Jimmy Butcher is a 25-year-old man is a short fat man. He was born svelte but his mother over fed him and made him fleshy. His mom was the kind of woman that demonstrated her love by overfeeding. So, it should not be a surprise that everyone in Jimmy’s family was slight to morbidly overweight.  It was not the quantity of food that was alarming but the quality.  Most of the daily food served  were fried in pig fat.  Jimmy was not a couch potato he tried losing weight by being active but the French fries and the frequent lángos did not help his cause. He lives in a small garden house in Rozsadomb that’s tastefully decorated and has enough glass windows and doors to make it bright and cheerful even in a cloudy day. This home is shared by Snafu a cat that had a genetic mutation making her completely hairless. The cat was basically a ball of pink skin and constantly trembling because of lack of hair insulation.  Snafu kind of blended in well with the eclectic décor which was the same color of her skin.

Jimmy’s one and only hobby was gambling, he gambled on almost anything, from electronically simulated dog running to chess games televised on the web.  He did not gamble a lot of money, but he did this frequently like a well-established addiction. 

Even though women are attracted to Jimmy it is hard for Jimmy to have a relationship with them. Somehow a mental and emotional block develops which halts the communication to a standstill when he talks to women.  Every time there is a potential to start a romantic relationship his palms sweat, he starts stuttering his right foot starts tapping the floor uncontrollably and he seems to play incessantly with his hair with his left index finger. So if you step back and look at him he seems like a life size image of Pinocchio.

At night he had his doctor prohibited , but “I don’t give a shit what the doctor says”, glass of scotch on the rocks. This made him pensive about his “condition”. His decision tonight is to seek medical help, either get a doctor that would prescribe him a large amount of Viagra or have his stomach stapled to lose weight or both.  “But wait, my problem is not getting an erection” he thought “or that woman don’t like me because I am chubby”.  He took another sip of his expensive scotch and he thought  “There is something wrong deeper in me that makes me react this way. What am I to do?”

He had a Eureka moment and though to get someone professional to tell him what to do.  He quickly searched the internet, he searched from fortune tellers to male impotence gurus. None of them were a good fit. He gave up, he sat on the sofa grabbed a sandwich along with a National Geographic magazine and started to read about the psychological decisions of chimpanzees.  The light bulb turned on suddenly, “ … what about if I go to a shrink?” Once again, the search commenced but this time for the best shrink in town.   He finally decided to go to a wellness group at the local town hall the following day.

He stepped into the townhall  basement. It smelled musty and, on the corner, there was a coffee machine making a fresh pot of coffee and next to it, a box of some day-old donuts.  After inspecting them he turned around to find a circle of chairs and a long-haired woman in an exquisite silk dress with little penguins printed on the dress.  She waved him in that came along with a warm smile.  She stood up shook hands and she said “Hello, my name is Dr. Horvath, I am running this session today”.  Wow, he though, “why would this attractive woman be doing in this shit hole”

He looked around, but he didn’t see anybody. ‘’I’m surely too early’’ he mumbled and nervously started to make a cup of coffee for himself, because he couldn’t stand the fact he might had to face an attractive woman. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he decided to break the silence anyway. ‘’My name is Jimmy Butcher’’ introduced himself, and as always, he suddenly felt a great urge to start tapping his right foot.

‘’Nice to meet you Jimmy’’ smiled at him Dr. Horvath ‘’Grab your coffee and have a seat. We could start when everybody else arrives.’’

The chairs were already organized in a perfect circle in front of the baseman. Jimmy chooses the nearest seat to the emergency exit in case he might get a panic attack.

‘’How are you feeling today, Jimmy?’’ asked him Dr. Horvath.

Under the pressure of having to talk, Jimmy started to slowly push away his chair from Dr. Horvath to gain an extra few inches of safe space between them, as he hoped that this won’t be noticeable to her. With his jaws flexed, he could squeeze out the words ‘’I’m fine thank you’’ through his teeth, but he really did not mean it. Naturally this was a loud and clear message to Dr. Horvath, so she had lit up a relaxing candle, before striking him with another difficult question. ‘’Why did you come here?’’

Somehow the intonation of the question eased a little bit of Jimmy’s anxiety, just enough, that he was able to have eye contact with her. ‘’Gosh, she must be a great therapist’’ went across Jimmy’s mind.  ‘’she already got into my head’’. Now that he can focused a little bit, he started to think about the question, but no obvious answer came forward to him. ‘’I think, even I don’t know it. I’ve just always felt, like I can’t open up to people. It occurred to me, that there is nothing in me that can open up. I couldn’t put this feeling into words, but recently I was arriving to the conclusion that I’m empty inside.’’

Dr. Horvath leaned back in her chair, into a more comfortable position and adjusted her glasses. ‘’Jimmy, I don’t believe that a person can be empty inside. The fact that you feel this way, just proves my point. Also, a lot of people in your age feel the same way. It’s often due to some suppressed trauma, or even gate opening panic can cause feelings like this. Now, I would like to ask you, tell me a little bit more about you.’’

To be continued  Please look for the next chapter

Definitions

Svelte = slender graceful

Incessantly = without stopping  folyton

Trembling = shaking because of cold or fear  Reszketés

Pensive = thinking  = Töprengő

Shrink = a slang word for psychiatrist = zsugorít

Morbidly – very fat to the point of dying-

Commenced  - to start again

Intonation – tone of voice - Intonáció

Questions:

Does the character’s name of Jimmy Butcher makes him sound more manly (masculine) than average?

With a name like Jimmy Butcher do you think that having a hairless cat named Snafu is the kind of pet that he should have?

Do you think cat owners are mainly introverts and dog owners are extroverts?

Do most people have pets to have responsibilities other than the ones they have on their own and for the pet to give them companionship?