Quarantine quadrupling: extra servings

Chapter 1: The Long Weekend

The bus had a distinct sag at the rear half, and its brakes hissed in relief as it pulled along the intersection of Gordito and Tubman avenue. Henry thudded his forehead against the window as he stared at the Artery Attacker.

He’d been gifted two days of respite from his usual grueling 6-1/2 day schedule. Riley said she wouldn’t deal with those “insurance hacks” if he dropped dead from exhaustion in the restaurant, and so she dismissed him for the weekend. His first to himself since he started working the register two years ago. At first he was ecstatic to break away from the daily doldrums of abuse and hog herding. Oaths were made to job search, eat salads, and renew his gym membership, accompanied by thoughts of self-improvement and self-esteem.

All resolve to improve were dismissed once the first cargo of food was delivered. The teen was forced to use a trolly to deposit the sacks of food. All bearing the Artery Attacker logo with a handwritten note.

Don’t want my favorite *** getting hungry.
Love, R

The delivery girl read the note aloud, as she claims she was instructed to, but Henry suspected his embarrassed squirming gave her some thrill.

“Love R., huh?” The girl said between snaps of gum. “Are you dating Ronald McDonald?” She gave him a feral grin that evoked images of a coyote eyeing up the plump hen.

Was it possible Riley had a sister? He shuddered to consider there may be more.

The food was delivered on the hour with more reliability than most major train stations. Riley must have tipped the drivers well to get such discipline.

And so he spent the weekend stuffing his face to the point of fatigue that even reaching the remote was an effort. He drifted between consciousness, only to gorge, before his cholesterol clogged heart failed to provide his brain enough oxygen to stay awake. The only thing that moved with any rapidity in his life these days was time, and he accomplished jack-all except needing to drill yet another notch into his belt.

It felt as though he sat down on Friday and his alarm blared him into life on Monday morning.
Now the bus was idling outside the restaurant, and he was struggling to slide himself from the handicap bench in the back. A displaced pregnant woman and man in a wheelchair glared at him as he pulled on the overhead bar for support, exposing the swampy lagoon of his armpit. He hadn’t moved off the couch for the entire weekend, let alone to rinse the constant coating of slick that covered his body. Just breathing left him winded and sweating, but the waddle to the station from his apartment had near killed him today. The other passengers shifted and went rigid, as though his musk were an armed gunman that just boarded and was holding a barrel against the crowd.
“Jaysus Christmas!” The driver pummeled the wheel and dash in a frenzy as he bellowed back at the crowd. “Who the fuck opened they damn nasty lunch on my bus? I keep telling y’all freaks to keep it covered till your stop.”

The pregnant woman leaned over, whispering something as she pointed to the back, but Henry could hear the distinct hiss of “stench…that very large man…”
Since gaining so much weight Henry had become accustomed to being treated with a level of disdain, but one thing he couldn’t comprehend was people assuming that once your BMI passed a certain degree you also became deaf.

For his credit, the bus driver, perhaps because he was a large man himself, felt no need to veil his shouts. “Ho-lee that’s a big fat, mother. Wondering why we was dragging ass on the hills. Hold on now, folks. I gots check we don’t have any flats in the back after he off.”

Their laughter was the thrumming beat to which he marched down the aisle. Some even applauded the driver’s unceasing cracks, and someone made mock tuba toots as he took his final steps down onto the pavement. Never before did he wish he could push himself to walk faster.
“I’m bout to deliver my tight five on that fat mother’s double-wide back nine.”

Their laughs grew to mad howls as the doors hissed shut.

The bus roared away, revealing the Artery Attacker looming in all its garish glory across the way.

“Welcome back,” he mumbled.

His shoes squealed with each step as he lumbered across the road.