Fatty Bobsticks

Diary

Fatty Bobsticks wants it on record, in ink, carved into whatever passes for the Dojo's Hall of Fame, that he is nothing like Fat Bob, thank you very much, even as he nurses the same swollen elbow and the same wounded pride at the Edo palace bar. It happened during a sake summit with The English Pilot, a night of toasts, terrible sea stories, and one ill-advised arm-wrestle across lacquered tables older than both their bloodlines, and Fatty went down like a folding stool, elbow cracking against imperial stone while the Pilot roared with laughter loud enough to wake shoguns. Where lesser degens would sulk, Fatty saw destiny, because a busted elbow is basically a muse tapping you on the shoulder, and he has already announced, sling and all, that he is writing a book, tentatively titled something like 'Not My Father's Failures,' though he can't yet hold a pen without wincing. He swears this memoir will finally separate his legend from Fat Bob's shadow, one glorious page at a time, assuming he can get past page one, which currently exists only as a coffee stain and a very confident outline in his head. The discipline the old samurai once had for the blade, Fatty now aims at literature, and so far literature is winning by a wide, embarrassing margin.