Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

“Maria,” I said, “I want to be with you forever. I know that sounds crazy—I mean, hell, we’re both still teenagers, right?—but it’s true. Let’s begin forever today. Let’s take the first step now.” I breathed in deeply, paused for a second, and exhaled. “Will you please be my girlfriend?”

Even though she knew I’d ask that, she was surprised. So was I. My heart throbbed but before I had a chance to notice it, Maria replied.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ll be your girlfriend.” And she smiled and gave me a hug.

Heaven on Earth. That’s all I can say.

We talked more for a while, probably for an hour or so. As usual, we talked about everything from politics to movies, from travel to religion. Neither of us was very religious. I was happy to hear that she, like me, was an atheist. It’s that like we hated the idea of God, we just despised the notion that some people justified moral superiority with their faith. That’s why neither of us went to Church. I had gone once in the past year or so, but that was for Christmas and with my parents. She said she hadn’t gone in years, and I thought that was cool.

“Tell me about your family. Do they know that you like me?” I asked.

“Well, I tell my mother everything,” she said, “but I don’t think my father knows about you yet.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I just don’t think he knows about you yet,” she said.

“Why? Will he be mad or something?”

“Oh no, it’s not that.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“He just doesn’t know,” she insisted.

“Why not? What’s the big deal?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this,” she replied. Suddenly, she grew visibly uneasy. How , I wondered, can I be her confidant if she bottles her secrets up?

“Listen, Maria, I care about you and would never judge you. So whatever it is, please tell me.”

“I don’t know. Something tells me it’s not a good idea.”

“Listen, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, but I think it’s best to get things out in the open.” I placed both my hands on her face, parting the hair away from her eyes. She looked up at me and let out a warm, minty breath.

“I don’t think my father knows abut you yet, A.J., because he’s always drunk when I talk about you at home.”

Dead silence. I had no idea what to say. “My father’s an alcoholic, A.J.”

And with that her little eyes began to tear. She wasn’t crying so much as she was whimpering. Quickly, however, she wiped away her tears and stopped, as if she had never begun. She was such a proud girl.

I can’t describe how surprised I was to hear about her father. An alcoholic! My God! I wasn’t surprised, but appalled. I’d never tasted alcohol before. I’d despised alcohol from the moment I realized what you were, Mom.

One time in freshman year I was at a school dance, and Kyle snuck in a few of those little bottles of vodka, the same kind that you get on commercial airliners and hotel room bars. He said he stole them from his grandmother’s liquor cabinet. I was pissed. My opinion of liquor was patently different than my friends’. All hallucinogens were evil. Liquor was no different than religion—they both made you believe something that wasn’t true. Kyle was swigging vodka while I still had stuffed animals in my room.

What a fight we had! He wanted to drink the vodka right in the middle of the dance. “Over my dead body,” I exclaimed, as I grabbed the bottle from him and flung it to the gym floor. Unfortunately, it was plastic, so it just bounced around for a while, and remained intact. Kyle reacted with a goofy smile—he had won—and he picked the bottle off the floor, unscrewed the little red cap, and drank away.

I didn’t know what the hell to say when Maria told me her father was an alcoholic. I was about to tell her about the drinking problems in my family but decided against it. It was too soon to tell her so much about my life. I was scared, although even at this moment I don’t know why.

I stood there for a while, practically making a fool out of both of us. I don’t know, I guess I was even a little angry at her. I was too young to drink, and too young to be burdened with this news. In my heart, I wanted to bear my soul to Maria, to narrate my personal experiences with an alcoholic parent. At the same time, I figured that it would ruin the date if I didn’t say something nice, and we didn’t get off the topic. What the hell should I do?

Thankfully, she spoke. “I just wanted you to know this, A.J.,” she said, “because that’s why my father doesn’t know about you yet, because he was drunk when I told my mother, like he always is.”

“It’s okay, baby,” I said. “Really, it’s okay. He doesn’t hurt you, does he? He doesn’t hit you?” I felt like such a gentleman saying that.

“No, he doesn’t. He just drinks, and never really goes to work. Well, he used to. He used to be a sanitation worker. But he retired like ten years before he was supposed to, so he didn’t really get a pension or anything like that. And now he just sits at home and drinks, and yells at my Mom. Sometimes he has a part-time job, sometimes he doesn’t. Regardless, he blames her for everything. But she works and cooks and cleans, and he has no right to do it. It’s just that he’s drunk, and he never even knows what he’s saying. I try to understand what he’s going through, but I don’t know my right from my left sometimes. How can I understand him when I don’t even understand myself? I just wish that someone would understand me for once. But I remain silent. Nobody can sense my confusion. Even if I did choose to tell people, they wouldn’t understand.”

“Well, if your dad drinks, that’s no excuse for his behavior!” I said. I felt as if I should say something more to Maria, something that would prove that I really understood, something about my mother. But I didn’t. All I said was: “But you don’t drink… do you?”

“No!” she paused, shaking her head. Her hair flopped from side to side. “Never. Never. I never drink, and I don’t want to. I just want him to stop blaming my mother for everything, and stop yelling at her.”

“Well, as long as you don’t drink, you’ll be okay, I guess.”

“That’s not true, A.J.” She said it as if I really wasn’t getting her point at all. “That’s why I don’t trust anyone. And that’s why I’ve never had a boyfriend. And that’s why I hesitate telling you stuff about me. Because I don’t trust anybody. Don’t you remember what I told you last time we were here? I said that when I was a little kid my dad told me that I could always trust my family. But that’s not true. I can’t trust him, or rely on him for anything. So if he doesn’t keep his word, then who will? I just wish…” She trailed off.

“I will,” I said.

“Well, that’s why I said you were hopeful. Remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, I think that maybe you are hopeful. You see, that’s the word, hopeful , that I use to describe you to myself when I’m alone at night, or when my dad is yelling, or when I’m depressed. I say to myself, ‘Don’t worry, Maria, A.J. is hopeful.’ I talk to myself a lot.” She giggled silently, but sadly.

“I want you to talk to me a lot. I want you to have faith in me, and hope, because I’ll never let you down, as long as you don’t let me down, either.”

“I won’t let you down, A.J. But please, let’s not go too fast. Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? Amici con tutti, confidenza con nessuno . It’ll be hard for us to be confidants, because I’m so afraid.”