Little Boy (25 page)

With a queasy tingle in my gut, I rang Rick’s
doorbell, expecting the party to be inside. Nobody answered. Maria
heard some laughter coming from the backyard and motioned for us to
go there.

My introduction to everyone was knocking over
a beer keg as I turned into his yard. About 50 people stopped
moving and talking and looked at me—but only for a second, thank
god. Kyle, his eyes watery as if he was already drunk, laughed his
ass off as he came running over to place the keg upright. The party
was really going. There were tons of people, especially girls, who
Rick had met over the summer. Mike was sitting on a swing set with
a plastic cup filled with beer in his hand. Paul was playing
basketball with himself, using Rick’s driveway hoop. I didn’t know
what the hell to do, so I just yelled out Rick’s name into the
crowd. He came running over to me, clutching a bottle of rum,
saying my last name over and over again.

“L’Enfant! L’Enfant, baby! What the hell’s
up, dude?” I could tell that he was already a little drunk, because
he never called me by my last name, otherwise. It made me a little
sick to see this nice kid from freshman year totally lose control
of himself like that.

Revolted, I placed my hand firmly on Rick’s
shoulder and said: “The name’s A.J. ” He didn’t seem to give a
damn. “By the way, where the hell’s the pizza?” He said there
wasn’t any left. I wanted to leave right then and there.

I glanced at my watch. It was ten o’clock and
we’d only been there about fifteen minutes but I wanted to go home.
A light rain fell from the sky, but that didn’t slow the party one
bit. Maria tugged at my shirt, leading me around the backyard,
saying hello to each of my friends. She was so fucking cool. She
completely cheered me up. Suddenly, I realized that I was with
Maria, my best friend, and that was all that mattered. As Rick and
Kyle and even Mike downed beers and shots one after the other,
Maria stretched her tiny fingers around my wet hand. “Are you
having a good time?” she’d say every so often. “I love you,
baby.”

Proud and pleased, I strode around the
backyard with Maria by my side, showing her off to idiot after
idiot. At first glance, when I noticed their smiles and laughter, I
assumed that they were in awe of my beautiful girlfriend. But then
the truth became obvious: The Family, as well as everyone else
there, was oblivious to my existence. They didn’t give a shit about
me or Maria. It wasn’t on purpose, that much was clear. They were
just having so much fun, because of the alcohol, that they didn’t
bother with the two sober nerds.

Between the humid rain and the noise and the
liquor, it was a terribly uncomfortable night. Leaning toward
Maria’s ear, attempting to speak over the music and laughter, I
said: “Let’s go home.” She acquiesced.

We left the party, I dropped her off, and
began to drive home on the Interboro Parkway. I was going nowhere
in particular, and found myself on rain-slicked Queens Boulevard,
heading west. I zipped by the Queens Center Mall, Stern’s, the
European-American Bank, and made an illegal U-turn at
65
^th
Place near the BQE. Although I was only driving a
beat-up Buick, I swear to god I felt like I was flying in a Viggen
AJ-37, a sleek, gray, Swedish-made aircraft that I would probably
never fly. It’s WEFT: a pair of small delta wings mounted on the
side, in front of a pair of larger delta wings; a large, single
exhaust; a pointed nose and bubble canopy; and a large fin with a
small, slipped tip. Loaded with cannons, gun pods, missiles,
rockets and bombs, it could easily level the mall in no time flat.
What a great aircraft
, I thought.

Around 46
^th
Street, I was
neck-and-neck with the 7 train, which rumbled above and to my left,
lit like a jack o’ lantern in the murky night. Thinking I was crazy
for racing a train, I ached to act crazier still. So I began
talking to myself out loud: “Maybe I’m missing something,” I said.
“Maybe Rick and Kyle and the rest of them know something that I
don’t.” Like a punch in the face, it hit me. I don’t know what it
was—a feeling, I guess, a compulsion, a drive. I had the chance,
right then and there, to experience something I’d never experienced
before. I asked: “How often will I get to drink with my best
friends before I get to Colorado?” While skidding into a tailspin
at the corner of Queens Boulevard and Van Dam, just missing a
tractor-trailer parked in front of the 24-hour newsstand, I made up
my mind. Now heading back east toward Woodhaven Boulevard, I felt
at ease, as if I was finally going in the direction that the magnet
was pulling me.

I parked my car half on the curb and ran into
Rick’s backyard. Not an adult could be found, only teenagers. I
pushed my way through the crowd and found Rick and grabbed him by
the arm.

“Where the hell are your parents?” I asked,
surprised at my own inquiry.

“They’re in Florida,” he said. “They’re on
vacation. You can sleep over if you want. Kyle’s staying the night,
and so is Mike.”

I looked around me. I saw dozens of people,
more girls than guys, dancing and laughing and screaming. Kyle
walked over to me, obviously drunk.

“Have a beer, my man,” he said, shoving a cup
of brown liquid in my direction.

“No thanks.”

He took a swig of his bottle of rum, the same
one that Rick was drinking from earlier. Rick and Kyle stood there,
telling jokes and laughing and having a blast. Once again, they
seemed almost oblivious to my existence. And then Paul walked over.
I thought he’d be the only sober person there, but I was wrong. Get
this: he had a glass of red wine in one hand and a bottle of
Yeungling in another. We all talked for a while. Outside of school,
I hadn’t seen my friends much since before I went to Virginia. Rick
was always with his beach buddies, and Paul was happy being at home
if nothing was going on. Mike gladly went to movies alone, and Kyle
did whatever Kyle did. And I was always with Maria.

Considering all this, I don’t know why I did
it, and I can’t remember how I began to say it, but I decided to
tell them about my three flings in Virginia. I described what those
girls looked like, what they were wearing when I kissed them, and
which was better than the other. I said that I didn’t tell Maria
about it, and didn’t plan to.

My words were stale, without emotion or care;
they were just words. And, as I monotonously dropped each syllable
to The Family, for no reason in particular, Kyle placed his cup of
beer on the grass, stretched out his hand with a big, goofy smile
on his face, and slapped me five. He was so drunk, maybe he didn’t
even realize that he was congratulating me. I don’t know.

All I know is that with Kyle’s hand still
gripping mine, I reached toward the bottle he was holding in the
other, took it, and drank a gulp of rum. It was the vilest thing
I’d ever tasted. I despised it. I’d imagined that alcohol tasted
bad, but not that bad. It left a burning sting in my mouth, as if a
bee had bitten my tongue. My mouth and lips grew numb, my eyes
watery. I clutched my throat, and announced to my friends, “How
could anyone drink this shit! How could anyone enjoy it?” I
implored them to answer. But they just laughed at me. They knew it
was my first time. I felt humiliated, but free. I smiled and
silently vowed to never taste that shit again.

Then I took another gulp. It was more awful
than before.

Then I took another. I thought:
It’s not
that bad.

What followed after my fourth or fifth slurp
is hazy, at best. But I do recall a few details. I remember, for
example, pulling my pants down in front of three or four girls—all
of them Rick’s friends. And not just my pants, but my underwear,
too. I grabbed hold of my dick, showing it off to the ladies, as
they cringed in fear, as if I’d brandished a loaded pistol.

After I broke the seal, my urge to urinate
was continuous and tremendous. It seemed that I could have stood at
the toilet peeing for hours. At one point, I ran to the bathroom,
grabbing my crotch and yelping in pain with this intense urge to
go. Rick’s friend was kneeling at the toilet, making animal-like
noises and vomiting. When it became clear that he had no intention
of moving anytime soon, I stood behind him, the front tips of my
sneakers against the soles of his shoes, and pissed a stream of
urine right over his back. Kyle and Rick walked in and laughed
their asses off. I was like a fucking fountain, peeing a yellow
arch over this guy’s head.

For some reason, I completely missed the sink
as I exited the bathroom, and didn’t get a chance to wash up. By
this time, everyone had moved into the basement. It was around
midnight, and had started to rain pretty hard. Everyone was drunk.
Realizing that I had forgotten to wash my hands, I plunged my hands
into a fish tank, and then wiped my hands on my jeans.

Whether most of Rick’s guests were amused by
my behavior or not I have no idea. But I felt as if they were, so I
continued with my ridiculous antics. And I continued drinking.

Even drunk, Kyle got more laughs from the
crowd than I did. More genuine laughs, at least. Impersonating an
Olympian, he completed a somersault at my feet, and announced, “I
won’ the gold! I won the gold!” He could barely stand band yet he
somehow managed to jump.

One of Kyle’s tumbles landed him smack into
my knees; I fell to the ground beside him, chuckling like an idiot.
Placing my arm around his shoulder, I whispered to him—although it
was probably too loud to be a whisper—that he was my best friend in
the world.

“I love you, man,” I said. He said he loved
me, too. And then, somehow—and I really have no goddamn idea how
this happened—Kyle and I were engaged in an open-mouth kiss, just
for a split second. In disgust, yet hysterical, we retreated from
one another’s faces quickly. Everyone got a kick out of it.

As drunk as Rick was, he still managed to
place some plastic garbage bags beneath myself and Kyle in an
effort to salvage his carpet lest anyone lose control and vomit
again. But Kyle refused to lie on the plastic. He chose instead to
hop on the couch nearby, and lay there, with his head on its side,
hanging over the edge.

“Oh, man,” he moaned. “I think I’m gonna…”
And with that, he proceeded to puke. I’d seen him eating potato
chips earlier that evening. And now I saw those chips for a second
time, swimming in a brownish, rummy river overflowing from his
mouth, dripping down the side of the couch. Ashamed and saddened by
what I saw, I promised myself to never drink another drop of
alcohol again. What I saw before me was the reason I’d never wanted
to drink in the first place. I’d seen it too many times before.

Rick stumbled down the steps into the
basement with more garbage bags clenched in one fist and the
remnants of a bottle of vodka in the other. I attempted to stand
up, swinging my hands toward his, begging him to give it to me. Or
maybe it was his brother. Everything was so blurry I still don’t
remember. “This much more,” I begged, on my knees, with my index
finger and thumb forming what looked like a pinch of something.
“Just this much more.” I kept repeating it.

Somehow I approached two hot blondes that
Rick worked with. “I just wanna tell ya,” I said, drooling,
slurring my speech, “I love your boobs.

“No,no!”—I shifted my gaze from one girl’s
rack to the next—“I love your boobs.” They looked more shocked than
offended. Lucky for me they were drunk, or I probably would’ve
gotten slapped. Nect thing I know, I’m pulling my dick out of my
pants, asking, “want some of this?” and smiling like a goofy
bastard.

Apparently, Rick’s brother felt that I was
losing control of myself, so he yelled at me, “Shut up!” and pushed
me down onto the plastic, threatening to beat me up if I didn’t go
to sleep. Quickly, the room was emptied, and only me, Rick, Mike,
and Kyle were left. Somebody shut the lights off, but I don’t know
who.

***

The next morning I woke up on a black plastic
bag on the hard basement floor, without a headache, hangover-free,
as if I’d never touched the liquor in the first place. I peered at
Kyle, lying on the sofa across the room. The left side of his face
was encrusted with dried-up vomit. His pants were down, but nobody
knew how they got that way. Without uttering a word, Kyle stumbled
up the stairs and took a shower. Mike was opened his eyes and just
started laughing at me. Although I didn’t feel hung over, I guess I
looked pretty bad. Mike hadn’t drunk as much as Kyle or me, but he
looked as ugly as he usually did.

Kyle returned. We had a good laugh about the
party last night. I lit a cigarette. By the second or third puff, I
was consumed by the urge to throw up. I felt as if I were choking
on my own tongue, so I snuffed it out between my foot and the
plastic beneath me.

Kyle smelled the rancid scent of burning
plastic and announced, “I farted.” He looked a little out of
it.

“You okay?” I asked.

He paused for a moment. “I’m still pretty
drunk.” I found this hard to believe; but, then again, what the
hell did I know? He was so messed up that morning, he said, that he
showered on his hands and knees in Rick’s bathroom. He didn’t do a
very good job, because most of the vomit was still stuck to his
face and clothing afterward.

Somehow, we all got home that morning. I had
my car, but I honestly don’t remember driving it. I offered to
bring Kyle home, be he took the train with Mike.