Measure of a Man

BY Peter Chambers

“I know you see this kind of thing every day, but this is a big thing for me. You know, it took a long time, and a lot of thinking – there are a lot of things, one on top of the other. It’s not just one thing, it’s a big bunch of things… I’ll tell you: indulge me, if you will. The first, but not the biggest reason why I’ve decided to do this… is because I can. Financially speaking, that is. More than that but – I should tell you, I guess, the whole – no, but a large part of why this is a gift, a gift to myself, is because it marks an achievement, a personal milestone, it’s a trophy. I want a big candle to blow out on my birthday. Ah, and I’ve got worse jokes than that, too. But it’s just like able seamen tattoo themselves to remember the boat and the crew (and maybe the buggery, too), for me this is a mark. Or there’s that joke, d’you know? Where the fella comes home – this is down in the deep South, mind – to his wife, and he’s all dressed up in spats, three piece suit, hat, cane – the very picture of Southern sartorial splendour. And she goes ape, bananas, yelling and screaming at him: ‘What you gone get all done up like that fo,’ fool?!’ And he says, ‘Well I been down to see the doctor. And he told me I was impotent. So I thought, well, if I’m gonna be impotent, then I wanna look impotent.’ Maybe I’m just like that guy, but I wanna mark of – I’m finally approaching a position that reflects my stature, so I want something that matches that. I think I should have the right to be as big as I ought to be, which is as I am. I am one of only five in the land, after all. So that’s the first thing – but maybe, I suppose, it’s not… I guess that’s my capacity, but not all of my desire. Maybe you’re thinking, yes, but so – why? I guess that’s linked into bigger, deeper issues, which is that… it’s ‘not big.’ I guess that’s how I’d describe it. Certainly not small, no way. I’ve never, it’s never been small, no-one would ever call it that. But it’s never been big, it’s always been ‘not big,’ and the bare fact is that I can have it bigger and I want it bigger. Wouldn’t anyone? I’m comfortable with that. And it’s not – I get these e-mails, maybe someone round your office sent the same one to you, about that crazy guy who injected himself with silicone until it was grossly distended. Either monstrous or magnificent – beauty is in they eye of the beholder, or the mouth if you had one big enough for this thing. Monstrous magnificence – but I’m not like that. It’s my judgment, which is – you ask, how can he be so definite about this? Well, who are you to judge, and who am I? I judge. My work, which is the measure of everything… in short, I have spent my life sizing things up, weighing, deciding – that’s the size of it. I’m good at it, I trust my judgment, and I know what I see. I judge myself wanting, and so I will the change. The distended man thought, ‘the bigger the better,’ which is true up to a point. And he was right. That’s his choice, his judgment. To every man their judgment of the world and themselves, up to a point. That point, the point which is ‘too big.’ …But then my wife, always… you don’t know how it gets to me. It gets to me, and that’s the point as well. After all these years, she’s still talking about her ‘Toby.’ I was friends with Toby. Until I met her, and then… I guess I’m responsible for the end of that too, but the bitch, she said – do you know what she said, she said (years ago, but still): ‘I’m glad you’re not too big… like Toby. Toby was just too big.’ And you know, maybe she meant it as a compliment, in the way that it’s nice not to have an elephant in the bathroom or shoes a size too small. But at that moment, I had horrible thoughts. If I’d had a ‘Toby,’ I ‘d have knocked her down and given her a good thrashing with it, a good beating, really taught her a lesson – that’s what was going through my head… but what lesson would it have been? You can’t menace any – you won’t scare anyone with this, truth be told, and in that way it’s not, I feel like… to be honest I’ve never felt it was… enough. Sufficient. Maybe that clears it up for you, maybe I’ve said it. It’s about sufficiency. It’s not that I ever wanted to be ‘Toby too big’, but – well, don’t we all want to be not merely sufficient, but – what’s the word? Ample? Yes, ample, that’s it. My car has ample power, space and comfort, just like a barmaid should have an ample bosom. Plenty, abundance – you can’t just wish it, you have to work for it, before you can choose it, and there’s a sacrifice involved, and I’m willing to make that sacrifice just like I was willing to work until I’d reached the point where I was able to be willing, if that makes sense. If it were ample… then I’d teach her a lesson – ‘cos that’s it as well, while we’re admitting things, it’s – in my marriage, that’s the way it’s gone. If we’ve lost the magic in our love life, it’s because when I wave my wand, she doesn’t see stars. When I wave my wand, it is precisely ‘nothing’ that happens. The opposite of magic. There’s no magic left. That’s why I hate those – you know, those bumper stickers that say ‘Magic Happens.’ Oh does it? Oh yeah, well come around to my house. She doesn’t see magic, just me and my gut, which as it gets bigger and bigger year by year, might even make it look… oh, it’s depressing. But it’s not just that – although, come to think of it, imagine how many of the world’s problems would be solved by the satisfaction we men would feel if we accumulated money, prestige, paunches, Porsches and inches, as the years piled up. I guess you’d be out of a job then… But – wouldn’t that be revolutionary? I’ve heard it said that ears and noses never stop growing, but never… but what I was saying, (don’t let me get sidetracked), is that it’s not all me, it’s her too. We’re all told – and it’s stood me in good stead throughout my career – that we must be flexible – and yet that means having a certain elasticity… which she’s lost. I saw a girl in a Chinese circus and she could almost… All my damn woman knows how to do is dwindle and sag. Oh, all that was supple, firm and plump! Why do you think I’ve been carrying on with her younger sister all these years? It’s simply because although she is objectively ‘smaller’ and actually ‘younger,’ she is in every way ‘more’ …ample (oh, what a word) flexible. And now that she’s pregnant again, she has that wonderful swelling. We never managed that. You cannot imagine my delight, that without fail, that bozo her husband knocks her up every three years so that in actual fact I’ve spent (let me count) …roughly 45 months, have enjoyed five times, the ripening of her tummy. Meanwhile at home, my wife, time running out for her barely hourglass figure is barren and shrunk, downcast dugs and not even any rump left in the skin of her buttocks nor firmness in her jowling cheeks, can’t get pregnant, is always in fact trying to lose weight. She has reduced herself to a small figure of my repulsion. And yet I love her, I suppose. In my way. ‘Good God,’ you say. …But I would give her more, if only she didn’t want less, and there it is. Less is more, for her, and that includes loving, at least the only way I know how to give it. It would make me sad, if I didn’t have my weekly communion with the sublime wrinkles of her ripening, widening sister. The meek can inhibit their girth for all I care – and maybe I did marry the wrong one. I can live with that. Yes, I can live with that, just like I can live with the cheating, which has been normal for so long that I would feel like I was cheating if I didn’t. Driving to our rendezvous, I always remember that repartee of Groucho Marx, where he says to Mrs Spaulding, ‘Let’s get married.’ ‘All of us?’ ‘All of us.’ ‘Why, that’s bigamy.’ ‘Yes, and it’s big of me too.’ But… I do feel guilty. I don’t want you to think it’s all a big joke, or that I’m a total monster. Maybe it’s that I’m not monster enough to act? This, it’s just the only way I can keep going and still… I hope that, somehow, after I’ve done this, that she might regain the respect she’s lost for me. And if she doesn’t… well, I have the consolation that her sister laughs at everything, even me. You get to making some big decisions. Tough judgments. All the little ones pile up until it’s a big fat heap (or you are). The stakes get higher, juicier. Big and fateful judgments, pregnant with consequences. Good. I’m happy for that. Or it’s too late to turn back. Both. Well, at least I’ve had you to talk to, to listen. Even the repulsive need to be heard. Or maybe – I hope there is, at least, a tiny part of me, in you. I hope you can sympathise. You’ve been a great comfort to me, or if you’ll pardon me, it’s been very big of you to hear me out… I’m sorry I’ve said too much.” “I’m going to administer the anaesthetic now.” “Certainly – how does it work?” “We don’t know exactly. The important thing is to know all about you, especially your body weight. If we miscalculate that…” “Oh, I’m sure you’re very good at measuring that.” “It’s my job.” “Okay, just a little prick, is it?” “Count to ten for me, will you?” “One, two, thhh…”