She could feel the hug of the corduroy pants around her thighs as she sat. She didn't like that feeling, never did. Reminded her too much of the red bands she'd find on her stomach when she went to the lavatory at school on breaks, caused by the seemingly ever-shrinking Sears Huskies her mother insisted on buying her.

She always thought those red marks looked like whiplashes, symbols of torture and torment she had seen on the backs of slaves in antique photographs. She had wondered what those people had ever done to deserve those lashes, besides perhaps just being themselves...? In a small way, she felt she might have understood.

That was well over twenty years ago, but like old habits, old feelings are hard to break as well. She still didn't like the way the pants leg hugged her. It didn't matter the pants were a size 8, loose in the waist and the only things she had eaten that day were a bowl of rice and 4 Milano cookies. The cookies, the most recent thing she consumed, felt like an old tire in her stomach, expanding with every moment of early digestion. She stared at the bag, Conan O'Brien smirking at her from the tube when he wasn't ogling Pamela Anderson to his right. Her eyes went back and forth, from bag to Pam, and realizing what impact these two icons had always had on her, even twenty years ago. Of course, twenty years ago it was Kit-Kats and Farrah Fawcett-Majors. It wasn't the actual objects themselves, but what they were, what they represented---food and beauty. And in her mind, never the twain would meet.

A thought came to her that made her want to laugh and weep at the same time. Was I really better off back then, she wondered. Fat, with thick plastic glasses, unfashionable clothes made of horrendous fabrics and colors, mammary and sebum glands that burst forward seemingly overnight and completely out of control. No, she definitely wasn't the junior high beauty queen, which also meant she wasn't popular. Well, in a perverse way she was---she was the most popular punching bag in school, emotionally as well as physically.

The students handled the physical stuff and some of the emotional, but the teachers had the emotional stuff down pat. She wondered if she had reminded them of themselves at her age, and now they were reeking some twisted revenge on those awkward, unpopular inner children who kept them trapped in a shitty south side Milwaukee junior high. She didn't know and frankly didn't care at this point.

No, the reason she thought she was better off back then was because in everyone's eyes---students, teachers, her own goddamn family, for Christ's sake---she was a LOSER. She was a lost cause, no hope at 13 years old. Couldn't get married and have babies if you weren't pretty. Couldn't be teacher's pet if you didn't get good grades. Couldn't join in any fucking reindeer games if you were'nt good at sports. What good was she?

However, she realized at the moment betwixt bag o' cookies and the former Mrs. Tommy Lee that if one doesn't have hope, one doesn't have any pressure to fulfill any hopes. That was my big mistake, she thought to herself, my tragic flaw. I had to go and give myself some fucking hope.

The hope bullshit started the first week at high school. Not the first day, mind you, but the first week. The week where a new batch a bullies were ushered in and the teachers cared even less than before. The week when the girls were skinnier, prettier, tanner, and boyfriended. The week when the boys no longer pelted anyone with erasers or names, just laughs through their noses and glares through their eyelashes and mumbles to their jock cohorts after one passed by their lockers. The cruelty was subtle, more sophisticated and cut a little deeper than junior high cruelty. Junior high cruelty was easier to handle because it was an in-your-face cruelty. This was a whole new ball game, and she knew somehow the rule book must have gotten lost on the way to her house.

She remembered two girls in particular. They were in her homeroom, seated one row over and two or three seats back, and they were assholes. Despite the slightly hipper feathered hair, the one or two additional inches in height, and the different faces, she knew the type all too well. The taunting started almost immediately, day one. Hey, where'd you get those glasses, oh, they're REAAALLLY cooool. Hee, hee, hee. Hey nice sweater, your grandma buy that for you? You need some new jeans, looks like those are gonna rip pretty soon. Hee, hee, hee. Ever hear of a diet? Hee, hee, hee....

Here we go, she thought. Same bullshit, just different color institutional paint on the walls. A breath was taken, and tears were pushed back into her skull. She remembered the welt on her inner lip that took a week to heal from biting it so hard. She also remembered how badly it stung when she inhaled the Doritos every night in her room as she drew picture after picture of the beautiful princesses she would never be in her sketchbook she never allowed anyone to see.

Days Two, Three, and Four passed, and homeroom was one big real-life rerun. The taunts continued pretty much on the same subject matter (Christ, she would think, come up with something original already) and the tears were pushed back from whence they came. It amazed her how the welts in her stomach were getting redder and deeper just in those last few days. She had busted the inseam on her left pants leg, but the bulk of her thigh against the other hid the tear well from all, including her mother who had just purchased the Huskies a mere 17 days before.

Now Day Five is when everything went to hell. Day Five, The Death of Familiar, Safe, Comforting Despair. Day Five, the Birth of Hope: Wretched, Disappointing Hope.

Day Five homeroom. The Been There, Done That show began. The Lady Assholes are seated regally in their appointed thrones of bitchiness, waiting to flog the fat messenger in the Sears Huskies as she lumbered in silently nursing her Sara Lee binge hangover from the night before. She still had the Dorito sweaters on her teeth, having forgotten to brush that morning. Ha, she thought as she squeezed into the outdated wood pulp desk so obviously built for a teenager of normal proportions. They've never ragged about my hideous teeth. Maybe that's on next week's itinerary.

It started, the tinkly, effervescent chirping of pretty teenage girls picking on a fat badly dressed nerd. It amazed her how many zingers they could peel off in the five minutes between first bell and the entrance of the frumpy French-teaching homeroom teacher, signaling zip-it time. She remembered looking at the clock, seeing three minutes to the final bell and entrance of teacher, and silently praying for a sudden bout of deafness, or a fire alarm, or the REALLY paranormal phenomenon of the teacher getting her ass in there just a little early. Well, God works in mysterious ways--- she didn't get any of those. But what she did get changed everything forever, and now, twenty years later, sitting on her couch in New York City watching Conan O'Brien and picking at the bag of Milano cookies, she wondered if it really was a good thing after all.

She got MAD. Mad , MAd, MAD. For the first time since throwing the Mother of All Temper Tantrums at the park when she was three, she got rip-roaring, seething, open-up-a-can-of jellied whoop-ass MAD. She stood up so fast the desk came with her for a moment, hooked temporarily on her thighs before sliding down and thunking the hardwood floor. She spun around with a speed of someone half her size and twice her fitness level, glared at the girls with murderous venom and screamed "DON'T YOU TWO BITCHES EVER SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!"

She didn't know why she did it at first. Maybe it just the mere sound of their voices rather than the insults that opened this window of demented opportunity. She had been hearing them every night over the past week, tinkling and laughing her into sob-induced sleep. Frankly, she was sick of the soggy pillow. Or maybe since this was a whole new ball game with no rulebook in sight, maybe it was time to write her own set of rules. Maybe it was time to tell these girls who tortured her, those teachers who ignored her, those boys who snorted at her, those parents who had no time or patience for her to fuck themselves and leave her the hell alone. Maybe it was time to just get mad.

The room was more silent than any silence she had ever heard. More quiet than the confessional, more quiet than her parent's bedroom these days. She could feel the empty-eyed gawk of everyone in that room on her expansive backside----the junior varsity football player, the Olympic-hopeful girl speedskater, the red-haired girl who never joined in the taunts but was greatly amused by them. Triumph and terror enveloped her in those stares, that silence---she was pretty sure she was going to get her ass kicked come 3PM, but it would be right this time. It would'nt be because she was sitting doing nothing but being fat, but because she had stood up and finally gotten in someone's face.

Needless to say, the girls were not amused or impressed. The taller, lankier skeeze took the turn of breaking the silence first. "What did you just say?"

Fat can sure come in handy sometimes---hiding knocking knees, for instance: "You heard me."

Plumper, shorter skeeze chimed in. "You want your ass kicked, Fatso? I'll beat the shit outta you."

Something else happened at that moment. Rage was still there, no doubt, but something else sneaked in, crept in. Calm. Utter, peaceful, complete calm. She lifted her head (chins following) until she was glaring down her nose at the shorter girl. It wasn't until that moment when she realized she was actually taller than the girl. She realized that in that whole week, she had never pulled herself up to her full height. Her voice resonated from somewhere deep within, from somewhere seemingly not in her own body. "You are not going to kick my ass, you are not going to beat the shit outta me, and you are not going to make fun of me anymore, because if you do, I will seriously KILL YOU BOTH. And you'll never see it coming. I know where you live and what way you walk home. I've been following you both all week."

Jesus, she thought, I sound like Son of Sam. I mean I seriously sound psychotic. The bitches sat in their stupid little desks, mouths agape, not blinking, staring at her. She couldn't imagine how she looked at that moment; she hoped she looked cool. But in Sears Huskies and Bazooka-pink cowl neck, how menacing can someone look? Of course, she hadn't been following them and had NO CLUE as to where they lived.

She slowly shrunk herself back down to her comfortable normal slump, turned and bent to lift her desk off the floor where it had tipped over. She fully expected a fat-ass comment to be chirped from the girls, but there was nothing. She squeezed back into the desk, folded her hands, and stared straight ahead at the blackboard, all the while trying desperately to calm the adrenaline careening through her entire bulk. Teacher came in, fixed her big glasses on her big face, and sat in her big desk made also out of wood pulp but at least built for a functioning adult.

Yes, things had changed since that day. After only a weekend, the rumor spread far and wide that the fat dorky girl with the huge glasses and bad perm was nuts and if anyone fucked with her, she would kill them in their sleep. The girls no longer tinkled, and the boys no longer snorted. She was paid odd respect in the cafeteria lines and in the halls. True, no one talked to her, but no one tormented her either. She started walking a little faster, a little taller, head held a little higher. The Huskies, after a while, weren't cutting into her fleshy belly as badly. By the end of the second week, she realized she had enough left from her allowance to go to a movie, because she hadn't bought any Doritos or Sara Lee all week.

By the third week, other kids were approaching her. Other dorky kids, granted, but other kids. They had heard the rumor, was it true? Hey, what are you drawing, can I see? That's good, do you want to help us make posters? Do you like debate? We need another person on the team. Oh, it's easy, don't worry. Hey, that was funny! This girl is funny! You should try out for the school play!

Yes, the Day Hope was Born. The day when her future took a crazy U-turn toward things she never envisioned for herself---friends, acting, art, movies, parties, roller-skating, subjects in school that interested her, good grades, self-assurance. Over the next few years the weight came off, the glasses replaced with contact lenses, the badly-permed dingy brown hair magically chemically metamorphed into a vibrant blonde, make-up and fashion discovered. College, grad school, marriage.

(to be continued...)