Orbit 2

And Homer dashed up to the comer.

Homer Hoose came home that evening to the g.c. — everything as it should be. He found his house in order and his wife Regina alone.

“Did you remember to bring the coriander seed, Homer, little gossamer of my fusus?” Regina asked him.

“Ah, I remembered to get it, Regina, but I don’t seem to have it in my pocket now. I’d rather you didn’t ask me where I lost it. There’s something I’m trying to forget. Regina, I didn’t come home this evening before this, did I?”

“Not that I remember, little dolomedes sexpunctatus.”

“And there weren’t a couple other guys here who looked just like me only different?”

“No, no, little cobby. I love you and all that, but nothing else could look like you. Nobody has been here but you. Kids! Get ready for supper! Papa’s home!”

“Then it’s all right,” Homer said. “I was just daydreaming on my way home, and all that stuff never happened. Here I am in the perfect house with my wife Regina, and the kids’ll be underfoot in just a second. I never realized how wonderful it was. AHHHHNNN!!! YOU’RE NOT REGINA!!”

“But of course I am, Homer. Lycosa Regina is my species name. Well, come, come, you know how I enjoy our evenings together.”

She picked him up, lovingly broke his arms and legs for easier handling, spread him out on the floor, and began to devour him.

“No, no, you’re not Regina,” Homer sobbed. “You look just like her, but you also look like a giant monstrous arachnid. Dr. Corte was right, we got to fix that hole on the comer.”

“That Dr. Corte doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Regina munched. “He says I’m a compulsive eater.”

“What’s you eating papa again for, mama?” daughter Fregona asked as she came in. “You know what the doctor said.”

“It’s the spider in me,” said mama Regina. “I wish you’d brought the coriander seed with you, Homer. It goes so good with you.”

“But the doctor says you got to show a little restraint, mama,” daughter Fregona cut back in. “He says it becomes harder and harder for papa to grow back new limbs so often at his age. He says it’s going to end up by making him nervous.”

“Help, help!” Homer screamed. “My wife is a giant spider and is eating me up. My legs and arms are already gone. If only I could change back to the first nightmare! Night-Charleys under the Beds at Grandpa's House on the Farm! Rosined Cord to Make Bull-Roarers on Hallowe'en! Pig Mush in February! Cobwebs on Fruit Jars in the Cellar! No, no, not that! Things never work when you need them. That Diogenes fools around with too much funny stuff.”

“All I want is a little affection,” said Regina, talking with her mouth full.

“Help, help,” said Homer as she ate him clear up to his head. “Shriek, shriek!”

Kit Reed, a young Connecticut newspaperwoman, received a $22,000 award from the Abraham Woursell Foundation in 1965, She is the author of two novels, Mother Isn’t Dead She’s Only Sleeping (Houghton Mifflin) and At War With Children (Farrar, Straus).

The most memorable thing said by anybody at the Milford Writers’ Conference a few years ago was Carol Emshwiller’s “Inside every fat person is a thin person screaming to be let out.” Now Mrs. Reed, who was not there, has unexpectedly inverted this epigram. .

So here I am, warden-in-charge, fattening them up for our leader, Tommy Fango; here I am laying on the banana pudding and the milkshakes and the cream-and-brandy cocktails, going about like a technician, gauging their effect on haunch and thigh when all the time it is I who love him, I who could have pleased him eternally if only life had broken differently. But I am scrawny now, I am swept like a leaf around corners, battered by the slightest wind. My elbows rattle against my ribs and I have to spend half the day in bed so a gram or two of what I eat will stay with me, for if I do not, the fats and creams will vanish, burned up in my own insatiable furnace, and what little flesh I have will melt away.

Cruel as it may sound, I know where to place the blame.

It was vanity, all vanity, and I hate them most for that. It was not my vanity, for I have always been a simple soul; I reconciled myself early to reenforced chairs and loose garments, to the spattering of remarks. Instead of heeding them I plugged in, and I would have been happy to let it go at that, going through life with my radio in my bodice, for while I never drew cries of admiration, no one ever blanched and turned away.

But they were vain and in their vanity my frail father, my pale, scrawny mother saw me not as an entity but a reflection on themselves. I flush with shame to remember the excuses they made for me. “She takes after May’s side of the family,” my father would say, denying any responsibility. “It’s only baby fat,” my mother would say, jabbing her elbow into my soft flank. “Nelly is big for her age.” Then she would jerk furiously, pulling my voluminous smock down to cover my knees. That was when they still consented to be seen with me. In that period they would stuff me with pies and roasts before we went anywhere, filling me up so I would not gorge myself in public. Even so I had to take thirds, fourths, fifths and so I was a humiliation to them.

In time I was too much for them and they stopped taking me out; they made no more attempts to explain. Instead they tried to think of ways to make me look better; the doctors tried the fool’s poor battery of pills; they tried to make me join a club. For a while my mother and I did exercises; we would sit on the floor, she in a black leotard, I in my smock. Then she would do the brisk one-two, one-two and I would make a few passes at my toes. But I had to listen, I had to plug in, and after I was plugged in naturally I had to find something to eat; Tommy might sing and I always ate when Tommy sang, and so I would leave her there on the floor, still going one-two, one-two. For a while after that they tried locking up the food. Then they began to cut into my meals.

That was the crudest time. They, would refuse me bread, they would plead and cry, plying me with lettuce and telling me it was all for my own good. My own good. Couldn’t they hear my vitals crying out? I fought, I screamed, and when that failed I suffered in silent obedience until finally hunger drove me into the streets. I would lie in bed, made brave by the Monets and Barry Arkin and the Philadons coming in over the radio, and Tommy (there was never enough; I heard him a hundred

times a day and it was never enough; how bitter that seems now!). I would hear them and then when my parents were asleep I would unplug and go out into the neighborhood. The first few nights I begged, throwing myself on the mercy of passers-by and then plunging into the bakery, bringing home everything I didn’t eat right there in the shop. I got money quickly enough; I didn’t even have to ask. Perhaps it was my bulk, perhaps it was my desperate subverbal cry of hunger; I found I had only to approach and the money was mine. As soon as they saw me, people would whirl and bolt, hurling a purse or wallet into my path as if to slow me in my pursuit; they would be gone before I could even express my thanks. Once I was shot at. Once a stone lodged itself in my flesh.

At home my parents continued with their tears and pleas. They persisted with their skim milk and their chops, ignorant of the life I lived by night. In the daytime I was complaisant, dozing between snacks, feeding on the sounds which played in my ear, coming from the radio concealed in my dress. Then, when night fell, I unplugged; it gave a certain edge to things, knowing I would not plug in again until I was ready to eat. Some nights this only meant going to one of the caches in my room, bringing forth bottles and cartons and cans. On other nights I had to go into the streets, finding money where I could. Then I would lay in a new supply of cakes and rolls and baloney from the delicatessen and several cans of ready-made frosting and perhaps a flitch of bacon or some ham; I would toss in a basket of oranges to ward off scurvy and a carton of candy bars for quick energy. Once I had enough I would go back to my room, concealing food here and there, rearranging my nest of pillows and comforters. I would open the first pie or the first half-gallon of ice cream and then, as I began, I would plug in.