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The Secret Guide to Learning Courage from Ice Cream

Andy Heath

    It was Jesus who died for our sins. It was he who bore the cross of shame and graciously accepted the scorn of so many that had only days before praised him. It was Jesus that died a horrible death so we might all be saved and live eternally in a kingdom made of hard gold and sticky candy cane and all the wonderful things that we can enjoy in this life. But only sometimes. But Heaven – oh Heaven – that’s the place where the fun really begins.
    Jesus will be there, standing at the gate, waiting for all us Christians as we walk into his warm embrace, as he wipes away our tears for all the suffering we endured in this fucked up world. I can almost feel Jesus’ hands on me now, lifting my chin to look into his beautiful face. “What a brave little girl you are,” I can imagine he’ll say as he ushers me into his kingdom, a kingdom where I can eat whatever I want and stay skinny as a rail like all the boys want. Isn’t that Heaven?
    I’ve watched myself grow bigger and bigger over the years. When I was 9, I was skinny. My dad loved me like that, and he touched me, touched me in ways I didn’t like. But it was attention all the same, and he rewarded me. He told me what a brave girl I was and handed me scoopfuls of ice cream whenever he recovered from the slime coming out. Now, at the age of 14, dad doesn’t like touching me that way anymore. He doesn’t tell me how brave I am either. I miss that – how he told me I was brave. I don’t miss the touching.
    So this is how I’ve spent my childhood and how I’m slowly but surely entering adulthood – praising Jesus, making the slime come out of my dad, gaining weight, eating ice cream. It’s not much, but it’s my life. What more should I want? Well, maybe nothing, but that’s pretty depressing.
    I’ve tried talking to my mom about how unhappy I am. I never told her about the touching or the slime, but I’ve told her that it was hard being fat in a family full of skinny people. “Life is hard, honey. What were you expecting?” she always said. I don’t know what I was expecting. I didn’t ask to be born. Or fat. Or for the boys to pick on me. I just showed up for no reason in particular, and I’m living out this unhappy existence until someday I die and go to Heaven. Hopefully Jesus lets fat girls in.
    It really does make things harder that mom and dad are skinny and everyone talks about what a hot couple they are. And Danielle, my older sister by two years, is just as skinny and beautiful. I never told her about dad either, but I always wondered if he touched her that way, if he gave her ice cream too. I never told Danielle I was unhappy either, but I don’t think she’d understand. She’s still my best friend though – that is, if you can call her a friend. She’s more like a fierce competitor that you go to lunch with sometimes, someone you can skip school with when you’re having a shitty day, someone that will smile without judgment and watch you eat ice cream as she sips her water. But regardless, I can’t talk to her about that. She’s so perfect, so popular. Everyone loves her. Hell, I love her too. I hope she loves me. If she doesn’t, then probably nobody does.
    Other than Danielle, ice cream is my only companion. The teachers at the Baptist high school I go to are always giving it to us when we’re good – like when we recite a few verses from the King James Bible without missing a word. Miss a word, and you don’t get any ice cream. “The courageous are Christians!” the teachers proclaim. “God will reward the righteous with gold and a place in Heaven!” And ice cream, I suppose. “Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice. He died on the cross so that you may spend eternity with him! Learn his Word so you can go to Heaven too!” So I try to be brave and righteous and then eat ice cream whenever they give it to me. Whenever I’ve been good. Whenever I’ve been brave. But dammit, courage is hard.
    So basically life is bullshit. Here’s an example. A few weeks ago Danielle and I walked into the house, and she was beaming, grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat I can only imagine annoyed Alice like hell.
    “You’re awfully happy,” I said, standing in front of her. I looked into her eyes and saw the sparkle in her that I knew I would never have.
    “I am happy, Karen,” she said. Grabbing my shoulders and practically shaking the life out of me, she squealed, “I’m trying out for cheerleading. I hope I make it. I know I’ll make it. Oh Karen, aren’t you happy for me?”
    “You haven’t made the team yet,” I said rolling my eyes and walking to the freezer. I turned and saw her slumped over, looking at me with a pouty frown. “But I’m sure you will,” I added, watching her perk up immediately. “Just pray about it.”
    “I am praying about it,” she said running to me and slamming the freezer door just after I opened it, wearing that same stupid grin on her face. “What are you looking for?”
    “I don’t know. A snack?”
    “Karen, this is serious. All the boys go after cheerleaders. It’s a non-stop ticket to popularity!”
    “You’re not popular enough?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, making no effort to hide the envy and irritation in my voice.
    “That’s not the point, silly,” she said.
    “Excuse me,” I said, opening the freezer back up, breathing in the blast of cold air as I looked for my favorite food.
    “What’s all this about?” my dad asked, walking into the kitchen. I stopped, closed the freezer door, and turned to face him. Taking a deep breath, I waited.
    “Dad, I’m going to be a cheerleader!” Danielle squealed in a high pitched voice I thought would shatter my ear drums, if not the windows of the neighbors’ new French doors.
    “Honey, that’s awesome,” he said with a warm smile. Putting his arm around her shoulder, he led her out of the room, but I could still hear them. I didn’t care though. I just wanted ice cream. “You know, it takes a lot of guts to try out for something like cheerleading,” he said. “It’s not easy being popular, learning those dances. I know you can do it.” Then he lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “You know, not everyone in this family has what it takes to do a kind of team sport like that, if you know what I mean.”
    Oh, I knew exactly what he meant. And a team sport? Since when is fucking cheerleading a team sport? It’s a bunch of girls that go out and make fools of themselves. What’s so gutsy about that? I slammed the freezer door after putting the ice cream back and grabbed the bowl and spoon as I walked into the next room.
    “So you think I could do it?” I asked shoveling a spoonful of vanilla sweetness into my mouth.
    Danielle and dad stood gawking at the floor in an awkward silence like it was painted with the most fascinating piece of porn they had ever seen. I knew what they were thinking. Yeah, I’m fat. I know I’m fat. Fat girls aren’t cheerleaders, right?
    “Why not try the newspaper staff, honey? Or maybe you could take piano lessons.”
    I smiled. You know, the kind of ironic smile that tells everyone how bitter and miserable you are. But at least I was honest. Dad wasn’t. I felt the cold sweetness melting in my mouth and sliding down my throat, comforting me, loving me like no human being ever did. Nodding as I put another big spoonful in my mouth, I said with my mouth full, “I’m trying out.” Then I turned and skipped off, as much as a fat girl can anyway.
    Shit, what had I done? Now I was going to make a fool of myself in front of everyone. But I was mad, and nothing fuels my stupidity – or my desire for ice cream – like anger.
    Danielle came running after me. “You okay? I thought you’d be happy.”
    “Yeah, why aren’t you happy for me then?” I asked through gritted teeth.
    Danielle closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You know how it is, Karen. Everybody’s different. Everybody has different talents.” Dammit her perfect, squeaky voice was like Freddy Krueger’s nails on a chalkboard. I needed to be learning new Bible verses instead of arguing with her.
    “Guts huh?” I said, the sarcasm dripping from my voice like blood from a vampire’s fangs. “Dad thinks you’ve got guts for trying out for that shit!”
    “It’s hard,” Danielle said, a single, pathetic tear forming in her eye, rolling down the perfect skin on her cheek.
    “Well, I hope you make it,” I said, storming off in mid-sentence. It’s amazing what a lifetime of unhappiness will do. Danielle was right though. Everybody is different. Some people respond to their misery by curling up in a ball and trying to wait this life out until they see Jesus. Then others of us – well – we don’t play by the rules. We can say bless you and fuck you without uttering a word, just throwing a quick glance, a great big smile planted on our faces. Actually, isn’t that what Christianity has always been? I would show them guts!
    The days passed slowly. After everyone got word that I was trying out, they started making their comments. “The fat ass is trying out for cheerleading,” they said. I didn’t care. Well, I tried not to. Well, I tried to make people think I didn’t care. Well, I tried to make people think I didn’t care without letting on that I was really trying to make them think I didn’t. Courage really is hard, and as the day of tryouts got closer, the fear hit home. I hate to admit it, but I was terrified. Standing over a pit full of vipers would have been more palatable.
    So there we all sat in the gym, and I watched all those skinny bitches do their perfect dance routines, getting the ooohs and ahhs from all those fucking little champions for Christ. Then it was my turn, and the crowd was silent. I stood and walked to the middle of the gym, and then I wondered if maybe I had died and gone to hell in that moment. It really did seem like an eternity of hell as I stood there in front of those students. I felt the sweat on my face. Courage. I needed courage. But I didn’t have any.
    I was afraid.
    “Pig!” someone shouted from the bleachers, which set off the uproar of cruel comments I would not have expected even from the most devout Baptists. Soon everyone was laughing and cackling and shouting horrible names.
    But I’m strong. I’m a bitch too, dammit. This shit isn’t supposed to bother me. I felt a lump in my throat. Then a tear rolling down my cheek. Everything was a blur. The noise got louder. All the kids were shouting, laughing, throwing whatever they had in their hands. Here I was. The ugly duckling in front of the crowd of swans. Gone was the strong willed, bitchy girl. Here was the scared girl that had been there all along, the terrified kid whose father took advantage of her, the trembling child waiting for Jesus to come and save her.
    But he didn’t come. Then I remembered all the tales my instructors told. “Jesus stood before a crowd that mocked him!” they had told me. “The Roman soldiers whipped him and laughed as he screamed, laughed as they made hamburger meat out of his flesh.”
    The noise was louder. The shouts were deafening. Did Jesus feel this way as he stood among a crowd of people ready to crucify him? Was there no one to offer him comfort either? Not one? In that moment of realization that I was so weak, so very not-who-I-thought-I-was, I wondered if Jesus had felt the same way.
    By then I was sobbing full force, but the kids didn’t stop laughing. I felt the cups filled with coke and the pencils and pens flying through the air and landing on my face, paper wads in my hair. I wondered if this was how Jesus felt when he asked out loud why God had forsaken him. And I, too, wondered if God had forsaken me in that one moment that reeked of eternal hell.
    And then by some miracle, amid the cacophony of jeering, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was a gentle touch, a touch unlike the one I had felt so many times when dad wanted his way with me. I turned and stood staring into the kind, loving face of my sister.
    “Let’s go,” she said, and as she took my hand to lead me out, the crowd fell silent, just as it had been before the chaos. This is the power of popularity, the power of worldliness. My sister commanded respect that I never would. Not in this world anyway. But it was respect and a moment of peace that I welcomed in that hellish moment.
    When we got outside she held me, and I sobbed into her shoulders. Now, even worse than the public humiliation that would take years to subside, I had to deal with my loss of identity. If I wasn’t a strong willed bitch, who was I? The reality dawned on me that I would have to redefine myself. I did not sign up for this.
    My sister took her hand and lifted my chin to look into her beautiful face. “Now that took guts,” she said with a warm smile. And for the first time since I could remember, I smiled back. A real smile. A smile of warmth and gratitude – and love.
    “Let’s forget school today,” she said. “It’s been a long time since we played hooky. How about some ice cream?”
    Sniffling but still radiating with my own sincere smile, my own sense of inner beauty shining perhaps for the first time ever, I said, “Yeah, let’s go. But I think I’ll pass on the ice cream.”
    I watched as my sister smiled without speaking. I think she really understood, or maybe for the first time I really understood her. Who needs ice cream?

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