with a dip of his head, tiny starts to hum a little to himself. once he’s gotten the tune, he closes his eyes, opens his arms, and sings:
I thought you’ d make my dreams come true
but it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you
I thought this time it would all be new
but it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you
I pictured all the things we’ d do
but it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you
and now i feel my heart is through
but it isn’t true, it isn’t true
I may be big-boned and afraid
but my faith in love won’t be mislaid!
though i’ve been completely knocked off course
I’m not getting off my faithful horse!
It wasn’t you, it’s true
but there’s more to life than you
I thought you were a boy with a view,
you stuck-up, selfish, addled shrew
you may have kicked me till i was blue
but from that experience i grew
It’s true, f**k you
there are better guys to woo
It won’t be you, comprende vous?
It will never be you.
tiny doesn’t just sing these words - he belts them. it’s like a parade coming out of his mouth. i have no doubt the words travel over lake michigan to most of canada and on to the north pole. the farmers of saskatchewan are crying. santa is turning to mrs. claus and saying ‘what the f**k is that?’ i am completely mortified, but then tiny opens his eyes and looks at me with such obvious caring that i have no idea what to do. no one’s tried to give me something like this in ages. except for isaac, and he doesn’t exist. whatever you might say about tiny, he definitely exists.
he asks me if i want to walk. once again, i nod dumbly. it’s not like i have anything better to do.
me: who are you?
tiny: tiny cooper!
me: you can’t really be named tiny.
tiny: no. that’s irony.
me: oh.
tiny (tsking): no need to ‘oh’ me. i’m fine with it. i’m big-boned.
me: dude, it isn’t just your bones.
tiny: just means there’s more of me to love!
me: but that requires so much more effort.
tiny: darling, i’m worth it.
the sick thing is, i have to admit there’s something a little bit attractive about him. i don’t get it. it’s like, you know how sometimes you see a really sexy baby? wait, that sounds f**ked up. that’s not what i mean. but it’s like, even though he’s as big as a house (and i’m not talking about a poor person’s house, either), he’s got super-smooth skin and really green eyes and everything is in, like, proportion. so i’m not feeling the repulsion i would expect to feel toward someone three times my size. i want to tell him i should be out killing some people now, not taking a stroll with him. but he takes a little of the murder off my mind. it’s not like it won’t be there later.
as we walk over to millennium park, tiny tells me all about tiny dancer and how hard he’s struggled to write, act, direct, produce, choreograph, costume-design, lighting-design, set-design, and attain funding for it. basically, he’s out of his mind, and since i’m trying really hard to get out of my mind, too, i attempt to follow. like with maura (fucking witch ass bitch mussolini al-qaeda darth vader non-entity), i don’t have to say a word myself, which is fine.
when we get to the park, tiny makes a great-big beeline to the bean. somehow i’m not surprised.
the bean is this really stupid sculpture that they did for millennium park - i guess at the millennium - which originally had another name, but everyone started calling it the bean and the name stuck. it’s basically this big reflective metal bean that you can walk under and see yourself all distorted. i mean, i’ve been here before on school trips, but i’ve never been here with someone as huge as tiny before. usually it’s hard at first to locate yourself in the reflection, but this time i know i’m the wavy twig standing next to the big blob of humanity. tiny giggles when he sees himself like that. a genuine, tee-heehee giggle. i hate it when girls do that shit, because it’s always so fake. but with tiny it isn’t fake at all. it’s like he’s being tickled by life.
after tiny has tried ballerina pose, swing-batter-batter pose, pump-up-the-jam pose, and top-of-the-mountain-sound-of-music pose in the reflection of the bean, he walks us to a bench overlooking lake shore drive. i think he’ll be all sweaty because, let’s face it, most fat people get sweaty just from lifting the twinkie to their mouth. but tiny is just too fabulous to sweat.
tiny: so tell tiny your problems.
I can’t answer, because the way he says it, it’s like you could substitute the word ‘mama’ for the word ‘tiny’ and the sentence would still sound the same.
me: can tiny talk normal?
tiny (in his best anderson cooper voice): yes, he can. but it’s not nearly as fun when he does it.
me: you just sound so g*y.
tiny: um . . . there’s a reason for that?
me: yeah, but. i dunno. i don’t like g*y people.
tiny: but surely you must like yourself?
holy shit, i want to be from this boy’s planet. is he serious? i look at him and see that, yes, he is.
me: why should i like myself? nobody else does.
tiny: i do.
me: you don’t know me at all.
tiny: but i want to.
It’s so stupid, because all of a sudden i’m screaming
me: shut up! just shut up!
and he looks so hurt, so i have to say
me: no, ha, it’s not you. okay? you’re nice. i’m not. i’m not nice, okay? stop it!
because now he doesn’t look hurt; he looks sad. sad for me. he sees me. christ.
me: this is so stupid.
It’s like he knows that if he touches me, i will probably lose it on him and start hitting him and start crying and never want to see him again. so instead he just sits there as i put my head in my hands, as if i’m literally trying to hold my head together. and the thing is, he doesn’t need to touch me, because with someone like tiny cooper, if he’s next to you, you know it. all he has to do is stay, and you know he’s there.
me: shit shit shit shit shit shit shit
here’s the sick, twisted thing: part of me thinks i deserve this. that maybe if i wasn’t such an ass**le, isaac would have been real. if i wasn’t such a lame excuse for a person, something right might happen to me. it’s not fair, because i didn’t ask for dad to leave, and i didn’t ask to be depressed, and i didn’t ask for us to have no money, and i didn’t ask to want to f**k boys, and i didn’t ask to be so stupid, and i didn’t ask to have no real friends, and i didn’t ask to have half the shit that comes out of my mouth come out of my mouth. all i wanted was one f**king break, one idiotic good thing, and that was clearly too much to ask for, too much to want.