Little Boy (27 page)

She smiled again, titled her head, and leaned
in to kiss me. She seemed proud of her revelation.

Everything stopped, right then and there.

***

Days went by before I spoke with Maria again.
I’d call her, demand that she tell me why she drank, and hang up. I
didn’t cry. I was just angry. Okay, I cried a little. But mostly, I
just lay around my room, listening to The Beatles, simmering, hurt,
and about to cry.

Soon, I just stopped calling her altogether.
In my mind, we were broken up, and would never speak again. There
are still a lot more pages in my story, so you know we must’ve
gotten back together. But I swear, if you had asked me during that
time if I’d ever speak to Maria again, I’d’ve said no way.

It wasn’t that she had lied. In fact, I’m
sure she told me some little white lies here and there, just like I
did. It was the fact that she lied about drinking. It was something
you, Mom, had done so many times. “I’ll never drink again,” I
remember you telling Daddy, when I was ten years old, then eleven,
and every year until you finally did it. I just couldn’t bear Maria
lying to me about drinking, and actually doing it. When I thought
of her during those days after her break-up, I didn’t see her sweet
Italian face. I saw yours, Mom.

A week or so after the breakup, I received a
call from a Major in the Air Force; he had received my request for
more information, and was wondering if I wanted to visit the
Academy in Colorado Springs.

I remember begging both of you to let me go,
but you wouldn’t allow it at first. But, I begged and begged.
Remember, Mom? Even you smiled when I came home one day and showed
you that 110 I got on my history paper. I remember.

I lobbied you, Dad, to let me go. And you
said I could, as long you came with me.
No problem!

We flew out there that weekend that the
Indian Summer elapsed, and a bitter cold November blew in.

I loved saying it to people, Dad: “My father
was a lieutenant-colonel in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.”
I was so fucking proud of you. And I wanted to do all the same
stuff you did. But you never let me get too starry-eyed. The whole
plane ride to Colorado, as I asked about your career, you always
redirected the conversation away from yourself, from your past.

“Listen, A.J., you keep asking about my
career. You keep telling me about what you’re gonna do. But I want
you to focus, A.J. Focus on doing whatever it takes to make you and
your family happy at this very moment. Remember, A.J., there’s only
one thing that matters in this world: Here and Now.”

Back then, I was in awe of you, but not smart
enough to listen to your advice. We were like best friends. And
sometimes you don’t listen to your best friends, and you pay for
it.

I remember you even let me have a beer on the
plane. You seldom drank, but you toasted a Heineken to me that
afternoon.

Every bite of that plane food was like surf
and turf. I savored each taste because with each taste came another
dose of encouragement, another glance of confidence—from you.

From my father
—those words, I thought,
described me so well. I was
from my father
. I was all that
you made me. All the good, at least. My intelligence, my sense of
humor, my good will—each matched yours. And, that day, I realized
how much of you I could be. If only I had listened to your words,
“Here and Now.” But I couldn’t focus on the present. I could only
daydream about the future, and obsess over Maria’s past, whether it
was last month or ten years ago.

Maria never came up when I spoke to you. In
fact, I never spoke to either of you about my girlfriends. As far
as you knew, Maria was just some girl that I was dating, a friend
you’d seen at the house a few times, nothing more.

Dad, I remember wanting to tell you how
pissed off I was at her, how she’d let me down. I knew I needed
your advice. But, I don’t know, for some reason I couldn’t ask
you.

I remember nodding off halfway through my
second beer on the flight. When the plane landed, the Rocky
mountain peaks were radiating in the distance. It was a bit chilly
outside, but I was warm within.
I have a good feeling about this
trip
, I thought.
This is the only school I need to
see
.

Surrounded by snow-capped mountains in the
distance, we strolled through the windy acreage of the United
States Air Force Academy.
The United States Air Force
Academy—
now there was a name I could get used to. There were no
hoods there, no guidos. I was fearless amidst the Rockies. The
mountains protected me from all that I hated back in New York.
Planes zipped overhead. I saw so many planes in the air that I
thought I’d been transported to the future, where cars are
non-existent, and everyone commutes like birds.

I thought of that day at Rockaway beach with
Maria. That day, I remembered, was when I looked up at the sky, her
body cradled in my arms, stretching my neck to the heavens, aching
for something meaningful in the distance.

In Colorado I found out what I was searching
for: the Rockies. And there they were before me. I was in awe. Dad,
I remember seeing my reflection in your glossy, tired eyes; I was
wearing a cadet uniform, smiling, worry-free. I wanted so badly to
make that reflection real, for me and for you. I vowed right then
and there to work the hardest I could that upcoming school year to
become a member of the United States Air Force Academy’s class of
1997.

Man, was that a beautiful campus. I loved it
all, but my favorite place was the Cadet Chapel. When I first
walked down the center aisles, I felt like the inside was caving in
on me. But I looked up at the succession of massive, diamond-shaped
steel panels, I felt reassured. Bathed in multi-colored sunlight
beaming through stained-glass windows, I felt warm, and trusted the
unseen strength of the chapel.

Outside, seventeen aluminum spires towered
one hundred and fifty feet into the air. That weekend, those spires
were begging me to believe in something. Not necessarily a god, but
something. I imagined myself kneeling before the altar in that
chapel, praying to…to…to I don’t know what…to whatever sent me to
the Academy. The proof of its existence would be found in the sky
above that chapel, where I’d soar like a bird through the clouds,
kissing terrestrial misery goodbye.

But
, I thought,
for
the
moment, I’m on the ground
. Standing beneath the high Colorado
sun, fixated on the chapel, my optimism dissipated, and I felt
emptiness beneath my ribcage. It was as if my heart had vanished. I
don’t how to describe it, exactly. I was hoping for
answers…someday. But I was
conscious
of my actual life. Or,
rather, something that was missing from my life. But I didn’t know
just what. I thought:
Something’s just not right
. I feared
that even the Academy would not fill this unexplained void. It’s
difficult to explain the feeling I had, but it remained with me the
whole weekend, cutting through my happiness like a hot knife
through butter. Just when I thought it was going
away—
WHAM!—
it struck me again.

Each time I was smacked by a wave of sorrow,
and something mysterious pulled me down. Even before that great
chapel, my feet were flat on the grassy knoll but I felt as if I
was being sucked into a sinkhole. Each time I felt the urge to cry,
but I forced it back with all my might.

I didn’t want to cry in front of you, Dad.
But I probably should have. I should have told you about this
strange new feeling, but I was scared. And besides, you were so
happy that weekend that I just couldn’t bear to ruin it for
you.

“That’s where you’re going to eat your three
squares a day,” you said, beaming like the sun behind your head,
pointing to the commissary. I remember you looked over at the
beautiful Olympic-size track and said, “That’s where you’ll run—for
hours. And boy will they make you run until you drop!” You were so
proud of me, even though I hadn’t done anything yet.

The thing is, I felt like I let you down
already. Stressed from training that hadn’t even begun, I thought
maybe it wasn’t even worth applying to the Academy. It seemed
overwhelming. I mean, there are over four thousand students at the
Academy. Each one graduates with a BS and the rank of second
lieutenant. Each one is authorized to fly. Each is an adult. A man.
Even back then I knew that I had no idea how to be a man.

For crying out loud, I was just seventeen. I
was still waiting for the day when I woke up and felt like an
adult. I longed for that demarcation. I didn’t think it would ever
come for me, whether I became a pilot or not. I did not think I
would ever become a true man.

I was so scared. It was like that feeling I
get when I climb the stairs in my house—like someone was trailing
me. Except that feeling only comes late at night, amidst the
shadows of the stairwell. Suddenly, the same feeling was following
me around that Academy, sure as my shadow was.

I was caught between two possibilities:
either the Academy would cure me, or it would not alter the
dreadful, childish inertia of my life.

Walking with you, Dad, it was almost as if
you knew what was going on, but just didn’t say anything. But then
you’d glance at me and smile a really proud smile, one that I never
saw in Queens, and I’d feel thankful for your sake that you didn’t
have a clue.

We strolled into the Academy gift shop and
were surrounded by a countless typical college mementos: shot
glasses, bumper stickers, banners, and, suspended from the ceiling
above the store’s entrance, the Air Force flag.

S
o beautiful
, I thought. It was royal
blue with gold fringes. In the center was large eagle, wings
extended, surrounded by thirteen white stars. While touring the
campus, I’d seen in gracefully whipping in the wind on a pole
opposite the Stars and Stripes. I didn’t realize I could buy
one.

“Can we get one?” I asked, pointing at the
velvety flag above us.

“Sure,” my you said. “Anything you want.”

Back in Queens, the flag and the photo of
you, Dad, would forge a shrine to the Air Force right in my own
little bedroom. They would inspire me each morning to work hard, to
get into the Academy.

“Put it right on your wall,” you said,
smiling. “I’ll even help you hang it up.”

And you did. We placed to the right of my V-J
Day poster and to the left of my picture of you. I was glad I had
the kind of dad to help me with stuff like that. I could’ve
murdered a man, and been completely guilty. But still, you would
stand right next to me as I was being sentenced, pleading with the
judge to set me free. That’s just the type of man you were—and
still are. He was everything Maria’s father was not. There’d never
been so striking a contrast until those few days in Colorado.

In Colorado, I thought about Maria’s dad, and
about Maria. For a while, I thought the feeling I had, the vacuum
in my stomach, was just my conscience telling me to call her. Once
I even ran to a pay phone when you were in the bathroom, and
thought about giving her a call. But as the dial tone hummed in my
ear, it became apparent that a simple phone call couldn’t eradicate
whatever it was that was bothering me. Besides, I had no idea what
to say to her. I was still so angry at Maria. But the void didn’t
come from her. It was something else.

Seeing all those jets made me think of arcade
games I played when I was a kid. Do you remember, Mom, how you used
to let me go to the candy store on my skateboard? I remember going
there after school hundreds of times.

I used to play Gauntlet and Double Dragon.
Sometimes I’d play alone, but often against the other kids. We’d
place our quarters in a row on the top of the machine, the next
quarter representing the next person who got to play the game. It
was a rudimentary yet remarkably fair system. So easy and
innocent.

My favorite game was called
1945
—about
a secret World War II mission to Japan. You were a pilot, flying
what looked like a Bell X-1. It probably wasn’t a Bell X-1, though,
because those weren’t used in World War II. That was the first
plane to fly at the speed of sound, Mach 1, on October 14, 1947.
Anyway, the stupid kids at the arcade thought they were flying an
F-16 when they played 1945. But I knew better than them. I knew
that F-16s hadn’t even been invented yet.

It was a cool game, because you could blow
shit up with rapid-fire machine guns and bomb the hell out of
miniature buildings and cars below. I still remember the day that I
beat that game. It took me sixteen quarters and 45 minutes, but I
did it. I was the hero of the arcade the day I beat the game. And I
was only ten or eleven years old when I did it.

That day in Colorado, I wished that I could
be ten years old again. What a life I had back then, a life filled
with candy store arcade games. No worries about Maria and her past.
No knowledge of the past at all, or the future for that matter.
Just the present.

Maybe that was the feeling that was bothering
me, the feeling that I hadn’t played a video game in years, and
that now I was going to have to do all this stuff for real. I
didn’t have any qualms about shooting an enemy plane down; and it
wasn’t like most of the Academy graduates ever got to actually be
in combat, anyway. I don’t know. Now I was aware of the past and
the future, and could always contrast and compare them to the
present. And I thought about how hard it was to get into the Air
Force Academy, and how hard being a good person was, in general,
and wished it all was as easy as beating that goddamn game.