Little Boy (30 page)

“I have to ask you about your vacation
Upstate last summer,” I barked to Maria, trying to be heard above
the crowd. I said it as if my decision to debate had already been
made, my lines already written.

“A.J., we’re at a parade! I thought we went
over this! You haven’t brought it up in days!”

“I know, but I just have to know this—did you
enjoy getting drunk? What I mean is, are you not doing it anymore
because of me, or because you just don’t want to?”

“I—I don’t know. If you don’t like it, then I
don’t want to do it, baby.”

I exploded. “What do you mean? You mean that
you want to? I thought you didn’t like it!”

“I didn’t like it! I just wouldn’t—” she cut
herself off. “Why the fuck do you want to know? Jesus Christ! Right
here at the parade! We were having such a nice time. We haven’t
fought in days.” Her face looked as though she’d just been stabbed:
snow-white, clammy, and cold. Her eyes squinted as if she were
holding back an avalanche of tears.

“Can’t you just tell me? I can’t believe
this. You fucking bitch,” I said, just loud enough to be heard only
by her. But then my voice escalated. “Can’t you just answer the
goddamn question?” A little boy behind her turned his head so
swiftly that his earmuffs flung off and hit the pavement. Adults
and children alike began to stare.

Without thinking, without giving any thought
to where I was, I unleashed my arm like a limp lasso, swung my open
hand, and whacked Maria’s face. Her head jerked. She looked at me
for and instant before sprinting off like a runner at the sound of
the starting gun. She squirmed through a crack in the police
barricades and raced across Central Park West. She was so upset
that she must’ve not been looking at where she was going, and she
careened off of Santa’s sled and toppled to the pavement. It all
happened so fast that nobody, not even Santa, had time to do
anything. There wasn’t a cop in sight; the dancing snowflakes and
reindeer just watched in horror.

I jumped the barricade and sprinted after
her. I felt naked crossing Central Park West in front of thousands
of people. I felt like lightening, I got to the other side so
quickly. I was exhilarated, yet angry.
Where is she?
I
thought. Masses of people leaving the parade and she’d just blended
in with the crowd. To get to a lamppost I smacked a little girl’s
balloon out of the way. I stood on its base and saw Maria making
her way to the subway.
She’s on her way home!
I jumped down
and jetted through a stream of people toward the corner.

Panting frozen air, standing at the top of
the filthy, grimy staircase, I saw her. People were shuffling by,
but she was sitting on the bottom step rather complacently.

In a flash, I jumped down the stairs like a
super hero. Grabbing her left shoulder from behind, pressing my
fingers through her bulging coat, her little face turned back
toward me, almost in slow motion. She screamed.

I slammed the palm of my hand over her warm,
wet mouth. I felt her teeth clenching beneath my fingers; for a
moment I thought she was going to bite me. Kneeling down on the
step beside her, I mashed my body against hers, squeezing her
against the filthy tiled wall of the stairwell.

“Please, Maria,” I said, beginning to cry
heavily, “please don’t make this happen. Please don’t ruin a good
day.” She squirmed around like a gerbil in a vest pocket.

“I’m in the palm of your hand!” I screamed
through my tears. My face was dripping—whether it was sweat and
tears or tears alone I don’t know.

For those few moments in the stairwell, not
another soul existed in the universe. I barely heard the footsteps
of families walking down the steps behind me; nobody, thank God,
bothered to wrestle me away for her.
Thank God New Yorkers mind
their own business
, I thought. Had somebody tried to stop me,
I’d of killed him, I swear.

“Remember the poem I just gave you! Goddamn,
you buh—, please, please stop it. You’re hurting me so much. I—I’m
sorry! I’m not perfect either, I swear I know that’s true.”

With that said, she stopped squirming. But
she stayed crunched up against the wall in a little ball of coat
and hat and pants. Pressing my face against her ear, I began to
breathe hard. I thought I was having a heart attack and I probably
was.
I must get her back. I have to go home with her. She will
come to my house for dinner tonight, just as planned
. I wasn’t
ready to give her up. I couldn’t.

Whispering roughly into her ear, I said, “I’m
in the palm of your hand, I swear. I’m not perfect—you own me. You
control me. You are my religion, baby. I need you. I’ll tell you
everything right now that I’ve never told you before. Remember that
girl, Rachel? I told her I loved her. Just once, but I didn’t mean
it. And when I went out with Kyle last weekend, I got drunk. I
didn’t mean to, I swear. I just—I don’t know—I just missed you so
much. I know we’ve been getting along okay for a while, but it just
hasn’t been right, you know? I miss you. I miss us in Central
Park—remember when we went to Central Park last spring? I even
think about us drinking together sometimes, you know, and it scares
me. I just—I’m so sorry, Maria—I just want a girl who laughs for no
one else. I want you to be mine. I love you, angel. I really love
you.”

I continued to cry, using her hair to sop up
the tears. My hands were so cold and chapped they were almost
bloody.

“Why do you do this, A.J.?” she wailed.
“You’ve changed so much. We aren’t in love anymore, don’t you see
that?” Forcing my body against hers as if I were one half of a vice
and the wall the other, I clenched my teeth and—and growled.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that
again.” I wasn’t talking; I was snarling these words to her. It was
an awful sight, now that I think back on it. Just terrible.

We remained there for a few minutes, against
the wall, both of us sobbing, too exhausted to budge. Finally, I
felt overpowered by her. I was on the verge of collapsing. I
struggled to stand up, lifting Maria with me as if I was a human
forklift. She clung to my jacket, but I wasn’t sure if it was to
keep from falling or because she’d forgiven me.

“I’m sorry,” I kept repeating, “I’m so sorry.
Let’s just go home and forget all about this. Please. I promise
it’ll never happen again.”

Silently, Maria descended the staircase,
allowing me to follow close behind. Not a word was spoken on the
subway back to my car.

We went back to my house and had Thanksgiving
dinner with my parents like nothing had ever happened. Creepily
hushed by the day’s events, neither Maria nor I spoke to one
another the rest of the day. Luckily, she spoke to everyone else as
if we’d just returned from a fun-filled morning at the parade. I
knew she wasn’t happy with me. But she was back by my side and
that’s all that mattered.

Maria gave Thanksgiving new meaning. I was so
thankful for her, because she loved me even though I was imperfect.
But she was perfect. She was an angel. She was my guardian angel,
and I had to use her strength to protect me from myself, and to get
me through all of my worries.

As I drove her home in silence that night, I
thought to myself
: What kind of person is stupid enough to hurt
his own angel?

***

If Thanksgiving was fucked up, Christmas was
a nightmare. If I'd only put as much effort into my behavior as I
did into the gifts I bought. As usual, there was a calm before the
storm.

Roaming the gigantic, crowded Queens Center
Mall several days before Christmas, numbed by sheer desperation, I
explored store after store, aspiring to unearth a gift that would
drive Maria's memories of Thanksgiving into extinction. Fortune
struck me when I lumbered into a cruddy jewelry store on the
basement level. A lot of the girls in her high school, I'd noticed,
wore gaudy necklaces with something called name-plates. They
usually read "Vito loves Domenica," or “Lakeesha loves Carlos,” or
some shit like that. Picture a golden street sign dangling from a
guinea princess's neck.

I'd always hated these things, not to mention
the chicks who wore them. So, being the innovative guy that I was,
I decided to do something a little different. I asked the Iranian
guy behind the counter if he could carve out numbers instead of
letters. About ten minutes later, after explaining in phonetic
English the difference between numbers and letters, the guy finally
said yes. One hour and eighty dollars, and seventy-eight cents
later, Abdul handed me the result: the date Maria and I
met—
2-8-92
—scripted in 18 carat gold, attached to a gold
necklace.

Fast forward to Christmas morning at Maria's
house. Her parents are sitting on a new, plush green sofa in the
living room—a gift, Maria said, from her dad to her Mom—as Maria,
pigtails and all, looking like a nine-year-old expecting Santa to
appear, kneeled anxiously beneath a garishly decorated Christmas
tree. Before you could say Kris Kringle, shredded wrapping paper
was spread before her and the “date plate”—my own personal
invention—was on her neck. She was so happy she burst into tears.
She adored it.

“Great gift, guy!” Mr. Della Verita said.

“Oh, Mah-Ree-Uh, it’s so beau-tee-ful,” Mrs.
Della Verita prawned, her Brooklyn accent as thick as the olive oil
in her baked ziti.

I asked Maria to wear it in school from now
on and she said she would. Now everyone would know the day that we
met. It would become the national holiday of a nation inhabited by
two young lovers. Maria would wear it with pride, I knew, because
that’s just the way she was.

But, as I said, I like to be innovative. In
addition to the date plate, I'd purchased two tickets to the opera
at Lincoln Center. We were going to see The Barber of Seville, or,
as her father said,
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
, or something
like that. Crouching beside Maria, as if I was about to ask for her
hand in marriage, I handed her the pair of tickets. She smiled
tranquilly and nearly strangled me with a hug. Her father placed
his arm around her mother, all smiles, as if to say, Say hello to
our new son-in-law.

Mission accomplished! Maria had never been to
the Metropolitan Opera, I was certain, and this was a classy gift
to show my cultivated side. I am grinning even as I write this
because I really don’t have a cultivated side. Honestly, I didn't
care much for the opera myself, but Maria did. In one of our many
conversations, she'd mentioned that her father listened to
Pavarotti, and that she'd grown to love opera.
Bingo!
I
thought.
A gift waiting to be given!
Her father, watching
intently from the sofa, had never given her something like this.
Appearing suddenly disquieted, Mr. Della Verita stood up and peered
in our direction, first at his daughter, then at me. He took a step
toward us, remained still for a moment, smiled, and placed his
giant calloused hand on my sweaty back. "You know how to give a
gift," he said with a quick wink of his eye. I think Mr. Della
Verita was happier with me that Christmas than Maria was.

As I said, mission accomplished.

***

We traveled into Manhattan a few days after
Christmas. A fresh sheet snow covered the sidewalks and store
canopies. Even rat-infested bodegas looked charming after a recent
snowfall. It was a magnificent New York winter day. The sky was a
crisp sapphire and the sun was particularly radiant; it shone
almost as brightly as it did when Maria and I went to Central Park
during the spring. Skyscrapers sparkled. Blissfully gripping
Maria’s hand, strolling down Broadway, I tried my damnedest to
forget the drudgery of Thanksgiving. We skipped and joked and
kissed as if we’d just fallen in love the day before.

So, listen,” I said, “halfway through the
show, they’ll have an intermission. And then, right before the show
begins again, they’ll flick the lights on and off, so everyone
knows to go back into the theater.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Did your mother tell you, or something?”

“No,” she said, “I’ve been to the opera
before. Just once when I was a kid.”

Burning with jealousy, sweat accumulated on
my palm, allowing our hands to slip apart. She said it as if it
weren’t a big deal, as if it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. That’s
what made me even angrier than I already was.

Destiny handed me a choice: grab Maria’s
hand, kiss her, and continue walking, or grill her like a cop would
a thug. A millisecond later, the choice was made. “What the hell do
you mean?” I blared. My voice echoed down the corridor of
skyscrapers as if I was yelling into the Grand Canyon. “You said
you’d never been to the Met before!”

“I never said that! Oh, A.J., please don’t
start up again.” Her voice spoke for her eyes which spoke for her
heart. She began to weep. But I couldn’t resist; in a sick sort of
way, I was like a kid in a candy store, aching to grab every
opportunity to question her.

But I was an angry kid. Eyeing the golden
metal dangling from Maria’s neck, I saw my breath before my face,
jetting rapidly in and out of my nose in columns like the smoke
from a dragon’s nostrils. I hated Maria at that moment. She was
Satan.

“Oh, great,” I said, “just great. Now what’s
the fucking point of even going to see this thing?”