Don't Make Me Stop Now (3 page)

Okay at this point you're wondering why I'm taking up for the speaker or narrator of “Ain't Gonna Bump No More” instead of the big fat woman seeing as how I'm 5′1″ and weigh 149. That is if you even know who I am which I have my doubts based on the look on your face when you call the roll and the fact that you get me, Melanie Sudduth and Amanda Wheeler mixed up probably because we're A: always here, which you don't really seem to respect all that much, I mean it seems like you like somebody better if they show up late or half the time like that boy Sean, B: real quiet and C: kind of on the heavy side. To me that is what you call a supreme irony the fact that you and that Lindsay girl spend half the class talking about Ideals of Beauty and all how shallow men are but then you tend to favor all the dudes and chicks in the class which could be considered “hot” or as they used to say in the seventies which is my favorite decade which is why I chose to analyze a song from that era, “so fine.” So, supreme irony is employed.

As to why I'm going to go ahead and go on record taking
up for the Speaker and not the Big Fat Woman. Well to me see he was just minding his own business and this woman would not leave him be. You can tell in the lines about how she was rarin' to go (Tex, line 4) that he has got some respect for her and he admires her skill on the dance floor. It's just that she throws her weight around, literally! To me it is her that is in the wrong. The fact that she is overweight or as the speaker says “Fat” don't have anything to do with it. She keeps at him and he tells her to go on and leave him alone, he's not getting down, “You done hurt my hip once.” (Tex, lines 25–27.) She would not leave him alone. What she ought to of done whenever he said no was just go off with somebody else. I learned this the hard way after the Passage of Time following Jeremy and my's breakup. See I sort of chased after him calling him all the time and he was seeing somebody else and my calling him up and letting him come over to my apartment and cooking him supper and sometimes even letting him stay the night. Well if I only knew then what I know now. Which is this was the worse thing I could of done. Big Fat Woman would not leave the Speaker in the song which might or might not be the Artist Joe Tex alone. Also who is to blame for her getting so big? Did somebody put a gun to her head and force her to eat milkshakes from CookOut? Jeremy whenever he left made a comment about the fact that
I had definitely fell prey to the Freshman Fifteen or whatever. In high school whenever we started dating I was on the girl's softball team I weighed 110 pounds. We as people nowadays don't seem to want to take responsibility for our actions if you ask me which I guess you did by assigning this paper on the topic of Analyze a Hidden Meaning in a Song, Saying, or Incident from Public Life which that particular topic seems kind of broad to me. I didn't have any trouble deciding what to write on though because I am crazy about the song “Ain't Gonna Bump No More” and it is true as my paper has set out to prove that people take it the wrong way and don't get its real meaning also it employs Treatment of Time and Supreme Irony.

One thing I would like to say about the assignment though is okay, you say you want to hear what we think and for us to put ourselves in our papers but then on my last paper you wrote all over it and said in your Ending Comments that my paper lacked clarity and focus and was sprawling and not cohesive or well organized. Well okay I had just worked a shift at the Coach House Restaurant and then right after that a shift at the Evergreen Nursing Home which this is my second job and I was up all night writing that paper on the “Tell-Tale Heart” which who's fault is that I can hear you saying right now. Your right. I ought to of gotten to it earlier but all that
aside what I want to ask you is okay have you ever considered that clarity and focus is just like your way of seeing the world? Like to you A leads to B leads to C but I might like want to put F before B because I've had some Life Experiences different than yours one being having to work two jobs and go to school full time which maybe you yourself had to do but something tells me I doubt it. So all I'm saying is maybe you ought to reconsider when you start going off on clarity and logic and stuff that there are let's call them issues behind the way I write which on the one hand when we're analyzing say “Lady with the Tiny Dog” you are all over discussing the issues which led to the story being written in the way it is and on the other if it's me doing the writing you don't want to even acknowledge that stuff is influencing my Narrative Rhythm too. I mean I don't see the difference really. So that is my point about Life Experiences and Narrative Rhythm, etc.

The speaker in the song “Ain't Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman” says no to the Big Fat Woman in part because the one time he did get up and bump with her she did a dip and nearly broke his hip. (Tex, line 5.) Dancing with this particular woman on account of her size and her aggressive behavior would clearly be considered Risky or even Hazardous to the speaker or narrator's health. Should he have gone
ahead and done what you and Lindsay wanted him to do and got up there and danced with her because she was beautiful on the inside and he was wanting to thwart the trajectory of typical male response or whatever he could have ended up missing work, not being able to provide for his family if he has one it never really says, falling behind on his car payment, etc. All I'm saying is what is more important for him to act right and get up and dance with the Big Fat Woman even though she has prior to that moment almost broke his hip? Or should he ought to stay seated and be able to get up the next morning and go to work? I say the ladder one of these choices is the best one partially because my daddy has worked at Rencoe Mills for twenty-two years and has not missed a single day which to me that is saying something. I myself have not missed class one time and I can tell even though you put all that in the syllabus about showing up you basically think I'm sort of sad I bet. For doing what's right! You'd rather Sean come in all late and sweaty and plop down in front of you and roll his shirt up so you can gawk at his barbed wire tattoo which his daddy probably paid for and say back the same things you say only translated into his particular language which I don't hardly know what he's even talking about using those big words it's clear he don't even know what they mean. I mean, between him and Lindsay, my God. I loved it
whenever he said, “It's like the ulcerous filament of her soul is being masticated from the inside out,” talking about that crazy lady in the “Yellow Wallpaper” (which if you ask me her problem was she needed a shift emptying bedpans at the nursing home same as that selfish bitch what's her name, that little boy's mother in the “Rocking Horse Winner.”) You'd rather Sean or Lindsay disrespect all your so-called rules and hand their mess in late so long as everything they say is something you already sort of said. What you want is for everybody to A: Look hot and B: agree with you. A good thing for you to think about is, let's say you were in a disco-type establishment and approached by a big fat man. Let's say this dude was getting down. Okay, you get up and dance with him once and he nearly breaks your hip, he bumps you on the floor. Would you get up there and dance with him again? My daddy would get home from work and sit in this one chair with this reading lamp switched on and shining in his lap even though I never saw him read a word but “The Trader” which was all advertisements for used boats and trucks and camper tops and tools. He went to work at six, got off at three, ate supper at five thirty. The rest of the night he sat in that chair drinking coffee with that lamplight in his lap. He would slap me and my sister Connie whenever he thought we were lying about something. If we didn't say anything how could we be lying
so we stopped talking. He hardly ever said a word to me my whole life except, “Y'all mind your mama.” Whenever I first met Jeremy in high school he'd call me up at night, we used to talk for hours on the phone. I never knew really how to talk to anyone like that. Everything that happened to me, it was interesting to Jeremy or at least he acted like it was. He would say, “What's up, girl?” and I would say, “nothing” or sometimes “nothing much” and I would hate myself for saying nothing and being nothing. But then he'd say, “Well what did you have for supper?” and I'd burst into tears because some boy asked me what did I have for supper. I would cry and cry. Then there'd be that awful thing you know when you're crying and the boy's like what is it what did I say and you don't know how to tell him he didn't do nothing wrong you just love his heart to bits and pieces just for calling you up on the telephone. Or you don't want to NOT let him know that nobody ever asked you such a silly thing as what did you eat for supper and neither can you come out and just straight tell him, I never got asked that before. Sometimes my life is like this song comes on the radio and I've forgot the words but then the chorus comes along and I only know the first like two words of every line. I'll come in midway, say around about “No More No Big Fat Woman.” I only know half of what I know I guess. I went out in the sun and got burned bad
and then the skin peeled off and can you blame me for not wanting to go outside anymore? She ought to go find her a big fat man. The only time my daddy'd get out of his chair nights was when a storm blew up out of the woods which he liked to watch from the screen porch. The rain smelled rusty like the screen. He'd let us come out there if we'd be quiet and let him enjoy his storm blowing up but if we said anything he'd yell at us. I could hate Jeremy for saying I'm just not attracted to you anymore but hating him's not going to bring me any of what you call clarity. Even when the stuff I was telling him was so boring, like, then I went by the QuikMart and got seven dollars worth of premium and a Diet Cheerwine he'd make like it was important. Sometimes though he wouldn't say anything and I'd be going on and on like you or Lindsay and I'd get nervous and say, “Hello?” and he'd say, “I'm here I'm just listening.” My daddy would let us stay right through the thunder and even some lightning striking the trees in the woods behind the house. We couldn't speak or he'd make us go inside. I know, I know, maybe Jeremy got quiet because he was watching “South Park” or something. Still I never had anyone before or since say to me, I'm here I'm just listening.

I'm going to get another C minus over a D plus. You're going to write in your Ending Comments that this paper sprawls lacks cohesion is not well organized. Well that's alright because we both know that what you call clarity means
a whole lot less than whether or not I think the speaker in the song “Ain't Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman” ought to get up and dance with the woman who “done hurt my hip, she done knocked me down.” (Tex, line 39.) I say, No he shouldn't. You say, Yes he should. In this Popular Song, Saying, or Incident from Public Life there is a Hidden Meaning that everybody doesn't get. Well, I get it and all I'm saying is you don't and even though I've spent however many pages explaining it to you you're never going to get it. If you get to feel sorry for me because I come to class every time and write down all the stupid stuff that Sean says and also for being a little on the heavy side I guess I get to feel sorry for you for acting like you truly understand a song like “Ain't Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman” by the artist Joe Tex.

In my conclusion the speaker or the narrator of the song “Ain't Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman,” a man previously injured before the song's opening chords by a large aggressive type woman in a disco type bar refuses to bump with the fat woman of the title. In doing so he is merely exercising his right to an injury free existence. Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony and Life Experiences are delved into in my paper. There is a hidden meaning in this Song Saying or Incident from Public Life. Looking only at the comical side is a error which will result in damage to the artist and also to the listener which is you or whoever.

T
HE FIRST TIME
it was cashew nuts. Not something that Clay could say he'd ever craved, but he thought it best to start with something small. He could work up to the watches, which he could sell to Peterson or trade for crank. Bulova, Seiko, Timex, Swatch, Japanese digital, which wouldn't bring jack on the street but maybe if he gave them to Peterson, Peterson would trust him enough to front him again. It had been a while since Peterson fronted him, even longer since anyone had trusted him.

Neal Marshburn moved behind the soda fountain. Clay watched him wait on the customers. Wait he seemed to take literally, his laziness echoed in the slap of his shoes against the rubber floor runner. The longer the line the more he dawdled, stopping once to talk on the phone while Clay waited behind a bony boy resting his nose on the counter, quarters he'd saved for a Cherry Coke readied in his free fist.

Marshburn's blond hair was cropped in a bristly crew cut, and his outfit was standard-issue prep: starched khakis, blue oxford, shoes designed for sailors beloved by landlubbing college boys. He looked no different since he'd gone off to college, not that Clay had paid him much attention before. He was just another kid in his high school, back of a head in a clogged corridor, pimply neck and cocky walk, jean-jacketed arm draped stiffly around some fuzzy-sweatered blonde. Maybe they'd talked at a party. Maybe they'd happened to lurch together down the steps of some middle-of-a-muddy-field trailer, bragging about the sizes of their buzz-ons before stumbling off in different directions to water furrows. Maybe. Clay couldn't say he remembered Marshburn all that well. He was only nineteen and already there'd been a lot of people passing by that it didn't hurt anything to forget.

Judging from the sparseness of merchandise on the shelves, Clay wondered if this drugstore was on the verge of going out of business. He'd never been in there before. He'd noticed the place — it was right across from the hospital where Linda's mother worked as a nurse. He'd spent some bored time in the lobby over there, waiting for Linda while she visited her mother. She was there right now in fact, up in the OR lounge trying to talk money out of her mama before another case came up: some poor stomach wound, hysterectomy, appen
dix. That's the way they referred to folks up there according to Linda's mama, not by names but by what was wrong with them. Linda said they'd be riding through town and all of a sudden her mama would go, There's that hernia we did last week, and point to a bald-headed banker putting money in a meter. Linda loved to talk about her mother's job; Clay hated hearing it. He wasn't squeamish when things were in his face, but secondhand skinny about people he didn't know, that weren't names or numbers but amputations and C-sections and golf-ball-size kidney stones — why did Linda think it was so interesting?