Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

Thinking about all of this in my drunken trance, I felt lonely. I felt as I’d felt before Maria and I ever met. It was dreadful. I was so goddamn lonely that I actually called a phone sex number advertised in a porno magazine I’d bought

I still remember the woman’s name—Natasha. She said she had big tits and a tight, shaved pussy. She moaned like a whore and begged me to fuck her hard and come on her ass. I listened, silently, without a clue, without an erection. A few minutes into the conversation, if you can call it that, I said to Natasha: “You’re a fucking skank,” rather politely, actually. Then I hung up, and was as lonely as I was before.

My life is really pathetic , I thought. I hadn’t kissed or dated a girl since Maria, and I didn’t want to. Anger filled my heart and soul as I envisioned her getting wasted Upstate. But I still longed to talk to, maybe, apologize.

It’s a strange emotion when you hate a girl, but also want to apologize to her. I guess I hated her because I wanted to apologize. I can’t explain it. But those two notions swirled within my head like two twisters, each fighting the other.

I could easily nap like a baby each afternoon. But I couldn’t sleep through the night without being awoken by the twisters, always sweating hard, yet shivering.

Should I call Maria, and ask her to be my girlfriend again?

I asked Kyle. “Call her,” he said. “Boss, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, you she didn’t do nothing’ wrong.” He feigned a Brooklyn Mafioso accent like he always did.

“Call her,” Rick advised me. “If you didn’t love her so much, you wouldn’t be thinking about it.” Interesting point , I thought.

“Do you love her?” asked Paul. “Do you really love her?” Somehow Paul had a knack for making a tough situation worse. Where does he come up with questions like that?

I was so confused. Stretched out on my bed, filling the still air with warm, swirling cigarette smoke, I began to cry. My friends were right. Why, then, was it so difficult to listen to them?

All I wanted from life was to grow old with The One. But in order to do that, I had to accept Maria’s situation for what it was: a minor indiscretion committed by an otherwise wholesome and genuine person.

Am I a man? If so, what kind of fucking man am I? Why won’t I listen to my friends? What would my father do in a similar situation? I mulled these questions over until, exhausted by deliberation and reflection, I fell asleep.

My slumbering rationalism woke with me early the next morning.

It’s time for L’Enfant Reformation II , I thought. It’s finally time to ‘get my act together,’ as my mother always says .

I stood up, walked over to the Air Force flag, knelt down, and stroked my nose on its velvety fabric. It smelled new and fresh. I sensed a new me. I will call Maria up, and I will forgive her.

We had another perfect date a few days later. I was so proud of myself. Mom, you were sober for a while, and I had no beef with you. I remember smiling when you asked, “How was your date?” after I got home from being with Maria. We didn’t talk, but still, I knew you were trying. I was, too.

Dad, all was well between me and you, but inside your face I saw doubt. You knew I was suffering for some reason, and you wanted to help. But I never did more than just look back at you, empty-eyed. To this day I wish I had said something about my problems with Maria. Now I know that they could have been solved had I just told you my story.

Still, there was a calm in my life. I had taken Maria back, and for at least a little while I never brought up her past, or her drinking.

One night she called me. It was one of those special phone calls, because I was thinking I wish she’d call me but I didn’t expect to hear from her. I got a lot of those calls back then. And I still remember what I was thinking when she called, and as it turned out, she was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go to Central Park,” she said, as if the weight of the world had just been lifted off her shoulders and she wanted to celebrate with a holiday.

“The pond?”

“Of course. It’ll be fifty-five tomorrow, and that’s warm enough to have a picnic. I’ll make sandwiches. Do you want baloney or ham and cheese? And you like the sour pickles, right?”

“What are you, a deli?” I chuckled. She sounded so cute. “Sour pickles, yes. Baloney and cheese sounds great. But not too much mayo.”

“We’ll buy a Snapple in the park.”

“Sounds good.”

“And I have something special to tell you tomorrow. But I’m sorry, I can’t tell you on the phone.”

“Oh, shit, now I’ll be thinking about this all night.”

“Don’t worry, I promise it’s not bad. It’s super-good.”

I was nervous, though. I always hated it when people held back secrets, even good ones. I remember not being able to sleep that night, comforted only by the thoughts of taking a nap by the pond the next day.

“So what’s your secret?” I asked, over and over again, from that phone call into tomorrow, where we found ourselves munching on celery sticks and homemade hummus and baloney sandwiches.

“Give me a few minutes, okay babe?” Maria asked, palming my cheek. Her hands were warm and even the air around us felt warm. It was a humid day, and we were actually sweating. A light breeze blew and evaporated the perspiration on our faces. Even though I was desperate to find out her secret, my attraction to her that day won out.

I leaned in and kissed Maria. Her lips locked onto mine perfectly. No need to move our necks, no cause for lip adjustment. Fastened to one another’s lips, our tongues met, each massaging its counterpart, gently and evenly. I grabbed her hair and kneaded the back of her little head like dough. It was so small I could palm it like a softball. Our bodies pressed together and we crashed to the blanket, and rolled on and off it, back and forth, on the blanket, then on the cold grass, charmingly and beautifully embraced… and kissing, kissing, kissing.

I loved Maria so much at that moment. I didn’t care about her past, or her lie. She was ten times better than me. No, a hundred times. And I knew it. I was embracing gold, and it was melting all over my body.

I managed to release my hand from in between her butt and jeans and turn on my cassette player. Seconds later, Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel was playing softly, but just loud enough for us to feel the vibrations of the speakers. We rolled and rolled and rolled, kissing and groping like only teenagers could.

After a half-hour or so—and I’m not exaggerating, it really was an hour—all of a sudden the sky cracked and rain came pouring down. It literally went from a blue sky to a black one, and not just rain but hail was coming down. Passers-by ran for cover as the rain splattered the stone bridge overlooking the embankment.

Maria and I jumped up. “Let’s get out of here!” she screamed. I grabbed her hand and gathered up all the stuff on the now-drenched blanket. Hail pummeled us as we rain up the slope, to the pathway, and onto Fifth Avenue. By the time we got to the R train we were soaked and shivering. But the feelings we had just had in the park remained. I clutched Maria’s body and we both went sound asleep. More than a dozen stops later and we were dry and comfortable, awakening from a nap. “I’ll walk you to the bus,” I said.

“No, A.J., it’s cold outside. You keep going, I’ll be okay.”

“No, no, I have to go. You never told me about your surprise.”

“Oh, God, that’s right!” She grabbed my hand and practically dragged me up the stairs to the European-American Bank on the corner of Grand Avenue and Queens Boulevard. There we waited for the Q58 bus, which would soon take her home to Ridgewood.