Fat man wearing a Fanny Pack Jumping on a Trampoline

Authors Note: This is a story from my creative writing class. We had to write down a character and a scene/action on separate pieces of paper. We then were forced to choose at random one scene/action and one character that our classmates had thought of and write a fictional story about it. I got fat man wearing a fanny pack for the character and jumping on a trampoline for the scene/action. This is the story I created:

He was an NBA prospect. A basketball god draped in North Carolina baby blue who had taken human form. He kissed babies, shook politician’s hands, and was fought over by slimy agents. Normally racist old-south whites only called him boy to say things like: “good game boy” or “your one fine player boy”. He was the next Magic, the next Jordan, the next great player who people would use to describe future phenoms. He was so close that he could taste the sulfur of the pre-game pyrotechnics. Unfortunately his knee had other plans.

A man does not die once his dreams are dead; in a physical sense at least. Fifteen years have passed since his injury. He is a hundred pounds heavier and a thousand times less wide-eyed and optimistic. His bullshit diploma in Broadcast Communications allotted him little in the way of job skills. He had intended on playing basketball with little preparation for much else. If it weren’t for his university offering him an entry level administrative position he likely would have been forced to hit the streets and hustle or become a used car salesman; neither option was particularly appealing. His girlfriend, who’s now his wife, was pregnant with twins. Money was something he needed. Kids are fucking expensive.

Now this former world class athlete is a suburbs dwelling family man with a mortgage, prescriptions to Zoloft and Lipitor, a wife who can’t stand him, and kids who make him feel guilty. His only comfort is the food he could never eat when he was an athlete: burgers, fried chicken, pizza, ice-cream, all that good stuff.  His habit has turned him into a husky heavy breather who can barely get into his car, let alone catch and flush an alley-oop pass. His pants have grown so tight, his butt so big, that sweatpants have become his new denim. The only problem is sweatpants never have pockets. The ones that do have pockets have tiny pockets. The only sense he could make of this was the majority of sweatpants owners are women (who have purses) and creepy old guys (who need some place to keep their Werther’s hard candies and their sex offender identification cards). This lack of pants-based storage presented a problem for him, as he couldn’t leave his wallet, cell phone, and cigarettes lying around his house.

            His wallet has been raped and pillaged by his wife and kids too many times. How many 360 games, H&M shirts, and manicures can one family buy for fuck-sakes? The man’s family must not have gotten the memo that he didn’t make the NBA, because they like to spend as such. The respectable salary he makes has been unable to suffice his families spending habits.

His kids have developed a spoiled grandiose sense of self. Their teachers, their friend’s parents, and practically everyone older than thirty in their town constantly rave to his kids about how great their daddy was for UNC. They gush about his fifty point game against Duke or his last second three in the Final Four against Michigan State. Who wouldn’t begin to feel entitled when people are constantly telling you about how lucky you are to be the spawn of such a legend? The man they were told about and the man they came home to were wildly different. Because of this he felt great guilt whenever his kids came home and relayed the stories of greatness they had been fed at school or at their friend’s houses. He wished he was a man his kids could be proud of. Instead he looked like the offspring of Charles Barkley and Jaba the Hutt. His self-loathing demeanor has rendered him incredibly guilty. If he couldn’t be a phenom for his kids  he could at least give them whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. His inability to say no has encouraged his kids to begin taking without asking, a habit his family cannot afford for much longer. At least having his wallet on him at all times forces his kids to ask him for money when they need it rather than just take it.

In contrast to his wallet, his cell phone is tainted with inappropriate text message from one of his co-workers as well as a girl he used to see in high school. He and his wife were college sweethearts. She helped him stay focused, get his schoolwork done, and avoid the many traps in place for a college athlete to fall upon. She did this out of love and probably out of the hope that once he made the NBA he could provide her with all the riches she never had as a child. Her nagging was a necessary evil back then, but now it’s just grating. He would never cheat on her but sexting isn’t cheating right? An innuendo and an accompanying wink face from a coworker here; a picture of his high school sweetheart in her slutty firewomen Halloween costume there; he was not physically cheating more just mentally cheating. He would never let it lead anywhere; sometimes he just needs something more than the intimacy his wife provides him in the form of sex only on his birthday and their anniversary. He could delete the incriminating evidence, but at times it feels like the only exciting thing left in his life.

The cigarettes are a secret that he, his car, and his back patio share with no one else. As an athlete of his caliber, smoking was never an option. He dabbled with weed a bit, but cigarettes just seemed pointless. Nevertheless, once he had accepted that office life was his eternity; cigarettes began making more and more sense. At first he used them as excuses to take breaks. However, soon he started smoking more and more, a likely representation of his desire to self destruct and a display of his sheer boredom with life. His wife and kids did not know he smoked. He used a lot of soap, gum, and spray deodorant to make sure of this.

This trifecta of items conflicted with his doughy body’s need to be enwrapped in sweatpants. He couldn’t have his cigarettes falling out of those tiny pockets. The only solution was something to hold all of these items, so that they would not have to leave his side. That solution was a fanny pack. Wanting to avoid the shame of seeking out and purchasing a fanny pack, he used the one he had been given as a token of appreciation for completing the “Walk for Hunger”, while he was in college. He could barely walk but he sure as hell was hungry. Even his fanny pack reminded him of how great he once was and how pathetic he now was.

He had become a fucking fanny pack wearer. Him, the gays, old mall walkers, and the 1980’s now all shared an aesthetic. Sweatpants and fanny packs, fused together were a white flag that any fulfillment in his life had surely been defeated by misery and self loathing. He would never do anything of meaning. His best days were all in the past. Little did he know that today he would become more a hero for more than his athletic spoils.

It was a sticky North Carolinian summer day.  His kid’s were off at camp. His wife was out likely complaining about him while spending the money he worked marginally hard to earn. Her many confidants included her girlfriends, her mother, her Vietnamese manicurist, all of whom had to sit through her diatribes about his lack of affection and his general not caring about anything. On days like this where he had time to himself, he would hang with the Marlboro Cowboy, Colonel Saunders, and Ben and Jerry. Today having already visited with the Colonel and B&J, he strapped on his fanny pack and headed outside to smoke a butt. He stared off as he ripped a butt, secretly hoping that his habits would bring on preemptive death.

Inhale… Exhale…Cough…Repeat:

“HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP”

A high pitched scream echoed from close-by breaking his methodical cigarette smoking. Where the fuck did that come from? He had to check it out.

He put out his cig in his water bottle and prepared for his investigation. His weight forced him to sway a bit to gain enough momentum to propel himself out of his chair. He wobbled towards the fence. The man’s 6’7’’ frame allowed him to peer over into his neighbor’s yard. His neighbor’s seven year old daughter, with whom he had had little interaction with, was flailing around in their pool. Where were her parents? Fuck she needed help.  

Sprinting around the block to their house would take his sorry ass far too long. 911 emergency services wouldn’t get there in time. He was all that could save her. The eight foot high fence the neighbors had put up was un-scalable. In his glory days he would have hopped it no problem. But now in this moment of panic his inability to do so only further highlighted how far he had fallen. Fuck he should have taken more Zoloft today.

He had to figure a way to get to her. He glanced around his yard and saw his kid’s trampoline, whose existence was the result of the last time he left his wallet unattended on the kitchen table. This was it; this was his shot.

He dragged the Trampoline over to the fence. As quickly as Barkley the Hutt could, he climbed up onto it. He could now see the girl flailing in the pool a mere ten feet away. He shouted at her letting her know he was coming. Caught in this moment infused with survivalist instincts, he had forgotten to take off his fanny pack. He bent his knees and began generating momentum for his great leap.

“Pop”

…goes the weasel that is his right knee, the reason he’s not living in a twelve bedroom house in Florida right now. By the second moment building jump he was out of breath and a ligament in his knee had surely been torn to shreds. However, adrenaline had kicked in and he pushed forward off the trampoline and into the air using his left leg.

“Splash!”

He had made it over the fence and across the canyon between his house and his neighbor’s pool. He was able to stand up in their shallow suburban pool. He grabbed their daughter and carried her tiny flailing body out of the water placing her gently onto a lawn chair. She was fully conscious. She might have preferred Superman or David Hasselhoff but he was what she got. He had saved her life.

The adrenaline had rendered his senses useless. The sights and sounds of the ensuing hours all blurred together: her parents coming outside to find an out of breath 6’7’’ man wincing in pain while  their daughter cried sitting in a lawn chair; the EMT’s and police desiring to discuss his days at UNC more than what had just occurred; the local newscasters and journalists beginning to spin the heroic tale of the former college star athlete turned life-saver; and his wife arriving home and throwing praise on him for the first time in ages (resulting in her promising several post-surgical bouts of non-birthiversary booty for the first time in ages).

All the while the only thing on his mind was the fanny pack floating there in his neighbor’s pool, a symbol of his many failings in life. After the surgery his knee was going to inevitably need, he pledged to change is life. Now was the time to get in shape and stop smoking, love his wife more, be more attentive with his kids, appreciate what he has, and finally ditch his mother-fucking fanny pack. He still might not have been able to walk and he was definitely still hungry, but food, cigarettes, and near infidelity were no longer the things that could satisfy his hunger; life now was.