Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

Mike laughed at Kyle; but, then again, Mike always laughed at everything Kyle did. Paul and Rick sat there, respectfully, waiting for me to finish.

“No, really,” I said,” I think she’s The One. I don’t want to ever date anyone else again. She’s perfect.” Then they started to take me seriously, because they’d never heard me talk like that before.

They knew about The One, though. They knew that my ideal girl—and this was my ideal years before I even met Maria—was a short Italian chick with big boobs, black hair, and brown eyes. She was a girl I wouldn’t only be physically attracted to, but emotionally and mentally as well. They knew that I was always on the lookout for The One, and that I never really thought I’d find her. I always talked about The One, even when I was dating other girls. For example, when I was dating Rachel, I remember telling my friends how she jerked me off during the dance, adding, “but she’s not The One.”

I told them about how perfect Maria was, about how beautiful she looked, and how well we got along. I told them how she’d opened up to me in Central Park, and that my kiss with her was the best I’d ever had. As a matter of fact, I told The Family that I’d be happy never even sleeping with Maria, and just kissing her for the rest of my life. And, most importantly, I told them how much I respected Maria, because I did respect her so much.

She was beautiful, smart, and funny. She was wonderful. I felt like I’d been struck by a lightening bolt on our date, and I was still charged up. I told all my friends this, and they couldn’t believe it. I could tell by their faces that they’d never seen me so intense. My arms were crossed in front of me, close to my chest, as I recounted the entire date to them. Oh, how I wanted to hold her right then and there!

When I was finished telling them about the date, my friends stared at me in silence. Speechless, they simply nodded, because they really were happy for me, and so surprised at how much I liked her. Then the bell rang, signaling that lunch was over and that classes would resume in five minutes. We got up from the table and were about to take off, when Paul leaned in toward me and said firmly: “Be careful, L’Enfant. Don’t screw it up.” What a jerk.

The following weekend was the first of the summer. School had just ended and I’d planned on celebrating by seeing Maria, but I forgot that I’d already made plans to go Upstate with Mike and Kyle.

Almost every weekend during the summer, Mike drove Upstate with his parents to the country and slept in their cabin for the weekend. Kyle and I had always made fun of Mike, saying that he couldn’t afford to go on a real vacation. But we were only joking, so when he invited us to go up there with him, we gladly accepted. The only bad thing was that Mike’s parents had to drive us, even though me and Kyle had just gotten our licenses. We ragged on Mike for that, but it wasn’t too bad. Mike’s parents were cool; they’d let us do whatever we wanted, as long as we stayed out of serious trouble.

It was a great weekend. We had so much fun on the way Upstate that me and Kyle and Mike decided that we should secretly form our own family within the existing one.

“What should we call it?” I asked.

“How about the Mets?” Mike asked.

“ How about the Mets?” Kyle said, imitating Mike with a goofy voice. “What are we, ten fucking years old?”

“You have a better idea?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We play lots of jokes on Paul and Rick. We need something to indicate that, secretly, just to ourselves. How about the Con-Men?” Mike smiled and signaled a thumbs-agreement; Kyle, however, disapproved.

“I don’t like it—too negative. And besides, we don’t con people; we just joke around with them.” Kyle said.

I glanced at Mike for support, but he changed his mind and said he agreed with Kyle.

We never did think of a new name to distinguish ourselves from the rest. It’s too bad, because I really liked my idea. At least, I thought, I was still the leader of whatever we were.

We had a lot of fun at the cabin that weekend. But there was one thing in particular that still makes us all laugh to this day. Kyle, Mike, and I had a Physics teacher named Mr. Dick junior year of high school. That’s not a joke—that was really his name. And even though Mr. Dick really wasn’t that bad a guy, me and Mike used to make fun of him all the time.

First of all, Physics was hard. We all did horribly Dick’s class. The last day of school we got our final grades, and I got something like a sixty-nine average in the class, my worst ever. Mike and Kyle almost failed, too. And second: How can you not make fun of a guy named Mr. Dick ?

Outside Mike’s cabin, we threw our Physics books into the campfire. Then we danced around it like injuns, yelling “Goodbye, Dick! You fucking dick!” We tore off each page of each book meticulously, slowly lowered them into the fire, and watched as each individual leaf singed. I would never have to be in his class again.

I always like to burn bridges like that. Once something bad is over, I try to do something to end it with a bang. Mr. Dick’s class actually ended rather undramatically. Until I suggested to the guys that we should burn the books, we’d planned on toasting marshmallows, not much else. But for some reason, I felt the need to issue Last Rites. That way, I’d never have to feel bad about it again. No, it was so I’d never feel regret about it again.

The funniest part of the evening, however, was when I got up to go to the bathroom. I was going to go inside the cabin, but then I thought of an even better way to do it. When we were all finished burning up the books, as the fire crackled in the chill of the night, I pulled down my pants and said, “Adios, Mr. Dick!” and pissed all over the campfire. Mike and Kyle were laughing so hard that they almost choked. I took a long, proud piss. But the fire didn’t go out.

Mike followed suit. He ran over to the fire as if he was trying to beat Kyle to the punch and then he pissed on the fire, too. It was disgusting to watch, but still funny.

When he was done, Mike and I slapped each other five, grabbed hold of each other’s arms like we were dancing, and screamed and laughed like maniacs. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, getting rid of Mr. Dick and Physics, once and for all.

But Kyle wasn’t about to let us get away with such originality that night.

“I’d piss on the fire,” he said, “but I don’t have the feeling to go.”

Me and Mike stopped dancing and looked at each other triumphantly. We felt bad for Kyle, because he didn’t have to take a piss. I thought: Finally! Nature has halted Kyle from upstaging me! But just as we were about to settle down, Kyle spoke up again.

“I said I didn’t have to piss,” Kyle announced with a sly grin. And then, just as he finished that sentence, he ran toward the edge of the waning campfire, dropped his pants, yelled out “Shit on you, Mr. Dick!” and blasted a dump on top of the charred Physics pages. The blaze quickly transformed into a pissy, shitty-smelling heap of smoldering wet ash. We thought it smelled bad before, but Kyle’s dump turned it into a toxic wasteland. God, was it awful. A noxious haze filled the air. It was like the agent orange my father described to me—it just clung to air in the cool, quiet night, making our eyes water as though it were a big onion. But we didn’t care, because it had to be one of the funniest things that me and Mike had ever witnessed in our lives. Kyle was a human fire extinguisher for a night.

When he was through, Kyle pulled up his pants without even wiping, and sat down right next to me and Mike.