Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

“Hot shit!” he said. “Almost burned my ass.” We collapsed on the ground, and rolled in the leaves, hysterical.

The next day, we all went down to the ball field to play softball. Mike knew a lot of people up there, because he and his family went to their cabin so often. He introduced to me to about eight or nine people, and one in particular named Stephanie.

Stephanie and I were on the same team, me the pitcher, and her catcher. Like a pro ballplayer, she’d run up to the mound every inning, supposedly to advise me on my next pitch, but in reality to flirt. She wasn’t bad-looking, either. I didn’t really like blondes that much; but she was the prettiest girl there, so she was good enough to flirt with.

As we talked, it became apparent to Mike and Kyle that she was hot for me, so they left us alone. Although I felt guilty at first, I quickly changed my mind and figured there was nothing wrong with a little flirting. And I guess it felt good that she liked me and there was nothing wrong with that. I was so goddamn confident from being with Maria that I was unafraid to pursue her. I knew she would like me, I just knew it. And if I was wrong? Well, big deal, because Maria was waiting for me back in the city.

We played six innings and tied four-four. I hit a grand-slam, but so did Kyle, who was playing for the other team. Kyle and Mike are sharp enough to know when something’s up with me and a girl. As soon as the game ended, they took off. Stephanie and I talked about nothing in particular. We had nothing in common, other than the fact that each thought the other was cute, I guess. Then she started getting a little closer to me on the bench. For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me first, and then I thought she wanted me to kiss her. I didn’t really want to, though. I just felt good talking to a girl that seemed to like me.

“So, you’re from the city, huh?”

“Yea, Queens, what about you?”

“I’m from Poughkeepsie. Not the city, though. I live in the suburbs of Poughkeepsie ,” she said. “It’s like the pit of hell.” She was funny. I grabbed her hand and placed it on my thigh. She didn’t hesitate. In fact, she ran her hand up to my crotch and then smiled like she wanted to kiss me.

Time was in slow motion. On one hand, I just wanted to finish talking to this girl and be on my way. On the other, I figured it would be cool to kiss her, because I rarely kissed two different girls in the same week, and that alone would just make Kyle and Mike flip. And Maria had said she kissed like ten guys. I had to catch up with her. I just had to.

But then, just as I thought she was about to lean in and kiss me—just as I thought I was going to kiss her—Mike’s father pulled up in the car with Mike and Kyle in the back seat.

“We have to go get some firewood,” Mike’s father said.

“Yeah, firewood!” Kyle said, busting my balls.

I looked at Stephanie—half in disgust, half with lust—and told her I had to go. I got into the car and we all went off to get firewood. I never saw her again.

What a close call! I don’t really know what would’ve happened that day with Stephanie. But between the Mr. Dick fire and the firewood thing, my friends and I haven’t stopped talking about that weekend at the cabin to this day.

As soon as I got home from Mike’s cabin, I called Maria. We talked for almost three hours. We had a lot of catching up to do since I was away all weekend. I told her about Mr. Dick, and the campfire. But of course I never mentioned Stephanie. Maria said that she was beginning to trust me a lot more quickly that she’d expected. She said that she thought about me all of the time. And the cutest part was that she’d spent the weekend while I was away doing laundry and cleaning her house. Apparently, neither of her parents ever did the laundry. Her moth was too busy working, and her father didn’t do shit. Maria said she’d been doing the family laundry since she was seven years old.

She said that she thought about me as she was doing the laundry. That was so damn cute. She had a way of being cute without even trying; it was truly genuine. She also had a way of being sexy without knowing it.

“How often do you wash your bras?” I asked. It was the first time I showed her my horny adolescent side. Rather than get offended or change the subject, she answered in her own special way, like she always did. “As often as they need to be washed,” she said. I loved that.

“Have you ever let a guy touch your breasts?” I asked.

Maria was a bit startled by my bluntness. “Well,” she said, “I’ve just never felt comfortable going that far.”

I continued to press the subject, partly because it was turning me on, but mostly because I would never touch a girl’s breasts without finding out how she felt about it first. She admitted that she’d thought about letting me get to “second base,” as she put it, when she was hanging her bras out to dry. We’d accomplished “first base” in Central Park on our last date. “Second base,” as every teenager knew, was feeling a chick up—or, if you were a chick, getting felt up. “Third base” meant putting you hands down a girl’s pants, or maybe even eating her out, or, if you were a guy, getting a blowjob. And a “home run” was, well, a home run. I’d just turned seventeen and, coincidentally, Maria had just turned sixteen, so neither of us felt like Babe Ruth. But we both wanted to begin rounding the bases. At least, I did.

Like I said, Maria had a unique way of being cute about stuff like that. Gentlemanly, I told her that we’d go to second whenever she was ready. “I might be ready sooner than I thought,” she said. That was all I needed to hear. My plan was simple: I was going to head for second the next time I saw Maria.

And that next time was two days later. I parked my rusty green, 1982 Buick Skylark out in front of her school, The Megan Louis Academy, and waited, trying to look cool, as an occasional student popped out through the doors. I’d picked Maria up from school before, but never in my car. I always despised the bastards that already had their cars and waited out in front of Megan Louis for their girlfriends—radios blaring, engines racing—not giving a shit what anyone thought. So that day I turned up my radio, and leaned up against the side of the car with a pair of sunglasses on. Actually, they weren’t on; they were sitting atop my head, ready to be put on should the sun get too bright. I was so cool, and I had the confidence to approach any girl I wanted to and say, “Hey, baby, ya want a ride?”

But I didn’t do that. Occasionally, a hot girl would pass by and I’d smile in her direction, and she’d smile back. But I had to be discreet, because any one of those girls could have been a friend of Maria’s. Mostly I just stood there, sweating, smoking a cigarette. All the losers around me were smoking, too. I felt really different from them, though.

It’s amazing how quickly something you thought was so important just evaporates from your mind. And as I stood in front of Maria’s school the Tuesday following my trip to Mike’s cabin, I didn’t even remember Stephanie’s name. But as I waited, I began to look at other girls—some I knew, some I didn’t. I passed by Mike’s sister and Lynn as they walked toward the subway entrance; they didn’t even glance at me, never mind say anything. I was sure they weren’t speaking to Maria, either. Maria had lost a friend simply to be my girlfriend. She has a better friend now , I thought to myself. Lynn was a loser, anyway. She looked like a horse.

Finally, I saw Maria poke her head out of the door at the bottom of the hill where the school was. Quickly, I threw my cigarette down on the ground, kicked it under my car, and popped some gum in my mouth. But as quickly as I put it out, I wanted another one, because Maria was talking to some hood as she walked up the hill. They were laughing. I kept wondering who the hell the bastard was. I don’t think she saw me, or she would’ve stopped talking to him, I guess.