Elvis showed up just past dark, all dressed in his white Hawaiian concert jumpsuit, muttonchops as wide as a little girl’s hand and hair the blue-black of a raven’s wing. Beulah Funkhouser had been on the bathroom floor for close to four days now and the kitties were getting hungry.
Not that they did not have anything to eat. Beulah had plenty to share.
You understand, Beulah was fat. She was just this side of Dick Gregory, Dr. Phil and wash myself with a mop fat. She was Discovery Channel fat. She was P.T. Barnum fat.
She had left morbidly obese at the wayside long ago. She knew it. She did not do a heck of a lot to stop it, but she did know it.
People were cruel and Elvis would likely be cruel, too (he was not “fat Elvis” yet). He would sneer and this time it wouldn’t be sexy. She wouldn’t want to see it because it would be directed toward her.
She had slept until the needling nibbles and pecks of the kitties started up again, at her thighs and her tree trunk calves. Four days and they had eaten a goodish portion of her blubbery left hip and the flab that sagged down from her lower belly on that side. Their 9-Lives had run out and their bowls had been empty since late the first day. Now all she knew was the gnawing, pulling and tearing and that she was losing weight one tiny mouthful at a time. And that Elvis was there in her dirty bathroom, looking as fresh as a daisy in the spring rain.
She had put Aloha from Hawaii in the CD player, hit repeat and went in to bathe. “My Way” played and sometimes she sang along--it was her favorite. She did not think she would ever grow tired of that one. It was so much better than Sinatra’s version. Besides, “The King” had always been easier on the old peepers than “Ol’ Blue Eyes.”
Half of Beulah’s ass had gone to sleep hours ago and it would have been better if the kitties at least moved to that side. Her big old butt-cheek tingled like a million needles and pins. She had pissed herself--several times by now--but that had stopped more than a day ago. She was bone-dry inside and out. As for the other thing. She’d rather not think of that.
The kitties were still hungry. And so was she.
***
Beulah waddled with only the aid of a metal walker. She could not get around on her own and maybe she was a bigger freak that she realized for the fact that she was up at all. That walker wasn’t really going to prevent her from faceplanting like a melon from the top of a roof. She could have bent that poor thing in half. She was still trudging along on her own, legs like two overfilled sandbags, grinding together under a rising river.
She had not been out in over three years. The last time had been a trip to Wal-Mart, driven in her cousin’s van and dropped off at the door of the garden center. He had not wanted to be seen with her, she knew, although he had been too polite to tell her.
She had fallen on the way to the pet department for kitty food. No one could help her to her feet and she lay there for the better part of two hours while soccer moms and Bubbas looking for weed killer and shotgun shells and children who were dirty and loud gawked at her. They did not bother to cover their mouths to hide their laughter. She was fat--she had no feelings. She was an animal, a freak, an elephant. She did not hurt. Even the young woman who worked that department and appeared so caring and kind could not disguise the amusement in her eyes as she turned away from Beulah. Beulah even spotted her nephew drifting at the edge of the crowd that had gathered, wondering what had taken so long, not claiming her as his own.
Someone finally came up with the idea of using a car wench from the automotive department to lift her to her feet.
She had made the local 6 o’clock news.
That had been it for her. She decided then she would never go out among them again. People. Who needed their cruelty?
Her furry friends--her babies--were kinder things. They didn’t judge her. They did not watch her eat. They didn’t laugh at her when she took off her clothes at night.
They loved her unconditionally.
Even now that the food was gone.
***
Elvis told her, “Mama was big and when she used to hold me tight, she was as soft as pillows.
“I’ll bet you’re just the same.”
Beulah’s cheeks grew warm and she giggled what she imagined was a girlish sound. In reality, it was a rasp, as dry as leaves blowing down the sidewalk outside.
Elvis sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and she hummed along softly.
***
Once upon a time, she had been a beauty queen. Homecoming 1964 and her father had called her “Belle of the Ball.” She blushed until she thought her cheeks would catch fire.
Seventeen years old and she would dance and she would swim. Energy would burn and calories would melt. She ate and she ate and she dated boys who were football players or on the honor roll. They loved her for her looks.
Mother rewarded her with food. Cakes for good grades, cookies for a successful dance recital. And of course, there was candy from the beaus who dreamed of getting into her size four white cotton panties after fried chicken church functions.
She was not lazy, and she was vain enough to watch her weight. All was perfect in her world. But sometimes life isn’t made from confectionary, sweet as sugar and colored rose and lavender.
Billy Decamps was the sour part of Beulah’s tale, the downward turn. Billy with the Ricky Nelson eyes and the Elvis smile.
Beulah and Billy, queen and king of homecoming 1964 and parked at lookout point. Windows of Billy’s daddy’s Buick fogged like someone had soaped them with a cake of Ivory and Billy’s hands under her petticoat.
Beulah stopped him and stopped him quick. “I don’t do that, Billy. Not even for you.”
Billy zipped up and they drove home in brooding, uncomfortable silence. Before he pulled away, Billy told her, “No big deal, Beulah. You’re getting fat, anyway.”
***
You would have thought that would have made Beulah ever more diligent with her looks, but it had just the opposite effect. She stopped. She stopped everything--running, swimming, dancing. Dating. The only thing she did not stop doing was eating.
Mother consoled her through the remainder of her senior year with sweats and larger, looser clothing.
Beulah began to balloon. By graduation, the homecoming queen weighed over 200 pounds.
***
She lay in the bathroom floor, staring at a crack in the ceiling. She shook the leg that was not dead numb from time to time to spook the kitties away. Who would come for her, she thought. Mother had gotten her on disability so she never had to leave the house. Perhaps the mail would begin to pile up and someone would start to wonder.
Mother was dead. Elvis was dead (although he managed to show up now and again). Everyone she knew was dead. Soon she would be, too. She would begin to smell, she figured, and finally someone would indeed come. They would find a mess of a body, rotting and half-eaten by small mouths and needle-sharp teeth.
***
She must have fallen over one of her babies. Perhaps it had gotten wrapped in the legs of her walker or tangled in the folds of her housecoat. Whatever--it hardly mattered now. Here she was, flat on her back, staring up at the flat blue ceiling. She was still a bit tingly and her mind was growing wanky from thirst and the need for food.
The jellylike stickiness of the congealing blood under her ass made her panties and her housecoat cling to her like flypaper. She thought of Elvis again, and then there he was with a lovely banana and peanut butter sandwich. Hell of a hallucination it was. He even had a smear of peanut butter on the side of his rosebud mouth. She rasped, “You have a little--” She indicated with a wave of her sausageroll finger. Elvis smiled his little crooked smile and rolled off a wad of toilet tissue and then he cleaned it away.
“Would give you some, but ya know, I ain’t even real,” he told her around a chewy mouthful. He wavered from view like an image seen through the fumes of gas and heat. In a moment, he was back again.
“You know whatcha gotta do, pretty mama, if you’re gonna get out of here.”
***
She tried to think good thoughts, like the amount of weight she must have lost by now. Perhaps she could even regain her normal appearance, if she managed to survive this. She remembered how her mother plied her with goodies to eat. Later she refused to be seen with her in public because of her size. Her mother had created a monster and then she had rejected it. Just like Dr. Frankenstein on Shock Theater.
Beulah knew what she needed to do. She needed to eat something to gain enough strength to get off this floor. She couldn’t lie there and remain a kitty buffet.
Finally, she dozed and dreamed she was eating a banana and peanut butter sandwich. The Aloha from Hawaii CD played on--Lord only knew how many times through now. “In The Ghetto” invaded her dreams and Elvis serenaded her with “Love Me Tender” as she had his balls for dessert.
***
When she woke, her favorite baby, Sonny, was snuggled next to her huge (but markedly less so) left breast.
The cat turned his glossy triangular head toward Beulah and fixed those green eyes on Beulah’s cloudy brown ones. “Hello, sweetness,” she rasped feebly. She caressed the cat’s head and his back and noticed how fat he had gotten over the past few days. The cat purred happily and brushed himself against the side of Beulah’s face.
Beulah’s hollow stomach rumbled.
***
Sometimes things happen for a reason, her mother always said. Neither of them could ever come up with a reason why she had gotten so fat, though. But maybe there was a reason why she fell, why she had so many fucking cats, why Elvis had prodded her on. She didn’t know. At this point, all she knew was that she was starving to death and her own loving pets were slowly eating her alive.
Sonny, purred loudly against her face and her neck and she stroked his wonderful thick fur. He licked her throat with his sandpapery tongue and nipped her at her skin once, then again more aggressively.
Elvis leaned against the vanity counter and sneered prettily. “You know whatcha gotta do, big girl. You know…”
Beulah stroked Sonny’s thick back as he nipped at her skin again. She felt a trickle of blood run like the King’s warm mouth across her neck. With the little strength she had left, she gripped that kitty’s taunt skin in her fingers and held him fast. The cat screeched and turned on her, surprised and frightened. Beulah grunted and puffed like a big locomotive quickly running out of steam. She took Sonny’s head in one pudgy fist and his body in the other and twisted with all she had. The cat fought and almost scrambled away, but she kept turning, kept twisting. She imaged she was opening a jumbo-sized jar of Peter Pan crunchy. The sound of the animal’s bones breaking was much more satisfying than she was comfortable with.
Sonny’s twitching body fell heavily on her chest and she lay still, smelling his dry fur. The other babies scattered and she turned her head to the side so she would not have to see him. She cried, over what she had done and what she would have to do next.
***
She wondered if it was night or day now and she wondered how much longer she could hold on without eating. What she had done to poor, beautiful Sonny, well, that was only a last resort. There was no way she could actually do that, could she? Not even if Elvis himself told her “That’s Alright.” She did not realize that her stomach growled and her mouth watered as she stroked Sonny’s cooling fur.
***
One of the kitties must have bumped the CD player and now Elvis chanted, “Welcome to My World” over and over and over. Sometime later, Mother appeared, at first wavering in and out like a bad television signal until she was there completely. She looked just like she had when Beulah was in high school--thin, pretty, all June Cleaver and Donna Reed. Beulah felt like a big, fat, injured hog and wished Elvis were there instead.
Mother glared at her, her mouth a thin line and Beulah brought Sonny’s poor broken body to her lips. Beulah smiled and her own dry lips split and wept a bit of blood. She licked it away greedily.
“You just can‘t stop eating, can you?” Mother said.
“I suppose not,” Beulah croaked back. She tore into Sonny’s swiveling neck, savoring and sickened by it at the same time.
***
If she got out of this, she had to make sure no one ever found out. She looked at the half-eaten cat lying on the floor beside her. She had to admit she felt a little better, a little stronger. Perhaps in a while, she may be able to pull herself to the phone.
She would hide Sonny in the vanity cabinet if someone came.
***
The fur made it tough to swallow and she felt as though her throat was closing up, tightening. It seemed that something was blocking the way suddenly--fur, flesh, but her mouth was too dry to force it down. She gasped and grabbed at her mouth. She pushed her fat fingers inside and felt for the gob of kitty that was obstructing her airway. Her fingertips brushed gooey cat fur.
Elvis crooned “Welcome to My World” again and again and it felt like a nail burrowed into her brain. The kitties that were brave enough to reappear at the flap of her gnawed belly and dip in for a taste, scattered once again as she flailed and bucked on the floor.
Her mind filed through stupid things like what the papers would say about her.
But quickly, things grew dimmer, calm. Elvis was there again. He leaned over and gave Mother a big wet kiss on the lips.
“Why bother, dear? Everything happens for a reason,” Mother told her. “We’re all over here anyway. It’s easier on this side. Come on. Come to Mother and Billy Decamps and Elvis. I have your Homecoming gown all ready for you.
“Welcome to our world.”