Tom's Gut

Tom's gut hung far too close to his privates for his liking. He closed his left eye. He wasn't sure what this would do but he thought he would try it.

"Nothing." He closed his right eye. "Dammit."

Tom observed himself in the mirror, at this pale, amorphous thing that had once been beautiful. He didn't often use the word beautiful to describe a man, unless it was a particular kind of man, and that particular kind of man used to be him. He was in there somewhere! Aching and yearning for freedom! And Tom was going to let him out.

"Hun!"

"Huh?"

"Hun!"

"What, what is it?"

"Hun, I'm going to do something about this weight."

"Ugh, thank god." In the bathroom Linda cringed, hoping he couldn't hear in her reaction the years of hoping and praying she had done for this moment. She danced a little dance and calmed herself down. "Good, good for you, Tommy! You show that fat who's boss, sweetheart!" She walked into the bedroom to find him poking and prodding his naked frame in front of their only bedroom mirror. "Oh my god, what are you doing?"

"Seeing what needs taking care of—did you say fat?"

"Well," she thought, "...no. I mean. Well, what would you call it?"

Tom stared down at his crotch-covering belly. At the meals and seconds and thirds, and the cookies in the morning, at the bottomless beer mugs, at the sitting when he could have stood, time he spent with the guys, time that could have spent with her, with the kids, time where he didn't do anything and he could've been doing something, gas station cheeseburgers and entire frozen pizzas, failure after failure at work, missed opportunities and missed advancements, feeling sorry for himself, TV and movies and that damn groove in the couch where he always sat, he stared at the young man inside him who had made these decisions. Who still wanted to make them. Who was only not going to because of one woman.

"A life."

"There are lots of lives, Tommy."

"But this one was mine. And I didn't spend it well."

Linda crossed and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, hush! That's just not true and you know it." She gave his belly a playful squeeze. "Maybe there were a few misspent days... But you have nothing to be ashamed of."

He placed his arms over hers. Yes. I do.

That night he went out for a celebratory drink with the guys before he cut out drinking. After a couple of rounds he got the bartender's attention.

"Say, that blonde who was in here last night. She been around at all?"

"Haven't seen her. Why?"

Tom sipped on his penultimate beer. "Oh, no reason."