Dawn in Chicago's South Side always hits Victor's nose with the smell of rust and piss.
He jolts awake, choking, his nearly six-hundred-pound body wedged into the corner of a shipping container someone called a "bedroom."
Sweat slides off his triple chin like melted butter, leaving dark stains on the already-yellowed sheets.
"Fuck…"
Victor claws at the tin wall with stubby fingers, struggling upright like a beached walrus.
September heat turns the container into an oven; he swears he can hear his own fat sizzling.
The bathroom—if you can call a plastic-curtained corner with exposed pipes a bathroom—is a good hundred feet away. Victor's starving, but he's got energy. His massive frame isn't some flabby mess like the Goodyear blimp; it's a six-foot-three pile of solid lard.
The guy in the mirror has a moon face and malnourished eyes. The three slabs of chest fat are obvious. Outer blubber keeps the cold out, but it traps heat like a sauna.
Cold water blasts his greasy skin. Victor scrubs on autopilot.
Seven years ago, when his parents got popped in a convenience-store stick-up, he was a scrawny eleven-year-old.
Uncle Joe took him in. Growth hormones plus teenage appetite turned Victor into a human freight train—steel bones, iron gut, fast metabolism gone haywire.
BAM!
The container door gets kicked open. Victor flinches.
"Goddamn it, you used up all the hot water again!"
Uncle Joe's voice scrapes like a rusty saw.
Victor kills the faucet, wraps a towel around his waist that wouldn't cover a toddler.
Joe stands dead center in the container, still in his security-guard uniform.
He's a head shorter than Victor but wiry, packed with endless rage—a cranky guy.
Thirty-five years old, face already creased like old leather, scar under his right eye from a cracked bottle swung by some junkie on night shift.
"Sorry, Uncle Joe, I—"
"Shut it."
Joe tosses a greasy paper bag onto the folding table. "Your last free breakfast."
Victor stares at the Burger King logo. His throat tightens.
Day before yesterday he turned eighteen—legal adult.
Yesterday the school kicked him out—full adult now.
In the South Side that means two things:
You can buy a gun legally, and nobody's gotta feed you anymore.
Joe fishes a crumpled envelope from his pocket, then drags a rusty strongbox from under the bed.
Victor watches him punch in the code—his mom's birthday—then pull out a smaller envelope.
"Two grand—school's final pity party."
Joe slaps the first envelope down. "Seventeen hundred's what your folks left. Lord knows why they stashed cash instead of a decent heater."
Victor's fingers shake when he takes them.
Thirty-seven hundred bucks—real money in '84. Hell, the papers say even the Cubs' big slugger only pulls a million a year.
"And this."
Joe flips over a black notebook. Gold-embossed "Address Book" half peeled off.
Victor opens it—pages crammed with women's names, phone numbers, addresses. Some have weird symbols: $, ?, .
Last page: red-ink skull, "DO NOT CALL THIS ONE unless you want welts tomorrow."
Tucked in the back: sixty crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Victor's stomach drops. "This is…?"
"List of Chicago rich ladies who'll pay top dollar for a fat-boy special."
Joe lights a smoke; the cloud coils above his head. "Good news is, under all that blubber you're still packing a Colt Python, and some gals like a guy who'll crush the air outta them."
Victor feels dizzy. The handwriting dances.
He's heard whispers—South Side kids call it "whale hunting."
The winners live cushy in Gold Coast penthouses. The losers wash up in the Chicago River.
Joe keeps ranting: "You were on assistance, so food was free. But every hustle you ran—minus gas and gang cuts—left you sixty-seven hundred. That's your seed money."
Victor's scared. He knows Joe's kicking him out. "I don't know how to start. Any tips?"
"Learn!"
Joe punches the tin wall; the whole box shakes. "You think I like freezing my ass off guarding stinking docks? Think I enjoy breathing hobo piss every day? Feeding yourself is Adulting 101, kid!"
Victor cranes his neck; fat jiggles.
He spots the tattoo on Joe's right arm—inked the same month he took Victor in seven years ago.
A guy loses his family, wants to raise a kid, joins a crew for steady work.
"Thanks, Uncle Joe."
Victor's voice comes out steadier than he expects—guy who swings sledgehammers on construction sites doesn't scare easy. "Seven years, seven months, sixteen days."
Joe freezes, cigarette dangling.
"That's how long you kept me."
Victor stands; the towel hits the floor. "Dad never figured you'd join a gang just to watch my back."
CDC says 44,000 Americans ate lead in 2024—twice Ukraine's war dead. Back in the '80s, when stats sucked, the number was worse.
Victor's parents were just two forgettable digits. Making it to eighteen already beat half the boys in the neighborhood.
Something flickers in Joe's eyes Victor can't read.
He grinds the cigarette butt into the Burger King bag. "Container's yours till end of month. After that, pay rent or get gone."
Door slams.
Victor counts the cash, flips through the black book.
Page three: "Marinda," three question marks, two dollar signs. Address—Gold Coast, richest zip code in Chicago.
Sunlight stabs through the window.
Victor pulls on his only clean T-shirt (pits yellowed), stuffs the notebook in his waistband.
Eleven grand weighs heavy in his pocket—like a rock about to drop into the abyss.
One last look at the tin box he called home seven years. He splits the eleven grand into three chunks, hides them in his canvas bag, slips two bills in his wallet.
Wall corner has his yearly height marks—stopped growing at fifteen.
Doorknob holds a curled, yellowed photo of his parents.
Victor grabs his stuff, takes a deep breath, pushes the door open. New life starts—dirty, real.
Knock knock! Knock knock!
Victor slings the bag over his shoulder, knocks solemnly on Uncle Joe's door. Joe opens, pissed, but clocks the look on his nephew's face.
"I wanna buy you dinner tonight."
Joe offers a smoke. Victor takes it.
While the haze swirls, Joe lays it out:
"My advice? Buy a piece, then hit the crew in the South Side. Drop my name—thirty bucks a month keeps you breathing."
"I don't know what you're planning, but the way you dropped that dude yesterday? Bars are hiring bouncers."
"Or keep the whale-hunting gig, but that's emergency cash. Want a mansion someday? Hit the gym—nobody pays for jelly rolls."
"Give the crew fifty bucks; they'll hook you up with work—six hundred a month steady."
"But whatever you do, don't sink too deep with the gangs. Straight path's always better."
Victor nods, then asks, "How much to buy you out of the crew?"
Joe frowns, spits, "Get lost."
Victor shoulders his bag and walks—then knocks on the Gallagher house next door.