"Being fat or overweight isn't a big deal these days," O'Rooney had said to him. "In
my high school days, nobody dated a girl who was overweight."
This prompted him to tell O'Rooney a story.
"First girl I fucked," he told him, "was a fat girl. Well, not exactly fat; kind of
on the plump side, you know. Anyway, I get her up to my room, and I'm like
ready to get started. I'm fairly bursting in my briefs. So I'm standing there ready
to stick it up her zabaglione. Her name was Dana Ricci ̶ Italian. And she's
standing there, with her back to me ̶ she'd taken off her tops, and she was
fumbling with her zipper or something. So I go up behind her, grab her jeans,
and begin to pull them down. She screams, Whasdamattawidyou! And I shout,
What the fuck's the matter with you? And she says, Get off me, you've ruined
my zipper! I couldn't believe this. I'm up and ready, and she's worried about
her freaking jeans zipper!"
But these were the 90s, he agreed, different times. Everyone walked around
thinking: I'm desirable. Somebody out there wants me.
Fat girls, skinny girls, short, black, white girls ̶ it didn't matter. They put
lipstick on, put a little sway in the hips, and bingo! they're ready to burst.
And here was Ipanema Vasquez: thinking she was ready, thinking she knew
exactly what she wanted.
He wondered: did she move alone in the hallways, friendless? was there a
furnace of desire quietly churning inside that fatness? Okay.
She was taking her time getting back from the bathroom. The bell rang; the
class clattered out, barely acknowledging him. And she was nowhere in sight.
Her bag, her coat, her stuff were on a desk.
He stood at the doorway, exasperated; he had to get his teacher's bathroom pass
back from her. No students were gathering outside to use the room. He couldn't
just shut the door, walk away, leave her stuff inside.
Then he saw her ̶ maneuvering like an emergency vehicle through the hallway
crowd; chopping her way forward with surprisingly nimble moves. A smile on her
chubby face as she said, Excuse me! and slipped passed a noisy lingering group.
Making her way back to Mr. McCraggen. Catching his eye from a distance so that
he imagined her smile was intended for him, not the students she had just
jostled.
Her body didn't look fat; just tight and compact in jeans. It might go out of
shape after her first pregnancy, but right at that moment her voluptuous ̶
"voluptuous" was the only word he could think of ̶ her voluptuous body in the
bursting prime of its youth was making its approach.
She came skipping up to him She looked into his face, anticipating some display
of teacher temper. He stood stiff with controlled annoyance at the door. She
planted a smile like a kiss on his cheeks and rushed past him, saying how sorry
she was to keep him waiting.
She'd touched up her face in the bathroom ̶ black lipstick on her lips which,
with her black hair cut short to the shoulder and her thick eyebrows, gave her a
halloween witch look.
She was trying hard in her adolescent way for "prettiness", with the make-up kit
and the hoop earrings and the shiny arm bracelets; her cupped breasts
clamoring for boys. Like so many John Wayne seniors hoping to provoke envy and
desire in the grown-up world, she ended up, he thought, looking ridiculously
painted.
"At the end of the 8th," he reminded her as she brushed past. "If I'm not there,
wait for me." She promised she would.
There would be no complication. No negotiations. An easy simple transaction, a
quick in and out. Friday afternoon, the gym after 8th period. Everyone else in a
rush for the exits. The cleaning crew working their way down from the third
floors. Give the hallways 15 minutes to clear. No PM classes. Nothing to lose.
(from "Ah Mikhail,O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 