Red Meat
by Ric Rodriguez
Copyright 2007 Ric Rodriguez
Smashwords Edition
PART ONE
-1-
Perfection, or the striving for it, can kill. Steve knew this. Olivia Goldsmith, the best-selling author had died on the operating table, there for plastic surgery. Karen Carpenter had literally starved herself to death. There were countless others. People who died for the perfect society, the perfect religion, or just a perfect self image. To Steve, it wasn’t the goal that did them in, but the severity of the methods used. He believed that as long as he remained sensible and balanced, he could avoid this fate. He could achieve perfection the easy way.
To others, especially women, Steve seemed like the ideal man. He was a successful architect, but he never put in the kind of crazy hours that drove others to exhaustion and illness. To him, it was better to be well-off and healthy rather than filthy rich and sick. Although approaching forty, he had the body of a man half his age. This was no accident -- he went to the gym three times a week, never ate any trans fat, and made a point to get eight hours of sleep every night. He wasn’t fanatical, just disciplined and focused. It was all about reaching a balanced efficiency. But balance can be thrown off by the slightest thing. For Steve, it was the night he brought Chloe, his fiancé, to meet his brother.
“It’ll be fine,” Chloe said on the way there.
“Don’t be so sure,” Steve replied. Chloe still knew nothing about Willie. If Steve had had his way, she would never have even heard of his only living relative. But Chloe had stumbled over a letter that Willie had written to Steve years ago. Strangely, it was in Steve’s bedroom drawer, mixed in with letters written by ex-lovers. Chloe was furious when she found it, and he couldn’t blame her. They were planning their wedding and she didn’t even know that he had a brother. And now, here he was, making it up to her by taking her to meet the man he wished he wasn’t related to.
“Is there something you haven’t told me?” Chloe asked.
“You’ll see,” Steve replied.
“I’m starting to get scared,” she said. “Is he a criminal or something?”
“Nothing like that,” he said, but he did not elaborate.
“Then, what?”
“Didn’t you tell me you like surprises?” Steve asked.
Chloe nodded, then Steve smiled. It would be quite the surprise.
Diana, Willie’s wife, answered the door. She was average in every way, but pleasant and unpretentious. Steve thought she was too good for his brother. But for some mysterious reason, she had stayed with him during the ups and downs.
When Diana let Steve and Chloe in, their heads both turned toward Willie, who was sitting in the living room. Steve had planned to watch Chloe’s reaction when she first set her eyes on his brother, but the sight of Willie shocked him. He looked to be about six hundred pounds, even heavier than Steve had expected. He was squeezed into a recliner. A hospital tray on wheels was in front of him, packed with snacks. Steve couldn’t help thinking of the sad cases that he regularly saw on those medical shows.
“Steve!” Willie yelled, then rolled the hospital tray out of his way. He struggled to work his way out of the tight-fitting arms of his recliner as Steve and Chloe walked over to him. Steve helped Willie the rest of the way up. He could hear that the simple act of standing up had left his brother out of breath. He sounded like he had just completed the Boston marathon.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Chloe said, smiling warmly. Willie grabbed her and gave her a bear hug. Steve watched. If there had been any doubt about her being the woman for him, it was gone now. She was seeing the dark side of Steve’s past and she was rolling with it. For a moment, life was good in Steve’s family. But like most happy moments in his life, it was fleeting.
Diana arranged a delicious meal. Steve helped her carry the dinner table from the dining room to the living room so it could placed in front of Willie’s recliner. “My big boy can’t fit in the dining room chairs anymore,” Diana cooed. Willie chuckled. Steve smiled, going along with it, but he was seething.
Steve remained polite through most of dinner as Willie and Diana got to know Chloe and she them. There was plenty of small talk. If Steve had just gone with the flow and enjoyed himself, he would have avoided the insanity that would follow. But the sight of his kid brother gnawed at him. Not only was he huge, but he didn’t even care. He was actually cheerful about it. As Steve, Chloe and Diana sat there, stuffed from dinner and desert, Willie kept on going. First, a second helping of the steak dinner. Then a gigantic bag of kettle cooked potato chips. And then a second 64 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. Instead of listening to conversation, Steve stared at his brother’s mouth as it went chomp, chomp, chomp. Finally, almost without thinking, he blurted out, “You’re killing yourself.”
The table went quiet. Chloe kicked Steve under the table. Willie lowered his head.
“I should start cleaning up,” Diana said, then she stood up, carefully avoiding eye contact with Steve. That was Diana, non-confrontational, always trying to keep the peace.
“How can you let him do this, Diana?” Steve asked.
“It’s his life,” Diana snapped back without looking at him, then she disappeared into the kitchen with a handful of dirty dishes.
“That wasn’t nice at all,” Willie said.
“Wasn’t nice?” Steve responded. “This isn’t grade school.”
“Enough, Steve,” Chloe interjected.
“It’s my body,” Willie said.
“How do you even get to work?”
“They let me work from home,” Willie responded, then he lowered his voice and said, “because of my heart condition.”
“Heart condition?” Steve asked, astonished. “You have a heart condition and you’re eating like this?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re going to leave Diana a widow.”
“It’s none of your business!”
“You had two steaks!”
“I’ve got an iron deficiency! I need my red meat!”
“Bullshit!” Steve yelled, growing more and more out of control. “Look at the table! You spilled more food than most people eat!”
“Enough!” Chloe screamed.
Steve and Willie both went quiet, then lowered their heads like reprimanded school children. Chloe looked back and forth at them. The only sound was Willie’s wheezing. Diana came back from the kitchen and continued cleaning up. Chloe stood up and began to help her. The two of them went back into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Steve choked out.
“It’s okay,” Willie said back.
“I just care about you,” Steve said. “That’s all.”
After cleaning up, Chloe and Diana joined them and without saying it, they all agreed to pretend that the incident had not happened. They continued with their small talk and pleasantries, and Steve did his best. But inside, he was boiling. He couldn’t look at Willie without thinking of a time bomb.
Steve and Chloe didn’t say much for most of the ride home. Then, when they were almost back, she said, “So that’s your brother.”
“Now do you understand?”
“You’re ashamed of him.”
“I always have been,” Steve replied. “School was hell.”
“You understand that you’re different people?”
Steven nodded.
“And I don’t love you any less for it,” Chloe continue.
Steve smiled, and tightened his hand around hers. At that moment, he was more in love with her than he had ever been. But it wasn’t enough to dislodge Willie from his brain. He simmered there, not just because he was his brother and only living relative, but also because he was a problem. And to Steve, every problem needed a solution.
-2-
Even before he opened his eyes, Willie knew he was in a strange room. He could tell by the way his breathing sounded -- it was hollow instead of warm. He sat up, opened his eyes and looked around. He found himself on a bed in a large, unfamliar room with gray, padded walls.
“What is this?” Willie asked. “How did I get here?”
Willie struggled to his feet, then looked around, taking the details in. There was a television and couch in one corner. Next to the television was a book case with reading material and tons of DVDs. On the other side of the room was a treadmill. In front of it was a large, metal contraption that he couldn’t identify. It had buttons on it and big mouth at its base, like on a vending machine. Next to the machine was a small kitchen area, complete with a refrigerator, microwave and sink. Seeing this made him hungry.
He waddled over to the refrigerator, then opened it. The inside was cold, but empty. He opened the freezer section to find that it was also empty.
“What is this shit?” Willie asked.
Willie looked around for a way out. There were two doors. He walked to the first one, opened it and found a bathroom inside. He noticed a toilet paper dispenser built into the wall, as if it was supplied from somewhere outside of the room. Willie walked to the other door. It was padded, like the walls. A small window was in its center. Willie tried the knob. It was locked.
“Fuck me!” Willie yelled.
By the time Willie got back to the bed, he was out of breath. His heart was racing and his legs ached. He lay down on the bed and realized that it was more comfortable than the one in his house. He was pretty sure it was one of those foam numbers. He began to fall back asleep, but then he noticed something odd. Above him, on the wall above the machine was a wide window that looked into a room on the floor above his and out of his view. It was as if it was there so that he could be observed.
Willie felt a chill.
“What am I,” Willie asked, “some kind of lab rat?”
Willie’s brain suddenly began to cough up memories. He and Steve had been on their way to a place called New Beginnings, a state-of-the-art weight loss clinic that Steve had told him about. “It’s where celebrities take their kids,” Steve had said.
“Is this New Beginnings?” Willie wondered aloud. He got to his feet again, then walked around the room. The last thing he could remember was the ride here. Steve had driven him in his SUV. Because of his size, Willie was forced to ride in the back. He remembered them moving through a heavily wooded area and thinking that it was strange.
“Can anyone hear me?” Willie yelled. There was no response. Willie went back to the refrigerator and looked inside again. It was still empty. He heard a gurgling sound coming from somewhere inside him. He was starving. Then he noticed cabinets above the sinks. “Thank God!” Willie gasped, then he opened the cabinets. They were all empty.
“I’m starving!” Willie screamed. “I need something to eat!”
Willie staggered to the center of the room. He could feel his heart hammering at the inside of his chest. He looked up at the window, but there were no signs of life up there. What kind of treatment was this? Shouldn’t someone be supervising him?
“What kind of fucking place is this?” Willie yelled. “Is this how you treat your customers? You starve them?”
Willie limped back to the bed, then lay down. This was the most activity he had had in years. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down, but all he could think about was his stomach and how empty it felt. It was as if he hadn’t eaten in months. He tried to remember his last meal.
“Breakfast,” he whispered, then smiled. On the way to New Beginnings, Steve had taken Willie to a breakfast place. Willie had already had breakfast, but he didn’t tell Steve that. He ordered a menu item called “The Enormous Eighteen,” which consisted of four pancakes, four eggs, two slices of toast, four strips of bacon and four sausage patties. Now he wished he had ordered something more.
“How long has it been?”
Willie realized that his watch was gone. He looked around and saw that there was no clock in the room. He couldn’t even tell if it was day or night.
“This is madness,” Willie said. “Insanity.”
A light went on in the room upstairs. Willie sat up and kept his eyes on the window. He saw a shadow moving. The prison keepers were home. He waited for them to show themselves, but nothing happened. Finally, Willie erupted. “Let me out of this fucking place!”
There was no response.
“God damn it,” Willie screamed, “I am not going to pay for this! I am not going to pay for you to torture me! To starve me!”
Again, no answer.
Willie got to his feet. He still hadn’t regained his breath from before, but he had to make some sort of a statement. He needed the screws to know that he was serious. “I have a very good friend who happens to be a journalist,” Willie said. “If you don’t let me out of here, he’s going to write one Hell of a story!”
Willie saw a shadow move. Then, nothing.
“This is illegal!” Willie screamed. “You do not have my consent for this! When I get out of here, I will sue you for every penny you’re worth!”
Willie slowly paced the room. He didn’t understand how Steve could have brought him to a place like this. Did Steve even know what they did here or had he just believed whatever the flyers stated? Hadn’t he done any research at all?
“Why did I listen to him?” Willie asked himself. Then, he suddenly began to cry. Willie collapsed onto the floor, sobbing like a child. “I need to eat! I’ll do whatever you ask, but I need to eat!”
Willie heard some feedback over hidden speakers. Then he heard a voice. “If you want to eat, you’ll do what I say.” It was Steve’s voice.
-3-
“All you have to do is walk one mile on the treadmill,” Steve said. “The machine will do the rest.”
“It’ll give me food?”
“Spit it right out,” Steve replied.
Willie didn’t want to believe what was happening, but the proof was right in front of him. Steve was helping these monsters torture him. He wondered if his older brother was getting some kind of sick pleasure out of it. Maybe it was revenge for all those embarrassing days on the school yard, when Steve had to listen to kids calling Willie “lard ass,” “whale boy,” “Willie in Sense Surround,” and countless other things. If Steve hated anything, it was being embarrassed.
“So what are you waiting for?” Steve asked.
“I’m thinking,” Willie answered.
“What is there to think about?” Steve asked. “You don’t even have to run. Just do a mile at your own pace.”
Willie did not respond. Instead, he sat back down on the bed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Steve asked. “You said you wanted to get healthy.”
Willie looked up at the windows. Steve was staring down at him, looking earnest and sympathetic. Willie lowered his head. He had only agreed to come here because of Steve’s badgering. Week after week, he called him to warn him that his life was in jeopardy. He sent him video tapes featuring cardiologists, he sent him books. He even sent him a blown-up photograph of an enlarged heart. “Don’t you want to feel good again?” Steve had asked him over and over again. Finally, Willie had succumbed. The truth was he did want to feel good, but he didn’t want to go through this.
“Well?” Steve asked.
“You didn’t tell me it would be like this,” Willie responded.
“I told you it would be hard.”