The Fattest Fruit Fly

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• September 7, 2015

The fattest fruit fly lives in an apartment in Astoria, Queens.  My apartment in Astoria, Queens.  The fattest fruit fly lived for weeks, and while I had once thought they only lived for 24 hours, the Internet told me they could live longer than 24 days!

I thought it was impossible.  Not only for a fruit fly to live longer than a day, but for anything to survive in my apartment.  I hadn’t any fruit.  And if I did, it was in the refrigerator.  I first thought there must be many fruit flies, but I never saw more than one.  As the days went on, it became clear there was just one singular fruit fly living in my apartment with me.  For a while, it would fly in my face, taunting me.  This was when it was thinner, and able to dodge my clapping hands trying to end the insects’ stupid life.  As it got fatter, I almost killed it, but decided to let it live.  Since I’ve given up on trying to kill it, it’s given up flying in my eyes.

One morning, I saw the fattest fruit fly on the rim of my wine glass in the sink, with maybe two drops of Cabernet in the bottom, an amount so minuscule to a human, you wouldn’t think it existed when the glass was placed in the sink, but for a fruit fly, it was a damn swimming pool.

This?  This is how the fruit fly is staying alive in my apartment?  By drinking my leftover wine?  But I soon realized I had avocado skins in my garbage pail.  I usually eat an avocado every day, and I scrape out every last bit, discarding the skins.  The amount of avocado actually left on the skin is so minuscule to a human, but for a fruit fly, it was a Costco.  And the fattest fruit fly grew fatter, and became slow.   These days it spends most of it’s time in the bathroom, probably because it’s vomiting and peeing all the time from drinking so much damn wine.

“Jesus, you’re still alive,” I said as I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush, “how is that even possible, isn’t your liver failing or something.  You gonna watch me piss too, you fuckin’ pervert.  Goddamn, fat, lazy, alcoholic.  If you have kids or invite friends over, I will kill them all.  Understand?”

The fattest fruit fly does not understand.  Nor is it ever happy nor sad.  It doesn’t laugh or cry.  It just is.  It doesn’t write sonnets, or reviews meals, or go to work, or come home, or browse pictures of the Grand Canyon on the web.  It freeloads, here, in my apartment.  Never an abstract thought, ever, in it’s whole ridiculously long life.

“You better be fat and not be pregnant, I swear.  Plus, you shouldn’t be drinking so much wine if you’re pregnant either.”

The fattest fruit fly had not a friend in the world, save for me, I guess, but I tried killing it for most it’s life, so we’re not really friends at all.  It was on my bathroom mirror, and I wondered if it thought the reflection was another fruit fly.  It’s rare, for a fruit fly to fly solo (literally and figuratively).

The fattest fruit fly is now over two weeks old.  It’s an elderly fat fruit fly now.  It will die, here, in my apartment, any day now, I figure.  I wondered if I’d find his tiny fat body dead somewhere, with it’s legs up in the air.  Or if I just simply wouldn’t find it, and the body of the fattest fruit fly would disappear behind the toilet or something.

Is it morbid, to write an obituary before something dies?  Or is writing an obituary for a fruit fly too weird to even determine the proper time to write an obituary?

“There’s no such thing as writers block,” a creative writing professor told me once, “just start writing.  Write anything.  Write about the fly in the room.”

I thought about that statement.  It stayed with me, even through the years.  And here I was trying to write an obituary for the fattest fruit fly who is not even dead yet.  The fattest fruit fly provided me with nothing.  It’s life was so boring.  No wonder it loved wine.  What else was there to a creature who only knows apathy?

Like me, it is reclusive, doesn’t care for much company.  Was it strong and independent?  Or sad and lonely?  It seemed unfair to only give the fattest fruit fly these two options, because it seems these are the only two categories a single woman can be classified as.  It annoys me so.  Either you’re the feminist workaholic, making it in the big city or wherever.  Or you’re drinking wine, alone, watching Netflix, depressed and unwanted.

It always surprises me when I’m put in either category.  Some people admire my hard work, and think I’m absolutely killing it, like a Rosie the Riveter, rolling up my sleeves; “we can do it!”  Others, who read my (often dark) materials think I’m a desolate character, signaling an S.O.S. to anyone out there who might be paying attention to cries for help.  I’ve been both, that much is true.  But I am neither.  I’m not some lionhearted, fearless trailblazer nor am I a desperate single lady waiting for someone else to fix my problems.  I’m somewhere in between, I guess.

The fattest fruit fly seemed to be eating dried toothpaste in my sink drain.  I watched in near disbelief as I took a leak, “are you brushing your teeth right now?  What the fuck is happening.”

Saturday night, I was pissing in the dunes (like a lady) at Ocean Beach as a result of three or four rocket fuels (Rocket fuels are a signature Fire Island drink, which is just a Pina colada with 151 rum, and amaretto… they are dangerously delicious and strong).  I genuinely enjoy peeing in the dunes, since I was kid.  It’s peaceful, under the stars, with the sound of the ocean waves complimenting your trickle in a melody.

On the way back to town, we were startled by a deer.  She stood still, watching us, to see if we were a threat.  Then, her fawn walked up next to her.  We admired the creatures, in our stupor.  A mother protecting her young.  We backed away slowly.  I recalled a time when my family was walking to Ocean Beach from Atlantique beach:  The kids skipped in front of the parents, playing games as we went.  Out of no where, a buck started charging at us.  We turned on our heels and sprinted towards the water, terrified, knowing even though we were fast, the buck was faster.  My Dad started yelling and running after the buck, and scared it away.  Turns out, we were getting dangerously close to a new born deer, and that buck would have stomped our faces off to protect his baby, just as my Dad didn’t hesitate to save his children, even though that buck could have fucked him up just as well.

This fruit fly, dwelling in my apartment, a moving dot on the wall, does it know I can kill him?  Does it know it can’t out-fly me anymore?  It’s too old and too fat to pull those tricky fruit fly maneuvers, where they fly really slow in your face, then when you go in for the kill, the fly is somehow both elusive and fast.  Does it know, unlike a deer or human, no other fruit fly is going to try to intervene it’s possible death?  Does it know what a hypothetical question is?

Maybe I let him live because I like the company of a mindless creature I can verbally abuse.  Or maybe, I like of power of knowing I can end it’s pathetic little life at any time.  Or perhaps, more likely, it’s sheer apathy.  Any explanation is just as right as it is wrong.

In loving memory of the Fattest Fruit Fly, who might actually still be alive.  He loved wine.  He won’t really be missed.