“There just is.” We're outside the school now, heading toward the subway. Katya lights a cigarette.
“Like you and Malachy?” I ask, feeling annoyed about the smoke and the no weekend plans.
“I wasn't flirting with Malachy.”
I know I'm being a pain—but I can't help it.
My dad is a cheating, disappearing jerk
and I love him like crazy;
Shane is a cold-fish-sometimes-flirty ex, and I can barely talk when he's in the room;
Titus is a sensitive guy one minute and sidekick to booty master Adrian the next.
If I can't figure out how to deal with the opposite sex, I'm going to lose my mind.
“Guys suck,” I say to Katya. “Then they grow up to be men, and the men suck too.”
“So forget them.”
“Ha. That's like Spider-Man forgetting he's got Venom following him up a building.”
Silence.
“Know what I wish?” I say. We are standing outside the subway now, before getting on our different trains.
“Hm.” She seems distracted. “That you had a life?”
“Katya!”
“Okay. That Titus liked you.”
“Besides that. Guess.”
“Money? Beauty?”
“Besides those.”
“Peace?”
“Besides that.”
“Just tell me,” sighs Katya. “What do you wish?”
“I wish I was a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room,” I say.
i go home. The apartment is empty.
I watch TV. I read Kaf ka.
I order dumplings in hot oil and tofu with black bean sauce and eat as I flip through yesterday's newspaper.
I go to sleep.
part two
life as a vermin
Saturday morning, when I wake up, I am not in my bed.
I am not in my body, either.
I am standing, already, though I don't remember getting up, and I'm somewhere sunny.
It seems odd that I'm up before I'm awake, and odd that it's so bright in here, since I normally sleep with the shades down— but I only realize something is radically different when I stretch my arms,
and then my legs
and then my other legs.
Stupid hell, where are these legs coming from?
What, legs, what?
Where did I get extra legs?
They itch. I'll rub them together.
I must be dreaming still.
I wonder if the hot oil from last night is giving me weird dreams. I don't usually eat so much hot oil.
I'll probably wake all the way up in a minute, and stare at my messy room like usual, and pour a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons on TV and think about going running but not go, and try and call Katya and tell her what a strange dream I had.
Extra legs. I'm sure she'll have some Freudian analysis of the dream too. Like I have gherkin envy or something like that. Or I want to run away from something. Or stand up for something.
Whatever. I feel like stretching something else.
Hmm, ahh,
what is it I want to stretch?
Ah, yes, my wings,
my wings!
My WINGS.
I stretch them and it feels unbelievably great, these big, powerful, paper-thin wings coming from my shoulders. I have an incredible urge to flap them up and down rapidly. It's almost like they want to move on their own.
But I can't do that. I can't start flapping. It's too freakin' scary. Because this doesn't feel like a dream at all.
It feels absolutely realer than real. Realer than my regular life, even.
I open my eyes. Well, not exactly open them, because I don't have eyelids. It's more like turning them on, so I'm conscious not just of warm bright sunlight, but of the world around me. When I do, images are coming from everywhere, not only in front of me. I can see above, below, to the right, left and back of me—a full surround. But my brain has somehow adapted so that instead of being confused I'm able to look at a hundred different images and follow what's going on in each one.
In front of me is a window with frosted glass. I want to walk up it. The compulsion is strong, so despite my disorientation I get my six legs moving and—like Spider-Man—crawl up the glass to the top of the window.
Crawl up the glass!
When I reach the top, I stop and look around. In front of me is the ceiling, covered with good-smelling gray mildew spots. To my right, the side of the windowsill. Down to the back, showers and sinks. To my left, the other side of the windowsill and a row of toilet stalls with wooden doors painted a peeling blue. Directly behind me are rows of lockers and wooden benches. The tiles on the floor are dingy.
Where am I?
The room is familiar, and yet unfamiliar. A locker room. But not the one I'm used to. The tiles in the girls' room are white, and the walls are pink—but here are the same ancient, rusty showerheads, same square sinks. But bigger, with blue paint and blue tile.
And there are urinals.
Oh. My. God. I am in the boys' locker room.
The boys' locker room at Ma-Ha.
The girls' locker room is way smaller.
The boys have twelve showerheads and we have only six.
They have full-size lockers, and ours are only half-size.
And they have rows of minilockers, like mesh baskets that slide in and out of a large metal cabinet, with combination locks on them. For stuff they want to leave overnight.
The total unfairness pisses me off so much that for a minute I forget to think about how I've got wings,
and six legs,
and eyes that see out the back of my head.
I forget to wonder how any of this is happening or whether it's a dream.
I stand there on the window, rubbing my little forefeet together and fuming.
Why would theirs be bigger than ours?
We have to practically get dressed in the spray from the showers,
and shove our clothes into these tiny half-size lockers,
and why is it only the girls have to lug their gym shoes and shampoo in backpacks, when the boys have all this storage?
And why do they have nice long benches, when we have stubby ones?
And why do they have more showers, when everyone knows girls take longer showers than boys?
Ooh, they have a full-length mirror, too, and an extra tub for dirty towels, when ours is always overflowing.
Hell. I thought sexism was over already. I never thought it would be quietly living on in the architecture of my own school. We've been suffering in that tiny-ass locker room all this time, while the boys are showering in the lap of luxury.
Well, the paint is peeling and it's not exactly clean in here, but it's luxury compared to what the girls get.
Fuck.
Hell.
Every bad word out there.
I'm a fly. What does it matter what the locker rooms are like?
If I don't change back, I've got maybe a few weeks to live, if nobody swats me and no spider eats me. Pop will return from Hong Kong and I'll be gone without a trace. The apartment will be empty. No one will have seen me for eight days. Pop will call the police to make a missing person's report,
and Ma will come back and blame him for my disappearance,
and they'll be miserable and heartbroken and hate each other even more than they already do,
and all the while they're grieving and carrying on,
and the police are searching for my chopped-up shell of a body somewhere in a dark alley,
I'll just be buzzing hard up against this single window
unable to talk,
unable to explain,
unable to help or change back
or do anything—
stuck in a life even tinier than the one I left.
I might as well be dead.
And I will be soon enough.
I freak the hell out for several hours, just creepi
ng up and down the windowsill with my heart in a knot of anxiety and fear.
But then, I think,
Hey, maybe I should try these wings.
They're here. On my back. I mean, I may be trapped in a nightmare, but I do have wings.
And that should mean I can fly, right?
I stretch them wide, then move them up and down. I bend my knees (all six) and
Flutter, flutter,
Flap
Bzzz bzzz bzzz
up!
UP!
I'm flying! I. Am. FLYING!
Ahhh,
whoa,
can't think and fly at the same time,
okay, don't think, fly,
up up,
now I've got it,
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—
To the window on the other side!
Over the tops of the lockers!
Swoop down to the benches,
zip up to the lights,
buzz to the right,
to the left,
round in circles,
up,
up,
FLYING.
Wind in my face,
the sound of my own wings beating,
the feel of the air against them as they move,
the floor far below.
It's like riding downhill on a bike—a steep hill, so steep you wonder if it was a good idea to go down it, but you don't brake, you're not careful, you just go. Barely conscious of the houses whipping past you, barely conscious of your balance. All your attention on the pure sensation of movement.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—
Stop.
Oh my god. I'm a superhero! It's like I've stepped right out of my own tiny life and into the Marvel Universe.
A superhero.
No longer am I Gretchen Yee,
trapped in that tiny life,
weighed down by stuff and divorce and boys and social weirdness and mean drawing teachers.
I am something different.
Something wondrous.
Something out of the ordinary.
Finally. Life is happening to me.
A superhero.
So: what should my name be?
Flyzina. (No. Too dumb.)
The Fly. (No, too literal.)
The Bug. (Too gross.)
Flyette. (Not bad, but too girly-girly.)
Flygirl. (Too obvious and probably too self-congratulatory, given the double meaning.)
The Buzz. (Also self-congratulatory, if you think like a buzz is a hot topic.)
I guess there's a reason superheroes rarely name themselves. They're usually given their titles by the news media or the adoring public, so they can be called stuff like Superman without having to say, “Yeah, I just looked in the mirror and thought, wow, I am just a super man, aren't I?”
What about:
Vermin. It's got a nice ring to it. But it sounds like a villain. There are a lot of villains named after bugs of some kind. Black Tarantula. Regular Tarantula. Scorpion. Beetle. Dragonfly. Spider-Wasp. Actually, wasn't there a Vermin in some of those old Spidey and Captain America comics? And maybe in Wolverine, too. Vermin was a man turned into a cannibal humanoid rat by some evil experiment, and the wicked Zola used him as a tool to battle Spidey; then he went into psychotherapy to uncover his childhood abuse.
Well, I'm obviously not him. I'll be the new Vermin. A good one. I've been warped by whatever changed me into this fly body—and now I'm going to use my superpowers for world salvation,
or citywide salvation,
or salvation of my parents' marriage,
and by extension for the permanent eradication of all weirdness and confusion between boys/men and girls/women forevermore—
or if I'm not quite up to that, at the very least salvation of my high school from all the poseur artist-types that make this place such a living hell.
Cammie will be my nemesis. She's out there, talking about stuff she read in ARTFORUM and turning boys into drooling idiots with the power of her tremendous biscuits, and she must be neutralized. Here comes Vermin to—
I could buzz in Cammie's ear, I guess, and track my dirty fly feet across her art projects. I could find out stuff about her by crawling in her backpack or coat pockets, or spy on her when she doesn't know I'm looking. But that's not the stuff of actionadventure comics. Marvel would never publish stories about a goth-slut girl being annoyed by a housefly.
Really, I can't do crap.
I'm so tiny that anybody of normal size could defeat me with a swatter or an aerosol can full of Fly-B-Gone.
The only thing I'm really likely to do is battle a mosquito for domination of this stinky old locker room.
Now, if I could only figure out how to switch back and forth at will, THEN maybe I could get something accomplished—find out top-secret information and then use it for the good of all humankind. (And insectkind, too, of course.)
Vermin. I could wear this great leather jumpsuit, and it would zip up the front from crotch to turtleneck. Then I'd have big shiny sunglasses that made me look the tiniest bit like a fly when I'm in human form. I'll retain some of my fly powers in my human body—like I'll be able to see things out the back of my head, and walk up walls—but to fly, or to sneak into secret places, or to appear to disappear and flummox my enemies, I'll turn into fly form. Just by snapping my fingers.
I spend a few minutes trying to snap my forelegs together to change back into a person.
It doesn't work. I get a snap going, but nothing happens when I do.
Then I try to will the change to happen.
No.
I try lying on my back and going to sleep like a person. I buzz back over to the windowsill and lie in the exact place where I first woke up, in case that makes any difference. I try a lot of little rituals—hopping up and down three times, twisting my head a funny way, kicking my legs out.
Nothing works.
I buzz over to one of the mirrors above the sinks, crawl up next to it and have a look at myself.
I am really, really ugly.
A monster. My body is dark gray with black stripes running along it and little wiry hairs sticking out all over, especially on my legs. My face is dominated by two giant composite eyes, and my lower lip is nothing but a tube.
It's hardly a face at all.
I can see now why people swat flies. They are insanely horrific looking.
I'll never get a boyfriend, looking like this.
Oh hell, that is the stupidest thing to think. I cannot believe I just thought that.
If I can't change myself back, then I'll be an insect forever, buzzing against the windowpane, living out my now-puny life expectancy confined to a freakin' locker room.
I should be worried about that—not about whether this nasty-lookin' new body scorches my chances with Titus.
I am not a superhero at all. I am a garden-variety housefly.
Hell, I don't even have teeth.
Desperate to do something, anything, I try to get out of the locker room. I buzz over to the door and bang against the crack for a while (which hurts), then try to crawl under, but it's got one of those rubber sealers across it and there's no way to get through. Then I try the door that opens into the gymnasium, and I can smell the gym-smell of basketballs and dirty sneakers coming from the other side, but I can't get through that one either.
Maybe I can make a break for it when people come in for class on Monday, but there's nothing I can do at the moment. I'm stuck.
I buzz around in a flurry of anxiety, as if moving constantly will somehow burn off the panic that is welling inside of me.
Buzz
Buzz
Fuck
Fuck
What to do, what to do?
There is nothing to do.
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz
Can't get out
Can't change back
Can't get out
Can't change back
There's a spiderweb in one corner of the locker room, and in m
y panic I almost fly into it, veering back only at the last second and seeing the huge, hungry body of the spider sitting in the corner, eyeing me with silent fury as I zoom away.
Fuck. She could eat me.
Wrap me up in silk and suck my blood out.
Stay out of the corner
Stay out of the corner
Stuck
Stuck
Nothing to do
Nowhere to go
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz
ZZZZZZzzzzzzz
Jacked up with fear, I fly around the other side of the room in circles, my mind electric and unfocused. I go for hours upon hours, frantic, unconscious of anything except the desire to fly as fast as I can—as if I could fly myself farther from the spider, out of this room and out of my own fly-body.
Finally, after Saturday has faded into Sunday, which fades into night, I stop flying and go into a trance. Not exactly a sleep; more like my brain shutting off for a while, and my body going still out of complete exhaustion.
monday morning, I feel a bit better. Sunlight is streaming through the frosted glass, making pretty squares on the tile floor, and I quickly realize that what woke me up is the sound of a door swinging shut. The clock reads 7:40, twenty minutes before school starts.
A senior I know only by sight, this guy called Hugh, is in the room. He's African American, light skin, with short dreadlocks and a pair of supersize sunglasses always plastered on his face. I think he's in the sculpture program, and I know he used to go out with this girl Dawn.
Anyway, Hugh marches on in, bangs open a locker, tosses his leather bag on the floor, kicks off his sneakers and drops his pants.
He drops his pants!
How did I not think of this before?
I was so busy pretending to be a superhero,
and freaking the hell out about my situation
and hoping that any minute I'd be turned back,
that I never considered the obvious:
a locker room is for naked guys.
And when the school week starts, they're all going to come in here and take off their clothes.
It's happening now!
Naked guys!
Oh my god!
Hugh throws his pants into the locker. He's wearing little white undies on the bottom, a yellow T-shirt on top and argyle socks.
He takes off his shades and tucks them carefully into the bag, then pulls his shirt over his head. Then in nothing but his Calvins and socks, he pads over to the minilockers, unlocks his little drawer and pulls out some gym shorts and a pair of Nikes. He rummages in the leather bag for some sweat socks, a jockstrap and a gray T-shirt, then pulls down his underwear entirely.