Santa Monica Boulevard, the gay part of town, had an exciting energy. It was the beginning of the weekend, and the restaurant workers were placing candles on the outdoor tables, setting a welcoming scene for their patrons to drink, talk, and unwind from the week of work. As I drove down the boulevard, past the lesbian coffee shop I’d gone to the day I got Ally McBeal, hoping no one could see me through my tinted car window, I was once again aware of the emptiness. Losing weight was no longer exciting to me, and maintaining it was hard. I was exhausted most of the time and the ante on exercise seemed to keep going up. Unexpectedly, a voice would sound in my head at the point of my workout where I would usually have quit, telling me to march on, to keep going, that it wasn’t enough. It told me I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t do it long enough, that there was still a long way to go before I could rest.
The drill sergeant voice accompanied me everywhere, recorded all the missed moments when I was sitting but should’ve been standing, moving around, doing something. It was hard for me to drive anywhere, even to the Pilates studio. I had figured out several different blocks in LA where I could get out of my car and stretch my legs. I wouldn’t always run around the block, sometimes I would just walk with a deliberate stride. Sometimes I didn’t have the energy to run. I had the urge to get up from being immobile, but I didn’t have the energy to make it a useful excursion. The voice that made me get out of my car, that called me a lazy pig for walking instead of running around the block, would get back in the car with me and accompany me all the way to the studio, where it laughed at me for being late to work with no burned calories to show for it.
I pulled into the valet parking lot of the Pilates studio. The parking lot was shared with a restaurant and if you liked to work out when other people were going to dinner, then a valet would take your car. The voice told me to get out of the car as fast as I could and go burn calories. I got out of the car in a hurry and left my keys in the ignition for the valet.
How are you going to pull it off? How could you ever be pretty enough to be a leading lady? You’re not even thin. You don’t have long, lean limbs. You have ordinary looks and an ordinary body. You can’t play a leading lady in a movie. You’re gay. What a joke! What happens when people find out you’re gay and you’ve fooled them into thinking you were Christian Slater’s love interest? How is that going to work? Give it up, you stupid dyke. How long are you going to pretend you’re something you’re not? How long do you think people are going to fall for it?
As I reached the top stair and looked down at where I’d left my car, I saw it moving. My car was moving!
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody’s stealing my car!”
I ran down the stairs, my heart beating in my throat. Jesus! Where’s my dog? Is she in the car?
“Help! Help me! Somebody’s stealing my car!” I got to the bottom step, flung my body around the railing, and ran to my car feeling like there were weights tied to my ankles, like I was running with someone holding me back. Evil was holding me back, allowing my car to be stolen in front of my eyes. And my dog! Oh my God! Bean! I screamed out her name, “BEAN!!!”
The car stopped and a man got out. He was wearing black pants and a blue vest. He held the keys up to me, silently. He looked frightened. We stood there, facing each other, him in his blue vest and me in my platform off-camera shoes and spandex shorts with the elastic waistband that was too loose for my hips. We stared at each other, and now it was my turn to be frightened. I gently took the keys from him and quietly sat down on the warm leather seat. I checked for Bean and she wasn’t there. I drove away in silence. No metronome. No marching orders. I drove back down Santa Monica Boulevard and past the lesbian café. Staring into the café, I drove through a red light. I knew that because a man crossing the street at the crosswalk slapped the hood of my car as he narrowly avoided getting hit and then by the time the noise registered, I saw that I was in the middle of an intersection, all alone except for a car rushing at my side. I drove home to my cold, empty apartment and vowed never to go out again.
The number 82 on the scale should’ve meant something other than what it did to me. All it meant to me was that I was seven pounds lighter than the last time I weighed myself. The number 82 was the reward for my hard work, a nod to my dedication, a flashing red digital recognition of my self-control. It was a way to silence the drill sergeant in my head, and in this subjective world full of conflicting opinions, it was a way to objectively measure my success. Another way to measure my success was to use a tape measure. I had begun measuring the objects and the space surrounding the objects. Like a study of semiotics, I measured the white and black surrounding the white, the vacuous space that held its object and gave it substance. I measured my big legs with their thighs and the space between my thighs. I measured my footballer’s calves and watched as the chunky fat withered away to become a dancer’s calves and then a little child’s calves, too new and underdeveloped to be labeled anything other than just legs. I measured myself daily after weighing for a more accurate understanding of my progress. Occasionally, I would measure myself visually. I would stand naked in front of a mirror and look at myself. Sometimes I even loved what I saw. Sometimes I saw a boy, maybe twelve years of age, with a straight skinny body and no ugly penis that he would forever be measuring, wondering if he measured up. I sometimes saw a teenage girl with no breasts and no curves that would turn her into a woman with desires and complicate her perfect, sterile life. Sometimes I didn’t see a person at all, I just saw the inch of fat on a stomach and thighs that encouraged me to continue to lose weight. I knew I wasn’t attractive, and I was very happy about that. I didn’t want to be attractive. I didn’t want to attract. As long as no one wanted to be let in, I didn’t have to shut anyone out. If I could keep people from being interested enough to ask me questions, I didn’t have to lie. As long as I could be alone with my secrets, I didn’t have to worry about being found out.
At 82 pounds, I wanted to photograph myself. I wanted to document my success. But first I had to silence the drill sergeant that reminded me of that extra inch of fat. First I had to get rid of that.
27
“CHECK THE gate.” There was a suspended moment as the cameraman shone a flashlight at the film in the camera.
“Good gate.”
“That’s lunch. One hour.” The scene of the crew and cast broke apart, first at its edges, with the actors strutting off the set and directly to their trailers, then the lights were shut down, the camera track taken apart, and finally the director on a chair on the far edge of the scene, with his script supervisor and ADs in tow, collected his notes and headed toward catering. It was my first day on the set of Cletis Tout. I hadn’t done any acting yet; my scene was coming up after lunch, but I had been at the set all morning. I had been asked to go to wardrobe for a final fitting and to work with the props guy as my character was a smart-ass, wisecracking potter who was tough on the outside, cold, hard, and glazed over yet fragile and needing to be handled delicately—like her pots.