Fame & The Fatman

“And in local news tonight we have a special treat about a local man no one knows who he is but each day he sings for them on their way home from work asking for nothing in return.” 

The story begins at the local VAMC where a man each day rain or shine stands at the entrance/exit singing accapella.  They showed footage of someone’s cellphone recording his deep baritone toothless voice singing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.  He attempted to shield his face but there was no mistaking such talent when it showed up on the “web” for all the world to see.

The next day he was still at his post as it were but he had a sign that read, “Please do not video record me, Thank you for your understanding.”  He was a quiet unassuming man who seemed to keep to himself most of the time despite this obvious talent he was sharing and hiding at the same time.  A man had once offered to record him if chose but he politely said, “No thank you.” As he blushed and looked to the ground.

The fat man you see was not very proud of his life and worked hard to hide it from the world because at one point long ago...he gave up on his dreams for all the wrong reasons and now he has too many secrets to hide for a social media driven society.

When the fat man was a young man he graduated from high school and went to work like most men in his area do.  But after the death of a family member he looked up to he joined the military to do more with his life and hopefully one day to pay for college.  During his service he worked at several different jobs but excelling at nothing.  At one point he even turned down a chance to sing in the military despite his talent begging to be shared.

He kept on until his discharge and as he had planned began attending college at a local junior college.  He studied vocal performance and theater his two favorite things going back to the ripe age of 2.  He was studying with younger students who recently graduated from high school and they all treated him like a mentor and confidant.  This really didn’t please him too much because
he always felt an overwhelming sense of burden carrying their pain and troubles inside of him. 

One day he got drunk and woke up in the hospital after what he was told was a failed suicide attempt he didn’t even remember doing.  The doctors put him into the hospital mental ward and attempted to get the Department of Veteran Affairs to help him.  They politely declined stating he didn’t qualify for treatment at their facility, he never forgot that.

He finally graduated from college after several more stays in the hospital but his career was pretty much over, he just gave up trying anymore.  He knew something was wrong with him and spent the next several years trying to figure out what that was all the while not fulfilling his promise to himself, to share his talent with the world.  Instead he crawled inside himself for decades singing only at home alone, in the car but never sharing it with anyone else.

One day he got married to a beautiful woman and they had a daughter they named Shelby.  He would sing her to sleep each night until the marriage fell apart and once again he was on his own.  And the gift went back into the closet to never share it again.  All that changed one day when he heard the military was going back to war and the local VAMC was being stretched thin and the employees were working hard to take care of the returning injured service personnel.

That’s when he knew what he needed to do and he began working on material for him to share with those working tirelessly to care for the injured and sick veterans of war.  One rainy day he just showed up at the entrance to the VAMC got out of his car at the end of their work day and began singing.  He never accepted any gratuities and occasionally would take a bow for those who stopped their vehicles got out and listened to him.

Each holiday he would sing songs from that holiday with his deep baritone voice even when it was snowing and blowing he never missed a day.  He refused to go to the doctors even when he knew he needed to this was a task he would put on the back burner even years after the war had ended for the most part.  If one of the doctors at the VAMC saw he was hurting they would stop and check to see what he might need and give him what many veterans lovingly call “Grunt Candy” for the pain.  But still he kept singing.

When the media got a hold of his story the firestorm of attention was more than his heart and mind could bear.  Five months after the media frenzy began the fatman as he was known took his life.  On a piece of paper he left a sentence, “Fame & the fatman” was a musical I could no longer bear. 

The day of his funeral at the local National Cemetary there was a crowd at the entrance gate they were singing a song to him on his way to his final resting place.  The song they sang was, “Hallelujah” each struggled to sing the words.  In the front was the young woman who’s video was the reason that caused his pain.  She held up a sign that simply read, “I bear the weight of your pain as your musical ends.”