Jeff and the Linear Accelerator

Today was my first day under the linear accelerator.

Some people call it the radiation machine.

From here on out, it's gonna be the tanning salon to me.

28 days.

So while I was getting my tan, I started to think of an old friend of mine named Big Jeff.

Big Jeff was one angry dude. Jeff felt that he had been shortchanged by life. Big Jeff was short and he felt that the shortness had changed his life for the worse. Many a day Jeff got lost in hope and its partner disappointment. While lost, the only two roads available to Jeff were 'what could have been' and "what ain't never gonna happen'. Both of those roads led to lonely street and the hotel at the end of lonely street.

He was so goddamned sick and tired of these taller guys getting all the promotions, all the women and all of the breaks in life. Why wouldn't they get all the breaks, they began with the big break. They were tall or at the very least if not tall, taller than Jeff.

If he had more size, he could have been more than a contender which he was currently far less than. He could have been the guy who made the team. He could have been the guy who got all the jobs that Jeff didn't get and that he would never get.

Jeff wasn't a bad looking guy as far as grills went. He had the kind of perfect hair that many a taller guy could only dream of having. Jeff was brave, loyal, clean and trustworthy. All of those qualities were seemingly invisible however in the land of the giants or as Jeff called them, "the oafs".

Even when he checked into the hotel at the end of the street, the desk clerk who always dressed in black usually failed to acknowledge him at all and on those rare occasions when he did, Jeff could always perceive a look of amused contempt cross the clerk's brow.

The only relief Jeff ever attained was when he cotemplated his mantra. "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

Then one day, halfway down lonely street, a homeless and hungry German shepherd named Red got a glimpse/scent of Jeff. Red wondered "what the hell is that" and promptly went over and devoured Jeff.

That's when Jeff discovered the size of his fight in the dog and it was pathetic.

After including Jeff, Red tolerated him for a couple hours and then excluded him on the sidewalk of Lonely Street in what was a relatively huge pile.

Finally, the attendants lifted me off the table and out of the tanning bed.

"Your first session is over, Mr. Rivers or should we call you Ice"

"Ice would be nice. Anything but Jeff"

"See you tomorrow, Ice"