Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

The meat of it, the wine of it, the essence of what I am now looking down upon as it eclipses the space bar on my keyboard: the very housing of my soul.

“Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?” — Paul Simon

In the belly of the beast. Belly up to the bar. Do you have the belly for it? Pot belly. Pork belly. Jelly belly. Beer belly. Belly flop. Bellyache. Stomach. Gut. A little corporation up front. Spare tire. No, you’re not fat, you just look a little, well, pregnant. In fact, someone once said to me after not having seen me for some time, “Jeez, what happened to you? You been eating chili dogs and donuts again? You look like you swallowed a tympani drum!”

In a group therapy session once, we were all asked what part of our bodies we would change if we could. Some said their noses, others, their thighs or butts, ears, toes. I wasn’t called on, but I was prepared to say my liver. More recently I was asked by a friend, “What’s the ugliest part of your body?” Which put me in mind of the Mothers of Invention song by the same title: “What’s the ugliest part of your body? / Some say it’s your nose, some say it’s your toes, I think it’s your mind...I think it’s your mind” I didn’t hesitate long before I said, “My gut.”

At 50, I suppose it’s not an unusually proportioned part of my anatomy. I do crunches once in a while but get easily bored, and the dimensions of my midsection swell almost immediately back to where it seems to want to be — and that’s about six inches ahead of the rest of me — making it, at times, difficult to see my penis. Years of beer-drinking are, no doubt, in part responsible. But my father wasn’t much of a drinker, and at about my age he developed the same configuration. So I think it’s as much genetic as anything else.

Recently, I noticed that when my girlfriend rested her head on my abdomen to have a good cry about something, her head was elevated a good inch or two above mine. For years it has not been uncommon for me to loosen my belt after a good dinner. I never thought much about it; the phrase that came to mind was “a prosperous girth.”

On the odd occasions when I force myself into a gym, I’ll notice the flat-board, six-pack abs on younger guys and even a few in my age range. I overheard a couple of men talking about how women love that V-shaped torso: broad shoulders, flat stomach, no love handles to interrupt the eye’s flow to narrow hips. I remember thinking, These guys sound like a couple of chicks. This kind of vanity struck me as effeminate and unseemly. My keen mind and sensitivity should be erotic enough for the kind of woman worth my while — unless I want a really good-looking, hot babe, of course. But I have matured past that adolescent, hormonal need, until, that is, I am confronted at the magazine racks by full-color publications like Teen Pie and Barely Legal

But I would be lying if I said that I never look down and ask myself, What is the deal with this belly? To answer this question, I do what I usually do in puzzling circumstances: I research. Going to my shelf of medical reference books (every hypochondriac worth his thermometer has a shelf like this; mine maybe more extensive than most), I pull down Dorland's Medical Dictionary (remaindered at $4.99 at Crown) for a brief look at a definition.

“Stomach: The muscu-lomembranous expansion of the alimentary canal between the esophagus and duodenum, consisting of a cardiac _ fundus, a body, and a pyloric part. Its (gastric) glands secrete the gastric juice, which when mixed with food, forms chyme, a semifluid substance suitable for further digestion by the intestine.”

Yes, yes, I know all that — who doesn't? What I need is some in-depth insight as to what is going on in my midsection. I am forced to pull down the weighty Gray’s Anatomy. Come to think of it) a few sit-ups clutching this thing ought to do the trick.

“ABDOMINAL REGIONS: The abdomen can be divided into nine regions by two horizontal and two parasagittal planes projected onto the surface of the body. These regions are used in practice for descriptive localization of the position of a mass or the localization of a patient's pain. They may also be used in the description of the location of the abdominal viscera.

“The two vertical lines are the midclavicular lines on either side. Classically, the two horizontal lines are the transpyloric and the transtubercular planes. In practice, it is common to use two horizontal lines found by dividing the distance from the xiphisternal joint to the symphisis pubis into thirds. The nine regions thus formed are:

“The epigastrium, the right and left hypochondrium, the umbilical region, the right and left lumbar region, the hypogastrium (or suprapubic region), the right and left iliac fossa.”

Gray’s goes on to discuss the “Linea alba. The median groove can readily be seen in the thin muscular subject when the abdominal muscles are tensed by flexing the trunk. It is wide and obvious above the umbilicus but is almost linear and invisible below this level. Divarication of the recti, a common condition in which the upper abdominal viscera bulge through the widened linea alba on standing or straining, is thus always situated above the umbilicus.”

The text goes on with some obvious remarks about the “Linea semilunaris” and the “fundus of the gallbladder,” but I think what we have here is clear enough. It certainly explains a lot.

Perhaps I should take a closer look at my diet. My friend's remarks aside, I do not pig out on chili dogs, though I do have a fondness for pastries. Still, I think I eat sensibly: oats and bananas in the morning, a cheeseburger for lunch, then perhaps an indulgence in the evening with, say, fettuccini, though often accompanied by only fish or chicken — if decent veal isn't available. And who can begrudge a man a judicious portion (no more than a pint) of ice cream before bed? So I don't think nutrition is the problem, but let's see what The Encyclopedia of Obesity and Eating Disorders by Dana K. Cassell has to say on the matter.

“Distribution of Body Fat: The pattern of fat distribution on a person's body can have as direct a relationship to health and mortality as the total amount of body fat.... In both men and women, abdominal obesity is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Thus, knowledge of body composition and fat distribution is increasingly recognized as an essential component of an overall nutritional assessment.

“A relative predominance of fat in the abdominal region (called the apple shape) as well as the shoulders and neck is found more often in men and is strongly related to metabolic rate. It was discovered that people with beefy hips and trim waists (pear-shaped) have higher levels of a protective form of cholesterol called HDL than do those who are apple shaped. This is believed to be a possible explanation of why people with fat posteriors tend to have healthier hearts than those with big bellies.”

My God! I have no ass to speak of, and while I have slight artist's shoulders, I realize I have my father's body in almost clonelike proximation. My father keeled over, his heart stalled like a cheap watch when he was exactly the age I am now. Every time I am examined by a doctor, he will remove the stethoscope's earpieces, fix me with a grim but sympathetic look, and say, “Did you know you have a slight heart murmur?” , I almost never blubber uncontrollably anymore, clutching the doctors lab coat and sobbing, “What can I do? I take vitamin E. I walk to the library and back almost every day, a good four or five blocks. You’ve got to help me!”

These days, I just nod manfully and say, “Yeah, I know.” Then they’ll usually ask if I smoke, at which point I lie and say no. (As Stephen King once observed before he wimped out and quit cigarettes, “Anyone can quit smoking, but it takes a real man to face lung cancer.”) I’ve quit beer and booze in general, one day at a time— some days more successfully than others — and I have enough 30- and 60- and 90-day sobriety chips to make a chandelier. So, while a swollen liver and spleen might be factors here to some extent, it certainly cannot fully explain this ever-burgeoning protuberance.

Belly, belly, belly, belly... you say the word often enough, and it takes on the quality of a meaningless mantra. Where does the word come from? Only one way to find out The Oxford English Dictionary, which, fortunately, I have next to my Academic Press series on toxicological immunology.

The print is small in this compact edition, and even with my prescription specs for failing eyesight (a rare ocular disorder undiagnosed by several professionals — I will no doubt be blind in a year or so) and with a magnifying glass, I am only able to squint out the highlights:

“Belly: bellie, bylly, bally, bealy; earlier bulge...bag, skin, envelope, hull (ofbeans and peas) identical with bulge, skin, bag, sack.. .inflated or swollen thing.. .to be inflated, swell up.. .the same word of which the plural appears as bellows. Original sense in OE (Old English): skin bag, purse, pod, meat bag, wine skin, leather bottle.. .of the body of man and animals...the body as the shell or integument of the soul, the shell or husk of the soul...worm sack.. .etc.”

Well, there we have it. The meat of it, the wine of it, the essence of what I am now looking down upon as it eclipses the space bar on my keyboard: the very housing of my soul. I’m a soul man. Ever notice how B.B. King’s guitar rests almost at arm’s length from the rest of him? This then, may not be such a bad thing although that “worm sack” business does carry a charge of mortality, doesn’t it?

To a large extent (no pun intended) it all comes down to a matter of vanity, I suppose. I would prefer to revert to my whip-thin rock ’n’ roll weight of 150 pounds when I was 25 years old. It would be preferable not to hesitate in taking off my shirt at the beach. I would rather see my profile in the mirror as more Brad Pitt than Alfred Hitchcock. And it is humiliating to find myself winded after lacing up my shoes. Possibly this is the price of the growth of the soul.

A touching and funny scene in Richard Price’s screenplay of Mad Dog and Glory takes place on Robert DeNiro’s couch. DeNiro plays a middle-aged forensic detective who’s been fixed up with the much younger Uma Thurman. As they begin to make love awkwardly and (I think) DeNiro removes his shirt, he looks down self-consciously at his stomach and says something like, “I should do some sit-ups or something.”

To which Thurman replies, “Now?”

This was moving and true and I howled. Often an older man with a younger woman is mistaken for “trying to feel young.” In fact, a young woman will only make an older man more aware of things like the hair sprouting from his ears.

It is close to dinnertime and I’m going to do a scientific experiment. Stomach as metaphor (soul, guts for courage, prosperity) is all very well, but what can be measured? Simple enough. I’ve never done this, but it’s time. I’m going to Rite-Aid pharmacy just down the street. I’ll be right back.

All right, I have tape measure, the kind tailors and seamstresses use. I am measuring myself at my widest point, just at that area where my father used to hitch his pants up, about 4 inches below the nipples. I get a measurement of 46 inches. Now, this is not where I wear my pants, they’re usually buckled much lower. I wear, comfortably, a size 38 waist. I can get into a 36, but it’s a little restraining. In either case, tucking a shirt in is out of the question; it will summon that Elvis-toward-the-end image. I will now fix dinner and measure myself afterward.

I prepare what I have in the house so as to get a random, uncontrived sampling.

All I have is a baked potato and some mustard, some cheddar cheese, some low-fat sour cream, some Diet Dr. Pepper, and two Hershey bars. This will have to do. It is not atypical. I live alone, after all, and I am disinclined to fix anything elaborate for myself. The fettuccini and veal business comes from a bistro down the road, or I’ll prepare it once or twice a week for myself or when my girlfriend comes over— she’ll usually just eat a salad but enjoys watching me at the stove. Finds it restful, she says.

Okay, so I put the potato in the microwave. When it is ready, I bifurcate it, placing cheddar on one half and sour cream on the other, adding salt and pepper. I have added too much salt, so I find it necessary to drink a second soda. For dessert, I have either the dark chocolate Hershey (Dr. Andrew Weil says dark chocolate is preferable to milk chocolate, I’m not sure why; it has to do with dairy content or some teeth-cleaning properties, not unlike cheddar cheese, a little-known dental aid) or the milk chocolate with almonds. Considering the paucity of protein in a mere potato, with only the cheese to provide this nutrient, I go for the bar with almonds. Almonds are also a well-known anti-carcinogen.

This is all by way of saying, I give these matters thought. It’s not as if Tm one of those guys who wears baseball caps, operates heavy machinery, watches The Drew Carey Show, and eats whatever he damn well pleases without due deliberation. My mother used to read to us at bedtime from the works of Adele Davis, so I know what I’m talking about here.

I admit, I’m still a bit hungry, and I’m not going to alter my normal behavior in order to get trumped-up results on my experiment, so I go for the other Hershey bar.

I wait 20 minutes and then measure myself again. Okay, it looks more like 47 inches now, but I figure that’s mostly the soda, and as soon as I take a leak then digest my food overnight, I should be back to 46 inches if not 45 or even 44 after my morning constitutional to the library and back. I may do some sit-ups, but to be honest, probably not. The activity is not only tedious, it seems vain and vaguely masturbatory.

It might be worthwhile to examine the history of my belly. I weighed seven pounds and six ounces when the umbilical cord was cut at Saint Ann’s Hospital in Chicago 50 years ago. I imagine the dimensions of my baby tummy were appropriately round and protuberant in a conventionally cute way. I have little recollection of stomach awareness until the eighth grade. It was a graduation party in June held at the Illinois Dunes State Beach, and I remember being mortified at my love handles. This period coincided with the final shedding of “baby fat” and coming off a long donut binge to fill the aching preadolescent emptiness and alienation I suffered.

The only other memory I have is of picking cherries off a tree from a ladder at my grandmother’s house in Berkeley, Illinois. I ate a pound or two of the things and got a pit caught in my throat. Grandma pounded my back and it went down. I can’t remember if I was crying or not Probably. She tried to make light of the experience by telling me that a cherry tree was going to grow inside me now, and while I sensed it was bullshit, I still would feel around down there once in a while, just in case. Anyway, for years afterward, she called me Cherry Tummy, which I hated as it evoked the image of a red, bulbous midsection, which could be the foundation of what may seem to the casual reader an inordinate fixation on the matter to this day.

It is now morning of the next day. As I predicted, the evidence of last night’s potato-and-chocolate dinner has dwindled. I now measure 45 inches, and I haven’t even gone to the library yet (Today I intend to research parasitology. I suspect something like this is going on with me since I went wading the other day too close to Imperial Beach, and an onset of the runs has ensued—the upside is, it may help me reduce.)

In the meantime, I have other interests. I am not fixated. For example, I have recently taken up an interest in Eastern religions. I have some Hare Krishna material, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and a comprehensive primer oh Buddhism titled Zen to Go. According to Zen philosophy, the desired state of mind is that of “wanting nothing and rejecting nothing.” So I will have some breakfast at Harry’s Pancake House and not worry about it. There seems little I can do about the size of my torso anyway. Before I go, I look over at the ceramic Buddha I got a deal on in Tijuana, reach over, and pat his belly for luck. While I’m sure it is a momentary illusion, I am briefly convinced that the little figure has winked at me in approval of my soul’s progress.