Little Boy (28 page)

Chapter 14

L’Enfant Reformation II

About halfway through my senior year of high
school, I began to sleep more often than I used to.

In between my naps, I would ruffle through
the Air Force Academy brochure and application, and contemplate how
exciting it would be to finish it up and finally get in. The
application was large and complex. I had to write two 500-word
essays, secure recommendations from both my Congressman and my
teachers, and provide the Academy with tons of detailed personal
information.

Among my many after-school and evening naps,
I recall one in particular that truly rattled my soul. One
afternoon, I dreamt that I was drifting along a neighborhood block
in Queens that looked similar to my own, holding my arms close to
my body to protect myself from the chilly wind. Cigarette smoke,
along with my frozen breath, blew from my lips and created a cloud
tailing behind me down the desolate street. It was the only moving
body beside myself—and the trees.

The trees above swayed with the wind. Their
colors were changing right before me. A season of nature’s work was
compressed into only a few minutes as a kaleidoscope of vibrant
shades and tones appeared above—red, yellow, orange, brown—each
brighter and livelier than the next. The colors turned as the wind
blew stronger.

One by one, each leaf dropped. Within moments
the street was paved with a mattress of leaves and twigs. I wanted
to tumble to the floor and roll among the foliage.

I picked up a large leaf. It was golden
yellow with brown specks on the surface of its blades. Its texture
felt cold and leathery; I admired its three pointed spears.

And then, suddenly, somehow, a wooden ladder
appeared before me. It was leaning against the trunk of a tree like
the one in front of my house growing up—one of those London Plane
trees, whose bark peels off in shards of gray and tan and yellow,
as if it’s growing so rapidly that its shell can’t contain the
insides. The ladder itself was old and splintery. It dared me to
ascend.

So I did. Though I didn’t realize just why at
first.

After reaching the top of the ladder—it was
only about five or six steps tall—I began to comprehend my mission.
Without a second thought, I pulled from my coat pocket a roll of
tape that I didn’t know was there until that moment. It surprised
me only for a second.

I glanced at the yellow leaf with brown
specks before my eyes. I tore a piece of the tape off, lifted the
leaf to the barren branch above, and stuck it on a limb. Then I
climbed down the ladder, grabbed another leaf, climbed back up the
ladder, and reattached it. I did this over and over again, tree
after tree, for what seemed like days, until the carpet of leaves
below had disappeared completely, and the trees were brimming with
colorful life once again.

After descending the ladder for the final
time, I began walking down the street, proud of my accomplishment.
I had saved the trees.

But, as I reached the corner of the block, I
turned my head back one last time and admired my work. And that
very first yellow and brown leaf fell to the ground once again. All
the rest followed. I don’t know just why, but when I ran back to
the first tree I’d climbed, the ladder was gone. And I began to
cry.

***

When the cold November rains arrived, just
starting to bring on winter, I had only spoken to Maria a few times
since she admitted to her lie. Each time I called her I became
angry and hung up. Then I would call back again, and hang up
again.

I bought a forty ounce bottle of Wild Thing
malt liquor at the bodega near my house, the same brand I’d seen
the hoods drink on street corners in Maria’s neighborhood. One
night in my room, I consumed every last drop in under an hour. I
was drunk.

Sitting on my bed, gazing at the Air Force
flag, as well as the World War II poster and my favorite photo, I
thought about the Academy. I’d already gotten all of the major
paperwork done. But I still needed a testimonial from someone in
the military, someone not related to me. For a while, all I thought
of that night was Maria’s father.

But I remember looking out the window,
beckoned by the moon. The evening was approaching; the fall brought
on darkness sooner than it had for the last four or five months. To
funnel the breeze through my room, so that the smoke from my
cigarette would quickly disappear, I kept my window wide open. But
there was no wind. A wall of chilly air adjoined my room, and
reminded me that I was sane, that my bones still had life. I could
have sworn that I heard crickets outside, but it felt too cold for
there to be crickets.

Luckily, my grades were great. Instead of
speaking with Maria on the phone for hours, night after night, I
did all my homework and studied for the SATs, striving for a 1300.
I’d been getting along with you better than ever, Dad, especially
since we visited Colorado. And even you, Mom, were not so bad all
of a sudden. Not speaking made me love you more than ever
before.

Thinking about all of this in my drunken
trance, I felt lonely. I felt as I’d felt before Maria and I ever
met. It was dreadful. I was so goddamn lonely that I actually
called a phone sex number advertised in a porno magazine I’d
bought

I still remember the woman’s name—Natasha.
She said she had big tits and a tight, shaved pussy. She moaned
like a whore and begged me to fuck her hard and come on her ass. I
listened, silently, without a clue, without an erection. A few
minutes into the conversation, if you can call it that, I said to
Natasha: “You’re a fucking skank,” rather politely, actually. Then
I hung up, and was as lonely as I was before.

My life is really pathetic
, I thought.
I hadn’t kissed or dated a girl since Maria, and I didn’t want to.
Anger filled my heart and soul as I envisioned her getting wasted
Upstate. But I still longed to talk to, maybe, apologize.

It’s a strange emotion when you hate a girl,
but also want to apologize to her. I guess I hated her because I
wanted to apologize. I can’t explain it. But those two notions
swirled within my head like two twisters, each fighting the
other.

I could easily nap like a baby each
afternoon. But I couldn’t sleep through the night without being
awoken by the twisters, always sweating hard, yet shivering.

Should I call Maria, and ask her to be my
girlfriend again?

I asked Kyle. “Call her,” he said. “Boss, if
you don’t mind me sayin’ so, you she didn’t do nothing’ wrong.” He
feigned a Brooklyn Mafioso accent like he always did.

“Call her,” Rick advised me. “If you didn’t
love her so much, you wouldn’t be thinking about it.”
Interesting point
, I thought.

“Do you love her?” asked Paul. “Do you really
love her?” Somehow Paul had a knack for making a tough situation
worse.
Where does he come up with questions like that?

I was so confused. Stretched out on my bed,
filling the still air with warm, swirling cigarette smoke, I began
to cry. My friends were right. Why, then, was it so difficult to
listen to them?

All I wanted from life was to grow old with
The One. But in order to do that, I had to accept Maria’s situation
for what it was: a minor indiscretion committed by an otherwise
wholesome and genuine person.

Am I a man? If so, what kind of fucking
man am I? Why won’t I listen to my friends? What would my father do
in a similar situation?
I mulled these questions over until,
exhausted by deliberation and reflection, I fell asleep.

My slumbering rationalism woke with me early
the next morning.

It’s time for L’Enfant Reformation II
,
I thought.
It’s finally time to ‘get my act together,’ as my
mother always says
.

I stood up, walked over to the Air Force
flag, knelt down, and stroked my nose on its velvety fabric. It
smelled new and fresh. I sensed a new me.
I will call Maria up,
and I will forgive her.

***

We had another perfect date a few days later.
I was so proud of myself. Mom, you were sober for a while, and I
had no beef with you. I remember smiling when you asked, “How was
your date?” after I got home from being with Maria. We didn’t talk,
but still, I knew you were trying. I was, too.

Dad, all was well between me and you, but
inside your face I saw doubt. You knew I was suffering for some
reason, and you wanted to help. But I never did more than just look
back at you, empty-eyed. To this day I wish I had said something
about my problems with Maria. Now I know that they could have been
solved had I just told you my story.

Still, there was a calm in my life. I had
taken Maria back, and for at least a little while I never brought
up her past, or her drinking.

One night she called me. It was one of those
special phone calls, because I was thinking I wish she’d call me
but I didn’t expect to hear from her. I got a lot of those calls
back then. And I still remember what I was thinking when she
called, and as it turned out, she was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go to Central Park,” she said, as if
the weight of the world had just been lifted off her shoulders and
she wanted to celebrate with a holiday.

“The pond?”

“Of course. It’ll be fifty-five tomorrow, and
that’s warm enough to have a picnic. I’ll make sandwiches. Do you
want baloney or ham and cheese? And you like the sour pickles,
right?”

“What are you, a deli?” I chuckled. She
sounded so cute. “Sour pickles, yes. Baloney and cheese sounds
great. But not too much mayo.”

“We’ll buy a Snapple in the park.”

“Sounds good.”

“And I have something special to tell you
tomorrow. But I’m sorry, I can’t tell you on the phone.”

“Oh, shit, now I’ll be thinking about this
all night.”

“Don’t worry, I promise it’s not bad. It’s
super-good.”

I was nervous, though. I always hated it when
people held back secrets, even good ones. I remember not being able
to sleep that night, comforted only by the thoughts of taking a nap
by the pond the next day.

“So what’s your secret?” I asked, over and
over again, from that phone call into tomorrow, where we found
ourselves munching on celery sticks and homemade hummus and baloney
sandwiches.

“Give me a few minutes, okay babe?” Maria
asked, palming my cheek. Her hands were warm and even the air
around us felt warm. It was a humid day, and we were actually
sweating. A light breeze blew and evaporated the perspiration on
our faces. Even though I was desperate to find out her secret, my
attraction to her that day won out.

I leaned in and kissed Maria. Her lips locked
onto mine perfectly. No need to move our necks, no cause for lip
adjustment. Fastened to one another’s lips, our tongues met, each
massaging its counterpart, gently and evenly. I grabbed her hair
and kneaded the back of her little head like dough. It was so small
I could palm it like a softball. Our bodies pressed together and we
crashed to the blanket, and rolled on and off it, back and forth,
on the blanket, then on the cold grass, charmingly and beautifully
embraced…and kissing, kissing, kissing.

I loved Maria so much at that moment. I
didn’t care about her past, or her lie. She was ten times better
than me. No, a hundred times. And I knew it. I was embracing gold,
and it was melting all over my body.

I managed to release my hand from in between
her butt and jeans and turn on my cassette player. Seconds later,
Cecilia
by Simon and Garfunkel was playing softly, but just
loud enough for us to feel the vibrations of the speakers. We
rolled and rolled and rolled, kissing and groping like only
teenagers could.

After a half-hour or so—and I’m not
exaggerating, it really was an hour—all of a sudden the sky cracked
and rain came pouring down. It literally went from a blue sky to a
black one, and not just rain but hail was coming down. Passers-by
ran for cover as the rain splattered the stone bridge overlooking
the embankment.

Maria and I jumped up. “Let’s get out of
here!” she screamed. I grabbed her hand and gathered up all the
stuff on the now-drenched blanket. Hail pummeled us as we rain up
the slope, to the pathway, and onto Fifth Avenue. By the time we
got to the R train we were soaked and shivering. But the feelings
we had just had in the park remained. I clutched Maria’s body and
we both went sound asleep. More than a dozen stops later and we
were dry and comfortable, awakening from a nap. “I’ll walk you to
the bus,” I said.

“No, A.J., it’s cold outside. You keep going,
I’ll be okay.”

“No, no, I have to go. You never told me
about your surprise.”

“Oh, God, that’s right!” She grabbed my hand
and practically dragged me up the stairs to the European-American
Bank on the corner of Grand Avenue and Queens Boulevard. There we
waited for the Q58 bus, which would soon take her home to
Ridgewood.

Nobody else was around, which was strange,
because usually there was a long line for the bus. Sitting alone in
the bus in the bus shelter, protected from the elements within that
strange glass box, we sat silently, me dying to hear what she had
to say and her apparently too nervous to tell me.