Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything (9 page)

The grade-A butt is a surprising step away from the A-plus variety. It's tiny and narrow. There's no way you could ever mistake it for a girl's. It would be ideal if this particular butt was
paler than the rest of the boy—if he's got a bit of a tan. But it's only April, so no luck.

Only jocks have the A-minus kind—of which there are very few at Ma-Ha, since everyone's an artiste. But the few guys who are muscled and built have these vulnerable little booties. It's touching. Like the rest of the body is macho macho, and then there's this soft squishy butt that says, “Hey, I'm a person like anyone else.”

The B-plus is quite common: rather flat on top, and softlooking, but makes a nice pair of semicircles when it meets the legs.

B: the plump boy'sbooty. There are quite a number of chubby boys at Ma-Ha, and there is a real advantage to having some extra padding in the downstaìrs department. They've got these juicy round booties that look like quite a handful.

B-minus goes to the common B-plus variety, only hairy. Alternately, with pimples.

The C-grade booties I lump together. A couple of stretch marks don't bother me—even some of the A-plus boys have them—but a few of these guys have a whole map of tiny white scars; or they're really, really hairy; or they're lumpy-looking. Others are flat and saggy, or covered with mysterious-looking rashes.

One junior with a definitely C-minus butt had a gorgeous face—all beautiful dark eyes and high cheekbones.

The Ds—well, what teacher gives Ds? It's just unkind. And I only see one that I would give a failing mark. It's like the bottom of a wild boar—flat and saggy and pimply and hairy all at once.

And the moral is: you never know what's going on underneath someone's pants until you see it for yourself.

S
eventh period ends and the freshmen filter out. First of the Art Rats to come in is Titus.

Oh my god, I hadn't thought about this,
there's been so much going on,
but I'm about to see Titus naked.
Naked!

Suddenly, all my spying seems wrong.

I mean, it's one thing to check out people you don't speak to, who don't even know you exist
,

but it's another thing to spy on people you see every day in class. People you know.

Should I look at Titus?

I'd be furious if he (or anyone else) were watching
me
in the locker room.

But I can't shut my eyes. Literally, I can't. I've got no eyelids. And I've got eyes in the back of my head, so I can't look away. No matter where I fly in the locker room, I can see Titus as he heads toward his locker.

Besides, I want to see.

I know it's wrong, but the boy I think about all the time is
taking off his clothes in front of me.

Would anyone in my position honestly look away?

Once he bangs open his locker, Titus throws his backpack on the floor. He tears off his jacket and T-shirt, then puts on his gym sweatshirt right away.

Like he's embarrassed. Even though he's alone.

I catch a glimpse of a very, very thin torso—soft white skin on the sides of his body, no hair anywhere much—and then it's gone. He yanks down his pants and his boxers with his face practically inside his open locker, and I can see his booty is a solid A—the small, narrow kind. His legs are thin as well. Spindly, you could even say.

He pulls a pair of white briefs out of the bag and puts them on quickly, followed by baggy gray gym shorts. His pale calves look out of place beneath the wide legs of the shorts.

He sits down on the bench, as if relieved, and slowly pulls on a pair of sweat socks. Then he goes over to his minilocker and gets his running shoes.

Adrian and Malachy bang in, along with a couple of sophomore boys from the photography department, guys I recognize from classes, but whom I don't know. Brat trails in after them, lugging his oversize book bag.

“Hey,” they say to Titus.

“Hey,” he says back.

“Crap,” mutters Adrian, running his hand through his spiky
hair. “Can you believe what that faggot Meadows gave us for lab homework? We don't even get the weekend to do it.” He's changing his clothes, and his body looks both energetic and relaxed, like he's comfortable in his skin.

“Whatever,” Titus says, “I don't think he's gay.”

“Well, he's sure a bastard,” says Adrian. “You give me that?” He pulls on a T-shirt and grabs his shoes from his minilocker.

“Yeah,” laughs Titus. “I give you that.”

“I hope we don't have dodgeball again,” pipes up Brat with a nervous laugh. “When did Sanchez say we were gonna do the hockey unit?”

No one answers him. It's like he didn't even say anything.

“Come on, Ip,” says Titus. Adrian shoves his feet into his sneakers and the two of them slam through the doors that lead to the gymnasium.

Brat tries again as Shane comes in. “Hey, Shane, what's up?”

Shane grunts, he's running late, and starts pulling off his clothes. Brat, already dressed for class, bends down and rummages through his pack as if looking for something.

Shane looks great without his shirt. I remember from our earlier, um, encounters. He plays pickup basketball every weekend. He's white, tall and blond, with strong-looking legs and visible muscles across his abdomen. A small birthmark on his neck, strawberry-colored. He tugs his sweats down over his sneakers and pulls his shorts on over his gray Calvin Klein briefs; then he puts on a white T-shirt and heads into the gym. Now it's just
Malachy and Brat left, Brat still rummaging in that pack as if he's doing something important.

I've been so busy checking out Shane that I missed seeing Malachy naked. In his gym clothes, he looks incongruous, as he always does. The quadruple-pierced ears, the thick black wristbands, the black socks. He doesn't look like an athlete, though he's actually not bad at sports.

“Hey, hey,” Brat says, after a minute.

“Brat.” Malachy looks up. “What's going on?”

“Not much,” says Brat. He stops the pretense of rummaging and shoves the pack into his locker. “If we're doing the hockey unit, you wanna be partners?”

In gym, we have to find partners for practicing things, like kicking a soccer ball back and forth, or hitting a hockey puck. I always pick Katya, and she always picks me. Titus is usually with Adrian, Shane is usually with Malachy, and Brat—I can't think who he's usually with. Maybe he switches around.

“Yeah, okay,” says Malachy, and the two of them head into class.

The locker room is empty for forty-five minutes, and I can hear the pucks hitting the walls of the gym, and the scrape of the wooden sticks on the floor. Then they troop back in.

Sanchez enters and blows a whistle. He's done this every hour after class, except for third-period African dance, when he probably takes a coffee break. “Hit the showers! Now! I don't wanna hear your whining!”

In the girls' locker room, we get the same drill from
Kobayashi, the assistant teacher. We have fewer showerheads, though, so she lines us up and stands over us, yelling, “Use the soap, ladies!” and “Speed it up, people are waiting!” until most of us are through.

The boys don't line up; they just mill around, so Sanchez can't keep good track of who's showering and who's not. But most of them crush toward the showers, towels around their waists, and rinse off. Shane is drenched in sweat and heads straight for the water, dropping his clothes on the floor. He showers efficiently and washes his hair. Adrian joins him quickly, leaning his hands up against the tile wall as if he's tired and letting the water run down his back. Eventually, Sanchez heads back into the gym to get ready for whatever he does next, and the last remaining boys either skip showering or horse around in there, pushing each other's wet shoulders and talking about hockey.

Titus has got a big bruise on his knee, like he fell down or got hit with a hockey puck. He's one of the last guys in, and he showers so fast it's like he's got it down to a science. Soap in all the most important areas, rinse front, rinse back, over and out. Before he's even back to his locker he's got his regular T-shirt back over his head, not even drying his skin, and he puts his underwear on underneath his towel.

Once he's dressed, he transforms back into the Titus I'm used to seeing. Confident, relaxed, thoughtful. The nervous, underweight kid with the hunted look has disappeared.

“You still want to see that movie?” he asks the guys. “I called Moviefone. It's five-fifteen at Second and Eleventh.”

“I'm there,” says Shane.

“I would,” says Adrian, pulling his jeans on. “But I'm broke. They don't pay crap at the hardware store. Can't we rent something and go to your house?”

“No.” Titus sounds decisive.

“Why not? Your dad's gotta be at work.”

“Yeah,” Titus concedes. “But—”

“And you're only like five blocks away. If we go to mine or Shane's we have to go all the way into Queens.”

“That's cool,” says Shane. “Let's go to Titus's.”

“Not happening,” says Titus.

“Come on,” chimes in Malachy. “Brat's in Brooklyn, and we could go to mine, but my mom'll be home. And you know how she is.”

“Plus it's small as crap,” laughs Shane.

“Exactly,” says Malachy, ruefully.

“Whaddya say, Titus?” “He's got TiVo,” Shane adds. “He told me. And his dad's some big-money doctor, so you know he's got like a big leather couch and probably a fridge full of food. Come on, Titus. We promise we won't trash anything.”

“Yeah, right,” says Titus. “You guys are like a hurricane.”
“We'll behave, I swear,” says Adrian. “Come on, your pops will never know the difference. Don't make me go home, now.”

“That's not it, anyway,” says Titus.

“We'll even vacuum,” says Adrian, getting down on his knees in mock supplication. “Brat will vacuum.”

“Me?” whines Brat. “Why me?”

“I'll dust, Malachy will pick the chips out of the couch and Shane will sweep the floor,” continues Adrian, laughing but half serious. “You can't argue with that.”

“Yes, I can,” says Titus. “Let's go to Luigi's.” (The pizza place around the corner.)

“Crap,” says Adrian, standing up. “I told you I don't have cash.”

“I'll spot you,” says Titus. “But just Ip, not you other bottomfeeders.”

“But—”

“We're
not
going to my house,” says Titus. “End of discussion.”

He slings his pack over his shoulder and bangs out the door. The rest of them follow.

I wish I had a crew I could hang around with after school like that. I mean, I've kind of got Katya, but only kind of. And no one else. The Art Rats just assume they're hanging out together— they don't have to ask in advance. They're friends; and friends do stuff together.

But on another note—

why won't Titus let them in his house?

It sounds like he's got money. I mean, it's New York City and funds are tight everywhere. Some kids are rammed into tiny apartments with big families, or their places are sorry-ass and they feel weird about playing host. This I can understand. But Shane said Titus is living pretty large
,

and if he's only five blocks away, he's in a posh neighborhood.
Of course, even with money people's parents can still be nightmares:

they can yell,
or be drunk,
or hover around like everyone's business is their business—
but Titus admitted that his dad's not gonna be home. And I'm pretty sure his mom lives out West somewhere.

So what's the problem? Why would Titus pay for Adrian's pizza just to avoid people coming over?

After eighth period, some guys trickle in for basketball— mainly seniors. The track and field boys come in, too, before they head to the park for practice.

When they clear out, I'm left alone as the light from the window dims, and I fall still and let my thoughts run.

Why has this happened to me?

If it's merely a cosmic accident, or some strange allergic reaction to the celery soda, or exposure to nuclear waste or something else highly toxic (like whatever I stepped in Friday morning, that gel-like grossness), then nothing's ever going to change me back.

I'm a fly for life. This is my world now. I might as well accept it.

But I don't. Accept it. It's too horrible. I have to change back.

A different possibility:

Some power—some magic beyond my control—has done this to me.

God.

In which case, God is punishing me. But for what, precisely?

Being too lame to clean my room?

Too shy to talk to the boys I like?

Too obsessed with superheroes?

Angry at my dad?

I mean, I
am
a schmuck in all these ways and more, and I also say “hell” too much, but if God has decided that I deserve possibly eternal insectitude for what I've done, then what is he (or she) doing to all the rapists and murderers?

Maybe the sinners of the world get turned into some kind of vermin when they die, and the worse you are, the worse kind of vermin you become. Houseflies are regular people who swore and never did their homework. Rats are the people who shoplifted or cheated on their spouses. And the cockroaches are all unrepentant killers.

But are we then forced to live as vermin for all eternity? Or do we die again at the end of our pitiful, horror-filled vermin lives and then go on to burning in flames or lying on the rack or whatever Hell is, the way we usually think of it?

And if this is Hell, then why does eternal damnation look exactly like the boys' locker room at Ma-Ha? And why am I being punished for my short, schmucky life by watching naked boys parade around the showers?

And is my human body actually lying dead in my bed because of some strange latent disease that killed me in the middle of the night
,

or because the ceiling fell in
,

or because a serial killer jimmied the lock, crept into my bedroom and chopped my body into bits? If so, then my corpse is rotting and decaying and smelling up the apartment, since no one is even going to check on me until Saturday when Pop gets home from Hong Kong.