Little Boy (9 page)

See, we were both friends with Mike. But
there was no doubt that Mike was, well, a geek. He was a great guy
who wouldn't harm a fly. Strange thing is, though, Mike never hung
out with anyone but Kyle and me. He was a geek for hanging out with
us
! Correction: Us and his Mom. "Momma’s boy,” we’d always
call him. And that’s precisely what Kyle heard me say under my
breath one day when Mike committed one of his usual blunders. Well,
it wasn’t actually a blunder, but it was typical Mike. While
walking down the hall in school with him and Kyle one morning, I
started belting
My Way
, the Elvis Presley song. As I
finished the final crescendo of the song, as that final "my way"
echoed down the black and blue and beige tiled hallway past Mrs.
Simpkin’s English class, I turned to Mike and said: “That’s the way
Elvis sang it.”

“It’s Frank Sinatra song,” he said.

“No, Pollock, it’s an Elvis song.”

“But Sinatra also sang it,” he insisted. “I
heard it on my Mom's Sinatra record last week.”

Shit. He was right. I searched for a
response. “Go fuck yourself, Mike!” was about all I could muster.
But then, under my breath, I said, “Momma’s boy,” and laughed. Mike
didn’t hear it, but Kyle’s thin lips grinned from ear to ear. From
that point on, I knew that Kyle and I were going to be terrific
friends. On that day we discovered a bond that would gel any two
people together, no matter how dissimilar: a mutual derision for a
mutual third friend.

Although both Kyle and I loved Mike like a
brother, we reveled equally in his nerdiness throughout high
school. Christ, we’d make fun of everything about Mike: his messed
up hair, his pot belly, his sloppy clothes.

He was an easy target, but not too easy. But
the other two members of my high school quintet, Paul and Rick,
were the insult magnets. Mike, however, was just a tad cooler than
them, so Kyle and I considered it our duty to poke fun at him.

And there was plenty about Mike to dis. He
stood about six feet, taller than me, but shorter than Kyle. But
while I was kind of the average-sized member of the group, and Kyle
was the emaciated member, Mike was the fat one. Not rolly-polly
fat, not Jeff and his sister fat, but fat nonetheless. At sixteen,
before he's ever tasted beer, he had a portly beer belly. And
before he'd ever felt a chick's tit, he'd grown his own little pair
of A-cups, the contour of which could be seen clearly through most
any shirt. At school, between those tits there hung an unstylish
pencil thin tie, usually an acrylic maroon one, no matter what
color shirt he wore.

If I had to summarize Mike, I'd say that
looked as ridiculous as Kyle, but unlike Kyle, he longed to look
like me. Kyle was happy with his appearance. His style was being
out of style. But Mike wished he didn't look like himself, he tried
like hell to appear cool and hip. But he was what he was, and
that's what Kyle and I found so hilarious. That's why we made fun
of him incessantly.

This'll sound funny, but most of all, we made
fun of Mike because me and Kyle were his only friends. Our
friendship is reminiscent of an adage my father used to recite: "I
wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member." Applied to
us, Kyle and I picked on Mike because he wasn't sophisticated
enough to have any friends other than two guys who constantly
ridiculed him.

When Mike wasn't being laughed at by me and
Kyle, he was at home watching movies with his mother. Almost every
day, especially on Mondays following a weekend full of
movie-watching, Mike would try to impress the gang by citing all
sorts of extraneous facts about movies he's seen. Sometimes, I'll
admit, his comments were interesting.

At lunch one day when Mike announced that
he'd just seen
The Godfather
, and that we should all go over
his house that weekend and watch it with him. Reluctantly, we went.
It began as a typical afternoon: Rick's Mom picked up me and Paul.
Kyle, who also lived in Astoria, just walked over there around
three. As usual, Mike's Mom doted all over the five of us, probably
because she was so happy he had more than one friend.

We settled in Mike's oversized stuffed sofa
and thought, in unison
: Mike is making a big deal over
nothing...Mike is making a big deal over nothing.
And then we
saw it. Christ, Mike was right.
The Godfather
was great.
It’s one of my favorite movies of all time now. Most people have
seen it, but nobody has studied it like Kyle and I did that day.
Everything about it was great—the dialogue, the acting, everything.
What astonished me and Kyle the most, though, were the characters.
Since there were five main Mafia guys in the movie, Kyle and I
named our little high school clique after those guys.

Here's the rundown: I was Vito Coreleone, the
Godfather himself, the composed, revered, dapper don that gently
petted his cat as he plotted to brutally murder his enemies. Kyle
was Tom Hagen, the Godfather's collected and thoughtful
aide-de-camp or, as it's called in Italian,
consigliere
,
which translated means "most trusted advisor." Paul was Fredo.
Fredo’s basically a loser in the movie, and his timidity results in
the Godfather getting shot in cold blood on a curbside in Little
Italy. Rick was Tessio, which was perfect, because in the movie
Tessio is a quiet
caporegime
, or lieutenant. And Mike was
Clemenza, the other
caporegime
, Tessio's portly counterpart.
He wasn't Mike's identical twin, but the comparison annoyed Mike.
If Mike hadn't been so annoyed, he wouldn't have been such a
perfect Clemenza.

Toward the end of the flick, after the
Godfather’s son, the new Godfather, annihilates all of his enemies,
Clemenza, Fredo, and Tom Hagen are his only loyal partners left in
the world. Throughout the movie they referred to themselves as The
Family. Consequently, everyone started calling our quintet The
Family, too. Not that my friends and I were anything close to a
murderous gang or anything; hell, we thought farting in public was
bold. But we always called ourselves The Family and referred to
ourselves by our Mafia names. Me and Kyle did, at least.

Chapter 5

Zenith

Not one week after the dance, Maria called
me. What a spectacular conversation! I was so fucking cool it was
unbelievable. I can't even remember most of the shit I said. But I
remember the feeling like it happened five minutes ago. Had it gone
awry, believe me, I would have etched every painful detail into my
brain. But that's not the case; I don't remember or give a shit
about any of the particulars. That's how awesome the phone call
went. I only recollect being cloaked by a refreshing sensation, a
feeling of invincibility, an awareness that until that moment had
eluded me for my entire life.

We must have spoken for two or three hours.
We went on talking like that almost every night for another week or
so. From that point on, I’d miss my favorite TV shows to talk to
Maria; I’d cancel study sessions; I’d drop a Playboy just to hear
her voice. Occasionally, I’d call her right back after we’d already
spoken for hours, just to ask her what she was thinking about, just
to here her recite my name. I never stopped smiling when I spoke to
her, and I could feel her smile back at me over the phone. I swear,
I smiled so much my face hurt. We had so much in common, much more
than she'd like to admit these days.

We continued our phone dating for two or
three months. Meanwhile, Lynn and I kept dating for real—sort of. I
called her less and less often, and went out with her so
infrequently that I could hardly believe she still seemed to like
me. We were still an item, so to speak—that was our public image.
But privately I was planning a break-up. I had to take it slowly,
of course. After all, Lynn and Maria were great friends, and I
didn’t want to get Maria in trouble by forcing her to steal Lynn’s
boyfriend. At the same time, I didn't want them to be fucking
friends anymore at all. Breaking my relationship off with Lynn and
simultaneously enticing Maria would be difficult. Patiently, I
waited. As
The Godfather
had taught me, timeliness was the
key to victory.

Occasionally, at school dances and parties,
Maria and I would see one another other. Talk about awkward! We
never, of course, gave the public the impression that we liked each
other. But that was easier said than done. Standing next to her at
a party, I'd beam a "Please fuck me" look," while she'd emit a
"Please hug me" gaze. Actually, I wanted to embrace her as badly as
I wanted to screw her—that’s how I knew I was in love. Given the
choice between only hugging Maria for eternity, or only fucking
Maria for eternity, I would’ve chosen the former.

We exchanged all sorts of looks and exchanges
that would've made Jeff and Lynn shit their pants. Especially Lynn.
Jeff and his sister and their new crowd were obviously
suspicious.

This was the status quo until one night when
Maria called me up and asked me out. I couldn’t believe it! We’d
been talking since January, and now it was April, just after
Easter. I'd waited too long. She'd beaten me to the punch. Thing
is, I still hadn’t broken it off with Lynn yet. Maria didn't care.
Truthfully, neither did I. By then, there was no escaping the fact
that we were in love.

She was smart, though. She didn't exactly ask
me out on a date, but she’s the one who got us to hang out, even
though I was still technically dating Lynn. I had been telling her
for weeks about how beautiful Central Park was. I told her all
about Strawberry Fields and the ponds and Cleopatra’s Needle. So
her invitation was a "Let's have a picnic in Central Park" sort of
thing. Hey, she'd tell Lynn, it's the 'nineties. A girl can hang
out with her best friend’s boyfriend—as long as it’s platonic.

You can’t blame Maria. I'd built up to her
asking me out. But the fact is that it was her idea to have a
picnic there, to actually do something that I'd only dreamed of. We
made plans for the following Saturday afternoon. We lived somewhat
far apart, she in Ridgewood, me in Fresh Meadows, considering I
didn’t have a car. So, instead of getting our parents involved, we
each took the bus and met at the Queens Center Mall at eleven in
the morning, roughly halfway between our neighborhoods.

Eager to begin the picnic as soon as
possible, Maria and I ignored the stream of shoppers entering the
mall and descended into the subway. Despite all the people
aboveground, the Woodhaven Boulevard-Slattery Plaza train station
was always so eerily quiet. And filthy. The moment we descended the
stairs, the stench of urine overpowered us. I handed the clerk
$5.00 for four tokens and led Maria down yet another staircase and
on to the platform. It was warm and humid down there, and black
rats scurried along the tracks searching for scraps of food. The
tiles lining the walls were covered with grime. A long, long time
ago, it seemed, those tiles were white. Now they were the color of
shit.

These weren’t exactly romantic surroundings,
I admit. But when I was with Maria the environment never mattered.
Whether in a subway platform or a mall, it always felt like we were
surrounded by a palace. While waiting for the R train, I grew lost
in thought. In my crazy, mixed-up mind, I developed a plan.
I’m
still dating Lynn, so I have to take it easy with Maria
.
But
I have to show her a spectacular time, or else she’ll never see me
again after I dump Lynn
.

The silver subway rumbled into the station,
we boarded, and it rumbled away. In a flash, the G train pulled
into the 59
^th
Street Station. Maria and I crossed Fifth
Avenue and entered the park at the corner of Central Park South. We
strolled around Central Park for a while talking and laughing. I
had a warm feeling inside. The best word to describe our
dispositions that day is
relaxed
. Completely at ease, we
talked about every topic known to a pair of adolescents, like
movies and sports, but also delved into politics, literature, and
art.

“Have you ever seen
The Godfather
?” I
remember asking.

“Sure have. It’s my favorite movie,” she
said.

We sat down by the pond near Central Park
South, across from Wollman Rink. I lay down on a blanket flat on my
back, and Maria sat Indian-style right night to me. Her knee
brushed against my thigh and it felt wonderful. It was a warm
day—New York Aprils can be really nice—and an occasional breeze
blew the scent of blooming flowers and fresh-cut grass in our
direction.

I glared at Maria’s beautiful face, glowing
despite the shade beneath the trees. Her wonderful perfume—she was
wearing it again—delicately blended with the surrounding spring
air. She was wearing little blue corduroy short-shorts and a blue
and white vertical-striped top. I studied her arms and legs as
though that was all I would ever see of her body. Her arms were
like ivory, her thighs stubby little white pillows. I couldn’t help
but smile in admiration. She noticed but didn’t say anything. She
just smiled back—not so much smile, but grin—and ran her fingers
through my hair. Her attitude was modest, even though she knew I
was admiring every inch of her body. I think she was just happy
like I was. I wanted to grab her right then and there, just throw
her on the ground and kiss her passionately. But I didn’t.
There
will be time
, I thought.
There will be time
.