Chapter 2

Slate

Area of Fairfax, Ohio

I wasn’t always sitting atop the pinnacle of greatness, sometimes called level 2, like I am now. I started out a regular kid growing up with his grandparents. I was raised on their farm before they had to sell off most of the land to cover debts. They were able to keep the house, which I later inherited and live in today.

I grew up in beautiful village of Fairfax, Ohio. Contrary to most of America’s knowledge, there are still legitimate villages in the heartland. For some reason the great state of Ohio still uses the names from near the colonial age for their cities and towns and calls them, in order of size, townships, villages and cities. Fairfax barely meets the standard as far as villages go, being just above the required population of 1,600. It is a suburb of Cincinnati. I generally just tell everyone I am from Cinci’ because only the locals know the village exists.

This little village, like its name, was a throwback to an older era with an aging population. Most of the people in it were good. They were kind of folks that open doors for others and called their elder’s sir. In Fairfax, if you drive up to a stop sign just a few moments after the person to the right of you stopped, expect them to wave you on through with a smile.

I was always a big kid, a little taller and a little thicker than pretty much everyone my age. The farmers in my bloodline had passed down their heavy frames to me, leaving me with a thick barrel shaped torso, broad shoulders and big hands. My Grandma had some Native American Indian in her blood and luckily it over road the ginger in my almost pure Irish Grandfather. It left me with skin that would tan reasonably well in the summer and dark hair to go with my dark green eyes.

My body has always been top heavy, with my legs just a bit shorter and skinnier than was proportionate. Most of my youth was spent in the gym doing squats to make up for it, as my upper body seemed to grow disproportionally stronger than my lower. Near continuous working out throughout my youth, into college and my short police career helped make me into the giant of a man I am today. Currently I am carrying around 300 pounds on my six foot seven inch frame. It used to be less, but beer is delicious.

I would classify myself fairly intelligent but not overwhelmingly so. The problem was staying interested enough to learn. My remarkably short attention span causes my thought process jumped around a lot, making it hard for me to stay focused on the task at hand. It was enough smarts to breeze through high school with decent grades, but not enough to truly excel.

I never really got into social relationships. It was awkward for me to talk to other people so I tended to avoid them altogether. I replaced childhood friendships with videogames, books, and comics. They sparked my imagination. I always liked the idea of being something more than human and they allowed me to live out my fantasies through escapism.

By the time I got to high school I was well outside the social structure and my hobbies were not considered “cool”. Out of some sort of misplaced angst I was afraid to share my interests and became a bit of a closet geek. I did my thing, but did not hang out with people like me. I just kept my head down, throughout high school and college. It was easy to avoid other people with my size. It’s tough to start a conversation with a reclusive kid my size. It always kept people at a distance, like they were as uncomfortable around me as I was of them.

At college I discovered the wonder that is beer. That delicious nectar of the gods and I became lifelong friends. Instead of keeping up on my studies I was generally drunk, playing video games, or both. I ended up taking three years to obtain an associate’s degree in Criminal Justice and a hefty load of debt. I was ready for a change and was not looking forward to two more years of school, so I decided it was time to take a break from higher learning.

When I started looking for jobs I learned that apparently the entire post-college world knows that getting a Criminal Justice Degree is a huge waste of time and money. What kind of bullshit is that? They advertise this program but there were no employers that would hire you for having it. I decided to try and become a police officer, thinking the CJ would help there at least. I found out quickly that most of the police agencies don’t care what your degree is in. I actually seemed to get less credit for having a CJ. Without many other options, and wanting to have a job where I could help people, I became a cop anyways.

Being a cop helped me come out of my shell and I became quite good at talking to people. I liked helping people, but I just didn’t enjoy the headache that came with the position. A few years on the job was all it took to be able to write a book on what is wrong with America’s justice system, the media and police in general. Like most young officers I become embittered and left the force within five years. The whole experience left me disgruntled with life in general and I turned to drinking to find some happiness.

Honestly, I only lasted as long as I did on the job because of the plethora of tail it throws at you. Badge-bunnies were by far my favorite part of my work. Putting on the uniform was something else. A common saying amongst cops is that if you take off your police shirt, put it over a chair and leave it, sooner or later some girl is going to come along, rub on it, and try to fuck it.

My grandparents had left me their house when they passed, so I owned a decent sized farmhouse, albeit without a farm. It was surrounded by other farms on the outskirts of Fairfax. After moving in I started binge drinking, fighting in bars and generally was a big fat lazy asshole for a while. I piled on the pounds, pushing 400 at one point, and played a lot of World of Warcraft.

My neighbor, Horace Wilkerson, was the man to put me on what I thought would be the rest of my path through life. He hooked me up with a friend of his who worked construction and got me on his crew. I quickly adapted to the lifestyle and enjoyed the honest fulfillment of building things with my own hands. I don’t know what it is, but something as simple as finishing out a bathroom really gave me a sense of completion. I found satisfaction with life that had been missing for some time. I was able to slow down on the binge drinking and eventually got invited back to some of the local pubs I had been kicked out of for being a jerk. The crew I worked with was great and one of them became the best friend I had ever had, Big Gay John.

John Alders was one of the few people I had ever met that was bigger than me. Some had been taller and some were wider, but no one prior to John made me feel little. John was on another level entirely. The man was six foot ten inches tall and probably weighed 400 lbs. He reminded me a little of Andre the Giant except the man looked unreasonably good. He took a lot of pride in his appearance. Even before I knew he was gay I would describe him as having a cascading blond hair and blue eyes like the summer sky. John’s good looks were something you would expect more on some famous celebrity seemed out of place on his gargantuan body.

He was so big, that in some of the older houses we would remodel poor John would have to squat down and go sideways though the doors made for the smaller people of times past. It was neat watching the reactions of people when he passed them. The guy was lucky though, his looks stood out so much he did not get the normal questions that a tall guy like me got all the time. How tall are you? Do you play basketball?

John and I hit it off right away and became great friends. Despite his size, and gayness, John was far more comfortable with himself than I will probably ever be. He had a presence, almost an aura of command, which made people look to him for guidance. Even with my newfound peace with my place in the world, I still talked a lot of issues out with John. These were not long conversations with both of us talking equally. They generally more one sided, where I would rant about perceived injustices and he would calm me down, give me some advice and call me an idiot. He was also a consistent drinking buddy and we would go out a few times a month. Of course, the excursions generally consist of me getting obnoxiously drunk while he watched, but they were fun.

Big John eventually recommended yoga and simple meditation to help with my anger issues I had developed from being a cop. Surprisingly enough it seemed to work. I was not willing to subject any person to watching a 400 pound fat ass do yoga, so I learned it from videos and practiced at home. It was a surprisingly good workout and my extra pounds began to fade away.

About 6 months after working on the crew I figured out John was gay when he introduced me to his boyfriend. I was a little shocked to say the least. I should have notice earlier, but I tend to miss a lot of obvious stuff. Probably because of the way my brain works, hopping from one subject to the next in no rational order keeps me distracted. It sometimes causes me to miss the obvious.

Eric was averaged sized, maybe six foot even and 180 pounds. The man still looked tiny beside John. Eric was a lawyer who worked in Cincinnati and looked to be about the complete opposite of John. Eric had the delicate features that I tended to associate with effeminate gay males and was openly flamboyant. For a huge flamer, Eric was not that bad of a guy. He was honest to a fault, which was very refreshing. As for the whole gay thing, I figure to each their own. Not for me, but there is too much pain and suffering in this world to not attempt to find your own bliss.

Thinking back, I never actually called him Big Gay John to his face, but I’ll be dammed if I didn’t think it every time I saw him.

Life was good. I didn’t make a ton of money working construction, but it was good honest work that left me feeling complete at the end of the day. I trimmed down my weight to a sleek, even three hundo and even though I was still rotund, I felt pretty good about it.

John was with me when I met Jessica Bates. Hell, he was probably the only reason she initially gave me a chance. She was the longest relationship I ever had, which meant it lasted about a year officially. She finally got tired of my late night carousing in the bars and my unreasonable addiction to video games gave me an ultimatum telling me it was them or her. “Bitch I told you to play the games with me.” Is apparently not the correct reply when a woman is screaming at you to choose her over a bunch of pixels? Who would have known.

I really did love her though and she loved me from what I could tell. After our “break up” We became more like friendly fuck-buddies and called each other when we wanted sex, or even just to hang out. It felt like she was waiting for me to finish growing up so she could settle down with me and start a family knew there was not room for another in my life right then.