The Downside of Being Charlie (3 page)

“What happened, Tanya? Couldn't hold it in? Sicko!” Rebecca yells.

Tanya brandishes the paper, now streaked brown, at the ever growing and widening circle around her. She laughs as they back away.

“Funny,” she announces loudly, rolling her eyes at nobody in particular, but at everyone in general. “You are all so extraordinarily funny!” She shakes her head as if the prank is stupid and beneath her.

It's not like I'm Mr. Freakin' Popularity, but I still managed to find my little niche. Most of us did. I mean, we didn't all have the looks or grace or coordination of the jocks and cheerleaders, but we still fit into some category. I, for instance, fit into the “invisible fat boy who does his homework, gets good grades, hangs out with an oddball friend who has enough confidence and moxie for the both of us” category. It's not ideal, but it's served me well and helps make the whole torturous experience of high school just a little more bearable and maybe even a little fun.

Others subscribe to the school of Band Geeks, who go to band competitions together (and apparently do other things you would never think a Band Geek would do) and meet in the band room for lunch and carry their hard black instrument cases that double as protection from Band Geek haters everywhere. Or there's the Drama Kids who are loud and dress up like Smurfs for no reason other than to call attention to themselves.
They prance around the school like little imps laughing at hundreds of inside jokes and stay at school till all hours of the night rehearsing for the next performance of a lifetime. Then there are the Intellectuals, the Anime Lovers, the Preps, the Stoners, the Gamers, the Goths, the Jocks, the Cheerleader Wannabes, the Break-Dancers, the Ordinaries, the Yearbookers, the Do-Gooders, the Recycling Nazis, the Proud-to-Be Nerds, the Not-So-Proud-to-Be Nerds, etc., etc.

The point is, no matter how strange or weird or uncool you are, you fit in somewhere—unless, unless, you had the incredible misfortune of being Tanya Bate. She is nowhere near being in the same ballpark as the rest of the general high school population. Not on the field, not in the stands, not even in the same state where said ballpark exists. Tanya Bate was off on her own.

My first real glimpse of the queerness that is Tanya Bate was last year in my English III Honors class. It was a small class with plenty of desks, so, of course, Tanya sat alone. It made sense, I guess, because even in the hallways people moved away from her when she walked too close, as if mere proximity would mean catching the freak disease from which she so obviously suffered.

Each day she came in, dressed in her usual
Lord of the Rings
T-shirt and stretch pants, sat down and scowled at everyone who entered, waiting to be provoked so she could display her talents of being a real smart-ass. I never would have guessed this is what she was really like. I mean, I'd heard of her, had caught sightings of the infamous Tanya Bate before, but had never really observed her up close. Ironically, for being the
most unpopular kid in school, everybody knew exactly who she was, but nobody could stand her. So I was kind of looking forward to having a class with her to see what she was all about. The first thing I noticed was how some kids—those who, like me, had never had a class with her—would come in, spot her, and stare at her with quiet intrigue as they slowly walked to an empty seat a safe distance away. I think they were scared she might bark and growl at them—which considering the stories, was not completely out of the question. Other students would groan and shake their heads as soon as they saw her. I soon learned why.

Tanya Bate is the kind of person who is aggravatingly incessant—incapable of shutting her mouth when she believes she is right, which is always. That pisses everyone off and makes them hate her more because she isn't playing the game. She isn't going by the unwritten high school rules that state if you're a geek or a freak, you have to shut the hell up unless spoken to and call as little attention to yourself as possible. But since Tanya was off on her own, I guess she didn't know the rules, or just didn't care about them. For example, at the beginning of that year, Mr. Blitz told the class that we would write our own poems in the form of “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes.

“Can we do it in the form of a sonnet?” Tanya asked, peering at him through her thick glasses. This would become a constant question throughout the rest of the year as we all learned of Tanya's apparent obsession with Shakespeare and the English Renaissance. Everything she wrote had to be in the form of a sonnet. We all
stared at Tanya and her frizzy hair that was parted down the middle, and consequently sprouted on either side of her head like two wiry puffs of teased wool.

“I'd rather you didn't. I want you to capture the same feel and tone of Hughes's poem,” Mr. Blitz answered.

“So you want us to write who we perceive ourselves to be, as long as we do it like someone else, Hughes specifically?”

He looked up as if he were waiting for a thought bubble above his head to produce the answer. “Well, yes, I suppose that's right,” he said after a moment.

“Isn't that kind of oxymoronic?”

“No, Miss Bate. It's actually quite simple. And I'm sure you're quite capable of understanding the meaning of the assignment,” Mr. Blitz replied calmly.

“But it seems to be contradictory,” she immediately countered. “Seriously, does no one else see this?” Tanya was, if nothing else, tenacious. She went beyond the point that was fun for the rest of us to watch. Whereas most classes kind of had that teacher versus students element to it, any class with Tanya usually turned into teacher and students unite to take down Tanya.

“Just do it and shut up!” yelled Kris Keller, our school track star.

“You're over thinking this, Miss Bate,” Mr. Blitz called from his desk.

“But . . .”

“Shut it!” Kris yelled.

“But . . .”

“Just do it, Bate,” another student called out.

“I'm just saying. How can you all NOT see this?”

Exasperated groans and sighs filled the room.

Mr. Blitz, smug and pleased, said, “The class has spoken. Just do the assignment, Miss Bate. It will be a grade.”

“Fine,” Tanya said, and slammed her notebook open, mumbled loud enough for everybody to know how ridiculous this assignment seemed to be, how Langston H. would just turn over in his grave if he knew the injustice that was taking place here, and what a blank, blank, mumble, mumble Mr. Blitz was to ask her to write about who she is and dictate how she write it, and some other craziness in her own secret language that nobody else really paid attention to, until at last she became completely engrossed in writing her poem. She smirked and snickered, and I swear, gave Mr. Blitz evil looks that made me wonder if Tanya practiced witchcraft.

I don't know. Tanya was a freak and all but the last ten minutes of class, when Kris went up there and read about—surprise, surprise—the glory and freedom of running and the wind blowing in your hair, and then some other girl named Terry who had tons of friends read something about the essence of her soul being lonely and bare, and so on and so forth, all I could think of was . . .
What did Tanya write?
Her poem was probably pretty damn funny, ragging on Mr. Blitz somehow, which he must have suspected. Even though her pasty arm went up each time he asked for volunteers, he just ignored her and then called on someone else, and then she would slam her hand down on the desk and roll her eyes so they looked like those freaking cuckoo owl clocks that roll back and forth, round and round. I remember sitting
there in awe of her because she was a complete disaster—repelling, scary, and intriguing all at the same time. And in a weird way, she was more rebellious and antisocial than the best wannabe outcast at our school, except it didn't seem to work for her.

So, she wasn't quite what I expected. And even though I wanted to detest her like everyone else did, I didn't. To me, she was kind of funny and as I sat in class trying to be invisible, I secretly cheered Tanya on and smirked at all the ballsy stuff she said. She didn't care what anyone else thought and part of me wished I had the freedom to not give a shit like that. But I did. I remember slinking down near the back of the class, trying to sink into my own fat rolls while Tanya sat front and center for the whole world to see.

“Charlie? Yo, Charlie?” Ahmed tries to bring me out of my shock. Tanya stomps back to our locker in her brown stretch pants and
Lord of the Rings
T-shirt, and slams it shut. My mind still can't comprehend the fact that I've been assigned a locker with her. I don't necessarily think she's the most despicable person on the planet, but everyone else does and now I'll be dangerously close to being despicable by association. I, Charlie Harrison Grisner, am doomed to share a locker with Tanya Who-Everybody-Hates Bate during what's supposed to be the best year of my high school life.

I avoid my locker like it's an infection all morning. By third period, the general shock has worn off, but anger sets in as I think of my whole senior year going down the tubes. I walk into my photography class, which has a familiar smell that makes me feel slightly better. Most people think photography is a nothing class, which I guess it could be, but I've been taking it ever since freshman year and am hoping I can do it for a living since there's really nothing else I can think of doing. But not like a wedding photographer or anything like that. I'm not so keen on the idea of spending the rest of my life capturing Aunt Bea belligerent and drunk, or little Sammy doing the Macarena. It's just not me. Instead I'd like to work for National Geographic or something, where I could travel all over the world and wouldn't be stuck here.

I have photography fourth period, which is nice because it's right before lunch, and if I'm really into something, I can stay and work—but only if this new photography teacher is okay with students hanging out in his room. Some teachers are and some teachers aren't. Mr. Pratt, the photography teacher who'd been here since 1964, didn't care, but he retired at the end of last year. Mr. Pratt was cool, but only because he was old and had obviously stopped giving a damn a few years ago. You could tell he was tired of the whole high school scene. Sometimes, he just looked out at us and I'd imagine he was thinking
Holy crap . . . what a bunch of idiots
. Other times, it was like he wasn't even there. I guess when you do something long enough, you don't really have to be there anymore.

I'm the first person in class. The new teacher is tall and thin and wears a brown corduroy jacket with those little brown patches on the elbows and slightly ripped-up jeans. He looks sort of young, sort of old, and wears black-rimmed glasses that are the newest way to portray coolness and nerdiness at the same time. They say,
look at me, I'm cool, but . . . also smart
. The ripped-up jeans are such an obvious ploy at establishing that he's not one of “them”—conventional, conformist, republican, old. You know.

“Hey, there,” he says as I come in, “have a seat wherever.” I walk over to the seat I've sat in for the past three years.

“So, advanced photography . . . must really like it then, huh?” I nod. More kids come into the class, most of which I recognize because we've been in Photography I, II, and III together. They look at me, some acknowledging me with a confused nod, like they're wondering where the rest of me is. I nod at a few of them, and then busy myself with studying my already memorized schedule. It was the same in my other classes, with some idiots actually feeling the need to announce loudly, “Holy shit, Grisner, you look different!” I thought it would be cool, coming back and proving myself somehow, but the constant attention to my weight only made me feel more self-conscious, and by the time photography rolled around, I was over it. As if that weren't enough, everyone kept probing me on how I did it and then I had to skirt the whole fat camp business. Finally, the bell rings and the teacher introduces himself.

“Hi, everyone, I'm Mr. Killinger,” which we already
know since it's printed on our class schedules. “Most of you know, Mr. Pratt has retired, which means I get to take his place, and I am truly excited about getting to know all of you and your work.”

Blah, blah, blah. The standard introduction crap. Pretty soon he'll have us playing the name game. Didn't he realize this was our fourth year of photography and the class pretty much ran itself? I'm weary of the new guy and probably a bunch of “new and exciting” things he'll want to put in place. I study the rest of my schedule and try to figure out the quickest routes to each class.

“I'm sure that you all are quite serious about the art of photography.” I look around wondering if anyone else is buying this. Instead I notice how most of the girls are all smiles and looking at each other like, “yes!” They'll probably be swooning over him all year.