Big Ray by Michael Kimball: A personal response

My father is a small man. He is small in stature. He is small in emotions. And he is also small in achievement. My fathers greatest achievement is the PhD he obtained just after I was born. When I turned eighteen, he gave me a copy of his PhD. When I turned twenty-one, he asked when I would be obtaining a PhD of my own. My father is a scientist. He thinks in terms of formulae and processes. I am a writer. I think in terms of people. Sometimes I think that his PhD is a proxy for the love that he is unable to give. It is also a love that I am unable to understand.

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At over five hundred pounds, Big Ray is a large man. He is so morbidly obese that he can scarcely drive, that the parts of his body below his gut are uncharted territory. He is a man whose stature is matched by a personality so enormously overwhelming that although you want to look away, you cant. Big Ray does not necessarily enjoy being obese, but he does enjoy being larger than everyone else.

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My father has never forgiven my mother for leaving him. I dont think he ever believed that she would. When she tried to suggest marriage counselling, he told her that there was nothing wrong. When she finally took us and moved out, he still did not believe that there was anything wrong. Sometimes his car would drive up our street. Once, the lights were out in his house and the neighbours called the police.'There are things here that I want to say, but that I cant.

*

It is possibly five days since Big Ray has died. No one is sure, because no one was there to see it happen. When he is found, it is not by his family. When his family learn of his death, they are conflicted. Because Big Ray'looms just as large and dangerous in death as he ever did in life. Perhaps more so. Because in death he has finally escaped the body that has trapped him for so long. Big Rays body is a sort of punishment. It is his familys fault that he is obese. It is his familys fault if he is not taken care of. But Big Ray guzzles soft drink, gorges on junk food, lets his diabetes run rampant. He punishes his family by punishing himself.

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At my sisters engagement party my father took us aside to tell us that he has high blood sugar and high blood pressure. As everyone else drank and danced he told us about how our great-grandmother had both legs amputated. My father says that he does not have time to exercise or eat properly. He also does not have time for his family. He would rather work. This has always been the case. The only time he would call would be on my birthday. Each time he would call he would tell me about his health woes, his relationship woes. He made me cry three birthdays in a row. I dont answer the phone on my birthday any more.

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Big Rays story unfolds over five hundred brief entries rather like this one. Thats one entry per pound. Shylocks demand for a pound of flesh as payment seems trifling in comparison. But Big Ray is a brutal, abusive man, and this payment seems strangely fair.

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My husband tells me that we can never be objective about our relationships. Or our lives. That what we remember is what fits with the narratives that we create. The evidence we use to reconstruct our pasts. I want to believe that this is true. I want to believe that my father loves me, that I am worth being loved. Im not sure why I care. When I look at photographs of my father I am always struck by the fact that he is not smiling in any of them. I smile too much. I have a lovely smile. Except those times when I remind myself of him.

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Big Rays son cannot escape his father. But it is only in death, when Big Ray is only a spectre, that he has the courage to try to understand him. Big Ray was, once, a handsome man. He was, once, a happy man. The high point of Big Rays life was his entry into the army. Everything after that was a disappointment. He never even saw battle.

*

It has been a year since my wedding day. It has also been a year since I last spoke to my father. A year since he gave a speech about how much a wedding that my husband and I paid for cost him. A year since he and his girlfriend refused to speak to any of my relatives, colleagues, friends. A year since he commented that a wedding arising from a five-year relationship was a surprise. A year since a friend mentioned that my father doesnt really know me at all. He doesnt.

Im not sure how I feel about this.

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Big Rays son calls Big Ray his father in his reflections. He called him Dad in real life.

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When I was a kid I used to call my father by his given name. I still feel that this is apt.

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Big Rays son is terrified about having children.

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So am I.

Rating: (excellent)

With thanks to Bloomsbury Australia for the review copy

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Other books by Michael Kimball: