Been Caught Stealing (not about stealing)

My friend Marta taught me how to throw up. It was school vacation. We rode our ten speeds out of my neighborhood to the center of town to get breakfast. At the “Waiting Station”, a townie breakfast nook, equipped with neatly arranged jam packets, blueberry pancakes and a lonely owner’s daughter with frantic frazzled hair who never was not working there; we stuffed our thirteen year-old faces. We paid, tipped poorly as freshman in high school do. And rode back to my house (because I had a pool). The mile long bike ride didn’t help with my over loaded satiety signals. I felt like a bloated cow. Marta had an idea. She led me to the bathroom and she ran the water. She sucked down glass after glass of water from the tooth -brush cup that sat next to the sink. She left the water running. I watched her shove her stiffened pointer and middle fingers so far down her throat. I heard her gag. The sound made me gag. I didn’t need to place my fingers down my throat. I was a natural. Since, she was taking advantage of the toilet; I heaved alongside of her in the vanity sink. We would look at each other periodically. I saw it all leave my body in reverse. The last thing I ate, followed by the middle thing I ate. Followed by the corn muffin that started the breakfast binge. It was then that I understood. I had that sick feeling of not ‘feeling full’ but of “it all being out”. It was the nicest feeling my not -yet -sexual -self ever felt.
“Did you get it all out?”
Marta asked me. Wiping the disgusting food particles off of the back of her hand. Her eyes glazed, about to tear.
“Yup” I confidently replied.
We each ate a finger load of toothpaste. Checked our faces. And adjusted our selves in the mirror. The water still runs.
Young girls are notorious for their intense relationship. I expected more intimacy and respect from my 12 year old best friend than I have from any boyfriend. We wore the same clothes. Fell asleep on the phone. When I flew to Holland the summer before I held Marta’s picture like it was rosary. To give respect to our intense bond, we needed to give this a name. Make it ours.
“So, what do we call this?” I asked her.
“I don’t know.” she confessed.
That summer we were really into Jane’s Addiction. The most played video at the time on MTV was a pineapple bearing Perry Farrell shoplifting in drag at a supermarket. We loved to shoplift.
“Been caught stealing?” I suggested.
“Yeass! Been Caught Stealing! Don’t get caught” Marta excitedly chanted.
We poured out of the bathroom. Singing the song in unison. We had something.
“I've been caught stealing;
once when I was 5...
I enjoy stealing.
It's just as simple as that.
Well, it's just a simple fact.
When I want something,
I don't want to pay for it.

I walk right through the door.
Walk right through the door.
Hey all right! If I get by, it's mine.
Mine all mine!


Eventually all of the girls I knew had thrown up at least once. We would go to the diner and stare at whomever returned from the bathroom with the eyes of an investigator. Were their eyes glassy? Face flushed? Were there any water spots on their pants or shirt. Marta and I started our club, but once I took the initiative to throw up on my own. I silently kicked her out. I remember the after school special starring now famed from “Ally Mc Beal” Calista Flockhart circa 1990. She threw up in jars in her closet. I would watch it like it was pornography. It filled my deranged bulimic psyche…for the moment. It was romantic. When Princess Di, confessed her bout with bulimia, I was proud to be in the same category of royalty.
I continued “Stealing” alone thru high school, college and even after college. I’ve been caught by boyfriends, friends. Even once by my mother. My boyfriends showed concern. My mother told me “I was sick”. I never wasted away. I’ve always been too greedy for that. I would “get rid” of my dinner so I could have 2nds. Or “get rid” of a meal, so I could have dessert. It was like a drug. I would throw up at a restaurant and then pay the bill like it was money well spent. Only in America would young girls eat as much as they can only to get rid of it. Getting rid of it was my pleasure. Dirty. Concealed. Private. Secretive. A sordid lining to my usually small frame.
Now, 15 years later: My satiety signals are singed. I get an anxiety attack if I actually feel “full”. The enamel of my back molars has been worn from the bile. There were times as a teen when I was seriously convinced I would die from a heart attack besides a toilet in some public bathroom. I want to be a mom. I want to prepare my body and spirit for motherhood. I don’t want to pass on any of my food issues to my daughter. I will be watching her like a hawk- when she leaves my dinner table and returns from the bathroom to take another bite.
I saw Marta last month. We are no longer friends. She stopped talking to me our senior year. It shattered me. Her once small frame has filled out. She looks normal. I notice these things. I can notice if a woman has gained 3 pounds. I keep a scorecard in my mind. Who is bigger? Who is smaller? I can stop myself from throwing up. But I can’t stop myself from thinking about it. It will always be an option ever since Marta showed me.