author Eric Gethers

“Years ago a friend told me a story about his son who was an air traffic controller. He married the woman every parent wants their son to marry. She was intelligent. She was kind. She was beautiful and couldn’t have treated him better – the type of love that makes all the silly country songs into pearls of wisdom. Every day she drove him to the railroad station so he could take the shuttle to work. Every night she picked him up when he returned. On their first anniversary they were sitting around sipping champagne, listening to music and laughing. Before they went to bed she casually told him she picked up between one and three men after he left for work, brought them home and had sex with them. Every single day. Obviously, he didn’t take this well. They got divorced but he was so heartbroken he didn’t want to live any more. He wasn’t the type who could kill himself in any of the traditional ways, however. He wouldn’t take pills. Wouldn’t slit his wrists. No gun in the mouth or hanging. So, he decided to kill himself the only way he could. He loved to eat, so he would eat himself to death, going from 150 to 300 pounds in less than a year. While he was eating himself to death, he met a woman who was eating herself to death. They fell in love. And thus became Whales Swim Naked.”