Little Boy (7 page)

What made Maria even smarter is that she
wasn’t just one, but two grades behind me. A freshman. I thought
that was weird, because she hung out with sophomores like Jeff’s
sister. I asked her if she was left back a grade or two, and she
said she didn’t want to talk about it, so I let it drop. Things
were going so well, and I was so surprised that she’d told me so
much already, that I didn’t want to ruin the momentum.

“You know something,” I said, “you’re
beautiful.” I nudged her chin with my finger, the way my father
used to nudge me when he called me Butch. Maria giggled.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said.

I was in heaven. I reached out and grabbed
her hand. Both, actually. And we swung our arms, back and forth, in
and out, joyfully like children.

I could tell at that moment that despite her
tough exterior, Maria was a little girl inside, wishing for a best
friend, and a boyfriend, or both. I loved it about her. She was
like the male version of me! She was a sexy, cool, nice person with
a heart.

“You’re a sexy, cool, nice person with a
heart,” I said. I’ve never said that to anyone else, but I’m saying
it to you. And you’re the most beautiful girl at this dance. I
swear to God that’s true. You’re so fucking beautiful.” I don’t
know why I cursed. I guess I was just so excited to be holding her,
even if it was just her hands. But she didn’t mind. The tears
rolling down my cheeks diverted her attention. They were tears of
pure joy.

I looked into her doey eyes. “I want you to
know something. I want you to know that, well, that you are a
special person. You are a beautiful person. And I’m not just
talking about your face. I’m talking about
you
. Maria. The
person. “I want to be your friend so much. I want a person like you
as my friend. It would be an honor.”

A tear rolled down Maria’s cheek. She seemed
as happy as I was. “If you had the choice between staying home and
curling up with your girlfriend—uh, me—to watch a good movie—she
smiled coyly—would you do that, or would you go to a club or bar or
whatever?”

“Go the bar—” I said. “…?...”

Maria looked at me intently.

Go to the bar—if it’s with you,” I said. “Or
stay at home—if it’s with you.”

“Right answer!” She beamed.

Suddenly, our hands stopped swinging, and
they met in the middle. Our bodies pressed together so that the
only thing separating us was our clenched fists. It’s the only
moment of my life when I felt I was choking on happiness. But it
was a good feeling, one I wish I could have turned into an action.
I felt that feeling because, deep down inside, I knew that I would
never be that happy again.

Suddenly, blasting from within the gym, was
the last song of the night. We knew it was the last song because
the last song was always the slow one. It took me a moment to
realize that it wasn’t the usual
In Your Eyes
, but a
different, more familiar song.
Love, love, love…love, love,
love
—those words echoed softly out the gym door, down the
hallway, and engulfed me and Maria.
Was it…? Could it be…?
All You Need Is Love!
Yes!
I couldn’t believe it.
Suddenly, my contempt for dancing melted away. I asked Maria to
dance with me. She said yes.

Moments later we were dancing close in the
gym amidst a sea of couples. But none so genuine and pure as Maria
and I. I didn’t want to let go of her. I never wanted to let go.
Her taut breasts were pressed firmly against the center of my
chest. I remember feeling her nipples—they were tight and perky and
piercing my ribs. Best of all, we didn’t even have to dance. We
just hugged…and swayed.

Caressing her cute little ass that night, I
didn’t think of it sexually. I only recall appreciating it’s full,
circular form. It was soft as a feather pillow, tight as a
trampoline. And her perfume, oh, her perfume! I’d never noticed a
girl’s perfume until that night. But Maria’s added to her beauty. I
sensed the hint of a rose and the scent of an orange—it was sweet
but raw, natural and pure. I inhaled it.

My forehead was damp, as was the rest of my
body. I was nervous about it until I noticed that hers was, too.
Sweat trickled off my brow. As it rolled off my face, it melded
with Maria’s perspiration. My mouth was dry and closed, and I could
smell the salty steam emanating from our bodies. It was always
unbearably hot and humid on the dance floor, but I didn’t care that
night. In fact, I loved it. The heat seemed to melt our bodies into
one.

Had I died that night, right after the dance,
my life would’ve been fulfilled and complete. I didn’t need
anything else in the world. Christ, I wish I
had
died that
night.

After the song ended, Maria and I walked
upstairs to get our coats. I remember checking my hair in the blur
of the chrome fire extinguisher as I walked by. Thinking of Rachel,
I sort of chuckled to myself as I passed that fire extinguisher.
Maria heard me and asked what was so funny. “Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing at all.” And then I felt as if that chapter of my life, or
whatever the fuck it was—a crisis of adolescent stupidity and
confusion, I suppose—was completely over with. I placed Maria’s
coat on her shoulders and she smiled as if no boy had ever done
that before. We remained silent. Occasionally, we’d gaze at one
another, singing love songs with our eyes.

We strolled outside into the chilly air. Our
bodies quickly cooled. Stream rose from our foreheads, and our
mouths shot gusts of frozen air into the night. I grabbed Maria’s
arm and pulled her toward me to help generate some warmth. My
perception of the world was suddenly so clear. For the first time
in my life, I blocked out the noise of the crowd and the traffic
with ease. I didn’t see any hoods or freaks around me. Only
Maria.

Only Maria
.

We walked toward the curb where her father
was waiting in his van.
Kiss her
, I thought.
Kiss
her!

I wanted to kiss her oh-so-badly, but I held
back.
There will be time
, I thought, confidently.
There
will be time.

In lieu of a kiss, I whispered in her ear,
casually, so her father couldn’t see, “I want to kiss you. But I
won’t. I won’t kiss you until I break up with Lynn. I would never
cheat on her no matter how bad things were going.” I wanted to let
Maria know that I was seriously interested in her.

“What?” she said. “You’re crazy.” I don’t
think she believed me. I
was
crazy for saying it, but for
whatever reason that night my instincts led me down daring paths.
When I think I about it I realize that that night represented the
birth of a new me. To her, who the hell knew? Maybe she had no
desire to ever see me again. Maybe she danced with me as, perish
the thought—
a
friend
.

“What I mean is...” I said, and I anxiously
trailed off. “Listen, just go home now, and we’ll see each other
again, okay?” I swear, I was about to say I love you, when she
interrupted: “Promise?” Smiling and shivering and looking as though
she’d give me one final hug if it weren’t for her father being so
close by, she turned toward the van. “Promise,” I whispered.

And then—hocus pocus!—she was gone. That was
it. The best night of my life had come to an end. Amongst hundreds
of students and parents and teachers amassing as the dance let out,
I stood there in the cold, alone once again.

***

New York City winters are brutal, but I
didn’t move from that spot for at least ten minutes or so. Cemented
to the pavement, I felt like an electric fan, spinning so quickly
that I looked still to those around. You can’t avoid that feeling
when you’re with a girl you love, just as you cannot avoid it when
flying in a B-52, right over ‘Nam, frightened as hell, fearless as
a shark. I only wish my dad could have seen me that night.
Hey,
Dad!
I yelled silently within.
Look over here! I’m flying
your plane, and I’m doing so well!
I was so happy that I again
almost cried.

Jeff, his sister, and Lynn whisked by me.
Lynn looked over her shoulder toward me, intently, as if I’d
wronged her in some way. I suppose she’d seen me dancing with
Maria. They didn’t even say goodnight. For the moment I’d totally
forgotten about my ride home. My mother was supposed to pick me up
nearby, but I didn’t want to leave.

While standing there I gawked at the dark
nothingness in front of me, even though probably hundreds of my
classmates passed by and said “sup” as the dance let out. I was
swaying one hand out, one across my body, dancing with Maria time
and time again.

This time, however, I was alone and cold
rather than connected and warm. Dreading myself for that emotion,
that awful uncertainty following an evening of faith, I looked
desperately at the clouds above my school. Now I was soaring
through those clouds in an F-15, the jet I would someday fly as a
U. S. Air Force pilot, the epitome of American aircraft. I was
carpet-bombing all the hoods and losers that had the chutzpa to
call themselves my peers. Everyone around me was blasted away for
good. I had the girl, I had the best girl there was to have. She
danced with
me
. I knew I’d see her again.

Chapter 4

My Way

That night, after the dance, I cried. I’d
been holding back tears all night, but once alone in my room, I
couldn’t help it.

I smoked a cigarette to calm myself down, but
I kept on crying. All at once my nerve endings deserted me and I
couldn’t feel a thing except for an intense pain in my forehead and
the smoke wheezing into my lungs. I felt like I’d been hit in the
head with a wrench, my skull compressed on all sides. When I closed
my eyes, I saw lightening and heard thunder. My arms and legs felt
like tired lead, my stomach like a black hole. It was a cold night
outside but I was sweating anyway. I reclined on my bed, pressing
my face into the pillow, which grew damp from the perspiration on
my brow and tears on my face. I turned over onto my back and the
sweat from my brow mixed with the tears slowly streaming from my
eyes, producing a road-slick of saltwater on my cheeks.

I fought with you that night, Mom, remember?
It was about my smoking, which you always suspected and I always
denied. As usual, you randomly brought it up at the worst possible
time— during the car ride home. “Girls don’t like boys who smoke,”
you said. “It’s disgusting.” It was typical of you to ruin a good
night by mentioning something like that. You are good at that. And
you are such a hypocrite, too, because you used to suck down two
packs a day. The result was the same old scene on a different day:
I yelled at you, you yelled back, and then I kicked the dashboard
as we parallel parked in front of the house. You didn’t say a word
after that.

But that’s not what upset me to tears. To be
honest, I’m not sure what exactly made me cry. I remember sprinting
straight up our creaky wooden staircase to my room once I got home.
I didn’t bother to turn the stairwell light on as I ascended,
because I knew the stairs well enough the climb them with no
problem. As usual, I felt like someone was chasing me up the
stairs, like a hunter, so I hopped up two steps at a time, trying
to escape.

As I reached the top step I was already out
of breath, and some tears had started falling from my eyes. I
turned quickly and tried to stare down the stairwell toward the
bottom step; I saw nothing but murky darkness. I was still scared,
though, as if someone had followed me up the staircase, crawling on
his belly, eager to snatch my legs out from under me.

Reaching toward the wall I felt for the light
switch and flicked it on. Suddenly, it was so bright that I was
forced to squint my eyes for a moment, simultaneously releasing
what seemed like a thousand fireflies behind my eyelids. My heart
was still palpitating, and as I turned to walk away from the stairs
toward my room, I looked back one last time to check for the
hunter. But all I saw was my shadow waning as I turned the unlit
corner toward my bedroom.

As I fell on my bed more tears seemed to fall
with me. I was helpless.
I’ll never see Maria again
, I
thought. I would die that night, I just knew it.
There is
nothing,
I thought.
Nothing
.
No God, no hope
.
No fate, no destiny
. I was alone in the world. Had I been in
a crowded room, I would’ve felt like Robinson Crusoe. I couldn’t
face challenges. I couldn’t win. I couldn’t kill the hunter, he
would always be chasing me. I was
strengthless
.

I lay prone on my back for a while, looking
at this poster above my desk—the same one I’m looking at now,
although back then I didn’t know what it portrayed—of a plane
flying through thick clouds high above what looked like a city.
Below it was a caption that read:
V-J Day!
Dad, you gave it
to me on Victory in Japan day a few years ago, because you knew how
much I liked aircraft and how fascinated I was by World War II.
Right next to the poster was a black and white photograph of you
holding your combat helmet under your arm in Vietnam, standing at
the nose of a B-52. What a cool fucking picture.

You said it was taken right after your last
mission, right before you left for Hawaii, and then back to New
York. You looked so proud, so strong, so dignified. You looked like
a man who could jump the highest hurdles. And you did. You hated
the war but ran your mission while there. You never complained or
even cursed about it. You did what you were asked to do by an
unforgiving country, a deceptive President, and an arrogant
commanding officer. And you persisted with your mission once he got
home. Only weeks after your plane landed in New York, you married
mommy and bought a brick colonial in Queens.