Morbidly Unhappy

“Hey baby, what are you doing later?” The sarcasm was evident, and I could feel myself begin an uncomfortable sweat as the group of four college-aged men gathered around me, staring. It was a hot summer night and they’d just piled in to the gas station convenience store during my late shift, boisterously stoned, and on the hunt for junk food and beer.

I stood behind the cash register, frozen with embarrassment as both the panic and mercury rose in tandem. He giggled to his friends while waiting for my answer, leering in delight as I squirmed. He smiled at his buddies, then back at me again, shifting the gaze of his bloodshot eyes to my midsection.

“You’re probably eating,” he said before collapsing into loud decibels of laughter. I looked down at the floor and clenched my jaw into paralysis. Playing dead was always the first thing in my bag of tricks, a survival skill learned in grade school to navigate the bewilderment of the humiliating pile-ons. I may have never fought back, but I also never cried – not in front of my abusers at least. After getting no reaction from me, the gang of ‘men,’ (how can I not use the term loosely here?) dispersed to explore the chip aisle.

I remained motionless, fighting the lump in my throat and my body’s natural, and primal reaction: to scream with fury, excoriating the gang of cowards for their viciousness. My rage, tamped down for years, existed at such subterranean depths that I had no real awareness of it. Trance-eating helped to mollify the pain, but the stockpile was kept somewhere in the dark depths, rancid from imprisonment.

Incidents like these were not rare at the Arco station, especially on weekends, when bar-hopping gangs of preppy college boys pulled in for a pit stop or under-aged teens descended on the store with fake I.D.’s demanding beer transactions. Not wanting to risk the fines or arrest that my manager warned me about, I had no choice but to crack down. “You fat bitch! You can shove that I.D. up your ass!” one hulking, acne-scarred boy shouted at me when I refused to ring up his Miller 12-pack.

Walking through the gas station’s cursed doors every day at 5 p.m. to begin my shift was akin to climbing aboard a ship about to depart for the unpredictable high seas. The only thing assured was that vitriolic shrapnel of some kind would be involved, whether from my impossible-to-please boss or the irate customers, who were fond of seething at me for everything from the temperature of the coffee to the prices of cigarettes and gas.

Always braced for random outbursts, my time within those walls began to resemble a sort of civilianized version of boot camp, at least the berating portions of it. The only thing missing was Sergeant Hartman screaming two inches from my face to drop to the ground and give him100 push-ups – then I would have officially been on the set of Full Metal Jacket.

Adreneline fraught shifts at the 24-hour gas station were the bulk of my life since high school graduation 11 months prior. I didn’t ascend to dorm life and the traditional college experience the way many of my classmates did.  Daily duties began with the odiferous ritual of restroom-cleaning, followed by an hour in refrigeration restocking the soda and beer.  The job was not only a reflection of what I thought I deserved, but a sheer necessity, after my father raided all the monetary gifts for college I received from relatives. A bit of money could have given me a running start, but by age 18, I knew the drill:  my father declared the money all his, justifying his larceny by noting what a financial burden I’d been for so many years.  

For her part, my mother reminded me that it was fruitless to apply to faraway colleges because “I would only flunk out.”  That actually was doubtful, given my overall high school average, but why shoot such an arrow in the first place? Yes, I had difficulties in school, but they always stubbornly refused to acknowledge that it was a frightening and inhospitable environment for me. How does one excel in a place where they don’t feel welcome?

In spite of years of academic coasting, I graduated in surprisingly good standing; the English classes and my ability to write a good essay saved my otherwise unremarkable average.  (Interesting footnote: once I took the wheel and started the process of healing my troubled childhood, five years later, I was admitted to Columbia University).  My parents capped off graduation rites with an impromptu, cold-hearted tag-team one June evening in 1982, ranting how I would never land a decent job because no one would ever want to hire someone my size.

By that point, the ‘weight-is-synonymous-with-bad’ card was not only tiresome, it no longer made any sense to me.  Neither did the label of ‘morbidly obese,’ that everyone was so fond of affixing to my chest like a scarlet letter. Every instinct in me knew the weight was an outer symptom of the wounding incurred by the world around me, starting with the two who were supposed to raise me UP, not beat me down. What I was, so obviously at my core, was morbidly unhappy, woefully unloved, and criminally malnourished. But no one wanted to touch that messy cauldron. It was far easier, and much more psychologically satisfying, to bludgeon a soft target than to take a peek at ugly truth behind my coping mechanism.

Psychological archeology is tough work and not geared for those who prefer the vastly more appealing chaise lounge of deflecting and denying. Hey, I’m the first to admit that denial often got me through the night, but I also knew it wasn’t working long term. I relented by making that first therapy appointment. Just having someone who listened to me objectively was a salve unto itself…as was the emotional safety of her cozy office, a decompression chamber where I would finally begin getting at the truth. Healing wasn’t a straight line, it never is. But I always knew, trite as it sounded, that the truth would set me free – even if it looked woefully out of place in a Hallmark commercial. My truth in 1983 was I believed low wages, unfulfilling work, and abusive treatment at a job was what I should continue to tolerate. But, much like the intent of boot camp, difficult circumstances breed resiliency. 

So there I was, still sweating behind the cash register as I eyed the body language of the gang in the chip aisle. In the background behind me at the gas pumps, I detected the familiar din of an angry customer, shouting at me across the asphalt, incensed that he had to pre-pay for gas after dark.

There were two hours left on my shift and the unpleasant encounter with the four stoned musketeers was about to finally reach a conclusion as they plunked their arsenal of Pringles, Fritos, and Lowenbrau on the counter. I cashed them out, praying silently as the ringleader continued to smirk at me. “Ya’ want me to leave you some?” he asked, shaking the bag of corn chips at me as his minions giggled obediently. I turned away and pretended to be busy rearranging the rows of cigarette packs behind me, holding my breath as they shuffled out.

I noticed with dismay out of the corner of my eye, one of them lingering behind in the doorway. ‘Fucking great,” I muttered to myself and waited for it. He couldn’t look me in the eye, but stood awkwardly shuffling his feet, glancing into the parking lot to make sure his buddies were out of earshot.

“Hey, um….you’re a sweetheart. Um…don’t pay any attention them,” he concluded before bolting out the door to catch up with the others.  

In all the months at that hellhole, it was a first; someone with a conscience. It was a moment of mercy and I was stunned by it, so taken aback, that I didn’t make my usual beeline to the store’s microwave for a consolation breakfast sandwich.  I leaned into the counter, heaving a long exhale. I’d just been given a very poignant clue, the first of many, about what I did and didn’t deserve.

Cue the sunrise on the high seas…

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