Fat Whack Read online

  “I don’t like onions,” he says to himself, “but I love Funyuns!”

  He places his nose just above the open bag and inhales deeply, a smile spreading across his face. One Funyun is lifted out of the bag and thrown up into the air. The chip climbs high in the sky until its ascent halts. For a moment it floats in place, and then, as it descends towards the man’s wide-open mouth, a black-gloved hand karate chops it out of existence. A millisecond later, the blade of a sword slices open the bottom of the chip bag, causing all of its contents to pour out onto the linoleum floor. Terrified, the man looks up and sees the ninja, standing close enough to kill. It raises its pointer finger into the air and wags it back and forth as if saying, “Oh no you don’t.” Then it vanishes within a puff of white smoke.

  For some reason the obese man no longer looks scared. A smirk manifests on his face. He gives the cheesiest double thumbs he can to the smoke filled area where the ninja had been only seconds ago.

  “Thanks, ninja dude!” he says. An eleven-digit phone number fades in and floats above his head. The scene fades to black. From somewhere off-screen, the calorie-killing ninja walks back into view; he has removed his mask.

  “Hello, my name is Master Chapton Ito. You know me as the proud owner of Fat Whack, the best weight loss program available this side of the Orient. What you don’t know is that I’m not only the owner, I’m also a client.”

  Old black and white photos appear and then dissolve out, showing a much younger and significantly heavier version of the master. The current version of the man points directly into the camera.

  “Our facilities are fully stocked, and our ninjas are specially trained to help you whack that fat right off. So, are you ready to be a fat whacker? Call now!”

  “Cut! Cut! That’s a wrap!”

  Master Chapton Ito, known to just about everyone simply as “Master Chap,” kept his finger pointed at the lens of the camera. Shooting a professional commercial for his weight loss company was a dream come true. Fat Whack had taken off in ways that he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams. At the ripe old age of fifty-two, he was living his best life, and he knew it. A lifetime ago, when he was a young boy, his family had been unlucky enough to find themselves in an internment camp because of their Japanese heritage. He had been five and now barely remembered that period of his life, but his parents never forgot. Afterwards, life continued to be hard, but his family was closer than ever. Like all families, the Itos had some highs and some lows, but through it all they had each other, and they also had food. Chap’s mom and dad both loved to cook. From a breakfast of miso soup to a dinner of udon—and everything in between—the family could eat and did eat as much as possible. The world just didn’t seem quite as scary with a full belly. Eventually, American food started finding a place on the family’s dinner table. While they still enjoyed traditional dishes, Chap and his little brother Billy started finding American “comfort food” to be more desirable. Hamburgers, hotdogs, macaroni, baked beans, barbecue . . . they devoured any new food they could sink their teeth into.

  Once, by what they later joked was divine appointment, the boys met a large Southern woman who was visiting California all the way from a far-off land called Alabama. She was staying with some relatives down the street, and in a true display of Southern hospitality, she offered them a taste of her “famous” potato salad. It was the weirdest, most amazing concoction they had ever put their tongues on. They thanked the woman and praised her potatoes so much that she blushed and gave them dessert. Chap and Billy found themselves staring into great big bowls of banana pudding. It looked so beautiful that they didn’t want to stick their spoons in. Vanilla wafers rested gently on a top layer of smooth white meringue that had been crusted to a perfect brown. Thin slices of banana peeked out of the pudding.

  “Hello,” Chap said out loud to his bowl of dessert. “I’m going to eat you now.”

  The woman snorted with laughter and watched with pride as the two boys devoured her dessert. She gave them seconds and then let them wash it all down with an ice-cold glass of sugary sweet iced tea. It poured out of the pitcher like pancake syrup. The boys agreed—they had died and gone to food heaven. Then and there, they both swore that one day when they got older, they would move across the country to this heaven on earth and make it their home. Until then, they would eat their cares away, and the boys cared about a great deal of things.

  Many times brothers become best friends. This was the case with Chap and Billy, but they didn’t exactly have a lot of options. Bullies picked on them constantly. Being overweight, plus Japanese, seemed to put a pretty large target on their pretty large backs. Their excess skin became thick skin, and they learned to live with it. On one particularly hot day, when Chap was fifteen and Billy thirteen, the brothers were trying to enjoy themselves by cooling off at the public pool. A group of bullies decided to inform them that wearing a t-shirt while swimming at the pool was a punishable offense. They pointed and laughed, hurled insults, and treated them like they had an infectious fat disease. The taunting got so uncomfortable that they decided to leave. Dripping wet, the brothers pointed the front tire of their bikes in the direction of home and unconditional acceptance. Unfortunately, the bullies decided to add injury to insult. Rushing up from behind, four future felons pushed them off of their bikes and started ripping off their t-shirts. Long swaths of cloth tore away, revealing embarrassment underneath. They all pointed and laughed.

  “Look at those man boobs jiggle!” one of them said.

  “Somebody get these Godzillas a bra to wear!” another one joked.

  The brothers lay on the ground in a fetal position, waiting for the kids to run out of insults. They knew the drill. Soon the bullies would get bored and head back to the pool, bragging about what they had just done. Unfortunately, this time things took a turn for the worse. One of the bullies slapped the fat on Billy’s back with an open palm. He screamed out in pain. A red handprint quickly appeared on his skin.

  For some reason, the unnatural sound of the hand slapping Billy’s epidermis continued to echo in Chap’s ears. Whack! His little brother sobbed face first in a patch of grass. Whack! White hot rage filled his being—rage that somehow overcame his fear. Whack! Chap jumped up to his feet and pushed the strongest kid as hard as he could. The bully flew backwards and fell hard on his butt.

  “What the . . .” the bully yelled while holding his buttocks. “Ouch!”

  Everyone stood frozen in place. Chap wanted to jump for joy but there was no time to celebrate.

  “What are you dummies waiting for?” the bully yelled. “Get him!”

  Chap quickly picked his brother up and put him on his bike. They rode for their lives. Tattered strips of ripped t-shirt flew in the wind off their backs like thrift store superhero capes. The fastest route home was to take the shortcut through Specter City. Their tormentors gave chase on faster, more expensive bikes. They were also in much better shape, so escape was impossible. Before long the gang would catch up with them, and a beating was inevitable.

  What they needed was somewhere with grown-ups, and they needed it fast. But Specter City was a ghost town; every business they rode past had been closed down within the last year or so. Just in time, they spotted a sliver of hope—an old building with lights on inside. The sign on the building simply read: “DOJO.” They had passed this place many times before, but this was the first time its lights had ever been on. They dropped their bikes hard on the ground in a way that only kids are capable of doing, and they ran into the dojo as fast as their feet could take them.

  Inside, a Japanese man stopped cleaning the floor and looked up at them. His eyes were sunken, and his expression looked mean. His short-cropped hair and scraggly beard were a mixture of grey and white. Through their labored breathing, they asked the old man for help. Chap asked him both in English and in Japanese. Exhausted, Billy fell to his knees and threw up a little on
the floor. This made the man mad. He looked like he was going to murder them, and for a moment they thought they might have been better off getting caught by the bullies.

  The man was about to speak, when four more kids came running into his dojo, tracking mud and dirt all over his previously clean floor. Grown-up present or not, the bullies intended to deliver an epic ass whooping. But they got one instead.

  The man stood. He used two hands to twist his damp rag several times, forming a non-lethal but pain-inducing weapon. He whipped the rag at the exposed skin of the bullies’ legs, arms, and necks. It made loud popping noises as it slapped skin, and it left swollen red marks everywhere it touched.

  “I’m going to tell my dad about this!” the leader of the gang yelled.

  The child’s threat fell on deaf ears. The man continued whipping the juveniles with his wet rag.

  “You suck, old man!” one of the kids yelled. He spit a large mixture of phlegm and mucus on the floor and then rubbed it in with his shoe.

  The old man turned red for only a moment, then he calmly walked over to a wall full of real weapons. He reached for something. When his hand touched the hilt of a sword, the bullies all turned around and ran out of the front door. Chap and Billy watched in astonishment. As soon as the hooligans had left, the old man simply began cleaning the floor again as if nothing of consequence had happened.

  “That was incredible!” Chap said. “How can we ever repay you?”

  “Finish cleaning the floor,” he said. “Where little brother stands, clean two times. Then you leave my dojo.”

  He threw his rag at Chap.

  “Yes sir!” Chap said. Then he happily got down on his hands and knees and started scrubbing away. Billy found a rag of his own and started doing the same. The old man walked through a door that must have led to a back office and slammed the door shut behind him.

  The master of the dojo was a scary guy, and the boys thought about leaving without finishing the work. It was tempting, but they couldn’t leave. The man had saved them. Cleaning his floor was the least they could do.

  They had almost finished their work when the door suddenly opened. The old man peaked his head out and stared at them with a serious look on his face.

  “My name is Master Takanashi,” he said. “Training starts in the morning. New students are always welcome.”

  Master Takanashi turned out to be a lot kinder than he had first appeared. The boys trained at the dojo for a substantially discounted rate, as long as they continued to clean the dojo. Being the only students, they learned quickly. They lost weight almost as quickly as they learned. Using their winning personalities, they invited as many people as they could to come and join the dojo. They made promotional flyers and put them on every telephone pole they came across. It worked—the dojo began to thrive, just like the boys.

  Life was good, until it wasn’t. Three years later, when Chap was eighteen years old, his parents, Reo and Sana Ito, died. A stolen car stole their lives on a Saturday evening right outside the dojo.

  The brothers handled their parents’ passing in different ways. Chap bottled up all of his emotions. It was now his job to take care of his little brother. He grew up fast. There was no longer room in his life for childish things. His one and only outlet was that he continued to train at the dojo, now more dedicated than ever. Every punch and kick kept his mind off the hurt he felt inside—but you can’t punch the pain away completely.

  One night, months after his parents’ passing, Chap broke down crying while cleaning the dojo. He had thought that he was alone, but Master Takanashi was watching. He gently placed a hand on Chap’s shoulder. The boy stopped crying and quickly started to clean again.

  “I know what it is like to lose family,” Master Takanashi said. “When you are ready, I will tell you about my loss. Then we train. I have things I would like to teach you. We will fill your mind with new things.”

  Chap started to cry again. He and his Master spoke late into the night, and they trained even later. Chap gained a second father that night.

  Billy had always been the more creative of the two. He had an impressive imagination. Every time he saw the road outside the dojo, he imagined his parents dying all over again, and again, and again—each time in vivid detail. Because of this, he stopped training. Depression set in, and old habits returned. He looked to food for comfort, and it accepted him back with open arms. After a while, Chap asked his brother to start training again. Billy reluctantly agreed. Despite the return of his old body, Billy still had some pretty impressive moves, but his heart was just not in it.

  Years later, Chap had the honor of becoming a sensei at the dojo. He was twenty-seven and teaching more classes than Master Takanashi ever had. He feared this was because his master was not feeling well, but Master Takanashi refused to answer questions about his health. Instead, he spoke of retirement and handing his dojo, along with the title of master, over to Chap. He explained that Chap and Billy were his responsibility now; they were family as far as he was concerned. Chap was honored, but he had a different dream. He wanted to make good on his childhood oath to move to food heaven, though this move would take place with drastically different intentions than originally planned. He had a business idea, and he thought it was a good one. Master Takanashi agreed that the idea was good. He gave Chap his blessing. He even gave him some money to help get the business up and running.

  A few years later, Fat Whack was born. The company name made people laugh. It made Chap think of when he was fifteen, the day he started pushing back at bullies and at life. After a rough start and almost twenty years of hard work, business was finally booming. Chap only wished that Master Takanashi was still alive to see how it had all turned out.

  Starting the company in the South turned out to be a smart move. There were a lot of potato-salad-eating, banana-pudding-loving people who were attracted to Fat Whack’s unique approach concerning self-help and exercise. Entry level members had unlimited access to a wacky, totally fun, fat burning obstacle course that Master Chap set up himself. The course was fun to do and even more fun to watch people attempt to do. It was built over a shallow body of intentionally cold water. The contestants seemed to love falling into the frigid liquid; at least that’s how it appeared to those watching from the stands. Chap had gotten the unique idea from a Japanese game show called Takeshi’s Castle. Watching the television show had brought some laughter back into his life at a time when he had thought that he may never laugh again. Now he was bringing laughter and health to others. Even non-members came out in droves for the show. While Chap enjoyed the comedy as much as the next guy, the show he enjoyed the most was seeing those out-of-shape individuals transform into healthy, confident people.

  Fat Whack was more than just an obstacle course in the woods—there were also classes available. You could attend martial arts training at one of the many Fat Whack family dojos across the Southeast. There were healthy-living cooking classes and junk-food-addiction support groups. From yoga to you name it, there was an option to fit everyone’s healthy living needs. By far, the main attraction and the most talked about feature of the Fat Whack brand was the optional black belt level service. For just a few extra bucks a month you could order your own personal ninja to help you “whack that fat” right off. Everyone was talking about it—even the news!

  This unique feature was the focus of the commercial being shot today. Obviously the events in the commercial were being somewhat exaggerated in order to be comical; the service was by no means as intrusive as the example shown on screen. However, the Fat Whack ninjas did have a way of showing up out of nowhere when you least expected them in order to remind you to stay on the path to healthy living.

  Master Chap relaxed and let out a loud sigh as he ran both of his hands through his thick head of jet black hair. He had done it—the commercial was in the can. Someone approached him from behind. It was a Japanese man wi
th thick, graying black hair combed back away from a receding hairline. A matching mustache rested on his upper lip. The man patted Chap hard on the back.

  “That was fantastic!” Billy exclaimed.

  Billy had been twenty-six when he moved to Alabama to help his big brother start up the business. Although he had been sad to leave Master Takanashi behind, he was glad to start over somewhere new, where he wasn’t accosted on a constant basis by the visual reminders of his parents’ dying day. Now at the age of fifty, his job at Fat Whack was more behind the scenes. He was in charge of the money and marketing. He was also the idea man. The business was Chap’s idea, but every idea since then had been born from Billy’s big imagination. Technically, he was the one who came up with the obstacle course idea. It was also his brainchild to have ninjas jump out of the shadows and knock junk food out of their clients’ hands. Who knew that people would actually pay to have that happen to them? Billy—that’s who knew. His ideas put Fat Whack on the map, literally. The Fat Whack franchise was spreading across the Bible belt, and soon it would be nationwide. Billy liked to stay behind the scenes for many reasons, one of which was that he was still a little large around the waist for someone who co-owned a weight loss company. Even so, he had been coming by the dojo more often lately, and his form was still great after all these years.