Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

I don’t remember much about her, but I do remember that Maggie was fifteen, and lived in Elmhurst, a few blocks from the bar. I think the schools in Elmhurst are like ninety percent immigrant. To her neighbors, she was just another non-white girl amidst the Indian restaurants and Chinese take-out places. To me she was exotic. As different as Maria was from me, Maggie was my diametrical opposite. Her nights, she told me, were spent hanging out on her stoop, meringue blaring from boom boxes down the block, smoking pot and sipping cheap wine, trying to keep the ugliest of the hoods from groping her body, flirting with the best-looking ones. Saturday night at Kearney’s was the highlight of each week, worth sporting her best clothing and donning a layer of makeup. She was pretty but poor. I’m gonna be her knight in shining armor , I thought.

Maggie was roughly Maria’s height and weight, but thinner and bustier. Had I not been so drunk by that point, and so close to passing out, I would’ve nestled my face into her bosom and suckled her chocolate nipples. But I didn’t. I played it cool. And as Kyle talked with her friends, Maggie and I walked outside to smoke a cigarette. It was pretty cold outside, and smoking, of course, was allowed in the bar. But, for some reason, we felt compelled to listen to each other in private, almost as if some brand of unique fate had brought us together, and we wanted to let it play out.

We hit it off at first. Maggie found everything I said funny and I enjoyed her conversation. She was Puerto Rican, with two brothers and three sisters. She said the only reason she went to Stella Maris was because she got some sort of music scholarship. Her father ran off when she was five.

Shockingly, I discovered all of that information within the first ten minutes or so. I couldn’t believe it. For some odd reason, Maggie was baring her soul to me, in front of a run-down bar on Queens Boulevard. She said she’d never had a serious boyfriend because she didn’t trust most guys enough to like them. “All of my boyfriends have been hoods,” she said, stressing the last word as one might say cancer . I said that might be because her father had run off when she was a kid, imprinting her mind with a negative idea of men. She agreed whole-heartedly, and, I thought, fell in love with me at that moment.

To give you an idea about the state of my mind that night, when Maggie mentioned that she’d had “plenty of sex,” and, in the same breath, that she’d once “fucked two guys at once,” I didn’t think twice about it. Looking back on it now—I mean, think about it—she was fifteen years old, and yet she’d had “plenty” of sex!—I could’ve caught syphilis or AIDS or God-knows-what. But I didn’t give a shit, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was carry out my plan.

After talking for what seemed like hours, we stood, silently, holding hands and smiling. Maggie shivered in the frigid night, not minding the silence a bit. Her nipples pierced her silky blouse; whether she was cold or excited or both I didn’t know. Her long eyelashes went blink, blink, blink as the cold breeze whipped its way down Queens Boulevard, carrying with it stray garbage. I sensed it was my duty to help her. Clearly, she was too sexually promiscuous for a fifteen year old. I was shocked by everything she had said. In fact, I was a little jealous. Then I wondered: Is she telling the truth? Is she really bashful about fucking so many guys? Is she a nice kid from a rough neighborhood— or is she just a slut? With each shiver I questioned her motives. But she looked so cute and sexy. The longer the silence grew, however, the more curious about her and attracted to her I became.

But what the hell did I care? All I wanted to do was impress her, and fuck her. I interrupted the serenity and told her that I wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force, that I was probably going to the Academy in Colorado the next fall. Unimpressed by my confident plans, she answered with an oh-so-elusive look that I’d been watching for all night. It said: Who cares? Just fuck me.

“So, what’s your whole name? Margaret?”

“Actually, it’s Magdalena. But I don’t like that name, so I tell people to call me Maggie. Magdalena sounds so stupid.”

“I think it’s a beautiful name.” I really did like it. “What do you do for fun? You said you come to Kearney’s each weekend?”

“Pretty much. All I ever do is come to Kearney’s,” she said, as she curled her fingers toward her face and glanced at her red polished nails. “It’s the only bar around here that doesn’t card.”

“Well, maybe you should get a boy to bring you somewhere nice, like a museum. Or Central Park. That’s where I like to go with my girlfriends.”

“Oh, do you have a girlfriend?”

Quick as lightening: “No!” Down, boy, down . “I mean no, no I don’t.”

“Wow. Central Park! I’ve never been there on a date or anything.”

“I’ll take you, Maggie. Just name the day and I’ll take you.” She was all smiles. I felt better than I had in months. I really felt like I could show her a whole new world out there.

“You live fifteen minutes away, and you’ve never been there?”

“No,” she said. “But I can’t wait to go with you.” She looked up at me and smiled.

“And you’ve never been there, right?”

“No, papi, I’m tellin’ you,” she insisted. I loved her accent! She was so fucking hot.

Maggie seemed interested in my conversation as well as my looks. Her little eyelashes flapped. Her smile revealed a string of pearls. Her face beamed. She probably wouldn’t have minded if I’d bent her over the trash can and fucked her right there on the boulevard. Sounds dirty, huh? But trust me—those are the kinds of looks she was giving me. Even though I knew I could make a move anytime, I just stood there, talking and laughing. I don’t know why, but I continued to ramble on, waiting for the right moment. “You remind me of this plane used in World War II, the Consolidated B-24 Liberator.”

“Huh?”

“I told you, I’m really into jets and planes.”

“You did? Oh yea,” she giggled.

“And some people,” I said, only people I like, remind me of different aircraft. The Liberator was a neat and compact jet. Just like you.”

“What did the Liberator do?” I was so pleased to hear her ask that question. Other girls had asked it. But not in that accent!

“It was the priMegan long-range bomber aircraft of the U. S. Army Air Force during the second world war. It was mass-produced. They made over eighteen-thousand of them.” She didn’t give a rat’s ass about my love of planes, but at least she faked some interest, and that’s what felt so marvelous.

“Cool,” she responded. “I can learn a lot from you. You’re real smart.”

I thought: There’s a lot more besides planes that you can learn from me. I said: “I’m real smart?”

“Si, estas muy inteligente.”

“Soy muy inteligente,” I said, proudly.

“No,” she corrected me. “Estoy…”

“ Estoy muy inteligente,” I said.

“Si, muy bueno,” she approved.

Magdalena looked up at the stars and blew a ring of smoke. The train rumbled below and shook the sidewalk. I placed my arm around Magdalena and kissed her.

Easter Sunday was two days later. Like most Catholic families in Queens, our family began the day in church at ten in the morning. Sitting in the pews as the choir bellowed its festive, joyous songs— Haaaaaallelujah! Haaaaaallelujah!

As the music shook me, I felt a mix of joy and sorrow, of accomplishment and regret.