Little Boy (4 page)

Jeff chuckled like a madman. His pudgy sister
cackled and drooled like a mule. Everyone surrounding us gaped
toward my cock.
What’s the big fucking deal?
I thought.

Maria was a spicy little dish burning me up
with shame. Long black, wavy, greasy hair. Not naturally wavy—I was
sure of that. It costs about 60 bucks to make hair look like that.
Not naturally greasy, either, but loaded with hair spray and mousse
like it was going out of style.

She not only had all this shit in her hair,
but a seven layer makeup cake on her face. Right then and there, I
wanted to yell at her:
Wash it off, you bitch!

She was wearing an inconceivably tight shirt.
Her thimble-like nipples stood at attention beneath a white cotton
v-neck top. A giant gold cross dangled between her gigantic
breasts—the type of tits that no guy could walk by without a
double-take. Melons. Water Balloons. Un-fucking-believable. I
remember thinking that they’d generate a sweet scent upon touch.
Her tight black Cavaricci jeans outlined an unbelievably cute ass.
She was about five-foot one or two, but was artificially elevated
by red patent leather high heeled shoes. Basically, Maria was a
fashion
faux pas
explosion. But, to my untrained and horny
adolescent eye, she was a bombshell. I wanted to fuck her right
there on the cold, generic secondary school, vomit-colored tiled
floor.

But I felt so lousy, I couldn’t even think of
a comeback after she dissed me. Not only had I spent the night
dancing with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum, not only had I eluded
contact with every pretty girl there, but to top it all off I was
insulted by this stranger, this bitch. I was in the shithouse that
night. Totally depressed. Lower than dirt.

I used to get like that sometimes, when
things didn’t go my way. It was a nasty routine, and once I sank
in, it took days to climb out. I’d think:
Things aren’t going my
way…things aren’t going my way.
And I’d kept thinking about it
and thinking about it. Sooner or later, this feeling would diminish
and transform into euphoria. Then I’d be happy again. And I’d be
like that, maybe, for a few hours, sometimes a few days. And then
I’d go and dance with a fat girl, and get insulted by her sexy
friend, and almost immediately, it’d start anew.

Since I couldn’t fuck her, perhaps punching
Maria in the nose right then and there would have boosted my
spirits. She had no right to embarrass me like that. But it wasn’t
the embarrassment that pissed me off. The tragic part of it all was
that I didn’t even have a comeback. I just stood there like a clown
without an act and didn’t say a word while everyone laughed.
There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being shit on, and not
having the strength to pull it away from your eyes and react
whimsically. I’m usually pretty sharp with comebacks. Generally, I
can dish it out as well as I can take it. But when I can’t think of
something to dish out, well, I guess I become furious. And totally
depressed like I was that night.

You’re fly’s open
. Those were the only
three words Maria said to me at that dance. Depressing, huh?
Maria’s group continued to descend the stairs as me and Jeff and
his sister pushed our way through the crowd toward the coatroom.
Before me and Jeff said goodbye, I asked him for his sister’s phone
number. I whipped out my wallet and hastily wrote on my bus pass.
When he told his sister later on, she was probably wet with
anticipation to see me again. I had spoken less than two words to
her that whole night. I knew she liked me, but I certainly didn’t
like her.

Fighting these truths off, I smiled boyishly
in her direction. God forbid I end the night without some girl’s
goddamn phone number.

***

That’s really all I remember about the dance.
Other than “hello,” I didn’t say a word to Maria that night, but I
told all my friends that I got a girl’s phone number. I didn’t say
it was from Jeff’s sister, though, because I knew they’d all laugh
at me since she was so unappealing.

The first guy I told was one of my best
friends, Paul. Paul and I had met the summer before high school at
this guy Kevin’s eighth grade graduation party. Kevin and Paul had
met at some nerd camp the summer before eighth. It was held at this
all-boys prep school that specialized in training young guys to
become priests. That’s the way those priests are—they get you when
you’re young, before you know too much, and brainwash you into
thinking you should devote your life to Jesus.

But Kevin and Paul didn’t want to become
priests; they just wanted to learn how to speed-read and do some
high school-level math even before they graduated from elementary
school. I thought it was so pathetic. I made fun of Kevin about it
for months before the program even started. I think I called it
Geek Camp or something like that. When Kevin introduced me to Paul,
I immediately mentioned the Geek Camp and laughed about it. They
talked all about how much fun it was, and about how they’d met some
great priests there and everything, but I knew it was all baloney.
They must have been bullshitting, because there’s no way they could
have enjoyed that goddamn camp.

So Paul, like Kevin years before, was pegged
as my innocent nerdy friend from the first day I met him. And from
that day on I ceaselessly mentioned that priest camp to him and
laughed in his face about it. I don’t even know why the poor guy
hung around with me, but he did. We kept hanging out throughout
high school, and we’re still sort of friends today, though I
haven’t seen him in a while.

The point of all this is that I always picked
on Paul, just because he was Paul. Picture it: He was a short guy,
with connected eyebrows, and two nostrils big enough to snugly fit
a can of Coke a piece. It’s difficult to describe.

But aside from all that, I made fun of him
because he’d never had a girlfriend. I don’t think he was gay or
anything. Oh, he tried like a sonofabitch to get girls, but never
to any avail. I didn’t so much make fun of Paul as I did talk about
my girlfriends in front of him all the time. And I knew that while
Paul approved of my adventures on the surface, deep down inside he
was confused as hell: He wished he was as successful with girls as
I was, and yet my stories sickened him. I tacitly ridiculed him for
that, too: for consistently resenting me but not having the balls
to say so.

Paul was so goddamn insecure and confused
that one time he actually made believe he had a girlfriend when he
didn’t. It all happened after I told him about Rachel, this girl
who whacked me off next to a fire extinguisher in the third floor
stairwell. Like always, he looked pretty jealous that day. But the
next day he came into school and told my friends and me that he’d
met a girl by the bus stop that morning. I was shocked, but happy
for the guy. Shit, he’d never even kissed a girl, and he was
already a junior in high school. I will never forget the girl’s
name, either: Julie Di Benedetto. After a few weeks of dating her,
he told us that she broke up with him. Not that she wanted to do
it; it’s just that her dad wouldn’t let her date guys until she was
sixteen, so she had to do it. I felt so bad for Paul that I almost
cried in the cafeteria as he told the story.

Believe it or not, a few days later Paul told
us that he met another girl, also at the bus stop on his way home
from school. I will never forget her name, either: Joyce McCormick.
But after they went out a few times, she broke up with him, too.
And for the same reason that Julie Di Benedetto did, because she
had a very protective father.

I knew something was up at that point,
because he’d dated two girls in just a few weeks and nobody had
seen them but him. So I asked Paul what high school Joyce went to
and he told me. Little did he know that I didn’t believe him, and
that I called up the high school asking if they had a student
registered under the name Joyce McCormick. And you know what? They
didn’t. Paul had made the whole story up. There was no Joyce and
there was no Julie. He just wanted to gain respect and sympathy
from his friends, so he lied through his teeth.

Looking back on it now, it’s easy to laugh
about it. But in high school me and my friends pretty much never
let Paul forget it. Every day at lunch time when we all sat
together, we’d crack jokes about it. “Hey, Paul, how’s Julie
doing?” Shit like that. Even the last time we spoke, I think I
mentioned Julie and Joyce to him. But he still doesn’t know that I
got Jeff’s sister’s number at the dance that night. I guess he
thinks I got Maria’s number, since she’s the one I eventually went
out with. Not that I did anything to change his mind.

Even though I had a lot of reasons to make
fun of him, he was a good guy, overall. Despite his obvious
jealousy, he was always willing to lend me an ear when I had a
problem. Don’t ask me why, but he’d spend hours on the phone,
encouraging me to ask a girl out or giving me solace when I was
down. He gave me all sorts of guidance. More than anyone else, Paul
encouraged me to be me. Despite his jealousy, he never once
expressed jealousy toward me, whether or not he actually felt it.
Like a mother doting over a baby, he’d praise my accomplishments,
encourage me to study, and congratulate me when I had success with
a chick. Why he did this I’ll never know. Some might say that he
was living vicariously through me, at least when it came to girls.
Or maybe I was living vicariously through him, when it came to
morals. But I tend to think that unlike most assholes in the world,
Paul truly cared about me. I sort of wish I could call him up right
now and ask him what to do. But I won’t.

I used to call him up a lot. Especially the
night before a big math test to ask him to teach me everything he
knew that I didn’t. I never had anything to teach him, though,
because he always paid attention in math class and I rarely did.
And he used to take all these extra math classes—really hard ones,
too—so that he could have some college credit when he graduated
high school. But I must have been pretty smart to have gotten the
same sort of grades he did, when I didn’t even pay attention half
the time. Looking back on it now, I don’t even know why I paid
attention at all in high school. I mean, I worked my ass off most
of the time, especially before a test, and got good grades. But
what the hell was the difference, because, in the end, nobody gives
a shit about high school grades anyway.

At the time, though, I did care. Grades were
only of slightly secondary importance to girls. When I slacked off
in school, Paul was always there to help me out. And because we
were good friends, and because he always helped me with math, he
was the first person I told about getting Jeff’s sister’s phone
number. But like I said, I didn’t mention that it was Jeff’s sister
at all.

I still can’t believe Paul lied about dating
those girls. I mean, one little white lie is okay, but making up
entire relationships was another. It only gave me more ammunition
to use against him, more things to make fun of him with. He was one
sorry bastard, that Paul. But he’s doing okay now. He got a summer
job with some big company in the city. He’s out there, working
hard, doing what he always wanted to do. He’ll graduate from
college a year early, I’m sure, because of all those extra classes
he took in high school.

Chapter 3

Jets

A few days after the dance I called Jeff’s
sister. By then I’d figured that at the very least I could get to
know other girls through her. Everybody knows that ugly girls
usually hang out with hot ones. You can’t blame them, though. When
all you got is dog food, you’d better hang out with filet mignon.
Naturally, sexy girls attract the better-looking guys. Why not
hover around that sort of magnet?

I might’ve felt bad about using Jeff’s sister
to get girls, but I figured what the hell. As Kyle and I always
say, we don’t make these rules, we just abide by ‘em.

And besides, at that point in high school, I
didn’t have that much experience with girls, and I needed all the
help I could get. I’d made out with a few, probably six or seven,
and that was better than average among my friends. But I’d never
had sex before.

Sex
.

S-E-X!

The word itself sounds so exciting to me.
It’s a goal that everyone knows he’ll eventually reach. It’s just a
matter of
when
; and, more importantly,
how
. So much
of high school was spent pondering these two concepts—when and how
to have sex—that I hardly remember thinking of much else.

I knew a lot of guys at school had done it
already, but not most of them for sure. I despised the bastards
that would loaf around before class discussing the details of their
latest score:
Where’d you meet the girl? At a bar? A club? Was
she buzzing? Drunk?
Bullshit like this surrounded me daily
throughout high school. What’s weird is that I loathed the guys who
didn’t get laid—the losers, the nerds, the Pauls—almost as much as
I hated the assholes who did. And yet, in a sense, I always sort of
wished I could be like both. It was easy to be either of those two
extremes, it seemed, and difficult as hell to find that elusive
middle.

***

Wait
, I thought. No way in hell was I
going to call Jeff’s sister. She’d have to call me. Oh sure, she
didn’t have my number, but I didn’t give a shit about that. I knew
that she liked me enough to somehow get it after I waited for a
while. Sure enough, about five days later she called.