging of their large tubes and PA announcements were a gentle alarm clock from his already sleepless slumber.

Anthony began to pick up his feet and for second, thought he was actually going somewhere. Then, the sound of the commuter train roared past the neighborhood and shook the windows of the houses that surrounded him. He began to believe he contributed to the shaking. Every unwashed roll, every ounce of fat and flesh began to pound. The velocity of his steps combined with his weight shook the very earth beneath him. He began to hear the ripples in his fat cells as they shifted and expanded and rolled about, as they made room for the new cells courtesy of his mother’s cupcake, the culmination. Then, he heard the siren’s song.

Less than 5 miles behind him, far beyond his home, the angry roar of a V8 engine (or so he assumed, V8 was the only engine he really knew about. He flunked auto shop.) The car barreled down the street and he swore he could hear Run DMC blaring from its speakers. An angry 4am joyride.

As if it was handed to him on a concrete and grease platter, Anthony nodded to himself. In the yard next to him, a garden gnome smiled, its hand raised. Anthony, again, waved goodbye to no one, only a garden gnome. His arms outstretched, he stepped into the street. He hoped he would see his life fast-forward before his eyes so he closed them tightly shut and tried to help it along. He wanted to see himself again in the year he had actually lost weight, before gaining it all back again. He wanted to see the time he got a handjob from Lisa Nguyen in the orchestra pit of the high school theater. He wanted to see the time he and his mom had a living room picnic and they watched the South Park movie, all obscenities unbeknownst to her.

The roaring engine became a deafening cacophony of crunch and screech.

The salt particles in the air even stood still as they hovered above Anthony’s out-stretched arms. He opened one eye to see nothing but empty road before him and for a moment thought, This is what being a ghost is like? You stay where you fucking are?!

But he could feel his fingers and goddamnit, I can't even succeed at suicide! He was a failure! He was given an easy out and then--

He turned around, a Dodge Challenge rested, steaming, driver either dead or unconscious. Like the cacophony of metal that had just surrounded him and nearly blew out his ear drums, everything rushed back to reality. He took a step toward the wreckage.

“Hey, are you—” but he was cut short when a decidedly slower car, a 20-year-old Volkswagen, clipped him and sent him to earth, face down, head slashed by the concrete, right arm shattered. Not dead, not quite alive—same as the 86-year-old driver who, in her defiance of persecution, turned suddenly and sped down the perpendicular street—Anthony refused to move. The music stopped, his ear buds somewhere in the gutter, a stream of his own blood slowly pooled around them.

He surrendered to the concrete and, by extension, to a defeat that dictated yes, he indeed had to live, at least for a little while longer.