Little Boy (33 page)

“30, 000,” I said, smiling.

“30, 000 feet! Christ! I bet he came home
without a scratch on him!”

“He got home okay, just like you did.” My
words hung conspicuously in the air as if in a cartoon bubble. Mr.
D. downed another glass of sparkling yellow champagne.

Maria and her mother sat upright, parallel to
one another like two tight-lipped totem poles, on the sofa across
from the rocking chair. I got the impression that Maria was pissed
at me because her father and I were so buddy-buddy. Mr. Della
Verita was oblivious to his wife and daughter as he continued to
reminisce about his war experience. Suddenly, I had the strangest
feeling: It was almost as if he was hinting that his marriage
destroyed his love affair with the Air Force, because that’s when
he had to settle down and become a garbage man in New York. He went
on and on, literally for hours, drinking champagne and telling me
amazing stories about his life in the Air Force. I can’t remember
the stories, exactly, but I sort of feel like I’m still there right
now.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you need anything,
guy, to help you get into that Academy, and I’ll give it to ya.
I’ll make some phone calls for ya. You just let me know.” That’s
how he concluded our conversation about the Air Force at one in the
morning on January first of the New Year.

Mrs. Della Verita stiffly motioned for Maria
to bring me down to her room. She was mighty pissed at her husband.
I could tell that a fight was brewing.

Once in Maria’s room, apologies gushed out of
her mouth as quickly as the tears fell from her eyes. I had no idea
why she was crying.

“I’m so sorry, A.J., for my father’s behavior
upstairs. I don’t know what got into him. I was angry at you at
first for being so friendly with him. I was jealous, because we
hardly ever talk that way anymore. Me and you, I mean. And,
actually, me and him. But now I realize that I was actually angry
with my father for allowing himself to lose control.”

“It’s okay, angel, really. I was—sort of
angry that he started drinking, too.” But, to be honest, the
thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. All I could think about was
that recommendation I needed.

“Really? Is it okay?”

“I’m okay, really. I’m over it. But I wish
you hadn’t had that glass of champagne. That was sort of sad to
see.”

“I’m sorry!” she howled at the top of her
lungs. It was not in anger but fear—fear that I would storm out of
her house right then and there. But I wasn’t angry with her at all.
Hell, I had the perfect match: her father’s admiration for me and
her loss of whatever respect she had left for him. At that moment,
for the first time in months, I was the only person in the world
she could turn to for love and guidance.

“It’s all right, baby. Really. I love you so
much. I forgive you. I know why you drank. Hey, it’s New Year’s
Eve, right?” For a moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could
tell her that I’d learned to enjoy drinking, that maybe we could be
drinking buddies.

But she looked at me with those doey eyes and
said, “I don’t want to turn into my father.” She sniffled.

It was then that I realized how sorry she was
for drinking the previous summer.
Tonight
, I thought,
I
have truly forgiven her
. But I would’ve forgiven her for
anything that night, I was so happy.

Soon we were entangled in a passionate kiss.
With the rumble of her parents’ argument thundering above our
heads, we stripped naked and rolled around on the carpet. It was
cold outside that night, but I felt nothing but a warm little
pillow that was Maria.

After nearly getting rug-burn, we rose and
walked toward her bed, stopping intermittently to kiss and kiss
again. And as I swirled my tongue within her mouth, as I felt her
breasts flatten against the middle of my bare chest, my hands found
her bulbous ass. She was a woman with a nine year old girl’s
behind, a schoolgirl with a woman’s touch. It was tight, yet
yielding, and it thrust my hard-on though my boxers in one fell
swoop. Of all the things I experienced that New Year’s Eve, I’ll
never forget what happened before the sex: the feeling of Maria’s
ass clenched tightly within my two hands like two ripe cantaloupes,
and my dick piercing her belly like a knife. There’s no other
feeling in the world that compares. I remember it well.

She welcomed my body as we fell on to the
bed. Interlocked, we tore at one another like a lion and a lioness.
I kissed and nibbled—everywhere. Her head, face, neck, breasts,
shoulders, arms, and belly. I felt as if I weren’t making love but
eating a fine meal. And she smelled like one, too. There is nothing
in this universe like the scent of a naked woman you love—the
fragrance of a dab of perfume between her breasts, the aroma of her
perspiration, the subtle bouquet that arose as I smooched my way
down her tummy and toward her vagina. It’s not flowers or perfume,
but flesh and skin. A warm body aching for mine. Such a smell can’t
be reproduced by Calvin Klein or accurately described in a romance
novel. The closest comparison would be to that of a security
blanket I embraced when I was just a kid while sucking my
thumb—completely barren of anything that was unfamiliar me,
familiar yet fresh, and oh-so-comforting.

We were both virgins. But Maria knew exactly
where to place her hands and mouth and cheeks; and I answered with
all that I knew could pleasure a woman at the time. I covered her
entire body with gentle kisses; her body erupted in goosebumps. I
sniffed her eyebrows and ears; I bit and tugged at her nipples and
elbows. Each movement was a prelude to the next. We flowed like the
water rolling onto the sands of Rockaway beach.

And just as the waves come together, that
night there was a total surrender of my body to Maria’s. I savored
the most private part of my body melding with the most private part
of hers. I felt
Unity
. But even that word itself does
nothing to begin to illustrate my feelings that night.

Our rhythm was perfect. It was almost as if
each previous kiss together had been practiced solely for one act.
The thumping above us was drowned out by lustful breathing. The
room we were in, the bed we were on—they did not exist, either.
That night Maria and I soared higher than any jet, well beyond each
cloud we had gazed upon in Central Park. All that I desired at that
point and time, all that I needed in the world, had been secured
during those few hours in Maria’s bed.

Maria’s bed
. Now there’s an image that
pains me to ponder. It’s just past midnight now. I could be in her
bed right now. I had my future. I had Maria. Had I died that night,
I’d have died a peaceful man. I almost wish I had died, right then
and there. Peace like that has eluded my life since Maria. I wish
for that kind of peace in my next life.

The rest is too difficult to repeat. It’s
always most difficult to reiterate the greatest times we shared.
All I can say is this: To this day, I’ve never felt as close to a
girl—to any person at all—as I did that early morning with Maria
Della Verita. We were in complete and holy isolation. We basked in
the sun of a solar system that consisted of only two heavenly
bodies.

Chapter 17

Magdalena

Four days into the new year, my body still
tingling from New Year’s morning’s encounter, Maria’s father
offered to write me a recommendation for the Air Force Academy.
Finally, I had the surefire future, the beautiful girl, and the
support of her family. I had it all.

But if that’s true then why was I such an
angry and bitter young man? Why did a little devil sit atop my
shoulder, incessantly coaxing me into doubting Maria? And why did I
suddenly feel as though Maria wasn’t good enough for me?

Probably because the more obsessed I became
with Maria’s drinking binge Upstate, the more I felt she lacked the
control essential to be a good person. Oh, sure, when I got sloshed
it was okay. Hell, I
chose
to drink. I wanted to experiment.
But Maria had lost control of herself in a time of crisis. Was that
the kind of girlfriend I wanted?

Each and every night Maria and I spoke for
hours on the phone. In each conversation the following emotions
manifested themselves: reluctant good-will, bliss, melancholy,
depression, fear, and love—usually in that order. Although love
ostensibly prevailed each time, the truth is that as I placed the
receiver down on the phone every night at one or two a.m., there
was one prevalent thought inside of my mind:
Maria’s perfect.
Too perfect. She must be lying to me.

About what I had no idea. Everything, I
guess. If she said she went to K-Mart with her sister after school,
I wondered who she really went with—a friend, a classmate, another
boyfriend—and if she really went to K-Mart, or to catch a movie.
When she said she stayed after school to get extra help from her
biology teacher, I questioned her true whereabouts. Was she making
out with another boy in her fluffy bed, or perhaps smoking pot on a
street corner with her old hood friends? One night, when Maria said
she liked vanilla ice cream, I thought:
She probably likes
chocolate
.

If questioning her actions when I wasn’t
present was a sin, suspicion of her thoughts in person was a crime.
And goddamn, I was guilty of that crime on each and every date, no
matter how smoothly the date was going.

On Martin Luther King weekend, for example,
we had a playful snowball fight in front of her house. When she
went inside to answer the phone, I built a snow fort. When she came
back outside, I nailed her in the tits with a hunk of ice and snow.
Without flinching, she dove to the ground and was camouflaged by
her white puffy jacket. I peeped over my fort but couldn’t see her.
Only her silent giggles indicated that she was a few yards
somewhere in front of me. Just when I thought it was safe to stand
up and begin searching for her body, she stood on her knees and
smacked a well-packed snowball right in my kisser.

I hopped over my wall and tackled her. We
wrestled in the snow for a good five minutes. Finally, both panting
heavily from the scuffle, we ceased simultaneously and kissed
passionately. Her tongue quickly melted into a wet, warm gummy
bear.

Our mouths unlocked and we gazed at one
another blissfully.
Maybe
, I thought,
this is a new
beginning for us
.
I love her and she loves me
.
What
more could a guy want
?

“I love you, A.J.” she said. “The more time I
spend with you, the more I realize how, deep down inside,
you’re
perfect
.” I’ll never forget her calling me
perfect
. It
was the greatest compliment of my life. And, had I been smart, I
would’ve accepted Maria’s sincerity and beauty, and kept the
promise I made that day, and started fresh.

“I love you, too. You’re not so bad
yourself.” I winked. “Let’s go in the house and make love under the
covers.”

She smiled. “Good idea. Let’s go.”

We rose and shook the snow off our bodies. I
brushed icicles out of her hair as she wiped snowflakes out of my
eyelashes.

We were just about to walk toward the door
when some kid, a guy that must have been three or four years
younger than me, hobbled down the street struggling with a giant
red snow shovel. He walked over to Maria’s front gate and asked if
Mrs. Della Verita was home. Maria said that she was, but no thank
you, she didn’t want her sidewalk shoveled that day. The kid said
okay and walked to the house next door. Maria didn’t say his name,
but it looked like they knew each other.

“Who was that kid?” I asked.

“He’s, um, Louie.” She seemed perplexed by my
question.

“Louie who?”

“Louie Gick. Who cares? He’s lives up the
block.”

“Do you think he’s cute?”

“He’s fourteen years old!”

“I didn’t ask his age. I asked if you think
he’s cute or not.” My voice was penetrating and monotonous.

“What the hell are you talking about?”
Actually,
What da hellaya tawkin’ about?
Maria’s New York
accent always surfaced when she was angry.

“I saw the way you looked at him. You think
he’s cute, don’t you?”

Maria picked up a hunk of ice and smashed it
in my face. Blood trickled from my nostrils, past my lips, and down
my chin, all the way to the bronze interlocking teeth of the zipper
on my bomber jacket.

“I’m sick of this shit!” she bellowed. “Just
go the fuck home!” Her voice echoed down the quiet white
street.

“Wait, what did I do?”

“Please, A.J., just please go home.” She
started walking inside, but I ran up the icy stairs and yanked her
by the shoulder. She fell on her ass.

“Leave me alone!” Maria shrieked, as she
plopped down not one, not two, but three stairs to the frozen
concrete at the bottom. She struggled to stand and then I grabbed
her mitten-covered hand and yanked her to her feet.

Looking straight in her face, I said: “I know
you think he’s cute. I saw you looking at him. Just admit it.”

“You’re nuts,” she replied, huffing and
puffing from her brief but vigorous fall.