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paulrousseauwrites-blog · 7 years

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“50 Pounds for $200,000

Fifty Pounds for $200,000

Justin graduated from college a couple days ago, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. He waits at Eric’s front step, rolling on the balls of his feet. Eric is Justin’s new boss. Eric makes a little beat on his pants, glancing over some email and recipes online.

Justin rings the bell. Eric hurries to greet him.

“I am so glad you’re here,” Eric says. Justin follows a few inches behind. They walk directly to the basement door, as agreed. There is a handwritten sign taped to it reading ‘The Backyard.’

“Justin, right?” Eric makes sure. He says there were numerous other candidates. Justin nods, tucking in his upper lip. Eric’s eyebrows are shaven off, but the rest of his hair looks fantastic in a ponytail. Justin looks young with unkept scruff on his face and big, beautiful, coffee bean eyes. “I know how tough it can be to find a good job after school,” Eric says. “I got lucky in life. But don’t worry, your hard work will pay off here.”

He leads down a straight unfinished staircase. Justin goes pale, using the handrail until his first shoe sole touches the basement floor. It is covered in green turf, mocking the look and feel of grass. There is only enough square footage for one wooden picnic table, Eric’s furnace, and the type of scale found at a doctor’s office, with three variable sliding weights at the top. Eric motions for Justin to take a seat on the bench. Justin obeys.

“Welcome to your new office,” Eric says. He leans over the table. Justin is silent. He looks at the poking blades of worn plastic grass. “The décor was my mom’s idea,” Eric says. “She wanted to give me a taste of what is was like to play outside. You know how little girls put on make believe tea parties?” Eric asks.

Justin nods his head yes. He thinks about the tiara and scarf he would wear while babysitting his girlfriend’s niece, sitting cross-legged on the floor. She would tip the toy kettle spout over Justin’s cup, giving artificial weight to the pour. Justin would ask why nothing was really coming out. Pretend, she would say. And he would take a sip.

“I did make believe Backyard instead,” Eric says. “BBQs and picnics. I fed all the little critters that made their way down here.”

Eric is a self-taught chef. He pays recent college graduates $200,000 to live in his basement and gain fifty pounds eating the food he makes. And he feeds them constantly. Once they gain the weight, they get paid in cash, and then they can leave.

***

Sara walks into Justin’s bedroom, a week before graduation. Justin is playing guitar in a swivel chair with his back to the door, unaware anyone has entered. The window is open, permeating the space in a perennial spray. It has gotten dark since he first sat down, but he hadn’t noticed. Sara pops the light switch upwards on instinct as she crosses over the doorway’s threshold. Justin’s pupils retract.

“Sorry! I figured you were in the bathroom,” she says. Sara is a Management major with a minor in Entrepreneurship.

She wraps her arms around Justin’s neck as if her limbs were an oversized sweatshirt, crisscrossing at his throat. She catches a breath of his cologne. He doesn’t stop playing or turn to see who it is.

They hold there for a moment. Sara squeezes, applying a little pressure to the tops of her boyfriend’s shoulder blades, his collarbone. Justin picks his guitar, looking at the fret board binding and headstock inlays. She kisses his hair before releasing him to claim a patch of carpet near his legs.

Justin nods. Sara looks up, grinning as if she is out to dinner somewhere waiting patiently for her food to be plated, or in line for something worthwhile, like the opening night of a movie.

He plays a little longer. It sounds new, or improvised, too slow for Sara’s taste, but she watches anyway for a cue that his is finishing soon. Her expression looks stitched on like a sock puppet, like she has something to say, but the hand working her is refusing to interrupt. Justin places the instrument onto its designated stand, turns off the light, and sits back down.

***

Eric has moved on to bigger and better things now. No more BBQs and picnics for the rodents and insects. No more crumbs, bed sores, or pretend. “I’m going to start you off with my famous baked mac and cheese with charred short ribs mixed in, grilled asparagus in a chipotle aioli smear on the side, and for a sweet, two fudge brownie cupcakes. You don’t happen to like cream cheese whipped topping, do you?” Eric asks.

Justin nods yes, his eyebrows parked up higher than usual. Eric points parallel finger guns at Justin’s torso, one slightly behind the other. “I thought you might,” he says. He scampers upstairs, skipping every other step, then shuts The Backyard door.

Eric himself looks like he doesn’t eat at all. He is very thin for someone who enjoys cooking so much, with a small tongue and flat lips. He has many dietary restrictions due to disease. He dips spoons in sauces and dabs out his stubby tongue to taste them, as if it were a dare. Forty-five minutes later, he returns to The Backyard with Justin’s first taste of employee business.

***

“Hey you,” Justin says. He stretches his spine over the back of his chair.

“Hi. I know it’s later than usual but I wanted to eat quick and shower before seeing you,” Sara says.

“Thanks, stinky,” he says.

“Well I was moving around a lot today! I get sweaty when I drive,” she says.

“How did it go with all the stuff?” he asks.

Sara coils with potential energy before the hand controlling her mouth finally bursts. “I got a call back for a second round interview with Northgate!”

Justin blinks in triplets. His eyelashes are longer than most people’s. “That’s really really great,” he says.

“The only problem is that it’s at 11:00 and I have another interview with a different marketing firm at 9:30 so I’m nervous about timing. GPS says if I leave there by 10:00 I should be able to make it regardless of how heavy traffic is,” she says, flicking through maps on her cell phone.

“AM or PM?” Justin asks.

Sara doesn’t look up. “Really?” she laughs. “I get more and more worried knowing I’ll have to cut the first interview short if it starts dragging on too long. Is that rude? Will they call Northgate and tell them I was rude and then no one will hire me?”

“If you don’t care about the first one why don’t you just cancel it?” he prods.

“I can’t! I need the experience. Plus what if they pay six figures? It shouldn’t take more than a half an hour right?”

“Tell them you have to leave ahead of time.”

“I suppose. I need that job at Northgate, Justin. Everyday, the front desk lady blares Brittany Spears. They get paid time off, health, dental, Thursday night drink specials with the entire staff, and a nap room. All we talked about in the first interview was Harry Potter and how much we love caffeine.”

“That’s really something,” he says.

Sara lifts herself up into Justin’s bed, on her side with her head propped up in the palm of her hand. “I need that job so bad.”

***

Eric sets the table with enough food to feed a family of five. He is wearing an apron imprinted with the text ‘in dog beers I’ve only had one.’

“And?” he baits, opening his arms like someone waiting at an airport terminal, expecting a hug.

“Okay,” Says Justin. He closes his eyes.

“What are you waiting for?” Eric asks.

“I’m saying grace,” Says Justin. He waits for Eric to leave.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Eric says. He hands Justin a bib, legs firmly planted on the imitation grass. Each coupling blade looks like a pair of arms, budding out of the floor to hold him down.

“Why?” Asks Justin.

“You gotta wear the bib,” Eric says. “Wouldn’t want to make a mess of your nice shirt.”

Justin shakes his head no.

“It is in the job description,” Eric begins. “It could be a month or more till your next change of clothes.” Eric loves seeing the transformation happen. He loves watching his employees fill out and eventually outgrow their clothing, new flesh bursting at the seams. “You all balloon up like circus tents eventually,” he says. Eric puffs his cheeks out with air and slaps his belly. He laughs. “I can help if you’d like? Do you up in the back?”

Justin doesn’t respond. His eyelids draw closer together as if someone were slowly sewing them shut, pouring sand in his veins. The same devastation that used to haunt him when he’d get called on in class. A professor could simply announce Justin’s name in roll call to get him afflicted.

Eric repossesses the bib and ties it around Justin’s neck as if he were a newborn baby, in a perfect shoelace bow. “This way you can be as messy as you want and it won’t stink you up.” Eric takes a breath of Justin’s cologne. Both hearts are throbbing. Eric pats down the bib to flatten it. “There, ta da!” He waits, arms raised high above his ponytail. “Now… dig in!”

Justin shakes his head no.

“I always supervise the first bite of my employees,” Eric says. He gets a Polaroid camera ready. “Consider it an orientation exercise.”

Justin fumbles with the silverware, hesitating between utensils, between fork and spoon, hesitating in his posture, where he is in space, and how he got there.

“The fork is for the asparagus,” Eric says. He gapes his nostrils in short bursts.

Justin scoops a spoonful of macaroni and holds it tentatively above its dish. Everything steams. He brings the spoon closer to his split crescent lips and cools it softly.

“Eat up! No need to be coy. I made it just for you. Give your body the nutrients.”

Justin feels naked, like the first time he took off his shirt to go swimming. He gathers some of Eric’s noodles using his front teeth, raking them onto the cupped pallet of his tongue, miming the action of a miniature farming tool. Justin chews making as little noise as possible. He wipes away excess run-off cheese from of the corner of his mouth that bungeed and curled there. There is a camera flash.

“Excellent. Thank you for the sweet satisfaction,” Eric croons. He ruffles the top of Justin’s hair. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” he says. He races upstairs again lunging over many steps at a time. Justin keeps feeding alone.

***

“What are you thinking about?” Sara asks, covering her legs in Justin’s comforter.

Justin steers with his feet, swiveling in little increments to each side as if he were skiing in place on his chair.

“Music,” he says. “History.”

“Still waiting to hear back from grad school?”

“Yes,” he lies. The email came last week, regretfully informing him, wishing him every success in pursing further studies elsewhere.

“You are a shoe-in,” she says. “You are way too smart. You are too smart for your own good.” She takes her shirt off. “I can’t wait until we live together. I am jealous of Kevin and your sister.” She touches her hands to her temples. “I want to buy a house with you.”

“They are older than us,” he says. “And almost married.”

“I know, but they are so lucky,” she says.

“I know,” he says. “I’ll hear back soon.”

“You’re so talented. Nobody could possibly turn you down,” she assures.

Justin crawls into bed with her using mostly his forearms. She rolls over, now on her back in a bundle of pillows. They lie side by side.

***

Justin eats it all, as agreed. Eric comes down the stairs at the thirty-minute mark, ringing a cattle bell and grunting some sounds a pig might make with his mouth, “oink oink oink.”

He takes a seat on the same side of picnic bench next to Justin. Justin pats down his forehead with paper towel and just now notices that the ceiling is covered in navy blue construction paper with crudely painted on treetops and clouds.

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour,” Eric quotes. “This isn’t necessarily a job requirement, but how was the grub?”

Justin’s sock puppet is stitched shut. It was the tastiest food he has ever had, better than anything his parents or grandparents have ever made for him in his own childhood home, but he admits to nothing.

“That’s fine, if you want to get paid, if you want to leave, you’ll eat it all the same,” Eric says. “Time for weigh-in numeral uno.” Eric points with his thumb over his shoulder at the scale behind them, propped up against a patch of drywall. His breath smells like hamster bedding. “Your new best friend, as I’m sure you are aware,” he says. He bites down repeatedly on his own teeth. The skin in charge of covering his cheekbones tightens like a snare drum.

Justin’s stomach hurts. He blinks in triplets.

“Giddy up partner,” Eric says. “Hop on.”

Justin obeys, stepping up onto the scale, holding his torso. The turf stabs through Justin’s tennis shoes as he walks, gabbing at his feet. Eric says Justin is lucky he doesn’t make his employees crawl on all fours anymore. It became too painful for them to eat salty foods with their hands. Eric nudges the three varying brushed steel counterweight blocks, fingering the smallest in little jabs to get the best possible measurement. He bobs his shoulders, dancing a little, waiting for the bars to level. They recalibrate, and he does it again. Justin weighs 168 pounds.

“I think I see a little tummy forming already, bud! I really filled you up,” Eric says.

Justin is hunched over a little. Eric pens the number on the wall with a black permanent marker. He smiles, not showing teeth, thinning his already flat lips, stretching them longways until the color draws out completely.

“Weigh-ins will be at seven o’clock every evening,” Eric says. He is rich. His dad invented the Rubix Cube.

“I need the money,” Justin says.

“I know,” Eric says.

Justin needs the money for student loans, and property taxes, and cell phone bills, and engagement rings. Eric doesn’t need money for much of anything except ingredients.

***

“I’m awful. You must think I’m awful, or a snob,” Sara says, covering her eyes.

“Why would I think that?” Justin counters.

“I’m bragging about jobs and interviews and you’re still in limbo waiting to hear back from school. You’d tell me if you were getting antsy right?” she says.

“It’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine,” he says. “You can’t be awful for just being excited.”

“Alright. You’re going to get accepted anyway.” Sara straddles her legs around Justin’s V-lined hips, drawing micro French curves all over his chest. “I just can’t wait to tell everyone about my boyfriend, the big sexy historian, teaching the world all sorts of history related things. You’ll be making bank, I’ll be making bank, we can buy a huge house, get married, go on tons of exotic vacations, throw money at each other, get unlimited data plans…”

“That’s painting quite the picture.” He rubs her thigh with his nails.

“I can’t wait to bask in our success,” she says. “We are such a power couple.”

The hand operating Justin’s mouth creeps open, as if wanting to say something. Sara closes in. They kiss instead. She retreats, then presses her lips quickly on his nose.

“I love you,” she says.

***

“To snack on tonight I was thinking shredded chicken enchiladas tossed in a green chile sauce, pan fried walleye fish tacos, and beef empanadas with cilantro rice and refried pinto beans on the side.”

Justin shrugs knowing he has no real say in the matter.

He steps off the scale and tries to find the warm spot back on the bench’s wood grain. Eric hustles upstairs, again bounding over two steps at a time. He stops in the doorway, and pirouettes. He pats a rhythm on his legs before saluting diagonally to Justin from the top of the staircase.

“Adieu, see you soon! I’ll bring a bucket with me after your next course, you know what they say, what goes up must come down.”

Justin waits for the privacy. He thinks about his girlfriend and her little niece. When they taught him how to pretend. He wishes Eric’s plates were empty like the toy kettle, that he just had to add artificial weight to them, and then take a bite or sip. Justin masks his head in his hands, twisting his face in an attempt to cry without making sound.

***

Sara is sleeping. Justin starts to climb out of bed, pressing his hands on the mattress as to gradually release the pressure that his body held next to hers. He doesn’t want to wake her up, he doesn’t know how to say I love you too right now. He checks his inbox instead. There is a reply from [email protected] with the subject bar ‘50 lbs. for $200,000.’

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