"The Fat Girls Contest":
The problem as I see it is to negotiate the busy canal of life from the gondola of one’s passivity. I like the little things. Lunch. The nap. The haircut. Looking in the mirror all that time puts me in such a good mood.
It was otherwise with Toad. He was always looking for women with whom to excite himself. I’d rather just lie here and await ravishment.
He wanted to soak himself in flesh, drown in it, extinguish for a moment his Toadness—and who can blame him?—in it.
Consider the luxury of encountering in the object of desire a maximum surface, of finding the object of desire if not limitless at least global. Planetary. The woman as world, if you will. Habitable. Not just the image of what is bigger than oneself, of what threatens, nay promises, to engulf one, but the very thing. I mean he’d done everything else.
"All women," he said, addressing the applicants as if handing down the tablets, "see themselves as fat. It is a condition of femaleness that it is incapable of distinguishing between itself and obesity. They will see nothing but what they feel to be the truth projected before them."
“And,” said Toad, “there will be a bonus for anyone whose partner tops the hundred-kilo mark! We got thirty entrance fees here, that’s five hundred extra to be shared by all contestants with ladies over two hundred and twenty pounds! I,” he added with a flourish, “will pay the caterers myself.” That’s the kind of dog biscuit the rich can throw you.
She weighed two hundred and seventy-five pounds, I clocked her. You didn’t want to give her any mouth. A single backhand could affect your dental work for decades.
"Attack of the Giant Feminists":
Naked, zombie-eyed, they loom over the landscape, advancing slowly, almost aimlessly, arms limp. We fall to our knees in wonder, rabbits in the headlights of a final revelation. Their gaze excludes us.
We jump into our Porsches and race back to the city.
What has happened transcends our understanding, a thing we are used to.
Someone has to be first. I steal forward. The seam is a pucker of delicate elephant skin, so tall I must arch my head back to see the summit. I pat it with both hands, gentle it, put my ear to it for oracular rumbles. Pulling nervously at my pants I glance up at the crests of her thighs. If they close I am done for. Holding it, as it were, by the lapels, I engage. It is a potential cavity! I press my cheek to it and give it my best stuff, pry at it with my tongue, surrender to its warmth.
"Certainly Something":
"You can’t be serious." "No, but I can ball-room dance." She restrained a smile and cocked an eyebrow. Funny how you can hear the old ball drop into the pocket.
"I’ll bet my mother’s uglier than your mother," I said.
He lit right up. "That’s a fool’s bet," he said. "I’ve got pictures right here."
"Art," said Barb, and he cooled it.
So we all just sat there.
"I’m not even sure I’m all that interested in having a good time!" What was one to say? We carry a special burden, those of us who dare to love the world. I shrugged. "Somebody’s got to do it."
"The Great Detective":
"Joe-John! You fat! You stink de beer! You never get op de bed! You balls hang outa you shorts! How come I love you so much?” She fanned flies off him.
"Will You Please Fuck Off?":
Whether or not to be a gentleman. Always a tough call. It depends.
"You are eating dead flesh," she observed. My mouth was already full. "I like mine with a cream sauce," I managed to say.
"Toby," the child turned around and said, "do we turn here?" "No," I said. I had no idea whether we turned there or not but I like saying no to the child.
"How did you find me?" "Not bad. A little skinny." "No, how did you locate me? The room." "Oh. The cabby. He was polite enough not to abandon me on the sidewalk." "Smart-ass." "You are not," I said, opening my coat, "unright." I let it fall and struggled with my belt. "My brains must be somewhere."
I didn’t care. I just wanted to lie there and be thrown around by my feelings.
Toby stories, featuring characters from Foreign Matter (New York, Atheneum/Macmillan):
“A very, very funny book."—The West Coast Review of Books
“Fresh and spirited.”—Publishers Weekly
“Enormously enjoyable.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A complete success.”—Books in Canada
“A delightfully comic creation.”—The Montreal Gazette
“Funny, ebullient comedy of errors.”—Santa Cruz Sentinal
“The feel of a Peter Sellers movie.”—Wichita Eagle-Beacon
“Fast-moving and funny.”—Anniston Star
“Could bode well for his future.”—The New York Times
On the Kindle:
"This was the most hilarious book I have ever read. I laughed out loud again and again….and then I would hit another part that had me laughing some more. I was kind of sad when I finished it."—Pat Thompson, Goodreads
"Physical comedy sequences on par with the best of Chaplin and Keaton."—Jon Zelazny, Amazon
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