Oh, how wretched to be that rotund person seen walking with food in their hand (especially since most “to-go”-type food wasn’t exactly of the “healthy” variety). Worse still, to be seen actually taking a bite out of it while walking. As if one was so “in need” of feeding that they couldn’t be bothered to wait. Or to, at the very least, find some kind of bench to sit on so that they might look slightly more civilized. Or as civilized as one can look whilst eating in public. A pinnacle of gaucheness (that is, unless one is talking about the kind of picnic that Kirsten Dunst’s version of Marie Antoinette has with her various “consorts” on the grounds of Versailles while the “menfolk” are hunting).

Of course, such unspoken rules are different for thin people (as most everything is). Thin people can do whatever they want. Though most still assume that a thin person would be likelier to shoot up in public than be caught eating something (Gia Carangi, for example—or any 80s/90s-era model, for that matter). And, naturally, the “logical” argument would go that thin people are thin precisely because they do eat minimally (if at all).

Alistair did not believe in such a false and detrimental myth. And sure, as a fat person with a thin person’s name, it was an even harder truth to accept. The truth being that hard work and determination were not, in fact, what secured a “slammin’ body.” And, as a fat person with a brother who possessed the lifelong gift of being thin—and eating copiously while maintaining or even losing weight—Alistair knew this form of thinking was a lie. That he could eat exactly the same diet as Ari (their parents had a thing for “A” names) and gain tens of pounds while Ari stayed unchanged was proof positive that “being skinny” was a rigged game (like pretty much everything else). One determined by some kind of gene lottery that Alistair had not won. Not by a long shot. Try as he might to defy his luck through means both conventional (going to the gym) and new-fangled/lazy (taking Ozempic). Alas, even the Ozempic had failed him. Though, at first, it did seem like it might work on Alistair as it did most everyone else. But after two weeks, it was back to fat business as usual.

The lack of results was enough to make Alistair want to pick up a kitchen knife and slice off his own various pieces of excess flesh, like some very cruel, low-budget iteration of liposuction. A procedure that, yes, of course he had tried in the past. And he was still paying off that useless try seven years later now. Yet another waste of time, money and physical agony on his part. Something that turned out to be just another “quick fix” that would ultimately never stick. Instead, the only thing that would was his fat. The entity that had a life of its own, that made his body feel so unwieldy. Particularly as he tried to walk down the street looking something like “graceful” while eating. Because he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stand being even vaguely hungry. Feeling perennially full was something that, over the years, became essential to him. Like breathing.

As he once summed up his struggle to Ari, “I don’t want to be hungo, but I don’t want to be humungo.” A conundrum that he wrestled with daily, only to let the “hungo” part win. For yet another side effect of being “humungo” already is that you figure, “Fuck it. Might as well keep eating, because nothing’s going to change. Nothing ever does change.” And in Alistair’s case, that felt especially true after even Ozempic failed him. So what “recourse” was left to him, then, except to eat? And eat and eat and eat. Why the hell not? Kebab from the corner, slice of pizza from the place on Bleecker (you know the one), a crepe from that new overpriced French “pop-up space” that some celebrity’s daughter was a “co-investor” in. So many options and so many hours in the day. All now seemingly designed for Alistair to eat his way through the city. Like a human Pac-Man.

Observing those around him while he did just that, there was another thing that made Alistair feel impossibly out of place: wasn’t New York—or Manhattan at least—supposed to be a place filled only with thin people? Therefore making Alistair a kind of “blemish” or “scourge” upon the landscape. One that wasn’t filled with “starving” artists anymore (for that type was now readily supported by their parents), but proverbial “beautiful people” who flocked to the area to prove they were the crème de la crème, aesthetically and in every other way (though certainly not when it came to intelligence levels). If for no other reason, this thinness was supposed to come “effortlessly” even to “normals” like Alistair because of all the walking you were supposed to be doing without being “aware” of it. For that’s what it required to get from Point A to Point B. No other option, really, even when factoring in public transportation—itself a kind of public gymnasium.

There was a time when Alistair did make a concerted effort to do all of his walking without eating. But eventually, he saw no reason to keep bothering. The pounds would never shed no matter what he did. They would only amplify, or, at best, stay fixed. He could hope for no better. So he started to eat and walk, initially figuring that the two “activities” would, at the very least, offset each other. He wasn’t totally wrong. It was just that the main drawback to doing it was knowing that the people who saw him as they breezed past were probably thinking, “What a fuckin’ fatty, can’t go a single minute without eating.”

Or was this merely a self-projection, and no one was noticing him at all? Ha, yeah right. I’m hard to miss—with or without food, he reminded himself. Then he took a hearty bite out of the pretzel he had just bought from a street vendor that conveniently materialized like a mirage in the desert as he kept on walking.