Little Boy (13 page)

I took the test that morning and met Maria
precisely at noon in front of the Queens Center Mall. She asked if
we could go shopping in the mall for a while first, but I politely
refused. I wanted to be with her in the park as soon as possible,
and I told her so. She complied, gracefully.

The subway ride to the city was quiet; I
think we were both excited that it was our first real date. This’ll
sound corny, but that day my big plan was to I ask her to be my
girlfriend. This was a big moment. It meant we didn’t have to worry
about anyone else. Aching to surprise her and give her a day to
remember forever, we ascended the subway stairs and were bathed in
sunlight.

As usual, we entered the park through Central
Park South. The sun was shining brightly on Maria’s dark hair,
creating a sparkle in her beautiful nutmeg eyes. Inhaling the
scents of the newly budding flowers and Maria’s perfume, I flew
high as an F-15 and soared through the stratosphere. The F-15 can
fly one hundred thousand feet up in just under four minutes. I
think I was flying higher than that in Central Park, and I wanted
to take Maria with me. I could have sworn I saw one of those
awesome F-15s in the azure sky above. I was gripping it’s tail,
feeling a cool breeze of perfume lifting my body.

We walked down the stone staircase on the
corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue, toward the pond
where little children were tossing bits of bread to the ducks and
geese. I wanted to feed those ducks, too, but didn’t have any
bread. But I had Maria. She was holding my right hand with her
left. You know that feeling you get when you first step into a
frosty-cold day from within your warm home? Like when suddenly
goose bumps chill your entire body? Well that’s what I felt like
with Maria. And, on top of that, a million butterflies were
flitting through my stomach. It was a crazy, mixed up feeling that
can only be described as love.

As we walked along, as the sun beamed its
warmth down on my face, I noticed my shadow strewn across the
pond’s edge, moving right along with us. But I didn’t see a
separate shadow for Maria. I saw only one shadow, our shadow, as
whole and united as we were that day.

I remember what she was wearing—dark blue
denim shorts that covered just enough to leave the eye wanting; a
red, cotton, v-neck T-shirt, tight yet modest; and a pair of ivory
white gym shoes. She looked like a tennis player in the U.S.
Open—young, energetic, fit, ambitious. Maria had just a dab of
makeup on her face—just enough to make her naturally spectacular
face glow. But the absolute best part was her smile. No make up
could simulate a smile. She looked as though it was the happiest
day of her life, as though she was up 40-Love, about to win game,
set, and match. It was almost as if she was bursting to tell a
joyful secret, waiting for a window of opportunity.

Not until we sat down together on a park
bench by the ball field did we begin to converse. Baseball season
was in full swing. In the background we heard the crack of aluminum
bats and the sound of cheerful crowds. Neither of us was tempted to
watch the game, though. We opted to gaze into one another’s eyes,
almost as if we were studying one another.

“So tell me your story, kid,” I said. It was
an unusual way to begin a conversation, I know. But I was so
goddamn excited.

“My story? Well, I don’t know,” she said
coyly. “I adore Central Park. I really love it here. I used to come
to Central Park with my grandfather when I was a little girl. I
think I told you that last time we were here. I suppose that’s why
this place—the trees, the pond, the ducks—is so comforting.”

“Well, we’ll come here as often as you want
from now on, I promise.”

Maria suddenly seemed to be lost in deep
thought. Patiently, I waited for her to turn toward me once
again.

Several minutes later, a glossy-eyed Maria
continued. “You’ll meet my grandpa someday, A.J. I see him about
once each week. He almost died three summers ago of a heart attack.
Then he had a stroke several weeks afterward. Obviously, he hasn’t
been the same since.

“Tell me more,” I said. “I love listening to
you.”

“Grandpa used to be so proud of his daily
routine: wake at seven; go to eight o’clock mass; walk two miles to
the seniors club; eat lunch at Claudio’s; walk two miles to the
donut shop; read the
Post
over a cup of coffee; walk back to
the club; grab dinner at Michael’s Diner; walk back home; watch TV;
go to bed at ten. Same thing, A.J., every day. But he loved every
minute of it. Amazing, huh?

“But since his surgeries, grandpa’s daily
routine has changed a lot. He used to walk six miles a day and then
watch two or three hours of TV each evening, and now he walks very
little and watches TV all day long. Non-stop.

“A nurse comes in every afternoon to cook and
help him bathe. He takes a different pill for every color of the
rainbow. Basically, he has nothing to live for...”

Maria swallowed hard and peered searchingly
into my eyes.

“...except for my visits. My mother, my
father—they’re too busy to see him more than once a month or so.
But I visit grandpa at least once a week after school. That’s when
he turns off the TV—it’s usually hot as an oven, it’s been on for
so long—and talks to me. For two or three hours each week, grandpa
tells me the stories of his life—he’s a very reflective old guy—and
answers all of my questions about the past. ‘What was it like to
see Joe DiMaggio play in Yankee Stadium’; ‘Was Roosevelt a good
president?’; ‘What did people do before TV was around?’ Just one of
those questions gets him talking for hours.”

Maria smiled proudly. “A.J., you have to see
it. To grandpa, these conversations are like, um—what’s that thing
at the hospital that keeps you alive?”

“Life support systems,” I said.

“Yeah! That’s right. I think I’m sort of like
his life support system. Sometimes I think he could go without the
pills, just as long as he gets rejuvenated once a week when we
talk.”

“So you’re saying that without you he’d
die?”

“Well, I guess so, in a way,” she said. “I
think that all people kind of need a life support system. But not a
machine, A.J. I mean a real-life human being. People to engage
them, question them, listen to them. Nurses and pills can help you
to a point. But all people—young and old, sick and well—crave a
person to depend on just as they can count on the sun rising each
morning.”

I was touched. I didn’t know her grandfather.
However, at that moment, for the first and perhaps the only time in
my relationship with Maria, I grasped precisely what she craved: a
confidant. Maria lacked the life support system that she provided
so gracefully for her own blood. Though during the moment I didn’t
know if Maria would ever surrender herself to me physically, on
that exquisite day in the park she handed me her soul in the palm
of her hand, and I gratefully accepted.

The world surrounding us stopped for a
moment, silently acknowledging the holy transaction that was taking
place. A jet flew into my mind, an EA6B electronic jamming plane,
used by the Navy and Marines to stifle enemy aircraft’s radar
technology. A hush blanketed us, the world around didn’t exist. The
earth’s rotation came to a halt. Maria gazed sleepily into my eyes
as if she were about to fall into my waiting arms. A gentle breeze
whistled through the trees surrounding us. Abruptly, a loud burst
of cheer resonated from the ball field, waking us from the
hypnosis.

“You can always count on me,” I responded,
finally. “I promise.”

“Always? You mean it? Do you think we’ll be
together forever, A.J.?” Smiling softly, Maria stroked my fingers,
searching for an answer that I had planned on providing well before
she raised her question. Although I’d wanted to broach the issue of
our future together, Maria slyly beat me to it.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you
about, Maria.” Then I placed the palm of my hand against her right
cheek, and looked harder at her than I ever had before. I was so
happy I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. Instead, I continued with my
plan.

“Maria,” I said, “I want to be with you
forever. I know that sounds crazy—I mean, hell, we’re both still
teenagers, right?—but it’s true. Let’s begin forever today. Let’s
take the first step now.” I breathed in deeply, paused for a
second, and exhaled. “Will you please be my girlfriend?”

Even though she knew I’d ask that, she was
surprised. So was I. My heart throbbed but before I had a chance to
notice it, Maria replied.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ll be your girlfriend.”
And she smiled and gave me a hug.

Heaven on Earth. That’s all I can say.

We talked more for a while, probably for an
hour or so. As usual, we talked about everything from politics to
movies, from travel to religion. Neither of us was very religious.
I was happy to hear that she, like me, was an atheist. It’s that
like we hated the idea of God, we just despised the notion that
some people justified moral superiority with their faith. That’s
why neither of us went to Church. I had gone once in the past year
or so, but that was for Christmas and with my parents. She said she
hadn’t gone in years, and I thought that was cool.

“Tell me about your family. Do they know that
you like me?” I asked.

“Well, I tell my mother everything,” she
said, “but I don’t think my father knows about you yet.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I
asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I just don’t think he
knows about you yet,” she said.

“Why? Will he be mad or something?”

“Oh no, it’s not that.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“He just doesn’t know,” she insisted.

“Why not? What’s the big deal?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this,” she
replied. Suddenly, she grew visibly uneasy.
How
, I wondered,
can I be her confidant if she bottles her secrets up?

“Listen, Maria, I care about you and would
never judge you. So whatever it is, please tell me.”

“I don’t know. Something tells me it’s not a
good idea.”

“Listen, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell
me, but I think it’s best to get things out in the open.” I placed
both my hands on her face, parting the hair away from her eyes. She
looked up at me and let out a warm, minty breath.

“I don’t think my father knows abut you yet,
A.J., because he’s always drunk when I talk about you at home.”

Dead silence. I had no idea what to say. “My
father’s an alcoholic, A.J.”

And with that her little eyes began to tear.
She wasn’t crying so much as she was whimpering. Quickly, however,
she wiped away her tears and stopped, as if she had never begun.
She was such a proud girl.

I can’t describe how surprised I was to hear
about her father.
An alcoholic! My God!
I wasn’t surprised,
but appalled. I’d never tasted alcohol before. I’d despised alcohol
from the moment I realized what you were, Mom.

One time in freshman year I was at a school
dance, and Kyle snuck in a few of those little bottles of vodka,
the same kind that you get on commercial airliners and hotel room
bars. He said he stole them from his grandmother’s liquor cabinet.
I was pissed. My opinion of liquor was patently different than my
friends’. All hallucinogens were evil. Liquor was no different than
religion—they both made you believe something that wasn’t true.
Kyle was swigging vodka while I still had stuffed animals in my
room.

What a fight we had! He wanted to drink the
vodka right in the middle of the dance. “Over my dead body,” I
exclaimed, as I grabbed the bottle from him and flung it to the gym
floor. Unfortunately, it was plastic, so it just bounced around for
a while, and remained intact. Kyle reacted with a goofy smile—he
had won—and he picked the bottle off the floor, unscrewed the
little red cap, and drank away.

I didn’t know what the hell to say when Maria
told me her father was an alcoholic. I was about to tell her about
the drinking problems in my family but decided against it. It was
too soon to tell her so much about my life. I was scared, although
even at this moment I don’t know why.

I stood there for a while, practically making
a fool out of both of us. I don’t know, I guess I was even a little
angry at her. I was too young to drink, and too young to be
burdened with this news. In my heart, I wanted to bear my soul to
Maria, to narrate my personal experiences with an alcoholic parent.
At the same time, I figured that it would ruin the date if I didn’t
say something nice, and we didn’t get off the topic.
What the
hell should I do?

Thankfully, she spoke. “I just wanted you to
know this, A.J.,” she said, “because that’s why my father doesn’t
know about you yet, because he was drunk when I told my mother,
like he always is.”

“It’s okay, baby,” I said. “Really, it’s
okay. He doesn’t hurt you, does he? He doesn’t hit you?” I felt
like such a gentleman saying that.

“No, he doesn’t. He just drinks, and never
really goes to work. Well, he used to. He used to be a sanitation
worker. But he retired like ten years before he was supposed to, so
he didn’t really get a pension or anything like that. And now he
just sits at home and drinks, and yells at my Mom. Sometimes he has
a part-time job, sometimes he doesn’t. Regardless, he blames her
for everything. But she works and cooks and cleans, and he has no
right to do it. It’s just that he’s drunk, and he never even knows
what he’s saying. I try to understand what he’s going through, but
I don’t know my right from my left sometimes. How can I understand
him when I don’t even understand myself? I just wish that someone
would understand me for once. But I remain silent. Nobody can sense
my confusion. Even if I did choose to tell people, they wouldn’t
understand.”