Body of Evidence

Body of Evidence

          Charlie had always been a big man.  In fact, he had been a big youth and a big child.  He never completely understood where it all came from since his mother was 5’4” and came from sturdy Eastern European stock that was certainly broad, but not particularly tall.  His father was a tall man for his era at 6’0” and narrow of hip and overall physique.  Somehow that genetic combination yielded a child that was taller and broader than 99% of his peers in whatever grade you chose to compare.  In fact, for reasons in no way connected to his size, he was pushed a year ahead in school (skipping second grade) and yet still he was taller and broader than 99% of his classmates.

          Charlie was a thinker and a lover, not a fighter.  He liked sports, but he didn’t like brawling sports.  He preferred individual performance sports like tennis, skiing and even baseball, where running, catching, throwing and hitting were done more or less alone.  Mixing it up in a scrum or huddle was less his style for two reasons.  To be very clear about it, Charlie did not like being hit and contact sports were not something he relished.  He could take it somewhat, but simply didn’t enjoy it.  He was convinced that the people who enjoyed it were the people who liked inflicting pain or humiliation on others.  But mostly, he was so much bigger than most of the others on any given field on any given day that he felt he was the victim of a combination of being targeted by others with something to prove and that whatever he did to act out aggressively would be frowned upon as abuse of power or at least abuse of size.  Charlie believed that big men were not is a winning position on these things and lost stature no matter which way things played out.

          In college, Charlie was approached by the football coaches during orientation as he stood out by virtue of his size.  They put him through all manner of drills right there on the gymnasium floor while other students watched casually in between registering for courses and activities.  It was a little embarrassing, but part of Charlie’s personality was that he always tried to please and had a hard time saying no, especially to insistent male types (he was raised in a family of women with no father-figure around).  Some might think it was the female influence that made him that way, but not so.  Charlie’s mother was as manly as a woman could be.  She was a sportswoman who had played basketball, tennis, golf and she skied.  In fact, Charlie was pushed into those sports by her, so she was hardly the issue.  The issue was in Charlie’s DNA.  He was who he was.

          In the business world Charlie found his size to be an asset.  He was memorable while still being thoughtful.  It is said that there is a high correlation between business success and height.  The theory is that this is about dominance as well as memorability.  If that is so, the same can be said for overall size so long as it does not become grotesque.  That is a fine line and one person’s grotesque size is another person’s normal size.  This worked for Charlie the same way with men and women, all for very primordial reasons. Some women were happy to have a mate that is large.  Charlie’s girlfriend in college was 5’0”.  In the Yearbook, page 47, there was a picture of Charlie and her on the Quad on a sunny day with her in platform shoes looking up at him as though he were Mount Everest.  In those days, few were climbing the heights of Mount Everest, just as few were climbing the heights of Charlie’s peak.         

          As for men, the business world was not unlike the playing field and there were certainly men who would challenge Charlie just to prove they could, but the genteel world of international banking was not so rambunctious that it was a regular occurrence.  The business world of Wall Street was rough and tumble for all, so it was unclear that Charlie’s burden was any greater than anyone else’s.  And there was one thing that was ALWAYS an advantage for Charlie and that was presence.  Whether in politics, sports, business or most any endeavor, presence is what caused people to give Charlie the benefit of the doubt.  When he would talk, people would listen.  When he gave presentations, people would pay attention.  When he went for the close or went to make his point in a negotiation, it worked more often than not.  Charlie did not feel at all disadvantaged on account of his size.

          But now Charlie was sixty-five years old.  He was gradually shrinking as his spinal discs compressed ever so slightly.  He was lighter than he used to be in his “prime”, but he still out-weighed everyone in the room, any room. Charlie couldn’t tell if he was slowing down more or less than anyone else, but he was certainly slowing down.  He was lucky to have no debilitating diseases or afflictions.  He had never had any serious surgeries or back trouble.  HE hadn’t even had any joint replacements, which were more common that not in sixty-year-olds.  Charlie felt like that was all less than coincidental.  He was convinced that he was more careful than others in not overdoing things.  He was fond of saying that he never ran for a bus, which made him sound calm, but he knew it was really about not wanting to pull a tendon out of his joint.  When he was young he had been told his tendons and ligaments were younger than his body mass.  Now he suspected that the opposite may have been true.

          Charlie basically took his time getting from here to there.  He was lucky because he wasn’t in a physically demanding job (except for damn cocktail parties, which always put a strain on his back from standing around so long). He had a very short half-block commute, so he could saunter back and forth as he pleased.  But then he had to figure out his kids and now grandkids.

          Charlie had managed his kids’ upbringing just fine.  He was not an old father, so it wasn’t that hard and the only real issues he ever faced was at amusement parks (where he steadfastly avoided the rides) and the sports teams where he feigned lack of coaching ability to avoid that duty of running around the field and working up a sweat. Most of his other adult sports could be done without restriction based on his size.

          Then, one day Charlie agreed to go strawberry picking with his granddaughters and he got caught flatfooted.  Literally.  He spent several hours bending and picking, bending and picking.  He had managed through, but that night he felt it all come in on him.  His hamstrings tightened up like a bow and his lower back started to throb.  The next day he got a deep tissue massage from a female Korean Torquemada and that put a capper on it.  He was immobile.  Charlie had to sit in a hot bath that next night like a ninety-year old man.  While he did so, he determined that he could either finally trim down to fighting weight or come up with another strategy.

          The next day he agreed with his family that when peaches ripened he would go with them to pick peaches. As Charlie pondered his choices, he thought, who knew that retirement was going to be so strategically challenging?