Little Boy (42 page)

I spun around and ran away.

***

That happened today. And as I take the last
drag of my last cigarette and mash it out in the gorged crystal
ashtray beside me, as I gulp the final mouthful of tepid beer in my
favorite mug, I can barely think of another word to write.

I've been sitting in this uncompromising oak
desk chair for the last eight hours or so, writing in the very
journal that until today had remained untouched since I inscribed:
“I love Maria. Need I say more?”

I’m scheduled to begin classes next semester.
I’m due at the deli tomorrow morning. A new guy is working there
tonight. I hope it’s not too busy, for his sake.

I don’t think I’ll go to work anymore, or
back to school. It’s not that I fear facing Megan once again. It’s
not horror of going to jail. Christ, at this point, I’d consider
jail a blessing. Being locked in a cell with only my thoughts to
keep me company would only expedite a process destined to take
place in my den each and every night, anyway.

And that’s just what my room is these days—a
den. Even a bear, however, eventually awakens from his hibernation,
and emerges to feed and forage in the forest once again. I choose
not to leave my den. No—I can’t leave. It’s simply not imaginable
for me. This afternoon I saw the sunlight and it’s just too damn
hard to adjust to it.

I endure each day wishing the past had never
passed, that the future had never arrived. Every monument of my
childhood and adolescence has crumbled. Angelo and Al’s Pizzeria,
as it was called just a year ago, has changed ownership. Now it’s
called Sarino and Sons. Fuck Sarino. And fuck his sons, too. The
F-train runs on the old R line, the R on the old F line. On Fresh
Meadows Lane, the old Mom and pop stationary store and shoe repair
shop have been displaced by a lousy Starbucks. Perhaps fate will
find a substitute for me, a more clear-headed young man in a future
not so far away.

I regret that reaction as much as I regret
every decision I made during my year with Maria. These days, regret
is all I feel, as time crawls by me like a crippled turtle. I can’t
see a future for myself in the distance, only what I am, what I
caused, and what I should have done. I crouch behind my memories,
pushing them ahead of me again and again each day. They’re bundled
up into a boulder, one that grows perpetually and moves
continuously in one direction. Without it in front of me, I would
see the sun and the trees and the people. And I don’t want to see
those things anymore. I refuse to notice them without a girl named
Maria in my life.

I had such a plan for us. But it spun out of
control.

Maybe now that I’m out of her life, she’ll
pursue her dreams as my friends did theirs. Maybe she really is
getting married, and she’ll finally write her Great American Novel.
And, who knows, maybe she'll even write about me. I’d always
dreamed of that, of Maria sitting there in the bedroom in her
little basement, next to her little
faux
-window, typing away
a love story about the two of us.

What is your novel going to be about,
Maria?
I whisper aloud in my room tonight, as the words drift
out the window with the breeze, to be heard by no one. It’s
something she should have heard from me over and over again. If
only I had the chance to do it all over again.

Why not write a love story, Maria?
Write it like Shakespeare would have. I know you can do it,
baby. I love you. I love you. I have confidence in you.

What will you call your novel, Maria?
Perhaps…
Little Boy
…

***

I miss the feeling of knowing someone loves
me and cares for me, and having someone to grow old with. I can’t
live without that security, without that power over my own life. I
hate myself for losing control over my destiny. Maria was my
personal flight navigator. Had I listened to her, to the decoded
messages she sent me long before our breakup, we would still be
together this very day. That I’m sure of. But I ignored her
instructions; I decided to go at it alone. Doing that was the
second greatest mistake of my life. My worst mistake was remaining
alive for even one day after Maria and I parted.

In addition to the ceaseless sadness of
knowing that I decapitated a beautiful relationship, I live with
the anger of having allowed myself to fall into a quicksand like no
other. The quicksand I’m submerged in doesn’t pull its victims
completely under. It allows only their eyes to hover above its
surface, compelling them to watch the rest of the world pass by as
they are locked within its grip.

What I’m about to do makes me want to cry.
But I won’t.

Never mind. The tears have just begun to
swell under my eyelids and roll down my cheeks. They are splashing
splash down into my crystal ashtray, and onto this very journal.
This journal should have contained dozens of happy memories. But
now, it reflects in words all of the events, both great and small,
that I brood over each and every day. Within it you have finally
discovered the mysterious nature of my life.

Mommy, now you know how much I hated you.
Yet I am proud of you for conquering your demons, something I was
not brave enough to do. I love you—I hate you—I never trusted
you—I…I don’t know. I love you.

Daddy, I’m a man now. I’m finally a real
man. When we visited the Academy together, when I was so scared and
didn’t tell you, I remember wondering when and how this day would
ever come.

I know I am tearing your hearts out. But I
promise you will happier lives without me seething in my den above
your heads each night.

I’ve always enjoyed the security of knowing,
at the very least, that the events of the past year were vaulted
within my mind. That nobody, save Maria and, I suppose, Megan,
could even catch a glimpse of my life. It doesn’t matter now,
though, because even with each and every minor aspect of the past
year on paper before the world, nobody will know much more than
they do already. No person could possibly know, unless he’s taken
each step that I’ve taken, and dealt each blow that I’ve dealt.

All my plans have been shattered. There’s
only one thing left that I have complete control over, only one
swift action which will give me a pride I haven’t felt in eons. It
has, I know, been a certain conclusion to my struggle for quite
some time. But I’m weak. And only now have I collected the strength
to do it. I have only one plan left. And this plan shall yield
positive results soon.

Please note:
I’m not doing this because I
didn’t do what I should have done, but because, given the chance to
do it all over again, I’m not sure if I’d have the courage do it
right.

I can’t guide my life toward anything save an
inevitable monotony of sorrow. However, at the very least, I can
control precisely how it ends, as well as the words that describe
it.

I’ve considered many endings for this
letter—“Sincerely, A.J,” “From, A.J.”—and most recently I
contemplated ending this letter with “Love, A.J.” But none of those
phrases describes the situation honestly.

It’s time to pen a final journal entry which
shall capture this moment like no other can. Although nobody has
understood me throughout the past year, or throughout my entire
life, this one sentence is as self-explanatory as the blood that
spouted from Megan’s nose:

“I’m dead.”

Love,

A.J.
…
Little
Boy