Peanut Butter: A Short Story

 (Though this borrows from my past personal experience, this is NOT a specific incident in my historical repertoire.  Nor is it the story of my own battle with bulimia.  It's a little something I initially scratched out of my brain one afternoon, and finished this afternoon, upon noting the schmear of peanut butter left on my hand after spreading a spoon of it in one of my pup's Kong toys.)

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                My knuckles are coated with peanut butter . . . organic, creamy.  I’m not one to leave any little bit of food behind, and the peanut butter jar counts.  I scraped, running my fingers, no, my entire hand, all along the inside surface until there was nothing left to identify the contents of that jar except for the label.  Paper is something I’ve not eaten since childhood.  One of the FEW things.  Now, looking at my knuckles, I decide to squeeze a line of honey across them before licking each bony nub clean.  The honey is mesquite, so the sweetness is mellow, like a desert before sunset, as opposed to the sunshiny essence of a clover honey.  And it seems more in keeping with the organic nature of the peanut butter.  Not that I could tell you why, exactly.  Who can explain the random swerve of thoughts at a time like this?

 I am reminded of the big spoons of peanut butter and honey mom gave to us kids as afternoon snacks to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner.  Though my brother made a well in his peanut butter and filled it with the honey, his preference was not mine.  Swirling the solid caramel-brown peanut butter with the clear amber of the liquid honey, creating ribbons of color and light, just made better aesthetic sense to me.  Even then, as a child, food touched me in levels far deeper than my taste buds and belly.  Even then, my creative and emotional sides were already entwined with all things edible and rife with flavors both common and uncommon.  How was I to know there was a love-hate relationship gathering momentum within me, with every bite and swallow and calorie and fat gram?  Somebody tell me that, please.  Just HOW was I to KNOW?

Now that I’ve effectively cleaned my hands -- though soon they will be coated with bile, which I will NOT adorn with condiments and lick – it’s time for another tall glass of water.  But I’ll stand here, leaning on the kitchen counter, for a second or two longer.  I’m so very full.  That third of a jar of peanut butter was merely the topper to my pantry raid tonight.  This one happened without a plan, this feeding, this unfettered feasting on various and sundry goods.  Usually, these incidents are mapped out over a month.  No more than three times a week.  I figure my teeth and esophagus will last longer that way.  I run-walk extra on the days that I don’t binge;  the additional activity seems to cap my desire to wade through the shelves and bins of my kitchen.  Until today.  This thought causes my burgeoning belly to groan in a decidedly most unladylike way.  Not that there is anything remotely ladylike about any of this, from start – “Why, hullo there, tall can of reduced-fat Pringles.  I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.  Allow me . . . “ – to finish – refer back to the knuckle incident.

The water is cool.  Soothing to my tired esophagus.  And hard to knock back.  The odd thing about binging is that it doesn’t get any easier with practice.  If anything, there is more force involved in the eating and drinking, and in the contemplation of what is to follow.  I detest what I do in these secret sittings.  Or standings as the case often is.  There is no tasting after the first few bites.  There is no comfort to be sought and gathered close with this massive ingestion of mixed food selections.  I might as well be consuming my own flesh.  And washing it down with my own blood.  It feels that bad.  That illicit.  Yet I return to it, drawn in like a buzzing fly to a dung heap.  My planning is merely a gauzy curtain masquerading as control for the sake of appearances.  Anyone pulling back that curtain would immediately recognize the ugly charade. 

There is no discernible pattern in the food choices.  No overriding cravings which clamor for a fix or trigger an episode.  I don’t decide Italian at one binge and Chinese for another: themed binging sounds far too desperate . . . as opposed to just plain old desperate.  Food is merely my weapon of choice in this internal war consisting of these regularly scheduled battles.  Sometimes I do buy a specific item at the grocery store, a cake mix one day, a can of chopped clams and a package of linguine on another, Red Vines and popcorn the next, to start the session: sort of my version of the gunshot before the race.  Once it begins, no box of Wheat Thins or Captain Crunch is safe.  No half-pan of lasagna or plastic storage bowl of leftover shrimp-fried rice will escape my clutches.  As for cartons of Rocky Road  and Pecan Praline – watch out!  Those rich homemade cookies our neighbor drops at our front door whenever she satisfies her itch to bake: GONE!  I will chew, chew, chew my way through each forkful and spoonful.  Every slice and serving.  Eyes closed.  Hunched over.  Focused in on the small important world forming in my stomach.  Solids mixing with water and acids meant to break down the contents for a long trip through the intestines and into the bowels – destinations never to be reached when I interfere with the natural cycle of things.

In my first attempt so many precious years back, I was clumsy with my lack of knowledge and training in this dark art.  Already a regular guilty binger, there was only a small stutter- step necessary to bridge the gap between ingesting and disgorging.  I took it.  Awkwardly.  Anxiously.  And almost brought about my own death.  Cramming an entire batch of homemade whole wheat biscuits down one’s gullet, barely chewing and with only a small cup of milk to thin the thick gluey mass coagulating down below, is a recipe for choking on a dough log.  NOT pretty to behold.  NOT pretty to contemplate.  Even in hindsight.  To make matters all the more worse, the three young children in my care were happily playing on their jungle gym right outside the kitchen window above the sink where I stood barfing up strawberry jam and fiber-rich bile-tinged gorge.  Talk about scarring a kid for life!  It was right then and there that I promised myself, “Self, if we’re gonna do this thing, we’re gonna do this thing right!  Let’s not be a failed bulimic!”

Like any self-respecting citizen of the technological age, I plunged myself into online research on the topic of eating disorders.  I attacked it with all of the determination and discipline of a college student gathering information for a doctoral thesis.  To be sure the material entering my hungry brain – no pun intended – was on the up-and-up, I cross-referenced with actual text from the library.  The Internet definitely ranks right up there as an outstanding modern source for facts and figures, but there’s still nothing like a physical book plucked from the shelves of academia, where pages pull one deeper into the topic, more of a destination than a desktop or laptop could ever be.  But I digress. 

What I discovered surprised me to some extent.  Boys and men are dealing with anorexia and bulimia every bit as much as women.  I had not known that.  There must be a bit of the sexist in me because why else would that come as a shock?  There are websites dedicated to encouraging the novice and the seasoned veteran with tips and tools for the trade.  Written by self-proclaimed practitioners needing to vomit in more ways than just the physical one.  One more desperate attempt to control that which they – who am I kidding here: WE – do not control.  I had to dig deep to find these sites; they aren’t the sort of thing popular with a majority of society, especially parents and do-gooder talk shows like Oprah. 

That’s where the importance of chewing my food thoroughly and including plenty of liquid with the binge for easier upchucking crossed my radar.  It made perfect sense to me.  “Ah, what yonder light of epiphany doth break!”  The science which laid out the damage done to various parts of the digestive tract impacted my decision to formulate a plan and space out the sessions.  Further, I added acid-reducing products to my medicinal arsenal and selected enamel-building toothpastes to my beauty maintenance routine.  Because intentional vomiting does not come easily to me, I perused the personal blogs of practicing bulimics until I hit upon a satisfactory method which stimulated the peristaltic movement necessary to a successful emptying of the stomach.  For me, vocalization assists in the process.  Maybe it puts me in touch with my primitive self.  Or maybe I’m simply filled to my cocoa-brown eyes with a sampling from that dung heap I mentioned earlier, “Buzz, buzz, buzz-z-z-z . . . “

The overwhelming sensation of fullness has passed.  This is now the bewitching hour.  My angst has been usurped by the temporary euphoria that always sets in just before I let it all flow into the sacrificial white basin awaiting my gastronomical worship.  “Let the purging commence!”  Meticulous cleaning of all commode surfaces figure largely in my plans.  And it’s spotless today despite this deviation from the calendar.  Even my nails meet the fingertip brush ahead of time.  If a blood vessel bursts or a rare sharp-edged chunk emerges, I’m not keen to entertain any exotic infections through these open sites.  This may have more to do with my mild OCD habits than actual fact, but why take chances?  So, I’m ready to proceed.       

                It happens quickly.  Hair tied back.  One knee at the base of the toilet; the other bent and perched above my floored foot.  Towel nearby.  Right hand gripping the seat.  Left hand splayed with middle and index fingers flattened against my tongue, the remaining trio tense against my chin.  It still requires three attempts before the big wave hits.  “Whaaaagghhhh-mmmmmm . . . “  My moan erupts -- a hybrid of relief, pain and question.  And then the secondary waves wash me up against the shore where the carcasses of my fears surround me, fomenting in a sea of pink, green and yellow bubbles.  Remnants of past disappointments cling to my lips and dribble down my wrist.  They drip and drop into the swirling waters below, “Bye, bye, ugliness,” as I fall back onto the cool bathroom floor.  Spent, sad, and finally soundless.  I would vow never to engage in this demeaning folly again but I know better than to exact a promise from a wounded being: she’d agree to anything in the midst of her weakness.

                As I flush to rinse the Ajax and remaining detritus from the toilet bowl, I again wonder what this unintentional session means for me.  Obviously, something fundamental has shifted.  That I won’t be returning to regular practices seems suddenly obvious.  The veneer of control is wearing ever more thinly.  But I am not thinner for all of this.  I’m most assuredly not happier or smarter or prettier as a by-product of this.  This awareness frightens me because I realize I don’t remember why this thing ever began in the first place.  Just that it continues and has started to outpace my rules despite my determined and disciplined efforts to keep it in check.  I’ve been a silly girl to think I could tame a wild beast and allow it to live in submission to me.  It has risen up against me, fangs bared, nails unsheathed, ready to pounce and devour what remains of my hurting soul.  This is not good.  So-o-o not good.

 I look at my hands.  Now clean.  But I still see – I was blind but now I see, oh, how I see -- the honey drizzled over peanut butter, falling prey to the untamed animal within me.  I see the trail of tears behind me, mingled with the remains of enough edibles to feed a small village for possibly a year.  I see the road yet ahead, pitted and pocked with traps into which I may willingly fall or enter.  It is impossible to look back for too long.  I cannot bear to gaze at what lies ahead.  So I think it best to simply stand as I am, rooted to this spot, uncomfortable and encompassed in the hot stinking breath of my rebellious inner faux pas, as my belly grumbles its misery.