Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

When I walked into the living room, I noticed the long, vertical mirrors along the wall behind the couch. I looked at Maria, and looked back at the mirrors, and looked at Maria again. She knew what I was thinking, and she appreciated my remembering them.

We sat down and ate a pleasant dinner of London broil, stuffed shells, fresh broccoli sautéed in olive oil and garlic, and a salad. Of course, we ate the pasta first and the salad last. Maria’s chubby sister wolfed down her food in a frenzy, all she could do to avoid eye contact with me. At first I figured the big fat pig had heard so much shit about me from Maria that she felt I didn’t deserve the respect of her conversation.

Then I thought: No, she must be jealous of Maria . After all, Maria was gorgeous. She had an hourglass figure, huge tits, and a perfect face. Her sister—I wasn’t sure if her name was Leslie or Lizzie—was revolting. She looked like Elvis Presley in the mid-1970’s: ancient and bloated. As I munched on my salad, I strived to avoid gaping in disgust at her hideous sideburns.

She’d been dating a guy who lived around the corner with his mother, a guinea named Lester, for the past five years. Lester wasn’t a Mafioso. He was worse. He was a greaseball who longed to attain the status of a Mafioso. He owned a beat up Iroc-Z and two T-shirts. That’s it. He was a plumber’s assistant, a high school drop-out… and I was A.J. L’Enfant, a good-looking, well-spoken gentleman about to enter the U. S. Air Force Academy. Boy, was I on top of the world that night.

It was a pleasant evening for all until we brought in the New Year with a toast of champagne. The moment was frozen in time. Maria didn’t know whether she should drink the champagne or not. Mr. Della Verita was equally hesitant, but for different reasons. Not a second had gone by when, just like that— gulp, gulp, gulp —the frigid moment melted away as both Maria and her dad drank up. So did I.

Maria’s father had more than one glass of champagne that night. I felt bad for the guy, because I knew he shouldn’t have been drinking. Mrs. Della Verita quickly lit a cigarette, perhaps to help overcome her nervous jitters after witnessing her husband’s loss of self-control. Within minutes, or so it seemed, Mr. Della Verita was wasted. Maybe he wasn’t; maybe he just wanted to be. Either way, that’s when he started asking me about the Air Force Academy, shooting one question after another, seldom giving me a chance to respond completely. I told him that I’d been to Colorado recently and he seemed pleased.

Despite the champagne, his tone was lucid and polite. And although he was born in Italy, forty years in Ridgewood had diluted his foreign accent. After dinner, he eased comfortably into a stuffed rocking chair, rocked to and fro, and fired an intelligent question at me almost every time he leaned forward. I sat awkwardly on a brown hassock about five feet before him, fielding the questions as gracefully as Di Maggio played centerfield.

Mr. Della Verita ceased rocking and stared at me intently. “You know much about jets, A.J.?”

“Sure,” I said, “I know a little, Mr. Della Verita.”

“Hey”—he snapped his finger at me and winked—“call me Mr. D.”

“You got it, Mr. D.”

“When I was just a little older than you, I flew an F-4D Phantom in Vietnam. Ever hear of it?”

“Sure, one of the most versatile jets used in the war. It’s the first U. S. Navy jet to be accepted for service by the Air Force. And you know how strong the rivalry is between the Air Force and Navy.”

“Navy men are a bunch of pussies!” he bellowed. Maria and her sat silently, startled at his burst of profanity. Mrs. Della Verita lit another cigarette. Not too drunk to be embarrassed, Mr. D glanced at his wife and daughter and quietly apologized.

“I know what you mean, Mr. D.,” I said, trying desperately to continue the conversation unabated. “The Air Force did the real work in ’Nam.”

“You bet, guy. And that F-4D Phantom II did more work than any two battleships combined. It carried two laser-guided bombs and three air-to-air missiles. We blasted Charlie to hell, I tell ya. The Phantom could do it all: photo reconnaissance, bombing missions, anti-radar assignments. I can’t think of another jet that did so much.”

“My dad said he always wanted to fly the Phantom, but he got stuck with a B52D Stratofortress.”

“Stuck? Are you kidding me? If I could’ve flown any other aircraft in Vietnam, it would’ve been the Stratofortress. Hell, the Phantom flew close to the ground, almost got us killed a hundred times over. But the Stratofortress dropped its bombs from what, 20,000 feet?”

“30, 000,” I said, smiling.

“30, 000 feet! Christ! I bet he came home without a scratch on him!”

“He got home okay, just like you did.” My words hung conspicuously in the air as if in a cartoon bubble. Mr. D. downed another glass of sparkling yellow champagne.

Maria and her mother sat upright, parallel to one another like two tight-lipped totem poles, on the sofa across from the rocking chair. I got the impression that Maria was pissed at me because her father and I were so buddy-buddy. Mr. Della Verita was oblivious to his wife and daughter as he continued to reminisce about his war experience. Suddenly, I had the strangest feeling: It was almost as if he was hinting that his marriage destroyed his love affair with the Air Force, because that’s when he had to settle down and become a garbage man in New York. He went on and on, literally for hours, drinking champagne and telling me amazing stories about his life in the Air Force. I can’t remember the stories, exactly, but I sort of feel like I’m still there right now.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you need anything, guy, to help you get into that Academy, and I’ll give it to ya. I’ll make some phone calls for ya. You just let me know.” That’s how he concluded our conversation about the Air Force at one in the morning on January first of the New Year.

Mrs. Della Verita stiffly motioned for Maria to bring me down to her room. She was mighty pissed at her husband. I could tell that a fight was brewing.

Once in Maria’s room, apologies gushed out of her mouth as quickly as the tears fell from her eyes. I had no idea why she was crying.

“I’m so sorry, A.J., for my father’s behavior upstairs. I don’t know what got into him. I was angry at you at first for being so friendly with him. I was jealous, because we hardly ever talk that way anymore. Me and you, I mean. And, actually, me and him. But now I realize that I was actually angry with my father for allowing himself to lose control.”

“It’s okay, angel, really. I was—sort of angry that he started drinking, too.” But, to be honest, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. All I could think about was that recommendation I needed.

“Really? Is it okay?”

“I’m okay, really. I’m over it. But I wish you hadn’t had that glass of champagne. That was sort of sad to see.”

“I’m sorry!” she howled at the top of her lungs. It was not in anger but fear—fear that I would storm out of her house right then and there. But I wasn’t angry with her at all. Hell, I had the perfect match: her father’s admiration for me and her loss of whatever respect she had left for him. At that moment, for the first time in months, I was the only person in the world she could turn to for love and guidance.

“It’s all right, baby. Really. I love you so much. I forgive you. I know why you drank. Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve, right?” For a moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could tell her that I’d learned to enjoy drinking, that maybe we could be drinking buddies.

But she looked at me with those doey eyes and said, “I don’t want to turn into my father.” She sniffled.