The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

the funhouse mirror of fatness. Dyson modeled himself after the TV fat boys who lived in the echo of laugh tracks. They spoke in the most idiotic of voices and ate too much to be smart. Their stomachs consistently jiggled. They fell on their faces. Their chairs collapsed under their weight or their asses got stuck in their chairs. Fat boys punctured conversations with thunderous farts. They grumbled, “Me hungry,” in deep, garbagy voices. The benefit of being a fat boy, Dyson decided, was having your personality chosen for you. He had no incentive to become someone unique. He played the role of fat boy half out of convenience, half out of fear. He feared anonymity. He feared kids forgetting his name. He preferred the spotlight of ridicule to the chilly dignity of neglect.

Performing for others depleted him, though, and during that extra half hour on the bus, when we were alone, he would fiddle quietly with a Game Boy to relax. Sometimes he let me play. My mother put strict limits on TV in our house—she hated the way women were portrayed on TV, in ads, in movies, and I was granted no more than thirty minutes daily. Video games were an unimaginable luxury. I played whenever Dyson offered. Over the course of the school year we developed a competitive alliance, passing the Game Boy back and forth to complete difficult levels in Zelda and Mario. Dyson raced easily through the levels but had trouble with bosses, whereas I hated the tedium of completing a level and often died from risky decisions made out of boredom. Yet I never needed more than two tries to conquer a boss.

One day, I mentioned a movie I wanted to see—an ad for it had come on during my allotted TV-viewing time the previous night—and Dyson invited me over to watch it. “You’re lying,” I said. The movie was still in theaters. He assured me his father always got movies before they were out. “And we’re allowed to watch it all the way through?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, baffled by the question, and I was too embarrassed to bring up the movie policy at my house: My mother serialized them using an egg timer. She cut off watching even if only a few minutes remained.

At Dyson’s stop, I followed him to the door.

The driver grabbed my backpack. He snapped twice, opened his palm. “Gimme your permission slip.”

“You never ask for permission slips,” Dyson said.

“Change in policy,” he grumbled.

“This is discrimination,” Dyson said. “You hate us. You hate children.”

“You have ten seconds to find it,” said the driver.

I made a show of fishing through my backpack.

“It’s with the office,” said Dyson.

“Can’t let you go without a note.”

“Radio the office,” said Dyson.

“Yeah,” I said. “Call the office.”

“Don’t think I won’t drive you back to school.”

“Go ahead.” Dyson sat down on the nearest seat. “We have time.”

I sat across from him. “All the time in the world.”

The driver glanced at his watch. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He shooed us off the bus.

Dyson’s driveway was winding and pocked. We walked through the scent of something rotting—a fox, said Dyson—and crunched over branches that had fallen to the ground. On the walk, we celebrated our victory over the driver, repeating Don’t do anything stupid buffoonishly. The driveway opened up on a boxy white house with red shutters that was plugged at the foot of a hill. It reminded me of an ambulance without wheels. The unmown grass had gone to seed. Rain started tapping the leaves.

At the door, Dyson shushed me. Inside, patchouli and dust sharpened the air. Navy-blue curtains blanketed the windows. He pointed at my shoes, took his off. I kept waiting for a mother or father to appear and explain the rules of the house, for Dyson to use me as an excuse to negotiate for new rules. But no parents appeared. And Dyson hadn’t spoken since we entered. Perhaps silence was the only rule of his house.

In the kitchen, a single window above the sink cast a box of gray light onto the floor. Chanting sounded from the darkened living room beside it. “Daddy’s sleeping,” said the room.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Dyson?” said the room.

“It’s me, Mommy,” he said.

“Is someone with you?”

He sighed. “A friend.”

“What friend? Let me—you need to tell me when you—” His mother entered the kitchen wearing a mossy kimono that trailed her for several feet. She was a tall, snowy woman, pale and rounded, with gently pitted marks on her face. Her lips were thin, large eyes pinched close together, and she kept her dirty-blond hair in a single braid flung in front of her chest. She cupped a cold compress against her forehead. “I am in no state for a guest,” she said. “My exams are taking everything out of me.” She was an aspiring doula, and for as long as I would know her, she was always training for exams, though I don’t think she ever applied for certification.

I introduced myself.

“You must be Dyson’s girlfriend.”

He groaned. I looked at my feet.

“What have I told you, Dyson, about imbibing society’s notions? You are never too young for love. Society imposes so many misguided ideas about the right time to love. I fell in love when I was seven years old. Much younger than you. And it was the finest love of my life.” She squatted to our height. “But please don’t tell your daddy. He’s sensitive. It would hurt him too much to know I’ve loved other men.”

Dyson’s mother had the personality of a plasma globe: the crooks of light inside her awoke to the slightest human interaction. She ran an arm across my shoulders. Her touch was as light as a scarf. “I am a spiritually curious woman,” she said without prompting. “I need to be. It is the only thing keeping me buoyant. I mean it. I’ve been through a lot. Dyson will tell you. Tell her, Dy. That’s why I’m like this. That’s why I’m so…” She