Chunk

Leonard is a food whore; a slave to the fat hand pinched at the wrist by a tiny watch; a doughy child of habit, like his mother, I’m sure. There he is, sitting right across from you on the blue-line train to Springfield. Just like every other day of the workweek. By day, he’s an invisible man, stuck between the two cardboard walls of a carpet cubicle; a lonely lover of lesbian-porn-the Asian kind-between diagnosing computer problems and troubleshooting cable hook-ups. No one cares. By night, he’s a lonely body in the bleachers at the girls’ softball game. The lights make him feel small. He has no children. Just dirty thoughts. He’ll never make it long enough to get to church.

It’s a mouthful, his name, Leonard. Leon•ard: how your tongue lingers at the back, stuck like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth and pushes at the end to roll on the teeth. Leon•ard. He was Lee, when he was at work. Leon when he talked to the whore on the phone. He was Leo when he painted. But on the train he was always just plain Leonard.

Funny name the name Leonard. It fit him, but why? Perhaps it was the hot sauce stain on the pocket of his shirt from the mega-sized burrito he ate for lunch; the way he licked his fingers, having never touched a woman; the piece of glazed cream still stuck to the corner of his mouth from the bakery he stopped at this morning or perhaps it was the way his stomach flirted with his crotch as it hung over his belt. Perhaps it was preordained, the predetermined and inescapable name of a fat man: Leonard. It was heavy on the palate.

You see him digging in his pocket, his fat hand struggling to fit beside his leg. This is normal. He’s looking for his candy bar. The Snickers he has on the way home every night. He peels it, the wrapper, back like the coat of a banana, wraps his lips around the top and snaps it off. He tries to hide it. He tries not to look at you. You know he’s ashamed. There’s a bit stuck in his stringy little mustache. You can barely see it, the mustache; it’s almost drowned out by the rest of his jowlish features: a doorknob chin, a bulldog nose, topped with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that droop to one side. Leonard has no hair. He looks like a beetle. He chews with his mouth open. You can hear him getting fatter.

You know he has no mother. You know he killed her, his mother, the only woman who ever called him Leonard: not Lee, Leo, or Leon. That’s what fat babies do. Kill their mothers. Tear them open and let the air in. She loved him.

You can’t look at him, but you want to stare. You try to look away, plant your eyes down onto the floor. You watch his marshmallow toes wiggle between leather sandal straps. The creases look like mouths. If only they could talk they would scream. He doesn’t have a car. He’s doesn’t like small spaces or crowds of people, except for the train. He’s not going to be a doctor or someone who will make a difference. He doesn’t have a career. He just has a job. It’s a simple life. He’s comfortable. Leonard doesn’t exercise. He doesn’t walk. He can’t run. It’s too late to pull his life together and do something. He’ll never get there.

You’d ask why.

“I’ve always been this way. I can’t help it. It’s not my fault. It runs in the family,” he’d tell you if you mattered, but you don’t.

Every time the door opens you watch his eyes float through the train, curl around a woman getting off, and slide through the doors as if to hold her back. Maybe she’d turn around. That never happens. They never look back. He’s an invisible man. If he ever met a woman he’d change. He’d change for her or lose it all. But you know he’d do anything.

You look at the woman beside him and wonder if she would ever consider loving Leonard. She’s beautiful. You know she’s his type: too much eye shadow, pale skin, and a faded heart tattoo on her neck. It has a name inside: Frank. She has a tear in her leggings just above her purple heel. The other one is missing. Leonard would buy her new ones. Her lipstick is smeared against her cheek. Her hair, a bundle of copper wires, dangles at her ears. It’s caught in a pair of broken hoops. Her eyes look like broken windows. They are sad, but kind. None of this would matter to Leonard. He would love her just the same. You know that he loves her already.

Leonard would take her to dinner, a nice place with candles and wine, dancing and expensive food. She’d drink a lot. Blow all her smoke in his face. You know he wouldn’t care. He’d smile because she was a woman. He’d spend all of his money on her. She doesn’t have a job. Not like he does. She has no money. He’d buy her dresses and expensive shoes, all sorts of little things. You know he’d buy them because he loves her. She’d move in with him into his little apartment. She’d sell his stuff to get what she wanted. She’d say it was for their future. That it was for the best. They would sleep in the same bed. You know that she would sleep with him just because she feels bad. Then he’d buy her a ring, a big ring, one that she knows he could never have afforded. Leonard would ask her to marry him. You know she’d hesitate, but he wouldn’t notice. She’d say yes. She wouldn’t care. She knows that he’d do anything for her. She’d think about selling it. If she did you know she’d lie and say she lost it. She get’s what she wants.

They’d get married. He has no family. She’d lie and tell him that she has no family either. They’re probably a group of door-to-door bible people or traveling missionaries. You know that she has no religion. You see her father and mother sitting beside her in the glass. He holds a bible. Her mother holds holy water against her chest and cries. They think she’s possessed. Whores aren’t Christians. Who is? She’d tell him they died in a car crash while she was at home. “It was Christmas Day,” she’d say to him. He would listen and not move. She had a hard life, he’d tell himself. Leonard would never expect anything of her. Not ever. You know he’s too nice.

She’d get pregnant with twins, two fat lumpy children. You know they’d look like him and nothing like her. They’d tear her open and let the air in. She’d hate them because they were like him: fat little beetles. They’d chew with their mouths open. She’d hear them getting fatter. Before they were two, she’d cheat on Leonard with anyone. She’d make a soft-core movie with the mailman. No one would watch it. He wouldn’t call her back. No one would. She’d hate him, Leonard and the life they had. It wasn’t what she wanted. No one would look at her anymore. Not even the mailman. She’d look like him, Leonard. She’d be invisible too. It would never work.

The train stops and she gets up to leave. Here is the moment he has been waiting for. It could change his life forever. She limps to the door with one heel. Her bony fingers are stuck to her side and wrapped tightly around her purse. You see Leonard smile, his eyes float through the train and curl around her, asking her to stay. “Hi,” he says. She smiles at him awkwardly. His eyes continue to curl about her.  His mouth hangs open. He could eat her right now if he wanted. He doesn’t. “Fuck off creep,” she says to him and hurries off the train. The doors close. The bell sounds. She is gone forever.

“Next stop, Springfield,” chatters the static box.

You watch Leonard jam the rest of the candy bar into his mouth. Maybe he’ll choke. He starts to cry. You turn away. You’ve seen him do this before. It’s normal, only when there’s no one on the train. That stops you. You watch him stare, trade glances and he stops. You smile at him. He smiles back and you wave. He waves back as it begins to rain. Leonard disappears through that waterfall of wet glass.

You hate him.