accepted in via my role as “the funny fat kid.”
It was in Boca Raton that I implemented a brilliant plan: If you don’t look like a model, hang around kids who do. I subconsciously sought out and befriended every “beautiful” person on campus. Little did I realize I was shunning the other “real-life” kids—in other words, I was doing to them exactly what I felt like everyone had always done to me.
I became friends with Kathi-Jo DeMilia and Doreen DeNigris—two of the most sought after beauties at school. This made me “cool” in everyone’s eyes—especially my own. No one thought I could actually be dating either of those gorgeous ladies, but still, people wondered, “Why are those hot girls hanging out with him?”
I now had friends and earned accolades by standing out—in terms of talent and literally—in Lynn’s theater program, but I still resorted to my secret food addiction when no one was looking. I maintained the same pattern I’d started with my parents, even though they were thousands of miles away. I never let anyone see me eat. Not breakfast. Not lunch. Not dinner. Not in-between meal snacks. Even though my meals were paid for as part of my tuition, and despite the fact that our campus was isolated and I didn’t have a car, I never once ate at the college cafeteria.
Instead, I ordered food from the school’s snack bar and took it back to my room and gorged myself, or I ordered from the local pizza delivery and did the same.
College Gregg’s Typical Binge
1 large Italian Submarine Sandwich with Everything
1 large Philly-Style Cheese-Steak Sandwich
4 bags of Barbecue Potato Chips
3 large Lemonades
4 large Chocolate Chip Cookies
6 packs of Bubble Yum Watermelon Flavored Gum
My roommate, George, who was there on a student visa from Singapore, worked quite a bit and usually wasn’t around. Whenever he was, I would take my food to a stall in the dormitory’s giant communal bathroom. I wonder to this day if people using the bathroom realized where the smell of food was coming from. There I would sit—yes, on the toilet—stuffing food down my throat and using toilet paper for napkins. It was quite glamorous.
I was sure that no one knew I ate. I was convinced I was fooling everyone.
The ultimate milestone in making everyone realize I was “foxy for a fat kid” was when I became roommates with the best looking guy on campus, a model from Kentucky named Tom. At last, I thought, I was one of the beautiful people. And despite my delusional thinking, a strange thing occurred: With those new friends, I became surprisingly more active and even—dare I say—happy.
Then something even more surprising, something quite wonderful, happened. Without dieting, without monitoring my weight, without even consciously exercising, I began to shed weight.
I went from a 3XXX (“tent size” to the uninitiated) to a regular XL. For the first time in my life I was able to wear a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, the unofficial school uniform for any guy who deemed himself worthy at Lynn University.
Of course, Ralph Lauren polo shirts required major bucks, something I had little of. My mother rarely sent me money. I couldn’t even afford shampoo most of the time. That’s when I started shoplifting—from one manifestation of addiction to the next.
Committed to “fitting in” no matter what, I was determined to “own” some Ralph Lauren polo shirts of my own, and I did it the only way I knew how, via the “five finger discount.” I’m not sure if that temporary bout of shoplifting was just immature kid stuff or another way of crying out for help.
Either way, help never came.
I thought I was happy. And in a way I was. Except for the times when I’d visit either of my parents. That was something I had to do because Lynn University, being a private college, would shut down for school breaks. No students were allowed to be on campus during those breaks, much less reside in the dorms.
My dad was now working as a civilian and living in Boston, married to Bonnie the flight attendant, who was pregnant with my half-sister, Nicole. Once Nicole was born, anytime during my visits when the four of us were out in public, people would assume that Bonnie and I were the couple and that Dad was the grandfather to my baby sister.
Dad was never thrilled with my visits, and Bonnie was even less excited. I was desperate to become a “member” of their family, but they wanted little to do with me.
One Thanksgiving break, Dad didn’t want to pay for my transportation to Boston from Florida. He suggested that I hitchhike.
At first I thought Dad was joking around. When it became evident that he wasn’t, I was horrified, given that hitchhiking 1,500 miles from South Florida to Boston would be pretty risky for all sorts of reasons. I wondered if my dad had even considered the danger involved. Whether he had or hadn’t, his suggestion remained very unsettling.
Visiting my mom was even weirder. Lori had been suffering from Mom’s direct abuse since I wasn’t around to shield her anymore, and she had run away from home. I learned that Lori was eventually placed with a foster family in the greater Wiesbaden area in Germany.
The story my mother told was that Lori had turned to drugs and had become a terror to live with. Lori’s version was more chilling; tales of my mother flying into uncontrollable rages and hunting Lori down when she would try to escape, at one point even attempting to run her down with a car.
Since I was staying with Mom while visiting, Lori chose not to see me, which I understood. But that meant it was just me, alone with my mom, which presented numerous challenges. The main one was that my mom continued to be embarrassed by my size. I had plateaued at XL and was now starting to gain weight again. Even if we were just running to the grocery store, she would suggest I not go, or if I did, she would want me to dress as nicely as possible, so as to look more “presentable.”
Whenever we ran into someone she knew, she wouldn’t introduce me.
I didn’t care. For the most part we were getting along. I didn’t mind corroborating her lies, like her continued lowering of her age over the summer, as long as she showed me a bit of affection from time to time.
And most of that affection came in the form of edible goods. She kept a full pantry of food for me whenever I was “home” in Germany during school breaks. It was as if she was willing to play along with my sickness as long as I was willing to play along with hers. I ate like a king. Actually, like a big fat king and his entire court. Forget ballooning back into a size 2XX. I was now bordering on 3XXX territory again. Don’t let the “triple X” fool you. Nothing about my girth was sexy.
In the spring of my sophomore year at Lynn University my mother stopped writing, stopped calling, and stopped sending money. I was broke and started bouncing checks in order to get by. Finally, I called my dad to ask for help. I learned that he was sending my mom almost $300 per month for my individual, court-ordered child support. Only she wasn’t sending me a cent of it. Thankfully, after checking with his divorce attorney, my father started funneling the settlement earmarked for my well-being directly to me.
My mother was furious and begged Dad to change his mind, telling him I would waste the money on drugs;
