Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

But for the moment, our destination was F. A. O. Schwartz, the largest and most extravagant toy store in Manhattan. We stood in a line brimming with wide-eyed children and their patient parents, in the concrete square at Fifth Avenue and 59 thStreet, directly across the street from the Plaza Hotel.

Maria and I shuffled in through the revolving glass doors and immediately heard the sound of children singing. Welcome to our world. Welcome to our world. Welcome to our world of toys , caroled the choir of plastic children above the door’s entrance. They were sitting atop a decorative, swirling carousel perched on an ornate tower near the entrance. F. A. O. Schwartz pleases the eyes and ears, if not the wallet, more than any other attraction in Manhattan. I have always loved it there. Quickly, we dove into the store’s corner display, a large mountain of colorful stuffed animals, $19.99 to $129.99, depending on the size. Surrounded by the heaps of bean-filled velvet animals, we playfully smacked each other with dolphins and apes and laughed and giggled like toddlers.

We raced up the escalator to the second floor, hoping to unearth more juvenile treasures. What we discovered awed us both. There before us stood two large, battery-powered toys: a red Corvette and a gray F-14 Tomcat, each designed to fit one youngster. For $6,899, I could have my very own jet and Maria her very own sports car. I checked my wallet. Eighteen dollars. Oh well.

“Let’s get inside them,” Maria gasped, “and have our pictures taken.”

“But there’s no vagrant Santa Claus with a tripod in sight,” I quipped.

“A.J.!” she said, excitedly. “You know what I mean!”

I had, in fact, brought my camera with me to Manhattan that afternoon, hoping to capture a moment in Winter Wonderland with my Wonder Woman, Maria Della Verita . Amidst the toys and children I suddenly felt cheery, and was happy to be with such a beautiful girl who loved me so much. We’d better take a picture , I thought. We forgot to take one in front of the tree .

Maria’s little body fit snugly into the driver’s seat of the shiny red Corvette. Although her tits were smooshed against the steering wheel, I could tell that if she had a charged battery—and, of course, that $6,890—she would peel out right then and there, and zoom down Fifth Avenue.

I still remember how beautiful she looked. “Turn this way,” I said. She smiled a toothy smile as her hair draped the sportster’s trunk. Flash! I snapped the picture and saw a thousand butterflies.

She vacated the Corvette with great ease and graciously accepted the camera from my hand. “You’re turn,” she said, gesturing for me to board the F-14. It’s WEFT, in real life: high-mounted, variable wings; duel exhausts and two turbo fans; a long, slender fuselage and bubble canopy; twin tail fins. It was similar to the F-15 and F-16, although the F-16 had a single tail fin, unlike the others. Also, in real life, the F-14’s wing span was 64 feet, it’s length 62. The model before me: length, 6 feet; width, 5 feet. Shit , I thought, I’ll never fit into this thing .

But Maria encouraged me to give it a shot. I placed my right foot in the cockpit, then my left. My knees cracked as I squatted, setting one ass cheek on each tail fin. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t fit in that damn plane.

“That’s the best I can do,” I said, regretfully.

“That’s okay,” she said. Flash! Startled by the light, I toppled out of the cockpit and onto the floor. Maria chuckled.

“You should’ve seen your face,” she said. “You looked like you didn’t know what you were doing there.”

“I didn’t.”

We left F. A. O. Schwartz, crossed Fifth, and found ourselves near the pond that we’d gone to on our first date. We embraced, passionately, and celebrated the marvelous day, and rolled around in our puffy winter jackets on the cold grass. Once again, I felt a lonely emptiness swelling within me. I wish I could explain how I felt—I loved Maria so much, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about her past. Even as I am sitting here writing this, after all that’s happened, I am angry at her for having a life before me.

Embracing Maria, just when I thought I’d lost all sense of direction, all perception of romance and wit, I looked into Maria’s innocent eyes. They inspired to take my house key from my coat pocket and key our initials into a giant London Plane tree. As I carved, pieces of bark fell to the ground to make way for our initials. And those fresh initials—JJL + MD—represented a new beginning for us.

I extended my arms and smiled and announced, “Look how beautiful this place is!” The gray webs of tree branches could have been the back-drop for a horror movie; however, they could have just as easily been the scenery for a romantic one, too. I preferred the latter image. Some things, like jets, were almost too amazing to have been created by man. That day, the remarkable beauty of Central Park was too ravishing even to have been produced by nature. Maybe there is a God , I thought.

“From this moment on, this is our tree, Maria. And we’ll come here—to this wonderful winter wonderland—every Christmas from now on and stand here, and reaffirm our love. I love you, angel.”

My words were corny, but they reduced her to tears. Good tears, for once. We embraced beneath the pine tree, and barely felt one another’s bodies through our jackets. We were still, and had only our frozen, moving breaths to remind us of our existence. I peered at the carvings on the tree bark. I felt as if my eyes were shooting a red-hot laser beam into its frigid husk. Maria and I will remain in this blissful state , I thought, as sure as those initials will stay carved in that tree .

“Why don’t you come over my house for dinner on New Year’s Eve?”

That’s how Maria began our phone conversation the night before January 31 stthat Christmas vacation. I’ll never forget it. It was that night, New Year’s Eve, when so much happened.

With that phone call from Maria, I realized that this was my chance to get to know her father. I’d met him before but never really had a chance to speak with him much. He’d gazed into my eyes almost as if I was the son he never had when Maria opened up her Christmas gifts before him. But that was the extent of my relationship with him for the six months or so that Maria and I were dating. She never wanted him to spend too much time with me. She was embarrassed by him.

He was a nice man, it seemed, and he always referred to me as “friend” or “guy.” He was very friendly and relaxed. At first I thought that maybe he knew he was a drunk, and he knew Maria told me so, and he was amicable to compensate for the negative image I’d already established in my mind. But then I realized, somewhat reluctantly, that he was a proud man. He was proud of his Maria. He also was proud because he was finally getting help. And with that help came a more loving relationship with his family, as well as a better perspective on life, I suppose.

Donning a pinstriped blue suit New Year’s Eve, I strolled into Maria’s home around eight o’clock like a prosecutor set to make his final argument of a case. I was going to have sex with her that night. I just knew it.

Maria’s family owned a house in Ridgewood. It was modest and well-kept, but not ostentatious, unlike the homes of many Italian-American families in Queens. On the foyer wall of Rick’s stubbornly Irish house, there hung two photographs: a picture of the Pope, and a black and white image of President John Kennedy. Maria’s Italian house was slightly different. Her parents, also devout Roman Catholics, had hung a picture of the Pope as well. To its right, however, were two more framed photographs: one of Joe Di Maggio, and one of Frank Sinatra. I chuckled silently to myself as I promenaded confidently through the foyer. It was the first time I’d ever noticed those pictures because usually I entered Maria’s apartment through the basement entrance.