Chapter 2: Rude Awakening


"Rise and shine, eight-o'clockers! You're listening to KTHX-FM Manhasset on this beautiful Monday morning in late June! Let's get the ball rolling with the latest hit from those two ladies from Novartis! This is 'Don't Not Be Somebody' by Efinel, on KTHX-FM Manhasset."

The DJ's 90-mile-an-hour banter woke 17-year-old Gene Rothman from a peaceful sleep. He muttered to himself and turned off his alarm clock radio, because he particularly disliked the music of Efinel. Gene always hated getting up in the morning, because the time he spends in bed is one of the few times nothing bad could possibly happen to him.

Constantly dealing with school and his parents, Gene was inevitably led to depression, and one of the few things he could do to combat his depression was eat. This, in turn, led to his obesity, which led to further nagging by his parents and discrimination by his schoolmates and teachers. It was a vicious cycle that took over a decade to perfect.

Gene grumbled and staggered to his closet, where he got out of his pajamas and put on an extra-large green shirt and blue clamkicker jeans. The jeans had a waist size of 48 and holes in the thighs from constantly rubbing together. After strapping on his trademark metallic blue headband, which he thought complemented his spikey orange-brown hair quite nicely, Gene was ready to face the day.

Or so he thought.





"Did you get fatter overnight?"

Those five words, like daggers through Gene's heart. But he was used to hearing it, as those words were said to him every day for the past four or five years, the second he opened his bedroom door to face the world.

"You know, a simple 'Good morning' would be nice," Gene replied. Standing downstairs was Gene's father Desmond, a high-profile lawyer in the city. Desmond's hair was rather white for his age, an attribute for which he often blamed the tribulation of raising his second son. Gene's mother Molly, another big-name lawyer, shared her husband's shade of hair.

"What am I going to do with you... You're 17 years old, almost 18, and you have no plans concerning a long-term career. Of course, nobody would think of hiring you with your grade point average. Not even McDaravon's."

Every day since the last day of Gene's senior year of high school (which he would have to repeat in the fall), it was the same exact sermon about jobs and grades and weight. Gene memorized every word of the speech, which never changed. Desmond would probably talk about his own hard times next.

"I worked 19 hours a day in the post office to support my family, while saving up to go to law school! And once I finally enrolled in law school, I studied as hard as I could to become the top of the class! That's where I met your mother, and blah blah blah blah blah blah... Are you listening, or are you daydreaming about the next 500 of my fallons you're going to spend on Twinkies?"

"No, Dad, I was listening."

"Then could you tell me the 39th to the last word I said to you?"

"Umm... It's 'the,' right?"

"You little idiot. You haven't been listening at all. It's just in one ear and out the other with you, isn't it, Fatso? With your attention span, it's no wonder you finished this school year with a 0.59 GPA. A 0.59!!!"

"At least it's up from last year's 0.46, Dad."

"DON'T crack wise with me, you damn snotrag. This is no time for joking. This isn't 'What's The Line, Anyhow'!"

"Err, I think you mean 'Whose Line Is It Anyway'."

"Whatever! I have better things to do than sit around and watch Comedy Central all day and live off my parents' hard-earned, umm, earnings!"

A woman's voice rang out from the kitchen. "Maybe his enormous girth is preventing a sufficient amount of oxygen from reaching his brain, dear."

"Do we have to shout across the house like this, Molly? Why not come in here and the three of us can have a serious civilized conversation for once."





It was the kind of moment Gene always dreaded. Face to face with his parents, sitting on opposite sides of the living room in the Rothmans' upscale high-rise apartment on Peter Fries Avenue. Desmond was the first to speak.

"Now, son, your mother made a good point just now that I haven't even thought of before. Could your fat be making you dumb?"

His wife followed. "If that's true, then we'll only need to worry about solving one problem instead of two. And then maybe it could lead to you getting a decent job and not sucking the life out of us."

They had to use such words to their own flesh and blood, but that was just the way they were brought up. Gene mustered all of his courage to stand up to them.

"But--"

"No backtalk," interrupted Molly. "Remember, you're still on punishment for that hideous report card. Until you pull your average up to at least a 3.5, you're not allowed to give your opinion on anything."

Desmond gasped. "3.5!? That could take decades! We'd be retired by then and unable to support this blob any longer!"

"Maybe so," Molly replied, "but I think his weight is linked to his intelligence. I read in the Manhasset Times yesterday that there's this new weight loss center opening in town. Maybe we should sign Gene up for it. He needs guidance."

"I agree with your mother, Gene. After all, what else are you going to do over the summer? Sit around the house and watch 'Spongecake Sweatpants'?"

"Ummm... I believe it's 'Spongebob Squarepants'." Gene said weakly.

Molly became furious. "I said 'no backtalk,' you dunderhead! Just for that, I'm upping it to 3.6!"

Gene slapped his forehead. "D'oh!"