But... Look, I'm one too. I'm into women a lot like me. Is that twisted? When you "normal" Americans, the most obese people in history, look to me like hypocritical hippos, big and ugly and gobbling the whole world while you point at us and call us sick... When we're just boycotting consumption.

I find myself talking with an Army recruiter. Sergeant Habit's hardly my kind of person, but he has an idealistic streak I respect. "I've thought of going into politics--the country needs honest people in government--but I'm not ready. I've never even been around the country, haven't met or worked with a wide enough range of people. So many politicians are limited to the views of their own background."

I ask "Why DON'T you travel round the country and GET that experience?"

He says "No, no, this job's schedule is just too tight. I only get 72 days off a year."

SEVENTY-TWO DAYS?! My god, I'd be out of here like... wait. I have MORE than 72 free days--I'm unemployed! I got savings, time, I'm even pretty healthy for the first time... I could see the world now--after years of chronic illness.

But I dismiss travel as still too risky. Am I as habit-bound as the Sergeant? Well, I'll start small--I'll go out tonight. My friends Hopey and Maggie invited me to hear Veronica's new band. Maybe I'll meet a nice punk girl.

That evening, at the Punkadelic...

"The better to heckle and jeckyll, my dear."

The announcer yells "And here they are... VERONICA AND THE VOMITS!" Maggie and Hopey start cat-calling and tossing beercans, harassing Veronica though she's a friend (in fact, she and Hopey fuck occasionally, when Maggie's out of town).

I'm shocked. "Why are you doing this? You used to play and sing with her."

"Exactly!" snaps Maggie. "We wanted to PLAY--have fun--but she got so serious about 'her band' she was a fucking dictator."

"Still, they've gotten pretty good--maybe any serious artist has to be a perfectionist to get things done right."

Hopey snickers "You're sure defending her. What, you got the hots for her too?"

I'm stung. "Whaddaya mean TOO? She always chases YOU. You can take her or leave her. Don't rub it in."

"Not me, stupid! Look at poor Tomatobrain down there, chewin' on his corazon." It's true. A shy punk boy curled up on the front row bench, with a hopeless crush on Veronica. I forgot about him--but then, everyone does. His love is truly hopeless, since Veronica only likes girls--hates men in fact. But he doesn't know that, or doesn't want to know. She's just too hot for him to be logical...

He's too shy and inarticulate to try to talk to her, but to get her attention, he imitates Hopey and Maggie--pulls out some ripe tomatoes and flings them them at Veronica!

Dripping, glaring, she screams "CUT! No music till the fucker who did that stands up." Dead silence.

To my amazement, the Army recruiter stands up! He goes to the Punkadelic? He points at Tomatobrain and roars "STAND UP, YOU!" Amazingly, stupidly, he DOES. The recruiter orders "Get that boy's name. I'll make sure HE'LL never join this man's Army!"

Oh, my god. I knew he was stupid, but I had no idea HOW stupid. Lifetime government blacklist? That's like throwing bloody meat into a shark tank. The crowd starts to scramble, fighting over food or beer bottles to toss at the band! Bonk Veronica and be on a military blacklist for life? What an opportunity!

As the riot gets into full swing, I think "So it wasn't my bias--that recruiter really IS dumb as dirt. An idiot could see that riot coming! He's honest, but THAT's not enough to be a leader."

Veronica and the Vomits is the world's first all-bulemic band.

Well, the first one to admit it...

AWAKE

• Uh oh. Man, I'm seriously split! The Maggie-Hopey side of me just wants to have fun--music, dance, sex--and trashes anyone who spoils the party! And my Veronica side is a born party-spoiler: serious about both music and career. Her arrogance provokes sabotage. Another side, Tomatobrain, gets crushes he's too immature to express openly, so he also sabotages art and career... not from anger, just to get attention. And my habit-bound side, blind to the motives of people unlike himself, just inflames the problem when he tries to solve it.
• Hopey and Maggie are from LOVE AND ROCKETS by Jaime Hernandez, and if you don't know what that is, get down to the library and read some of the Hernandez brothers' work. Amazing, hilarious character comedy... shit I'm envious.
• Bandleader = Terry, in LOVE AND ROCKETS. An icy, elegant punk princess, who loves Hopey and is jealous of Maggie. Hopey will fuck Terry while Maggie's away on jobs, but when she comes back...
• But why'd my dream name her Veronica, instead of Terry? Oh, jeez. The rich girl in "Archie" comics! Is THIS what my dreams think of me?
• Shy Tomatobrains = Lately I've regressed to stealing glances at girls in dance classes and my anorexia support group--avoid their eyes, too shy to talk.
• Sergeant Habit worsens the problem by rewarding the harasser = Calling myself a hopeless case gives me an excuse not to date, not to try to succeed artistically? Then I can just kick back and play--just what my inner Hopey and Maggie want!
• I think this playful side also resents my anorexia group--they hate how I long for so many of those gentle, slender girls, just as Veronica pines for Hopey. But falling in love with an anorexic or bulemic nearly guarantees I won't be loved back! I'll always be second to her true husband: food. No wonder my inner chicanas just want to riot.

MONTHS LATER

I've been drawing "Bonk Veronica" as a comic book. What a war between habit, fun, art, and desire! As I finish, I have a follow-up dream:

I'm at Anorexic Boot Camp! We're standing on a playing field or parade ground, in a grid, as if for a dance warm-up, all of us in leotards--five hundred anorexics, bulemics, models and ballerinas. I'm the only boy. I ogle my squadmates guiltily--some of them are so sexy! I know we're all dangerously thin, but I see through anorexic eyes, and I can't help seeing us as normal.

Maybe we are. You non-anorexic Americans are, after all, the fattest race in history, and increasingly mean to us skinnies. We're an oppressed minority, just like obese people. We have to learn pride and self-defense! Maybe there's nothing wrong with MY eyes at all, you hypocritical hippos!

Our drill sergeant is an ex-Marine. She yells "Okay, troops! If fatties attack you, FIGHT BACK and blow your whistle, sound the distress call! And if you hear a whistle, rush to defend our own, and BASH THOSE BASHERS!"

We raise our fists like a Black Power salute and shout together:

I'm nervous, though: I'm up near the front of the class, so if I turn to look, all those fists are waving at ME--the only man here. I keep fearing my classmates see me as the enemy. I know it's just my radical feminist past haunting me--anorexics don't generally blame men. Too many other women criticize our bodies! And the thin-haters are nearly all women.

Now we're supposed to learn to crawl forward under enemy fire--calories and fat jokes zing overhead, like bullets. "For Twiggy!" yells the girl ahead of me, and wriggles forward in her muddy leotard. What sexy legs, from behind... no, no, focus on survival! "For Karen Carpenter!" I yell, and follow...

This is getting a bit too military for me--we're not likely to fight a WAR after all! But we do it for practice. I act brave, keep in front, drawing extra fire just to prove my loyalty. My guilt for being male is still pushing me. Hope it doesn't get me killed! Like those Japanese-American and African-American units in World War Two that took such heavy casualties... I'm afraid I'll push myself till I get shot down!

And... if I'm so twisted for liking other anorexics, for seeing them as normal... just point me to these HEALTHY women I should chase instead! Everyone I meet has scars of some kind. Some spew nastier things than food: lies, hostility, gender-blame, judgments...

At least here in the anorexia group, in our slender circle, we admit our craziness and pain, and TRY to heal...

Am I twisted to want a lover on that path?

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