More Than I Can Stomach

I have this one memory of my father. There aren’t many, and the ones that exist are mostly fucked. Cry me a river, I know.

Anyway—we’re at my great-grandmother’s funeral. My dad’s dad’s mom. It’s the repast, and I’m sitting at the helm of the plastic-draped table, thinking about that one time Granma got me to eat a liverwurst and mustard sando on fucking wheat bread, no less. She had called out to the kitchen from the bed she lived in down the hall, hollering for feedback through lupus laden lungs. I was shocked to report back that, “It was good, Granma!” and meant it — unlike that time she got me to try okra, and it violated my throat.

The wings at the repast were good. I didn’t know who had cooked what, just that I was eating to avoid conversation with kin I’d accidentally avoided for years. I dangled a limp wing while I glazed over the room. Everything was exactly as she left it: the untouchable crystal cabinet still untouched, the vinyl-covered couch still stiff, the plastic hallway runner that had eased her wheelchair through the narrow hallways of her carpeted Brooklyn apartment.

The salad I’d put on my plate wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all me, but I ate it for crunch. The internal sound made by mauling iceberg lettuce is a nice way to drown out the thought of a slow death.

I don’t really recall how or when, but my father came to sit at the table with me. He might have been saying something; he might have just been there. I chose to focus my eyes on the plate in case of either. The house moved around us—lowered heads, food in hand, people finally allowed to eat on the couch. Granma would’ve had a fit.

Every family has its villains and its heroes and in attendance today was my father’s mother, the former, who subsisted on a steady cocktail of rage and brown liquor for decades. Needless to say, my father never liked her, because she never liked him, so I was dead on arrival.

“She doesn’t even eat like us.” Her bony, fatty build gangled past the table. She was a drunk and a hypocrite, so it was always open aim at my jugular for being white. Marc, her partner, sauced as he had been with her for the last three decades, would still go even redder in his peachy cheeks whenever she spoke of his people with such anger. I’m almost positive he was a DV survivor.

My father retaliated with the quickness. “This is her second plate,” he bit, the retort simmering enough to invoke silence without even looking in her direction. I saw her give me a final lookdown of disgust, then choose her battles and walk away. My father and I never talked about it. I always knew I was the afterthought in that exchange. I knew backstory when I whiffed it. His mother would always disown him for procreating outside of the race. Quiet as the quip was, it single handedly changed the way I ate for the next 15 years.

In that moment, it was like my father used me, my appetite, as a pillar of pride on which the manifestation of his poor choices could stand. In that moment, I was waving the right flag — there was irrefutable evidence of my right to bloodline being devoured with greasy fingers in prime time. There had been other moments across the brief encounters I had with my father’s family, where there had been encouraging critique of my food inhalation and so, a growing understanding that this was a doorway to acceptance.

There had been other moments, brief flashes of praise from that side of the family, where inhaling food was the secret handshake. I ate like an adult, they said. High praise. It meant I played in the big leagues and I flexed that in restaurants that handed out trophies for demolition. I still hold the record for youngest person to finish some burger at a restaurant in Seattle. For years, I ate like my reputation depended on it—even after my father left for Florida. All that was left were thinning connections and thickening habits. What I eat reflects where I am mentally. If I’m eating, you’ll know whether I’m present or astrally projecting into the void. The issue wasn’t what I ate—I cleaned my greens. The issue was how much. First plates were previews for the encore, and by college, I was still performing. Just without an audience.

I didn’t get my shit together until my early 20s, just before I graduated and life put me solely in charge of the food spend. It was the twenty-five pounds of alcohol weight that I had put on freshman year that really did me dirty. I didn’t know something clear could make you big big. I switched from partaking in Friday night fried chicken extravaganzas at the dining hall to eating raw vegetables and salmon. That sucked pretty quickly, but it worked, and I lost 30 pounds in 2 months.

Truth be told, I still eat under the thought that “the banquet is in the first bite” and proudly recommend eating as quickly and with as much gusto as you want, no matter how expensive or esteemed the dish is; it’s never going to taste as good as that first bite anyway. Recently in India, I learned how clean plate culture indicates the welcoming of another round, and to stop the flow of food, you must leave a few morsels on the plate as proof of satiation — but I learned this well after being stuffed with paratha and dal.

Once I made it to a whole new physical shape and after a long-distance telephone flare-up from my father, I felt haunted by the remnants of a last name binding me to a family I felt I’d been purged from. I took a sharp left somewhere in the Valley to a Los Angeles courthouse and changed my surname. I ate a practical portion of my favorite seafood that day in celebration of a small win.

 But even now, during my fittest years, when I see family, someone will clock my portions, ask how I did it—mouth full of burnt ends and creamy salads. I keep a second stomach reserved for moments I think I’ll need to prove myself. I’d still rather be stuffed than othered.

Sometimes I look at BBQ plates with a distinct need for domination, or eat a second mini round of food when I feel gluttonous for flavor — a consumption challenge still gets me high. I don’t know if we ever get to shed the skins we’re made of, hiding peeled pieces in a box somewhere to remind us of how far we’ve come. Maybe we just constantly pick at it like a bad scab, letting it heal slightly, not sure if we actually want the whole thing to come off, enjoying the subtle surge of pain from the rooted scale.