Women’s Independent Press

By

Kathleen M. Rodgers

The moment my new husband leaves for the air base, I scurry into the kitchen, still in my nightshirt, and start shoving food into my mouth. Be it half a box of cereal, a dozen pieces of toast, corn chips and bean dip. Sometimes I pull on an old pair of sweats - regardless of the temperature outside - and drive to the convenience store for ice cream, cookies, packaged donuts, fried pies. Then I race home so I can tear into my food in private. I gorge until I can no longer breathe. Until my stomach feels like it will rupture. Until I can no longer stand myself.

Then the panic sets in. Hands trembling, I quickly clean up the kitchen and dump the empty food containers into the trash cans out back. The last thing I want my husband to discover tonight when he gets home after a busy day of flying, is evidence that I blew twenty bucks on junk food I barely tasted, instead of attending the squadron wives’ monthly coffee. What I do all morning, while he’s out risking his life for his country, is not sexy, productive, patriotic or normal. We’ve only been married a few months, and the last thing I want him to know, or anyone for that matter, is how ill I really am. It is 1980, I am 21-years-old, and we do not yet have a name for what is wrong with me. I do not have anorexia, where people starve themselves to death. I have something else, dark and ugly, and it’s been taking over my life since I turned 14. Try as I might, I cannot will it away.

With the scent of a candle filling the room, I cradle my aching, bloated belly (I look six months pregnant) and head down the hallway to the torture chamber. Ignoring the mirror over the sink, I turn on the faucet, flip on the exhaust fan, and bend over the toilet to heave. I’ll do whatever it takes to make myself gag, to get rid of the sickening amounts of food that I’ve consumed in less than an hour. I’ll stick my finger down my throat, a wooden spoon, or the looped end of an extension cord. And while I force myself to throw up, I dwell over dark thoughts I try not to think about the rest of the day: the loss of close relatives and friends over the years, the deaths of two pilots killed in a midair last week, the outrage I still feel over my parents’ divorce, family secrets never discussed, and my own sense of failure because I haven’t finished college yet or have a career.

With each violent heave, a frightening anger boils up out of me, and I shudder, repulsed by my own thoughts as much as by my actions. During these sessions, I hate my father for leaving my mother, I hate my mother for letting herself go after having six kids, and I hate myself because I am out of control. And in the deepest recesses of my mind, in those places where I am afraid to go, I worry that my husband – an Air Force Fighter Pilot – will die in a plane crash. At the same time, I also resent him, because he is afraid if I get help – psychological help - it will mean that I am weak and my weakness will reflect on his career. So I suffer in silence a little longer, seething within emotional wounds that I do not know how to heal.

When my stomach feels empty and all that comes up my gullet now is bile, when my throat is so raw it hurts to swallow, I wash my face and hands, brush my teeth, clean the toilet, then rip off my soiled clothes and stuff them in the washing machine. I spray air freshener to cover up the sour smell of puke. Pulling on running shorts and a sports bra, I glug a few glasses of water and head out the door to go run. Before I leave, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I see a young woman with an oval face, big blue eyes, and long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. I flash a dimpled grin, check my slim figure one last time, and out the door I go, projecting an air of confidence.

Adjusting my sweatband, I put one foot in front of the other and head down the streets of Tucson. It’s 105 in the shade, the heat is bouncing off the black asphalt, but I must do my time. Even now, I know I am running for my mind as much as my body. I’m running to stay alive. To try and gain some kind of inner strength that will keep me from killing myself with food. I do not want to die, alone in a bathroom, my esophagus ruptured, or having choked to death on a spoon. I am running to escape the past, the memories of growing up in a large family where I am the only teenager still clinging to baby fat, a middle child, who feels invisible until someone calls attention to my weight.

I run past houses with desert landscapes, in one yard a gigantic Saguaro cactus gives me the finger. Or maybe it is a salute, depending on the day. This morning’s episode is behind me, I remind myself, and I vow never to binge again. But a shadow tags along beside me, behind me, she is everywhere I go. She is 14 with bone-white-hair parted straight down the middle, hanging limp past her shoulders. Ruddy-cheeked and bashful, a scarlet rash between her thighs, her pudgy legs pump to keep up. I want to backhand her, trip her, tell her to go away.

I round a corner, gulping in breaths of air, certain I’ve ditched her. But there she is again, looming in front of me. All she wants is to be loved and beautiful, to shed fifteen pounds, to have a boyfriend. She’ll do whatever it takes to get there, even if it means declaring war on her body.

Nearby, a construction worker looks up and waves, his buddy next to him hoots and lets out a wolf whistle. Shyly, I look away as my long, tan legs pump faster and faster to cover ground, my ponytail swinging behind me. My running togs are soaked in sweat and the skin on my legs glistens under the glowing sun.

High overhead a fighter jet screeches past, then another, on their way back to base. Maybe my husband is in one of those jets. I run faster, pretending to race them, trying to catch up.
A sudden burst of adrenaline kicks in, and I feel like I can run forever.

But no matter how far I run, I can’t outrun the young girl who needs help…

To be continued…

Kathleen M. Rodgers is an award-winning author whose work has appeared in national and local publications. She is the author of the novel The Final Salute and has recently completed Johnnie Come Lately, a novel about a woman named Johnnie Kitchen, a recovered bulimic who’s still haunted by secrets from her past. To read more about Kathleen’s work, please visit her website: www.kathleenmrodgers.com