Uncle Jumbo

My great uncle Fred was the fattest person I have ever known. His clothes were custom made, his cars, specially ordered; his recliner, reinforced. A pair of his massive overalls have become a coveted heirloom in our family. Two average-sized people wearing them make a never-fail, prize-winning Siamese Twin Halloween costume. It's also great fun to put them on, stuff them with pillows and transform yourself into a sort of human trampoline for the other kids to bounce off. These are really big overalls.

Everybody called him Jumbo. But not to his face. At least not twice. Because even though I didn't realize it as a kid, Uncle Jumbo was also maybe one of the richest persons I will ever know. And one of the greediest. And one of the meanest.

I remember overhearing once how he'd fired some migrant workers from his California ranch. He called them thieves. They'd taken some of the rotten meat from his garbage. I don't know whether that was the truth or not. It was long ago, and everyone involved, long gone. But, still now, years and years later, you can mention his name in certain parts and get an earful of tales about his legendary meanness.

Even so, my parents would take us to visit Uncle Jumbo fairly regularly because his wife, my grandma's sister, Pansy, had been an important person in my dad's childhood. I didn't get it at the time. Grim and worried Aunt Pansy was always scurrying around and frightfully busy, so she was the one who scared me a little. Uncle Fred was barely mobile by the time I knew him. He just laid in his chair and vaguely waved us kids off. He always bought all the rest of my Girl Scout cookies. I think I remember Dad remarking with surprise one time that I even got Uncle Jumbo to speak to me. Uncle Jumbo never worried me.

While Mom and Dad would try to visit with Aunt Pansy, we kids were pretty much free to roam and explore the big dusty old Spanish-style three-story house that was the closest thing to a mansion we'd ever been in. It was crammed to the rafters with fascinating stuff--cuff links made out of coins, old Playboy magazines, dice from Las Vegas, a huge pink bathtub, a desk the size of a Kansas township. There was even a real, working elevator. And a grocery store in the basement.

No, it wasn't actually a grocery store. It just looked like one. Uncle Jumbo had food delivered to his house by the wholesale truck. He ordered institutional-sized everything, and made tiny little Aunt Pansy stock and face the shelves like she was an IGA hand. There was enough food down there to feed all of Kiowa, but no one would ever eat it. It would expire and rot in the can, but Uncle Jumbo didn't care. He'd just make Aunt Pansy throw it out, then he'd order more. Like everything else in his life--banks, stores, ranches, orange groves in California--he didn't care about a thing's true purpose. He only cared about getting it, owning it, controlling it, keeping it. I gather that's how he felt about people, too.

On our way home from Uncle Jumbo's, Mom and Dad were always a little somber. One or the other of them would always sigh and say, "Poor Aunt Pansy". I never understood why, because I couldn't comprehend that some people can be trapped in joyless, loveless lives, desperately needing love from something that can't possibly ever give it. But I understand that now. And now I understand why either Mom or Dad would always sigh in response and say, "Yes...and poor Uncle Jumbo."