Like I was saying in my earlier post, when I first moved to Athens, I lived with my Dad and Fat Janet. I slept on a couch with no room of my own the entire time I was there. Let me tell you that I have a great appreciation for my new house and furniture. It was a fucked up situation.

The apartment we all lived in was at the top of the hill on North Ave on Berlin St, right across from the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall. It was a 2b2b with a living room. Dad had his own bedroom. He kept the door shut at all times because there were two cats who also lived there who liked to sneak into his room and hide. Fat Janet had her own bedroom where her fully functional hospital bed took up most of the room. The living room had a couch which was covered in cat scratches. This was my bed. Also in the room was a big comfy chair. This was Fat Janet’s. There were two desks with phones that made up the office. This is where Janet would sit each night and make her telemarketing calls. In the kitchen was the dining table. This is where my computer was. Dad also used it for his desk once a week when he did the books for the business.

We had two cats. One was named Cat. She was a pitch black bitch straight from the bowels of hell, which explains why my Dad liked her so much. When he was in Atlanta living with Al and Janet in a motel, Dad would feed Cat scraps of fast food. She lived in the woods behind the motel and was obviously feral. One day she came into the room and decided to stay. I found out very quickly that Cat made the fucking rules and if you didn’t follow them, you would get fucked up. You didn’t pet Cat. She would make it clear when she wanted some affection. If you dared to touch her, you only did so on her upper back, never her sides, stomach, or head. If you veered off course, BAM. Cat Scratch Fever.

One time I was laying on the couch and Cat sat on my stomach and fell asleep. I was trapped. You didn’t pick Cat up, unless you wanted a divorce from your fingers. So I sat there for hours until someone in the apartment above ours dropped their refrigerator (or something really damn heavy) and Cat hit the ceiling. She left deep scars on my chest that are quite visible today. Dad wouldn’t go near her to cut her claws, so they just grew. When they were retracted they stuck out half an inch.

The other cat’s name was Booty. She was the complete opposite of Cat in every way. She was very affectionate and in a perpetual good mood. Nothing seemed to perturb her, even Cat.

We also had a dog. A Rottweiler named Annie. She was great, even though Cat bullied her on a regular basis. These animals helped give me some perspective while I was living there. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything. They just lived life from minute to minute.

So anyway, we had a packed house. And my personal space was whatever was on my body. I was my own room. If you know me personally, you probably know I’m one of the most intolerant non smokers alive. Maybe you’ve ever wondered just why that is? Well, my dad was a smoker. He smoked at least 3 packs a day. I already didn’t like smoke before I moved in with him thanks to my Mom smoking also. But when I don’t have any personal space to speak of, and I’m laying on my couch bed thinking ‘this can’t suck any worse’….then Dad lights up a Doral. With every breath I take I breathe in the smoke, which has come represent everything I hate about my life. Everything in that apartment was covered with a brown film from the smoke. If you took a picture off the wall, there would be a stark white square surrounded by nicotine. I could feel the molecules blanketing me, infiltrating my nostrils and poisoning me. And there was nowhere I could go to escape it. That my friends, is why I’m so sensitive to the smell of smoke, and why a smoker’s natural selfishness reminds me so much of my dad, who was perhaps the most self centered person I’ll ever know.

I was constantly fighting that sense of claustrophobia. It was made worse by living in the same house as Fat Janet. She would sit in her chair and listen for anything you might say, so that she could tell everyone else. This is how she communicated with others. No originality. Only parroting back what others had said. Every time she would tell Dad “Chris said such and such” I would tense up a little inside. I didn’t really notice but I’d become very tightly wound while I was living there. If anyone ever needed some personal space it was me. But there was none.

You might be asking yourself why the fuck I lived in this hell hole? If it hadn’t been for my presence, Dad would have killed himself. He would have begun drinking again, and then it would have been over. I kept him focused on going to his AA meetings, and I helped him deal with Fat Janet. It was the reason I’d come. I had a strong sense of duty, and that’s what kept me there.

Dad mostly stayed in his room and read his many many paperback books. I was left out in the living room, so I had to interact with Fat Janet. I began to take an interest in trying to figure out exactly what the hell was wrong with her. She was not a regular person in any way. She looked different and behaved different than anyone else I’d ever even heard of.

She was fat OK. I know it’s mean to call someone Fat Janet. My brother made up that name, but damn it! It fits her so well! She was very short and very very fat. She lived for food. In fact, food is the only thing she would talk about with any semblance of originality. Everything else was “Chris said this” or “Bob said that”, but when it came to food shows on tv, or recipes, or anything like that, she’d talk your damn ear off. She loved food and she ate a lot of it. Dad finally had to put her on a diet. But it didn’t work.

Every night at about midnight, after Dad was asleep in his room and I’d turned off all the lights, I’d be lying on the couch with Cat, thinking about how fucked up my life was. Then I’d hear the creaking and grunting of Janet trying to get her fat ass out of that hospital bed. Then I’d hear the sound of fat legs swishing against each other and breath shooting through two flat nostrils. She’d lumber around the corner and make a beeline for the fridge, trying to be quiet. I’d lay there pretending to be asleep, wishing I was asleep for God’s sake. She’d open the door and that light would hit her. I’d be watching from under my eyelids as she’d take the jug of milk out and just chug a lug. And my Dad didn’t believe in that pansy ass 2 percent shit. it was whole milk. Vitamin D baby. it would be running down the sides of her mouth. Let me tell you that the sound of a fat woman with no teeth sucking milk out of a gallon jug is just horrible, the stuff of nightmares. And the next day when I look at her legs and see rippling wiggling stalactites of cellulite and fat hanging there, I think about milk fat and how many pounds of it are encasing this woman.

I started buying my own carton of low fat milk. I knew no one would touch it but me.

I’ve been thinking of Fat Janet lately. My uncle had to have open heart surgery this week. He’s fine, but that got me thinking about my Dad, and his sad final months, and that led me to think of Fat Janet. If you know me, then you’ve probably heard me describe her before, but I probably didn’t do it justice. My life could be a story worthy of Augusten Burroughs, and I’m going to try to tell some of it.

I’ll start by telling you how me and my brother met Fat Janet.

My parents divorced when I was 11. I was in the 6th grade. I went for a while without seeing my dad or talking to him on the phone. He just sort of disappeared and I forgot about him. It’s weird to think you can forget about someone that quickly, but I quit thinking about him at all. A while later (i don’t remember exactly how long it was) he called the house and I answered the phone. I didn’t recognize his voice at all. When I realized who it was, it was like a sledgehammer of memories and emotion came down on top of my head. He told me that he was coming to Dothan to visit.

This visit became a routine that we would follow until I went away to school in Mobile. But for now, it was new and crazy. He shows up at the house, and looked so different. When Mom kicked him out, his hair was dark brown. Now, a year later, his hair was stark white and he had a huge beard, also white. He picked us up and took us to the hotel (actually it was a motel) and proceeded to fill us in on everything. I’ll elaborate on all this later, but for now here’s what you need to know:

Mom kicked dad out because he was an alcoholic deadbeat who couldn’t hold a job. Being an alcoholic, Dad was a fucking expert at feeling sorry for himself, and when Mom kicked his ass to the curb, he went down down down into the bottle of vodka. He left Dothan and went to Savannah where he proceeded to lose himself in the telemarketing underground. Yes, there actually exists something like this. Basically, all Dad wanted to do was drink away his sorrow. He didn’t want to fool with a legitimate job. Dad used to be a DJ and had a killer deep voice, so he was really good at telemarketing. People just wanted to listen to him, and they would generally buy what he was selling. So he found this business that would let him come in with a brown paper bag and sit. They didn’t give a fuck if he was drinking as long as he was making calls and sales. They paid him cash at the end of every day. So he was set.

It was at this telemarketing business that Dad met Al and Janet. Al was this skinny old alcoholic who was former military. He and Dad had a lot in common, like drinking, smoking, and anti social attitudes. They’d even run into each other back in their military days. Janet was Al’s wife. They were a telemarketing team who were working for this business. Janet was the telemarketing muscle, and Al was her manager. Janet was the best telemarketer I ever saw. She had the perfect operator’s voice, in contrast to her outrageous fatness. She would read through the telemarketing scripts until they were second nature and she never deviated from them. She was like a robot, or a computer program. She would single handedly outsell everyone else at the office combined.

Dad saw her talent, and formed a plan. Al, Janet, and Dad combined forces and ditched Savannah, which is a crappy place for that business. They moved to Atlanta and started their own telemarketing company. It was just the three of them, and they would hire themselves to charities to get them donations. They took 50 percent of the donations as salary. It was pretty sweet for Al and Dad, because Janet did all the work. Dad and Al would just drive into Atlanta every day to pick up the checks.

Dad is telling Matt and I all of this at the motel, and he informs us that Al and Janet are in the room next door. We go over there and meet them. Al is a skinny gross old dude with liver spots and thick black glasses. He has a moustache and a cigarette and a beer. Janet is there too. I remember seeing her very vividly. She was short. Less than five feet tall. She probably weighed between 350 and 400 pounds. She had a cast on her leg so she hobbled around. Her hair was so thin, you could see her scalp. She was wearing a billowing nightgown. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant.

They don’t say much, and let Dad do the talking. Dad credits them with saving his life. He’s convinced that if he hadn’t met them, he would have committed suicide by drinking. I don’t doubt it. But the fact is that Al and Janet are weird looking and gross, and I’m just a kid. I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how old you are. Sometimes you should trust your instincts.

I’ll elaborate on all this more, but to sum up, Dad, Matt, and I visit each other a few times a year, and Al and Janet are always there. They usually don’t say much. Time passes. I move to Mobile Alabama to finish high school at a boarding school down there. While I’m there I make the decision to move to Athens, which is where Dad, Al, and Janet moved. Before I move up, Al dies. He has a stroke, wastes away for a few months, and then kicks off. Dad and Janet are distraught of course. Dad begins drinking even more heavily. I tell him that in order for me to move to Athens, he’ll have to enter detox and sober up, or he can forget it. He actually does it. Apparently Al made Dad promise to take care of Janet before he died, and he’s going to do it. So he detoxes and sobers up. I’m making my plans to move up. Here’s where it happens:

Matt and I come up to Athens to scope it out before I graduate. We’re staying with Dad. Janet is living with Dad now. She has gotten fatter, and to top it off, she no longer has any teeth, just dentures. Matt and I are hungry, so we ask Dad where a good place to eat is. Dad suggests the Taco Stand. Janet loves this idea. So Matt and I go and get the food. We eat it. Janet asks how we liked it. We say “It was good”. Then it begins…..Janet turns to Dad, who was sitting right there and says:

Janet: “The boys sure liked the Taco Stand Bob”.
Dad: “Yeah I heard.”

A little while later, after we’re done eating and are watching TV or something, it happens again.

Janet: “The boys sure liked the Taco Stand Bob”
Dad: “Uh huh. ”

The next day, we’re driving through Atlanta. Dad is driving, Janet is in the passenger seat. Matt and I are in the back seat.

Janet: “The boys sure liked the Taco Stand Bob”
Dad: “OK”

A few minutes later
Janet: “The boys sure liked….”
Dad: “PUT A FUCKING CORK IN IT!!!”

Matt and I look at each other and are stunned by a couple of things. First, we’d noticed that Janet had a tendency to repeat herself, and it was now obviously a mental problem. Second, Dad could ignore it, but when he’d had enough, he put the smack down. And when he did, Janet’s facial expression never even changed. It was like she was a fucking robot.
After that, we notice that she actually never says anything that someone else didn’t say first.

Me: “Hey Dad, the Braves lost last night.”
Janet, a minute later: “Hey Bob, Chris said the Braves lost last night”
Dad: “Yeah he just fucking told me! Zip it!”

She’d sit there, her chair creaking, pink flecks of Polygrip stuck to the corner of her mouth, hand folded over her immense lap. To look at her was to be disturbed. She creeped me the hell out. All the repetition! Never speaking an original thought! And she’d gotten it into her head that I was her surrogate son. She kept calling me son, and I’m too polite to tell her to stop.

I spent the next two and a half years living with Dad, a recovering chain smoking alcoholic, and Fat Janet, an overeating, Munchausen’s Syndrome having, sociopathic, hypochondriac, retard. I slept on the couch with no room of my own for the entire time I spent there. It ended with Dad going crazy, shipping her off to a home, and drinking himself to death. Yeah I got some stories. It was a long two and a half years.