Little Boy (24 page)

As she told me about her cousin, Anthony, and
her uncle’s barbecue, and a bunch of other stuff, I just sat back,
smoking a butt, waiting for her to blurt out the bad news. She was
speaking casually, but I didn’t hear a word she said. I was just
waiting, waiting, waiting. Just when I started to think that maybe
I was inventing it all, when I began contemplating the possibility
that maybe I was crazy, that maybe Maria wasn’t hiding a thing from
me...just when I began blaming myself for my worries and not her,
just when a guilt began to set in as it never had before…Maria gave
me every reason in the world to never trust her again.

“A.J.,” she said, “I have something to tell
you.” I didn’t say a word. I had predicted this moment long ago; I
had no desire to interrupt fate as it unraveled itself before my
eyes.

“A.J., I got drunk while I was Upstate with
my cousin. Not the baby, but with my older cousin. I got drunk with
him because I was depressed. My parents have been discussing
divorce lately, and I made a stupid mistake. I thought that
drinking would solve the problem, but it was still there the next
morning, when I woke with a hangover. I’ll never drink again. I’m
really, truly sorry.” As she said the word sorry, she started to
cry.

Squinting my eyes, I saw beneath my lids
every loser and scumbag that walked the halls of my school, every
hood that danced the night away in the gym, every girl I’d ever
dated, and, to top it all off, you, Mom, drinking like you used to,
oblivious to the pain it caused others. Each lie ever told to
me—each lie I ever told—became personified in one person: Maria.
Even the word lie had a face, and two arms, and two dark little
eyes. No, not arms. Tentacles. And as I extinguished my cigarette
in a mug of water beside my bed, not just my body, but my entire
soul, was engulfed by the lie. I didn’t know whether to cry or to
throw up. Instead, I responded:

“You fucking bitch. You mother fucking bitch.
Goddamn you, Maria. I’m never fucking going out with you again. I
despise you. I despise everything you just said. You are a piece of
shit.” And then I hung up on her, and vowed never to call her
again.

***

I called her back immediately. And before she
had a chance to say another word, I began the string of invectives
once again. Unlike the first round of anger, I yelled. I didn’t
even yell; I hollered.
Cunt
.
Bitch
.
Asshole
.
Fuck
.
Slut
. All of these words were part of my
colorful repertoire. And she deserved each and every one.
She’s
just like everybody else
, I thought.
I knew it
. She was
going to destroy me.

My mouth contorted itself into a frightening
upside-down U; it felt weighted down, and there would never be
anything else I could do to change it. My heart stomped. I nearly
choked on my tongue. Finally, after I completed my mantra of
profanity, Maria spoke up for the first time in at least ten
minutes or so.

“Please don’t break up with me!” she pleaded.
“Please...” She broke down, wailing, like a mother at her little
boy’s funeral.

“Fuck you, cunt,” I said, icily. I slammed
the phone in its cradle.

I called her back.

“Why didn’t you call me back? Aren’t you
sorry? What the fuck is wrong with you?” I didn’t let her answer.
“How much did you drink? Did you enjoy it? Did your cousin drink,
too? What’s his name, anyway? Did you get drunk? I mean, really
drunk? Did you enjoy it? Are you happy with what you did? You
fucked up this entire relationship—you know that, right? Why did
you do it? Did you drink beer? What?
Whaaaaaat
!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Answer my fucking questions,
goddamn iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” I was out of control.

“I drank rum—rum and Coke. And a few
beers.”

“How much fucking beer and rum did you have,
Maria?”
Mah-ree-ah
. I dragged her name out, as if it were
the foulest curse in the English language. It was insulting just to
recite it. That name, Maria, had meant so much to me just a few
moments before she called. It had meant perfection. All I had. All
I believed. I’d found my religion that summer—I believed in Maria.
But, like a parishioner who discovers his priest is a child
molester, I felt betrayed. My religion was a sham, my creed a hoax.
Just as I was about to hang up on Maria for the third time, she
interrupted her crying and, between sobs, said:

“A.J., you said that you would forgive me for
anything, as long as I was honest!”

“I lied. Fuck you.” And I hung up on her
again.

And just as I slammed the receiver down, and
heard that familiar echo of a bell sing through my room, I realized
again that Maria had failed to call me back after I hung up on her
previously.
How sorry could she be?
I dialed her number
again.

“Why the fuck didn’t you call me back? You
fucking bitch!”

“Please, A.J.”—she was really losing it
now—please, I was only kidding. I didn’t get drunk, I swear! I
didn’t drink at all. I swear!” I could barely understand her, she
was crying so much. “I swear on my father’s life!” The words
life-life
—echoed faintly in my mind. I grew silent. For a
moment, I thought that it was all a bad dream. I was confused. I
was disillusioned, weary, suspicious.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I
demanded.

“I—I was making it all up. I just wanted to
see how you’d react. I—I—I’m sorry, A.J. I was thinking about us a
lot this week, and I’ve decided that I really do—trust you—I...”
she just trailed off.

I fired at her like a machine gun: “What the
hell is your problem? Are you telling me the truth? Is this a
fucking joke?”

“No—I mean, yes—I’m…I didn’t drink.” She
gulped her phlegm and panted briefly. “I just wanted to know what
you thought about it.”

At that point, I was shaking. Each word
heaved from my gut. “
Do you—do you swear on our relationship
that you didn’t drink Upstate? Do you
?”

Silence.

“I swear, A.J.” She sniffled.

At that moment all of my hope returned. I
wasn’t religious person, but I felt like my Jesus had
resurrected.

Chapter 12

Mortal Sin

At the end of October, New York was still in
the throws of an Indian Summer. The air was heavy, choking. Cicadas
still sang one Saturday morning as I walked up the block to the
deli.

I didn’t work very hard that fall, only one
Saturday day a week. Some of it was cool, though. I could take
anything I wanted and eat it right there. I loved that deli food. I
loved finding a few minutes when the customer traffic slowed down,
so I could sneak a hero sandwich in the stock room and engulf it.
I’d pile provolone, salami, ham, bologna, turkey, roast beef,
pickles, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, vinegar, olive
oil—just about everything in the deli—on top of a big-ass hunk of
fresh Semolina bread slathered with mayonnaise and mustard,
sprinkled with salt and pepper and oregano. I must have eaten one
of those things every Saturday during my senior year. And the
moment I swallowed that last piece of hoagie each day, as I licked
the vinegar and mayo off my fingertips, I walked out the back door
smoke a butt. There’s nothing like a cigarette after a good
meal.

One day during a cigarette break, Rick came
by and asked me to hang out at his house some night the next week.
He was going to have a party, he said, and his parents wouldn’t be
home. Not only that, but there would be tons of beer and liquor and
pizza and stuff. I begged him to ban all alcohol from his party,
but he wouldn’t listen.

“You gotta do it,” I said, waving a leaf of
romaine lettuce at him, “you gotta stop everyone from drinking.
Drinking causes problems, dude.”

“I used to think that, too, L’Enfant, but
trust me. I was with these guys this summer, and trust me, it so
fucking fun.”

“I don’t know.”

“Trust me, L’Enfant.” I should’ve asked him
why he was suddenly calling me ‘L’Enfant’; he never did before. It
was almost like he was mocking me.

But instead, I remember wondering,
Should
I drink at this party?
To make up for what Maria said she’d
done? Should I tell him about what happened with Maria?
Should I ask for his advice about her lie?
Rick had been out
with a few girls—he could have given me some sound advice. It’s
that last point that still smarts. I mean, what if I had asked him
for some advice? I know he would’ve told me to forget about Maria’s
past and drinking or whatever, and just enjoy being with her.

But I was so fucked up. I kept everything
inside. I was too afraid to ask him for some help.

I was as shocked that Rick had become a
“drinker” as The Family. Rick was the last person that you’d think
would drink. He never really did so, not until that summer at
least. But that summer, he was a valet at a club near Rockaway
beach. Apparently, the guys he worked with there were all older
than he was and they all went out drinking together. I was
disgusted by it all. He was only seventeen, for crying out loud. It
was as if, all of a sudden, I was friends with one of those goddamn
losers at school that went out drinking on the weekends.

All my life there was always this distinction
between adults and kids. All of a sudden, all around me, my friends
were becoming adults, and doing adult things, while I still missed
the kid things. And I secretly hated them for that. I didn’t want
anything to change.

Between my family’s experiences with
alcohol—yours, Mom, grandma’s, and both grandpa’s—and all the
lushes at school, I was convinced that alcohol should’ve been
illegal. In fact, I thought that all drugs should’ve been
illegal—beer, pot, cocaine, vodka, whatever. As far as I was
concerned, any substance that altered the state of the human mind
deserved to be banned. Anyone who used drugs, I thought, should go
to jail, even get the death penalty. I figured that there were
enough problems in the world without people walking around stoned
and drunk. I had no respect for anyone who drank or did drugs. I
had no respect for people who lost control of themselves like that.
Like
you
, Mom. And that summer, I began to lose respect for
Rick. I kept thinking about what he was like during freshman year,
and how he had changed. And it depressed me. He was just a short,
mousy little kid, who didn’t speak much at all. Of all the people I
knew, Rick was least likely to start a fight, or say something
controversial. He was just a good kid. He studied hard, worked
after school, and went home. That’s why I liked him.

But summer before senior year, Rick went
berserk. He’d call me up on Sunday mornings, hung-over, and tell me
how much fun he had with his new friends. He’d describe the new
drinks he’d tried—his favorite was Long Island Iced Tea—and
encourage me to come out and drink with him. But I’d just yell at
him, in a sort of friendly way, and tell him he was nuts.

I yelled at him that day in the deli, like I
always did. And he responded like he always did: “You said the same
thing about cigarettes two years ago.” He was right, of course.
Before my sophomore year in high school, I vowed I would never
smoke. But that was different. You can drive a car and smoke a
cigarette, and they don’t make you lose your goddamn mind.

Kyle had been a big drinker ever since I met
him, but I was used to it and it never bothered me. That was just
part of Kyle’s style, I guess. But Rick’s behavior broke my heart.
To see him drink was to hear Maria lie. It was unnatural,
offensive, and evil. He’d changed so much that summer, I wondered
if we could even be friends anymore. He didn’t become mean or
anything. If anything, he was friendlier than ever before. More
relaxed. Real California. He was more talkative, had more friends,
and went out more often. I don’t know, I just hated seeing him
become an adult.

As Rick told me more and more about the
party, I got more excited about the free pizza than the free beer.
I figured I’d go to the party, eat, and leave within an hour or so.
I couldn’t stand to see him lose control. Actually, Maria lived
nearby. I figured I’d make an obligatory appearance at the party,
and then, since I had the car, I’d planned on serenading Maria from
the sidewalk outside her two-family attached house. Funny how
things never go as planned.

“Can I bring Maria?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. I smiled. “But is she
as anal about alcohol about you?” I told him that she hated alcohol
as much as I did, but tempered my words by adding, “don’t worry,
she’s cool.” Again, I wondered about her trip Upstate. But I
believed her story, and tried to forget all about what she’d told
me.

Strangely excited about the party, I picked
Maria up at her house the following week. As usual, she was
beautiful. She had a white sundress with a violet floral print and
new penny loafers. It was a muggy night, but Maria didn’t sweat a
bead. I, on the other hand, felt bullets dripping down my back and
forehead. I was nervous about that night, I admit it. I’m not
really sure why. I suppose that I was unsure about bringing Maria
to a party with The Family since we’d never socialized with my
closest friends before. Also, there was Maria’s lie about drinking,
and now we’d be among dozens of teenagers guzzling Heineken. But
there was something else that. Something…indefinable.