All of Me Read online

  than when I started.

  I rest at the mirror again,

  stare into an unfamiliar face.

  Less chin now,

  square jawbones,

  the puffed slope

  of my cheek

  slides into

  a less dimpled mouth.

  I turn sideways,

  suck in my belly.

  There has never been

  a time where I haven’t held it in.

  My love handles

  rise over my shorts,

  but they are smaller now,

  barely enough to squeeze.

  I go to the breakfast table.

  It’s just my mom and me.

  Level two, she says. It begins today.

  She sets down her copy

  of The Diet Book,

  dog-eared,

  raises a cup of coffee at me in victory,

  slides a bowl of cottage cheese,

  and a pewter dish with twenty-four almonds.

  I bite into halves

  so they last longer.

  Old Photo

  My mother searches through

  endless boxes of papers,

  and finds an old photo

  of a time in New York,

  at P.S. 6,

  where once I played

  the part of a king

  in a school play.

  Other kids

  wore cardboard armor

  and swords made of tinfoil.

  But as the king, I wore

  a costume my proud parents rented me.

  King Henry the Eighth,

  red velour with golden trim,

  white sheer tights expanded over my legs,

  a crown, and even a real sword.

  In the picture of that day,

  my face is noble,

  on top of too many chins,

  my belly spilling over my gold belt.

  This was the first time I noticed you were chubby.

  How did that happen? she asks.

  Me too. I noticed it then.

  But not for the first time.

  Stuck in the City

  Alone,

  my mom

  off to deal with lawyers, clients, customers,

  maybe even my father, I think,

  but she doesn’t say it.

  It’s a whole list I don’t understand.

  I have to leave early

  and come home late every day this week, she says.

  I live out Level 2 the best I can,

  more carbohydrates than Level 1,

  even a little sugar, but only from fruit.

  I pour twenty-four almonds in a bowl,

  grab a coffee cup of blueberries,

  and roll a piece of salami tightly

  with a slice of Swiss cheese.

  I make it fancy on a plate,

  pour a glass of diet soda.

  I pass the tall mirror

  in the hallway

  to make sure the weight

  didn’t somehow come back.

  I look at myself,

  first straight on,

  then I turn to my side,

  suck it in,

  let out my breath

  because the weight is still gone.

  I sit on the couch

  and turn on the TV.

  I eat almonds

  and watch Magnum P.I.

  on Netflix, like I do with my father.

  We love to watch old shows together.

  The actor’s Hawaiian shirts

  unbuttoned too far,

  like my father’s shirts.

  Sometimes when we were back in New York,

  my father sent me

  to the market down the street

  to get cupcakes and Hershey’s bars,

  and then we would

  sit and eat them all,

  him explaining

  the plot of Lost,

  or watching reruns of

  Happy Days

  or Hill Street Blues.

  The couch feels good.

  I’ve been away from couches

  and TVs, computers, and Magnum,

  and Voltron, and everything else.

  When each new show starts,

  I taste cupcakes and potato chips,

  smell oatmeal cookies,

  feel chocolate melting on my tongue.

  I breathe,

  eat a blueberry instead.

  Sardines

  During these long days,

  I sit sometimes

  in the empty space

  and wait for him,

  the sound of his keys in the door

  or the smell

  of the sardines

  he eats every day.

  I walk to the kitchen

  open the pantry door,

  find cans of deviled ham

  and uncut salami.

  But on the third shelf,

  just below the beanless

  chili, the beef jerky,

  I find

  the tiny

  star-shined tin

  of sardines.

  His sardines.

  The ones he told

  me were only for grown-ups.

  I put it on the counter,

  unhinge the lid

  with the square key,

  and slowly peel the metal back.

  I stand in the kitchen.

  I hear doors open and close.

  I hear buses slip

  and buzz along wires.

  The kitchen

  fills with a faraway sea.

  I eat all the sardines

  one by one

  and lick

  the tin

  clean.

  Atari

  Once, in New York,

  after many nights

  of working late,

  my father came home with

  an old Atari 2600

  tucked under his arm

  and a brown paper bag

  full of Atari games

  and dumped them on my bed.

  He unplugged my Nintendo,

  pushed aside my Xbox,

  and we stayed up all night

  playing Adventure and Breakout

  way past my bedtime.

  But sometimes I waited,

  and he didn’t come home.

  No Eyes on Me

  I ride my bike to the bagel shop

  my dad used to take me to.

  When I get close,

  I slow down,

  look inside the window,

  thinking he might be there

  at the corner table

  where we usually sit,

  his coffee steaming

  over his lox, eggs, and onions.

  I ride my bike

  across the city,

  from the Marina,

  over green Fort Mason,

  down to the wharf.

  I ride all the way

  up Divisadero

  to Haight Street

  to the comic-book store.

  I feel good.

  The city is mine.

  When I get home,

  I pull a stack

  of new comics

  out of my backpack.

  It’s quiet. I look around.

  I can almost hear

  my father’s voice

  from the living room,

  calling out, Ari, you home?

  It’s strange how suddenly

  my parents decided they

  could leave me by myself.

  But I think I might be getting

  the hang of it. Freedom.

  Taking care of myself.

  Creating my own life.

  I stretch out on my bed,

  my body a little tighter now,

  skin against my muscles,

  stomach flatter,

  slow breathing.

  No voices,

  no fire to burn

  or hands to dream

  of holding.

&nb
sp; No trolls to carve

  or stories to write

  or gates to lock,

  or trash to take out.

  No giant terra-cotta

  demon spirits, Melinda,

  or angels or alien talismans,

  no people up and down the streets

  or beach sirens

  or pounding waves.

  No sleeping on a camping mat

  beneath freshly painted murals.

  Just moments

  with no eyes on me.

  Grandma’s Letter

  At the mailbox,

  I find a letter from my grandma.

  A part of me imagines

  that someday soon

  I’ll be back on the subway to Brooklyn,

  eating too many

  lemon-flavored Italian ices

  and winding up in her apartment,

  the cleanest place in all of Brooklyn.

  I open the letter and

  pull out a folded

  piece of stationery,

  blue flowers in the center,

  laced over a faded

  Star of David.

  Behind the ten-dollar bill

  are the words,

  Ari, we love you.

  We hope you are happy.

  We hope you are skinny.

  Skinny.

  I can hear her thick accent

  and the kindness in her voice

  that doesn’t mean to wound.

  If I ever wrote a letter back, I might tell her

  that I am, in fact, not skinny.

  I am happy, and feeling more like myself.

  I wonder how they remember me.

  How even across a distance like this

  she thinks of my size.

  What If?

  I want to talk to Lisa

  about the letter.

  I want to text her,

  but I don’t have a cell phone,

  just this old landline.

  But then I have a sudden thought:

  What if things have changed?

  What if Lisa already went back to the beach,

  and she’s hanging out with those older boys.

  What if she and Jorge

  went on some adventure

  without me?

  What if her mother

  won’t let her go back at all

  and the nursery and the beach

  break off in a great earthquake,

  the trolls we made fall into turbulent

  waves and grinding sand.

  Middle of Level 2

  I’m due after this week

  to lose three more pounds,

  but in the morning,

  I feel like my stomach

  is twice the size.

  I walk to the mirror

  in the hallway

  and stand straight, then sideways.

  Years of looking,

  of seeing, or hearing

  words about my body,

  make it impossible

  to see clearly.

  I feel like I am suddenly

  off track,

  filling up

  instead of deflating.

  At the scale,

  I imagine

  24 pounds

  of victory,

  fat squashed away.

  24 pounds

  no longer

  me.

  I step on.

  Left foot.

  Right foot.

  My eyes squint tightly.

  When I open them

  I lose

  my breath.

  This can’t be right.

  21 pounds was the last time,

  but now,

  in the cool morning,

  5 pounds have found

  their way back to me.

  16.

  16 pounds

  since it all started.

  How could this happen?

  I put my fingers

  in the waistband.

  I feel for the free air

  between my body

  and my belt.

  Still there.

  I take my shirt off.

  I look for the fat kid

  in the mirror.

  He’s there and not there.

  Indiscretion

  In The Diet Book,

  the doctor warns us to beware of indiscretions,

  that we all make mistakes

  from time to time.

  After induction

  in Level 1,

  I taught my body

  not to eat carbs.

  Devour fat, body!

  Eat the fat,

  and that is what it did.

  In Level 2, the body is adjusting

  to its new ways of digesting.

  It searches for fat,

  a memory of Doritos

  and Coke in a can.

  The body gets mixed

  up in Level 2.

  Processes slow down

  in the memory

  of old food.

  Carbs find their way in

  as subtle suggestions,

  a roll at dinner,

  an extra handful of peanuts,

  too much fruit,

  or just the crust of a pizza.

  Indiscretions.

  I walk to my closet,

  stare at my clothes.

  Most are dark,

  slimming, as my mother says.

  Not a single horizontal stripe.

  I promised myself

  new clothes

  at the end of the summer.

  I will buy new jeans

  and slim-fit shirts with stripes.

  I feel my bones

  loose inside my body.

  I feel tightness in my pants

  and the cling of my shirt.

  My skin cells tingle

  with every touch of fabric.

  This has to be in my head.

  On a website, I read about

  what to do when the diet

  stalls. It says,

  Be good to yourself,

  lower your carb intake,

  shock your body,

  starve it again.

  Exercise.

  I hold the book in my hands,

  stare at the picture of the doctor on the cover.

  Maybe he doesn’t know everything.

  How does being good to myself

  mean I have to shock my body?

  To starve it?

  This can’t be the only way.

  By now the cover

  is creased and dull.

  I’m getting tired of it.

  I close it, hard, and put it on the shelf.

  I am being good to myself.

  Post-its

  On the wall

  in the kitchen

  near the window

  on the bulletin board

  there are yellow Post-its

  written in parent handwriting,

  like flags from

  when life was normal.

  Milk,

  work at three,

  call grandmother,

  and somewhere, in the far, far corner

  are the words, written by my father,

  Wednesday, July 25th, 4 p.m.

  and the word Rabbi.

  Today.

  There is no one to see me take

  the Post-it off the board,

  no one to know or remember

  that this appointment ever existed.

  I look at the phone,

  willing my father to call at this moment,

  tell me to get moving,

  but not this time.

  No air-and-tear-filled speech

  about how his rabbi was good to him,

  even after all the bad things

  he said he had done as a kid,

  getting in fights, being late

  to synagogue, and sometimes

  even lying to his parents.

  He told me that seeing the rabbi,

  the ga
thering of my study papers,

  my cassettes, tying my shoes

  and combing my hair, the quiet walk,

  the silvery touch of the mezuzah

  entering the synagogue on my own,

  all of it is ritual.

  Part of my story. Part of my becoming a man.

  I hold the Post-it,

  alone

  in the quiet apartment,

  no one to tell me whether

  to go or not.

  Something, for once, seems up to me,

  standing near the apple bowl,

  yellow Post-it between my fingers

  with the word Rabbi

  in felt marker.

  I look at the refrigerator.

  I think about my father.

  I think about my choices.

  I think about who I am,

  who I want to be.

  I think about the beach

  and Lisa

  and how the world

  feels so big sometimes.

  If I leave now,

  I might make it.

  The Visit

  I scrawl a note,

  attach the Post-it,

  so she can see the date.

  I spread it on the counter,

  Mom, back at 6.

  I eat a Slim Jim,

  a new Level 2 snack,

  lock the door behind me.

  The Marina is warm,

  fogless in the late

  afternoon, and I

  pedal slowly

  up Divisadero

  and into Pacific Heights.

  I don’t know the words

  by heart,

  so I practice

  the cadence

  of the prayers

  with my breath.

  The rabbi’s office

  below his apartment

  is dusty and dark.

  I knock until the brass knob

  turns, and he pulls me inside.

  It smells like old sofas,

  like chicken broth and frying pans,

  like my uncle’s house

  on Long Island.

  He asks me if I’m hungry.

  I am, but I say no.

  I’ve never been here without my father.

  He sits down in his gray chair,

  and he says my name the long way.

  He looks at me through his glasses.

  It’s quiet

  like thick curtains.

  In this moment,

  I feel his hands

  cover mine.

  He looks at me

  like he sees something