They nabbed me because of my weight. I'd been doing the best I could, thought I'd ease my way
into it slowly, but in the end I wasn't gaining fast enough. So they got me. I'm just hoping I'll get out in a month
or two, three at the most. It's my
own damn fault really.
Cindy and I moved to Naples
last year, the summer of 2019.
We'd visited before and liked the peaceful, gated communities, the
subtropical climate, the immaculate shopping malls and white sand beaches. It's no surprise Collier County, where
Naples is located, has remained one of the fastest growing counties in
America. We were convinced on our
first visit. Naples is the gem of
Florida's Gulf Coast, a little American Cote d'Azur with none of the
unpleasantness of the real Cote d'Azur.
While still in New York we knew we had some work ahead of us as far as
getting used to our new Florida home: a bit of adjusting before we'd really fit
in. We'd read the Naples
Community Guide to Right Living, of
course, but hadn't realized before the actual move how seriously the Neapolitans
took their lifestyle rules. It was
only after settling in, after we saw how strict the place was, that we realized
what we were in for.
In all the most important things Cindy proved quicker on the uptake
than me. It was Cindy who insisted
on getting the two SUVs--one red, white and blue, the other just white. And Cindy put on the pounds
faster. Even our huge neighbors
were impressed with how quickly she gained. She picked up all the right mannerisms too: the little
gestures and movements that prove one belongs; the various saccharine
expressions of delight that accompany the different Neapolitan greetings; that
earnest way of pushing a full shopping cart to the car and popping the trunk to
load the bags. In fact the
security people hardly ever bothered us when I was out with Cindy. Still, I knew I couldn't hide under her
wing forever. I had to make better
progress.
I'd already been in Naples eight months when they arrested me. I'm ashamed to say that by that time
I'd only put on forty pounds. It
wasn't up to par, and I knew it. I
knew it from the guidebook, of course, but I could see it also in the looks I
got from neighbors. I guess I
thought I could still claim to be a newcomer. It was na•ve of me.
I should have seen the trouble
I was in when Alec, the cheery man who guards the entrance to our gated
community, finally questioned me outright.
"Say, Mr. Westerman," he said one day as I was pulling in.
"Yes?"
"How heavy are you now--if I might ask?"
"About 240," I said.
"Or at least I was about 240 last time I checked. Why?"
"And you're over six foot tall, aren't you, Mr. Westerman?"
"Yes, I'm six foot two," I said.
Alec pursed his lips; he shook his head slightly.
"Pardon me for saying so," he said, "but a man your
height should be at least 260 pounds.
260 at the very least."
"I'm working on it," I said. "I'll get there yet."
I flashed him a smile and was ready to drive off, but he continued.
"I'm just reminding you, Mr. Westerman. Just to let you know.
I mean, you realize how people in this community will talk."
That exchange took place just a week before the arrest. To tell the truth, Alec's words didn't
fall on deaf ears. That same night
I made a new resolution: to use more butter on my scones in the morning and eat
a slab of Tiramisu every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night, not just on
Thursdays as I'd been doing previously.
Cindy warned that this wouldn't be enough.
"You should be eating some rich dessert every night," she said. "You know what the guidebook says. Why do you always go against the
guidebook?"
Cindy was right. My new
resolution wasn't enough: it was too little too late. They picked me up a few days later as I got out of my car at
the Waterside Shops.
"Derek Westerman?" the officer said. There was a community ethics officer
with him, his huge potbelly nearly popping the buttons off the green uniform.
"Yes."
"I've a warrant here for your arrest."
"I understand," I said.
"It's the weight, isn't it?"
"Just come along peacefully, Mr. Westerman."
* * *
The Naples Re-Education Center is pretty much like I'd heard it
was. It's off Airport Road heading
north, about two miles out of town, just after you pass the third tan strip
mall with the Eckerd Pharmacy. The
third Eckerd Pharmacy, I mean, the one to go with the third strip mall. The Re-Education Center is on the
right, next to the golf course.
They've got me in a sumptuous room with curtains the color of Key Lime
Pie and a placid scene of flamingos painted on the wall. The flamingos are in pastel tones,
stepping through soft blue water, and in the background there's a scene of a
golf course. The room has two
queen-sized beds, one for me and one for my roommate Vern (in such a
comfortable room it wouldn't be quite right to call him a "cellmate,"
though it's true we aren't free to leave). We've got a huge refrigerator regularly restocked with beer,
pizza, cheesecake and various other high-calorie things. There are also three large TV screens
on the walls, two of which can't be turned off, not even while we sleep. The screen closer to Vern's bed plays
24-hour ESPN, and the other one plays 24-hour financial news. The room has air conditioning of
course, and this air conditioning works a bit too well, just as expected. The message they're trying to convey by
this is subtle but irrefutable: If you're chilly at night, they seem to be saying, maybe it's because you
haven't enough flesh on your bones to keep warm.
My roommate Vern is a portly man, so it's obvious he wasn't picked up
for the same reason as me.
"It's because of a stupid remark I made," he admitted when I
asked him what he was in for.
"What remark was that?"
"I was at the cigar lounge with some of the fellas," he
said. "They started talking
about golf and I said I thought golf was a stupid sport. They arrested me the next morning at
work."
"Because you thought golf was stupid?"
"Well, not only that," he said. "But that was bad enough, to say something like that I
mean. A man can get arrested for
less than that."
"But what else did you say?"
"Well," he began, then seemed to change his mind. "It's not important really. Let's just say I made an ass of
myself."
"C'mon," I prodded.
"We're in this together, Vern. Just tell me.
I'm new to Florida too, you know.
Maybe you can save me from shooting off my mouth later on."
"Oh, alright," he said.
"It was the same day at the cigar lounge. I must have had a few too many. Beers, I mean, because I remember we were drinking beer that
day. Anyhow, one of the guys
invited me to a patio party at his house on the Fourth of July. He said he was having a barbecue."
"And?"
"And I told him I don't like barbecues."
"You didn't."
"I did."
"You actually said you wouldn't go to a Fourth of July
barbecue?"
"Yes."
"And you said it in front of how many people?"
"Five or six."
"Christ, Vern!" I laughed. "You're lucky you're in here and not the real detention
center up in Tallahassee."
"I know it," he said.
"It was damn stupid of me."
* * *
Cindy visited me this morning and I had to eat the cookies. It was tough because of the pancake and
sausage breakfast we'd just been forced to eat. But it's a rule here that if a visitor comes they have to
bring two dozen fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and the inmate has to eat them
before the visit it over. They
think it's good for morale.
Cindy told me about some things she bought at the Waterside Shops and
about an origami class she's taking with some "gals" she met at the
hair salon. Cindy really is fitting
in well: she even refers to everyone as gals already. I'm thinking they might let me out early just for her sake.
* * *
Most of the inmates are in here for weight problems, but there are
others, like Vern, who ran afoul of the authorities on other grounds. The young guy Chris across the hall
(his room all in peach tones: wicker furniture, ceiling fan, decorative bowl of
dried starfish and other sea creatures on the table) came to Naples to teach
high school. But he wasn't
prepared for the move. He told me
that before he came down he hadn't read even a chapter of the guidebook. So when he took the I.Q Test he tried
to do his best on it. I mean the
Naples Residency Permit I.Q. Test, of course, the NRPIQ, which we all had to
take to reside legally in Naples.
Chris took the test and was rated with an I.Q. of 139. They hauled him in the very day scores
were announced. They were
furious. It seems they even
roughed him up a little that first night, accused him of being a
"subversive," an "intellectual" and other such things. They were going to send him straight to
Tallahassee, but finally just kept him here. While at the Center, they say, he must try to purify his
thoughts of all the "nonsense and critical thinking" such a
"shamefully high I.Q." has "forced his brain to pick up over the
years": "like a piece of tape dragged across a dirty floor picks up
hair and dust and dead skin flakes."
This is how Chris quotes their words. In fact I don't envy him a bit. He'll be in here a lot longer than Vern or I. And he may end up in Tallahassee after
all.
* * *
Spent the morning at a Golf Appreciation Seminar with Vern. Then more
interrogation after lunch. Today
was the worst of it yet. My
interrogator, Dr. Adler, hails from Minnesota and has been working at the
Center for three years. He's a
tough one, this Adler. If he
doesn't like my answers he comes out with another big bowl of mixed nuts and I
have to eat it down before we can continue.
It seems they didn't just arrest me because of the weight problem after
all. It seems a neighbors had been
spying on me while I was reading.
I sometimes read on the back porch, and one of my neighbors must have
seen me. Already at our first
interrogation Dr. Adler had brought up the question of my reading European
novels, but of course I denied it vehemently.
"I've never read a European novel in my life," I said. "I don't even like American
novels, so why should I be reading European ones?"
"Novels are bad for the community," he said. "Studies have proven it. They lead to unpatriotic, cynical
thinking."
"You needn't worry about my reading habits, doctor. Really. Besides gardening magazines and food magazines--that and the
Naples Community Guide of
course--besides these things I read almost nothing."
"Is that so?" Adler said.
"It is," I insisted.
"I've two perfectly good TVs in my home and I've a member card to
rent movies at Blockbuster, so why in God's name would I be wasting my time
reading novels?"
That was at our first interrogation. I thought I'd done pretty well because Adler never talked
about novels again. I thought the
warning about European novels was just pro forma and I was in the clear. But today he took off the kid gloves. After pressing a bit on my interest in
books and after more of stubborn denials on my part, he finally pulled a big
manila folder from his desk and took out three large black-and-white glossy
photos. Sure enough. Two were of me sitting on my back porch
reading Thoman Mann. And in the
third picture I was reading Marguerite Duras, a French writer, something that
could get me in much deeper hot water than the Naples Community Re-Education
Center had to offer.
"You know, Mr. Westerman," he began as I looked at the photos
aghast, "you know that reading European novels is illegal all over these
fifty states, and you know besides that reading French novels is technically a
felony ever since the dissolution of NATO during Jeb Bush's first term."
"I have never shown any of these books to anyone else, I swear it,
Dr. Adler. I've only kept them to
myself." My voice was already
beginning to crack.
"Whether you show the novels to others or keep them to yourself is
not the point," he said gravely.
"Just reading the novels is already a crime, Mr. Westerman,
something I'm sure you're well aware of."
"I know it's a crime, doctor. But this kind of reading, it's just an old habit of mine,
something I did before the break with Europe. I just haven't been able to kick the habit."
"Not even in an upright community like Naples?"
"No," I said, hanging my head. "I guess not even in Naples. I've been so busy trying to improve my life in other ways .
. . well, I guess I didn't think much about cutting down on my reading."
Adler took the photos from me and put them back in his desk.
"It is not my purpose to push this issue further," he
said. "The neighbor who took
these photos and brought them to me was doing it for your own good, Mr.
Westerman."
"My own
good?"
"Yes. This neighbor
of yours wanted you to realize how reckless you were being keeping such books
in a solidly patriotic community like ours. This neighbor did it to help you reform."
"And I will reform," I said, beginning to feel somewhat at
ease. "I will destroy those
books as soon as I get out of here.
I promise you, doctor."
"Your wife has already taken care of that, Mr. Westerman. You needn't worry about it."
"My wife?"
"Yes. She destroyed
all the novels during your first week here. She agreed with me that it wasn't wise keeping them in the
house. Of course I contacted her
about these photos."
"I am grateful for your kindness, Dr. Adler. And I'm glad those novels are finally
gone. Sometimes the only way to
quit a bad habit is to go cold turkey."
"I think you are right on that, Mr. Westerman. At least if the bad habit is also a
felony."
But inside I wasn't glad the novels were gone. It was my mistake to read them on the porch. Probably I'll never be able to find anything by Duras again.
* * *
I'm to be released tomorrow.
Vern apparently hasn't done as well as I. Although we were arrested about the same time, he's in for
at least another month. From what
I've heard, his interrogator can still see how much he hates golf. He hasn't made enough of an effort.
I'm now a solid 297 pounds. My cholesterol level is dangerously high and I can hardly make it up a flight of stairs. But that isn't all. After almost two months of watching ESPN, I know about all kinds of sports teams, so I can now talk confidently about the kind of subjects proper to men of my age. I'll no longer be at a loss for words when I sidle up to the bar.
It really wasn't all that bad being in the Naples Community
Re-Education Center. Of course it
would have been better if I'd have managed to become a real Neapolitan on my
own, without the push the Center gave me.
But in fact there are many prominent Neapolitans who started with a
stint in the Center, and from what I've heard it's not something to be overly
ashamed of.
I'll stop typing now because the dinner bell has just rung, and to tell
the truth I'm quite hungry. Some
of the fellas will be having a little graduation party for me in the dining
hall. I'm guessing there will be a chocolate cheesecake with red-white-and-blue
candles. At least that's the
proper protocol when someone graduates.
Tomorrow Cindy picks me up in the SUV. She herself has reached a whopping 238 pounds. From this day forward Cindy and Derek
Westerman will be a couple to be reckoned with.
God bless America and God bless the people of this great state of
Florida. May He continue to give
us the great bounty that He in His wisdom has seen fit to give us so far. And may we always use this great bounty
wisely in order to bring greater glory to Him. For He is indeed a huge God and He watches over us always,
bringing us our three squares a day and more. Amen, and I'm off to dinner.
Eric Mader
2004
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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