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Dying Hamplanet

Published: February 29th 2020, 2:37:11 am

Dying Hamplanet

The large room fills with solemn chatter, but Alfie can’t hear any of it in his trance. He has a container of Chips Ahoy cookies in his hand and the crumbs on the corner of his lips indicates he is eating them, but he doesn’t realize just how many he’s eating. His vision becomes blurry by staring into the casket with tear filled eyes as his hand mindlessly reaches for another cookie. Never did he think that he would be having to bury James, his father, at 26 years old. Just as shocking to him is the size of the custom made casket carefully crafted to fit a man over 600 pounds. Perhaps his father’s death haunts him so much because Alfie sees his future in the casket; Alfie is already bigger than the swollen corpse his father left behind.

How did it turn out like this? How did it get this bad for both of them? Memories float through his brain about things he witnessed with his father over the years. When Alfie really thinks about what went wrong he thinks about when he was six. James pushed upwards of 300 pounds when he had a very serious car accident. The head on collision meant a helicopter transport to a hospital approximately 90 miles away. Alfie, too young to understand what happened, stayed with his grandparents for a few months while his father was in the hospital and his mother, Laura, stayed by his father’s side. His grandparents provided little guidance toward health and nutrition. Whatever Alfie desired he got it in mass quantities. Grandma wasn’t about to let his sweet angel of a grandson go hungry and set him up with snack cakes and treats between McDonalds Happy Meals. Only high calorie, fattening food could console Alfie missing his parents while they were away. 

Alfie continued to eat away his juvenile depression and anxiety until his parents finally returned. James almost died several times due to internal bleeding and complications. In addition to those issues, when James came home Alfie discovered that he had broken 42 bones. Over a six month time frame the bones healed, but he remained weak and sore. Doing nothing felt better physically for James than doing anything, making his fight with weight a constant struggle. It didn’t help that he started struggling with depression too. 

The pair spent the next few years doing absolutely nothing together. That, Alfie recalls, is when the food addiction and deadly obesity snowball started to roll down the hill with no sign of stopping. The accident destroyed James’ tendons and joints allowing him to qualify for disability. Without a job or a reason to do anything, he spent his days wallowing in food in his giant armchair. Alfie followed his footsteps, or a lack thereof, by spending his time with his dad in front of the tv or playing video games when he wasn’t in school. Alfie only remembers his father walking with a cane. He couldn’t keep his balance walking by himself, so it made it impossible for his father to play outside with him. Each time he tried to play with his son, he risked falling and decided it wasn’t worth a devastating fall. They each put on over 100 pounds in about a year and a half from their habits.

Some of Alfie’s favorite childhood memories include him eating grotesque amounts of junk food with his father because it was the only thing they could do together. He thinks back to Saturday morning cartoons. Laura brought them whatever her boys wanted because she knew it made them happier than anything else in the world. They ate sugary cereal and donuts with one another each Saturday morning in front of some of Alfie’s fat cartoon role models. He remembers watching Courage the Cowardly Dog, Scooby Doo, and Super Duper Sumos. 

In each show there were episodes of either weight gain or fat. Fat was never portrayed as a bad thing to happen to someone. These shows never highlighted the reality. Despite being fat or having moments of weight gain on the show, the characters always saved the day or their families. What boy wouldn’t be okay with being fat if his heros were? Alas, these Saturday morning visions are just cartoons and not representative of complex human lives. Writers and illustrators control their size, emotions, and life events. Even Santa is a fat, jolly man around the holidays. They don’t face the addiction or health consequences that obesity plagues on humans. Alfie didn’t know this until he and his father experienced them first hand later in life. He didn’t know back then the excess sugar rotted their insides and hooked them on dopamine so strong that only more sugar satisfied their brains. Now he knows better, but can’t stop himself: Obesity kills. 

The reality scares him as he sweats and shoves another cookie into his mouth while savoring the bite. His heart pounds, he begins starring in sadness, reflecting on just how big his dad is and how he is now gone. “This...this is going to be me. This is going to be my future!” He panics while placing another whole cookie in his greedy mouth. He starts to sweat profusely. For a brief moment he thinks the devil is opening a portal in the floor to take him and his dad to hell for their gluttony. Then, he realizes, he is just too exhausted to continue huddled over the casket with his aching back. 

Alfie stares into the oversized casket holding an elephantine body, choked with desolation. This could be him. It will be him. His heart rate increases rapidly. Alfie jerks with startle as he is interrupted by a hand on his shoulder belonging to someone who wishes to offer condolences. He turns around to see the source of the soft touch. His grandmother meets him, dressed in a black sweater. She peers over her glasses at her grandson before offering her condolences. “I’m so sorry, dearie. I wish there was something I could say or do to make this better. It’s so hard to lose a father. I know because I lost mine too, long ago,” she says. 

Alfie turns around and embraces her into a hug. He tries carefully to not crush her with his weight, still holding onto the container of cookies and lets a few tears fall from his face. “Thanks, Nana. I really miss him,” Alfie cries. He releases her from his hold. 

“I know you do. How is your mom doing?” she asks glancing in her daughter’s direction. Laura is talking with another one of the guests.

“She’s doing better. I think she was expecting it more than I was, or maybe she is just better at holding it together better than I am these days,” replies Alfie. 

“Follow me,” she replies to her grandson. She stumbles forward due to old age. Alfie waddles forward under his immense amount of weight causing his thighs to rub together. “Laura can be really dramatic sometimes, but still tough when she needs to be for her family. She’s always been that way.” They reach Laura.

“How are you doing, mom?” asks Laura with a sad smile. 

“Honey, I’m doing fine. More importantly, how are you doing? Is there anything your father and I can do for you? He will be here soon. He’s just picking up some more food for the family. When I came in there was a buffet for the family being set up since you’ve been here all day.” 

“It is what it is, mom. Thanks for being here. I’m just going to try to make it through the day and remember the good times we had as much as possible. I’d really rather not break down in front of everyone. Happy thoughts,” says Laura anxiously and placing an arm on Alfie. 

Nana responds back “one of my favorite memories of you both together was when he came back home after being stationed all around the country over the years. It really made me happy to see you both together. What year was that again?”

“James exited the U.S. Army in 1991 after the Gulf War. He came back home a very fit and handsome man. As soon as he got back he proposed to me with the most beautiful ring and we were married a year later.”

“I remember your wedding, sweet Laura. It was a beautiful day and you had the best cake I had ever tasted. The spice cake with buttercream frosting left a pleasant surprise. You chose the flavor because James loved it, right?”

“It was his favorite cake. By then he was eating a lot more junk food, but he wasn’t burning as many as he did when he was in the Army. The weight piled on him, but I still loved him more than anything.”

“Then, nine months later you had Alfie. My sweet little grandson,” Alfie blushes hearing his grandmother refer to him as little. No one thinks of him as little anymore. 

“Yes, we did,” Laura’s voice cracks as she wipes away tears with the back of her hands. She gives an awkward smile at her son through her haggard eyes. “We went off to our honeymoon in Honolulu. We walked along the beach at sunset as two young lovers and later that year we became a family of three,” she sniffles. 

His mother and grandmother continue their conversation. Alfie feels weak in his lower knees, like he could be sick at any moment. He turns around to see his cousin Hunter approaching him. Hunter is only four months older than Alfie, but is only about 160 pounds. “Hey there, little cuz. I just wanted to stop by and tell you that I’m sorry to hear about Uncle James.” 

“Thanks, Hunt,” says Alfie, his face draining of color. 

“Alfie, are you okay? You don’t look so good. You’re kind of pale and sweaty,” says Hunter with concern.

“I don’t feel so good, Hunter. I feel dizzy.”

“Maybe it’s your blood sugar. You probably just need something to eat. Would you like your wheelchair?”

“Y-yes, that’s it. I’m just hungry. Please get my wheelchair for me,” Alfie pants heavily, pointing at the front row of chairs in the funeral home. Hunter walks over where it is stationed and brings it back to his mammoth younger cousin. Hunter tries to slowly help him sit in the wheelchair by holding both his arms up. Alfie knows if he isn’t careful the chair could roll away or from under him or he might even break it. The chair is only rated for 700 pounds. He squats lower, feeling a shooting pain in his lower back and knee caps where his joints disintegrated under his weight. “F-fuck,” he pants out as they try to lower him, but he lands heavily on the padded seat, a little harder than he wanted. The chair groans in protest under the abuse. His love handles and ass cheek hung over the sides despite the handles. Once settled, Hunter pushes his massive body in the chair forward with a grunt. 

Alfie hasn’t seen much of his family in many years. A lot of his relatives look familiar, but he can’t place a lot of them in his memory. He assumes they must be on his father’s side of the family to be here. Some of them have seen him obese. Obese isn’t the right word for what he grew into as a young adult. He’s at least 300 pounds heavier than anyone remembers. Super morbidly class III obese? More like a Hamplanet with his own gravitational pull that could self destruct at any moment. He thinks he recalls seeing that word ‘Hamplanet’ on a FatPeopleHate forum on Reddit back in the day. He overhears two older women but he can’t remember who they are. They are gossiping nonsense, but Alfie is able to tune into their conversation. They are being loud enough for him to hear the women as Hunter rolls him forward down the aisle. 

 “Oh my God. Is he wearing sweatpants to a funeral?” gasps one of the women. 

Alfie knows he is supposed to wear dark colors, especially a black suit. Tailoring a pair of pants custom to his waist would take at least a week to come in, which he didn’t have time to order. Sweatpants are the only pants that fit out of everything he owns, leaving it his most pathetic and only attempt to wear pants at his father’s visitation. Even then, they are tight and look close to bursting at the seams; The elastic in sweatpants is stretched to its limits. He doesn’t have underwear on because it is too restricting. 

“I’d imagine he’s running out of x’s for his clothes. At least he’s not naked and making some kind of effort, I suppose.” Alfie tries to pull his black 10XL shirt down to cover the creamy, beige rolls coated with angry stretch marks peeking out between his shirt and sweatpants in response to the comments.  

“The biggest lie Laura told him was that if he ate all his food he’d grow up to be big and strong. Now he’s just big.”

“I can’t believe James and Laura let him get so huge! How much do you think he weighs?” 

“He looks much bigger than James. Granted, we have no idea how much James weighed. He’s also about a foot shorter than James. What would you say, Bertha? Little Alfie...” she pauses realizing she said the word “little”, like so many of the other guests. Nothing is little about him anymore. “Alfie is probably 600 pounds now, right?”

Alfie doesn’t know exactly how much he weighs at this point either, but he can guesstimate. He had at one point about 150 pounds on his father, pushing a staggering 754 pounds. That was months ago before the comfort eating of the ins and outs of his father’s hospital stays toward the end of his life. Alfie stress ate several months and then on the day his father died he started eating non-stop. His face turns red at the old women’s banter. The comments burn into Alfie like a branding iron. What's more embarrassing to Alfie is that they are underestimating his weight by over 150 pounds. This information will stay his secret. 

Alfie looks down at his massive, bloated body as he is pushed by the women. He looks even bigger now than he did last week. The whole week leading up to the visitation he did nothing but eat in front of a television. He sat completely naked like a significantly lardier and nearly immobile Bacchus on a Turtle statue at the Pitti Palace in Florence reaching for endless pastries. Food was all he had to keep his mind busy from the impending day that he’d have to lay his father to rest while his mother busily planned the funeral. 

Quite frankly, Alfie is lucky to be at the visitation. He looks even bigger sitting down and spilling out of his bariatric wheelchair. The expanding mound of flesh he calls his belly completely covers his thighs and goes down to a quarter of an inch from his knees. The fat accumulates around his face creates a triple chin, but there’s so much fat there isn’t even a visible neck on him anymore. His lymphedema is visible with unnaturally large pockets of hard flesh filled with fluid take up space on his inner thighs and lower legs. The firm balloons caused by his failing lymphatic system pushes his legs apart enough to take up a disturbing amount of width. Despite such a large frame and even larger lymphedema pockets, Alfie’s ankles and feet did not grow with him. The further down one examines, the more his lower legs look like shaking chicken legs. It’s almost comical and surprising he isn’t completely bed bound, especially if the state he ate himself into wasn’t so dire.

He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to leave the house, either because of embarrassment of his dysmorphic flab or because he physically couldn’t. The thought of missing the visitation and funeral was devastating to him, so he made every effort to be here despite how easy it would be to stay in a comfortable bed. That’s the way he is headed if things don’t change: bedridden. That is if his heart doesn’t give out from desperation first, which is a very real possibility with the strain of his eating patterns, inactivity, depression, and sensory overload of the day. Alfie wonders if it’s normal to be this dizzy. 

“I think it was ironic and sad to see him huddled over his morbidly obese father’s casket with a hand overflowing with chocolate chip cookies and candy bars poking out of his circus tent pant’s pockets.”

“Well, what else did you expect to see him eat? You don’t get that big from eating carrots and celery.”

“How the hell are they gonna move him when he dies? A chinook helicopter?”

“They could always roll the whale back into the sea.”

Hunter pushes the barely mobile porker through the room and then the kitchen into a secluded area. Alfie can eat there in peace without the gawking relatives and family friends. Hunter leaves the room for about a minute before bringing Alfie an enormous plate of pigs in a blanket and a cup of nacho cheese. He assures Alfie that he can have all he wants and that he will get him all the food he wants from the kitchen. He goes to make Alfie a plate of food while Alfie dunks the biscuit dough and sausages into the calorie-laden cheese sauce. Alfie consumes the morsels as fast as possible, trying to not choke on the toothpicks with his swift movements. He uses this method several times before upgrading and dunking multiple morsels into the sauce at once. 

It isn’t long before Hunter walks in to find Alfie licking the remains of the cheese straight from the bowl and an empty plate discarded on the floor. Hunter carries four plates, two on each arm and two in each hand, over the hungry, helpless young man. Alfie loves two things about being from the south: southern hospitality and southern comfort. A community rallied around one of the darkest days of his family’s lives to serve rich, unhealthy dishes. It doesn’t matter the time of day, the spread included a variety of food. 

One plate is piled high with fried chicken and fried green tomatoes. Another plate looks like a slop that a pig, like Alfie, would eat from a trough; a mess of biscuits with sausage gravy running into a hearty portion of chicken and dumplings being soaked up by rolls. The third plate overflows with a healthy portion of meatloaf, a volcano of mashed potatoes with gravy erupting from the top and sliding into the brick of meat, and baked mac and cheese with buttered bread crumbs. The final and most tempting plate contains thick layers of banana pudding and a heaping amount of chocolate meringue pie. 

Alfie takes his fork and greedily tires to combine multiple items to shove into his mouth. After a few successful bites he finds his groove. That’s when Hunter tries to dig deeper into what happened to James. “Hey, Alfie, I don’t want to be rude, but I have a question for you.”

“I’ll answer anything for you since you brought me all this delicious food,” Alfie takes another huge bite. 

“How did it happen? James, I mean. It doesn’t seem that long ago that he seemed healthy, or at least not bad enough to have to be buried.”

Neuropathy in Alfie’s feet sends shooting pains from his heel to his big toe just thinking about his father’s misfortune. “Dad was a fearless diabetic. He didn’t really care what doctors had to say about his condition. He still loaded up on carbs and sugary treats, even after having his right foot removed.”

“He had an amputation due to his diabetes?” asks a shocked Hunter.

Alfie nods his head finishing one of his plates in record time. “The last few months he was essentially confined to his chair,” Alfie takes a bite from another plate. He takes a few more bites in rapid fire succession before starting again. “After the amputation he gave up on mobility completely. Granted, it wasn’t great to begin with. Over the last year I had better mobility than dad.”

The pair sits in silence with the exception of the utensil scraping the bottom of the second plate.

“Hunter, can I tell you something that I have been too afraid to admit to anyone else, including my own mom?”

“Alfie, I’m here to listen. Anything you need to feel better either physically or emotionally, I will be here for you.”

“In all honesty,  I’m scared to death it’ll happen to me. I don’t go to the doctor anymore. I’d rather be ignorant to the concern. Anyway, Dad was in the hospital again. I knew it was bad, but not that bad. I got a devastating call. Dietetic complications, even after the amputation. Since he didn’t take care of himself and treat his diabetes like a legitimate health condition, gangrene spread quickly. Eventually the infection he developed spread to his bloodstream and nothing else could be done,” Alfie turns his burning eyes away from Hunter.

Hunter looks sadly at the breathing corpse lacking words to make him feel better. Hunter says the only thing he can: “I’m so sorry I asked.” 

“It’s...it’s fine. Can I ask a favor of you? Would you be willing to go back and fill up another set of plates for me? I’m hungry and I think I heard there was some pecan pie. I just want to be prepared to eat more,” Alfie sniffles. 

“Finish this up, big guy. I just need to use the restroom and then I will be back with some more goodies for you to eat,” says Hunter before leaving the room. 

Alfie finishes the third plate and starts on the dessert plate within a few minutes. His huge belly spills out of his strained shirt that he struggled to pull down earlier. The fabric gets tighter with each plate he consumes. Alfie doesn’t even care if his body is showing. What’s the point? Everyone is already staring and saying mean things about his body anyway. Besides, no one can see him in the secluded space.  He doesn’t even care that several inches of butt crack can slightly be seen between his love handles pushing against the wheelchairs arms. He’s craving pudding.

His mother and grandmother walk into the kitchen to fix their own plates. He can hear them talk through the thin walls, but they don’t know he’s in the next room. He greedily sucks on his spoon full of dessert until he hears his name. He listens more closely to their conversation.

“Why couldn’t it have been Alfie? I know that sounds terrible as his mother, but James wasn’t ready,” Alfie hears his mom say. The words devastate him. His own mother wishes he was dead? His heart sinks and his stomach churns while he tears up.

“Laura, you don’t mean that!”

Alfie’s mom is crying now still unaware that her son is nearby and can hear her through the thin wall. “I’m a terrible mom, but Alfie is much bigger and I don’t know how he is still alive. Can you believe the size of my boy? The poor kiddo is clearly on borrowed time. James should have had more time than Alfie.”

“Laura...”

“I couldn’t change James. He had too many issues with his health that made him inactive to lose the weight. Alfie is too addicted to food, more so than James. I can’t change him either. So why does it even matter? If I had to choose, I’d choose James.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re just hurting and not thinking rationally. We can try to save Alfie.”

“I’ve tried over the years. The kid is going to eat himself to the grave too. Maybe it’s for the best. Then, he’d at least die happy,” says Laura making a realistic point. Alfie is in a downward spiral; Fat continues to accumulate around his organs while decreasing his life span. Death will be his only relief for someone so big and lacking mobility for his age. 

It’s hard for him to process that his mom cares about him less than she did his father. How could she admit that so openly to his grandmother? Does she not care about him? A mother’s love is supposed to be unconditional. He shoves his dessert down faster to try to cope with the emotions swirling in his head. 

“Do you think the suffering James had from his morbid obesity made him happy? The food might have made him happy, but all the other pain couldn’t have made him happy at all. You still have a son. Have faith in him and help him save his life before it’s too late,” pleads Alfie’s grandmother. 

“Have you seen his size? It might already be too late. I already bought his gravestone and plot when I bought James’. He’s going to die, mom, and there is nothing any of us can do to save him. Alfie is on borrowed time anyway, so why did it have to be James? I just wish James was here a little longer. If it was Alfie ate himself to death, then at least James would be here to comfort me. Instead, I have to be strong for my son and it is awful.”

“Darling, that is what parents do for their kids.”

“I just wonder if I had never gotten pregnant or maybe if I had an abortion if we could have helped James before it got so bad. Maybe his weight wouldn’t have spiraled out of control. If we hadn’t had a fight about Alfie that night he got hit by a drunk driver, would James still be alive? Maybe his weight and health would have been easier to manage if Alfie wasn’t in the picture. The stress of raising a kid was really hard on James. He loved Alfie, but when I was pregnant James didn’t even want him.”

“I don’t know if he would still be alive, but you can’t blame poor Alfie on what happened to James that night or his massive weight gain that followed. James made choices. He sat in his oversized chair and drug Alfie down with him. Laura, you’re just hurting and not thinking rationally. You’ve lost your husband, do you really want to lose Alfie too? Your son needs serious help.”

After grabbing the roll and taking an enormous bite, Alfie uncomfortably leans back in his chair. Something is wrong he thinks with his eyes widening. His heart beats as rapidly as ever, but he’s used to it by now. However, his dizziness isn’t going away and he feels numb in his extremities. He belches loudly, hoping that releasing the pressure of gas in his body will make him feel better. As he continues to expel gas he rubs his bare belly poking out of his shirt.

Alfie’s chest hurts more and more. Alfie can’t tell if it is from his heart aching with his grief or if there is a problem. The resistance is futile, combating against his defense mechanisms his body feels closer to death than it ever has making him afraid that his mother is right about his body. He tries to call for help before falling out of his wheelchair from an intense pain he feels all over his body. He just hopes his mother hears the thud of his almost 800 pound body and finds a way to save him. He doesn’t want to die yet; he doesn’t want the same fate as his father due to obesity complications. Alfie blacks out.