matchmaker
my mother
bless her soul
thought the girls
should all love me
all two-hundred-forty pounds of me
triple-chinned
glasses barely fitting on my fat face
pants specially tailored xxxl me
if she saw me talking to some girl
oh, you should ask her out
she had friends at work
who had daughters my age
co-workers just a couple of years older
it was easy to forgive her
mom wasn’t with me on the school buses
when high school girls laughed at me
until i turned scarlet and bitter
she never sat in english class
and watched jamie
johnson play
duck…duck…COW!
when his hand landed on my head
or looked into the sad disappointed eyes
of the other girl
as we both played wingman to our friends
mom just wanted to play
matchmaker for me, i guess
to see me stroll around the mall
like all of those other healthy young couples
instead of watching me
put back three helpings of spaghetti
before attacking an entenmann’s crumb cake
usually i just felt bad
for the girl in those scenarios
like this one blonde cutie
courtney
she worked my brother’s birthday party
at this video store
where they showed 2nd run movies
i was helping her set up chairs
and maybe we were talking about movies
or music or some thing
being the only teenagers in the place
i made her laugh a few times
if nothing else i could always make the girls laugh
being a fat clown came as easy to me
as clearing away a bag of potato chips
but when mom heard the girl
in the throes of laughter
she came over to us and said
you two seem like you’d be real good together
because it’s good to see people
who can make each other laugh
oh, man
the look on this girl’s face
i’d seen it dozens of times
red
nervous
sorrowful
mortified
humiliated
self-conscious
caught
embarrassed
deer-in-the-headlights
get-me-the-hell-out-of-here
she excused herself to go and get the
cake and soda
the stuff i was really there for
and came back ten minutes later
switched from a blonde
to a brunette
nametag switched to a guy named jeff
who called me bro
and said this year was the penguins year
to take it all
man
as i craned my neck
catching courtney’s eyes stocking action films
just before jeff shut the door
and the room
went
celluloid
blue
then black.
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