Chubs

He hated him because he was fat. It was that simple. His friends tried to convince him otherwise, suggested that maybe "hate" was too strong a word. But it wasn't. Really. This was full on hate. Not just dissatisfaction, or dislike, or distaste. They (his friends) suggested that maybe it had something to do with the man's annoying character, but while it was true - he was a walking nightmare of puns and toilet humor - this alone was not enough to inspire hate. They (his friends, again) even suggested that it had something to do with the portly state of affairs as combined with the conspicuous name, unusually fitting for a fat man - Mr. Nathaniel Bernard Stromboli. But even that wasn't enough to explain the complete and utter, soulful, throbbing hate that he felt for this man.

No, it was as simple as it was seen - he hated him because he was fat.

This otherwise irrational emotional response - "You can't hate somebody just because they're fat. That's crazy!" - would have otherwise been unjustified, even to him, except for the fact that this Mr. Nathaniel Bernard Stromboli, was a complete monster of human proportion. His every rippling fold was an affront to nature. Here was a man who wobbled as he walked, little arms protruding out from his body like snowman twigs, gyrating quickly with every step, as they swung back and forth in a feeble attempt to balance his trampling through the hall. Sometimes it seemed as if he was ready to take flight, gearing up for an explosion of force that would somehow propel him forward and up and away, far enough away so that he wouldn't have to bother with hating him. Because hate is an incredibly taxing burden, particularly for the person doing all the hating, and especially when the hated person doesn't know anything about it.

When Mr. Stromboli sat, the edges of his skin climbed up and over the edges of his chair, cascading down on either side of him with distinction. It gave him an air of permanence, the impression to any individual who might happen by his office that he was indeed here to stay, organically connected with his chair, with the company, with client services that promised to "personalize your experiences to the point of quiet satisfaction. You WILL sleep tonight."

And even with all of this, there might have still been hope for avoiding these feelings of hate, if not for the despairingly predictable poor personal hygiene with which Mr. Stromoli conducted his affairs. What is meant by "affairs" is a general situation that caused the entire office to be involved in the daily struggle of odorous dissent that Mr. Stromboli raged against the janitorial staff and over-the-counter air fresheners they used, neither of which quite knew or understood their opponent.

By some miraculous arrangement, his shirt was always tucked in, even as it slid its way out to the very extremes of its fabric allowance. But this was perhaps the best, the most that could be said in his favor, for even as his shirts remained tucked, they also bore a creative arrangement of stains and blots and streaks of multiple colors and textures. There were the translucent sweat marks that pocked his back and stomach at various points throughout the day, a sundial of sorts that could be read by the greater frequency that occurred around noon and slowly faded to crusty abrasions of bubbled fabric as the day wore on. There were the food smears that Rorschached their way around him, sometimes, somehow, ending up on his shoulders, his side, the back of his bulbous neck.

Everyday at lunch, three massive Subway sandwiches sat around his keyboard and doubled as wrist pads and cleaning wipes. He would bring one up to his mouth, chomp down, and then replace it on the desk. They lay there bare, exposed to the elements, magnets for the off hair or particle that happened to be looming in the area.

"Want some?" Stromboli once asked, holding out a paw with a sandwich spilling out of it, interpreting his incredulous stare as a look of raging hunger rather than one of horrified observation. He walked away without saying anything.

"You can't be like that," a co-worker told him one day by the water cooler because this was the kind of office where people had conversations by water coolers, just as you see in the movies. "You're just so damn obvious about it. Everytime you're around the guy you have a scowl on your face. Or you get these googly eyes. Can that shit."

"I can't help it!" he yelled, throwing his hands up in the air, not as a dance move but simply to physically express his inability to control his instinctual expressions of disgust.

"You gotta try man." The co-worker shifted his weight and the bottle finally gurgled. He took a sip of his water and put his free hand in his pocket. "It's not like his fault he's that fat. Probably got a glandular problem or something. Some bad gene. You can't knock someone for bad genes."

But he didn't care. Genes, choice, whatever. It was all the same to him because the end result was still Stromboli, fat as ever, mustard pouring down his chin onto his pants and a juicy hand sliding across his wet mouth to rub away the excess.

"I have to go," he said finally, and walked away from the water cooler.

A few days later he walked into the elevator on his way out of the office, and just as he let out a sigh, ready for the doors to close and for his work day to end, he saw Stromboli barreling towards him. For a moment he considered hitting the button for the doors to close. A smile crept across his face at the idea of watching Stromboli reach helplessly for the little opening just as it shut him out, his heaving breaths left in the hallway. But his good nature got the better of him, and so he stuck his hand out into the sensors and waited until Stromboli deposited himself in the elevator car, his weight forcing the metal to grumble and creak.

"Thanks," Stromboli said, completely out of oxygen.

He just nodded and forced a smile. Already the waft of Stromboli's odor was growing thick in the space, the doors now closed, he wondered how long he would have to hold his breath.

The elevator proceeded down, each floor pinging to them, asking for attention. Patiently, the "L" waited for their arrival.

And then everything stopped, and the elevator hovered between 4 and 5, the lights of both floors glaring at them.

"Uh oh," said Stromboli, in a way that suited him very well.

"What the..."

An electronic voice came on in the car, scratchy and foreign.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. We can see you on the camera."

The both of them looked around in unison.

"Behind. Up. To the left. Hello."

They waved and then each, independtly, felt stupid about it.

"The elevator has stopped."

Yes it has.

"The elevator has stopped and we are very sorry for this."

"How long are we going to be here?" he yelled, to nowhere and no one in particular.

"We cannot hear you in the elevator. We can only speak to you."

But if he couldn't hear than how could he-

"I can see your mouth moving. You will need to be patient. Gentlemen, we have called an engineer. We will now wait for him. And he will fix the elevator. Goodbye."

Stromboli shrugged. "Damn foreigners. Never know what the heck they're talking about."

He nodded. He too believed this to be true. And he suddenly found that he no longer hated Stromboli.