Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

That look melted me as we stood in the center of her room, a room that had witnessed an unimaginable number of fights and kisses over the past year. That special bed, Maria’s bed, sat silently in the corner, the covers tucked in tightly. I looked down at my sneakers, then up at the light. There was nothing to say, except: “Maria, I—I cheated on you.”

Maria was a cool character ordinarily. She’d installed those mirrors in her living room as her father sat in the den, downing his ninth beer of the night. She’d quit smoking and turned to Shakespeare of all things for solace. She’d accepted my questions about her past, groaning only occasionally.

But that day Maria was not cool. Her icy stare melted away and within seconds she broke down crying. She bawled for several minutes. It seemed like hours. She was so upset, in fact, that I honestly thought she was going to attack me. But Maria never lost control, so she didn’t do any such thing. Instead, she turned toward her dresser and opened a drawer, softly, meticulously. Equally cautiously, she picked up several poems I’d given her over the past year. They were still in the original off-white envelopes, as fresh and crisp as the day I wrote them. Violently, she stripped her neck of the date-plate I’d given her for Christmas, breaking it at the clasp. I heard it ping against the wooden floor.

Remaining silent, Maria handed me the letters, and started to cry. I accepted them, not knowing what else to do. I heard a garbage truck rumble down the pothole-ridden street. Its thunder shook my insides and smooshed them into mashed potatoes. Maria grabbed my shoulder, attempting to force me to turn around, and said, flatly: “Get out.”

That’s when she stopped crying. That’s when I broke down in tears.

“Please, Maria,” I began to beg, “Please don’t do this. It was only one kiss. I’m sorry!”

“Get out.”

I screamed, “Pleeeeeaaaase!” and dropped down to my knees like an animal. And I am not saying that figuratively. I was literally an animal, writing in pain on the floor, like a rhino that’s just been shot by a hunter. I smothered Maria’s boots with my wet face. I licked them, slurring out an occasional “I’m so sorry” amidst an avalanche of tears and a wall of wails.

After a minute or so, I heard someone on the floor above us, walking solidly toward the door which led to the staircase downstairs. Her mother yelled downstairs, asking if everything was all right. Maria told her Mom not to worry, to go back inside, that she had the situation under control.

“Get out.”

Speaking to her ankles: “Please, Maria. I—I was joking. I made the whole thing up. God, I—I was testing you. I didn’t kiss another girl. I didn’t do anything. It was all a set-up I did with me and some girls I met at a bar. I swear. I love you.” I spoke through a gush of tears which flowed so hard and fast that I heard them splashed onto the floor, joining the jumbled golden links.

“Nice try,” she said. “You’re full of shit. It’s taken me a long time to realize that, A.J. But you’re full of shit. And you’re full of yourself. But I guess that’s redundant, huh?” And then she laughed.

I was flabbergasted. She continued:

“Do you think I haven’t told my parents and sister all about you? Well, kiddo, I have. I didn’t at first, though, because I thought everything was my fault. I thought I was wrong for having friends that you didn’t know, a past you weren’t part of. I hated— hated —myself for drinking Upstate with my cousin. I hated myself for having a life before you. You made me feel that way. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been drinking every weekend since August. You can’t fool me.

“I wasn’t sure about it at first. Like I said, at first I really thought it was my fault. I really thought I was a bad person. Oh, sure, you were great—wonderful, in fact—for the first few dates. But then, the more I told you about myself, the more you resented me.

“You should have loved me, A.J.! You should have loved me for baring my soul to you. Amici con tutti, confidenza con nessuno. Remember that, A.J.? Remember that? I thought you were my confidant. I trusted you more than my own father. I thought I could confide in you, and that we could grow old together, just like we used to talk about.

“But, no, you had to fuck it up, didn’t you? It wasn’t until Christmas—remember the opera?—when I first told my mother about you. The real you. She brushed it aside; she defended you . She said I was overreacting, and I believed her. But more and more I became convinced that I wasn’t overreacting. You were. If I didn’t say ‘I love you’ first-thing each time we spoke on the phone, it was a crime. If I was friendly with somebody else, it was a sin.

“Last summer, I was depressed about my father and mother, because I thought they might be getting divorced, so I drank. You sentenced me to death for that crime, didn’t you? You couldn’t just forgive me for it, like any decent person would’ve done. I begged for you to forgive me. I even begged God to forgive me, because I thought your anger at me was equivalent to God’s.

“And you convinced me that it was. But slowly, A.J., very slowly I figured it all out. I figured out that you didn’t love me, you only loved being my God. You wanted nothing more than to control me. Control , A.J. Do you understand what the hell that means? You controlled me through your questions—no, your interrogations. You had to know each and every detail of my life, didn’t you? Oh, sure, I wanted to open up to you, I wanted you to be my confidant. But you just had to take it too far. You wouldn’t quit until both you and I had relived each and every dreadful moment of my life. Never the good times; only the bad ones.

“You know, I just realized that there’s only one thing about me that you never found out—you never found out why I’m a year behind in school. I was surprised that you never pressed me on that one. Well, now I’ll tell you: I was left back because of a custody fight between my parents when I was in the second grade. They were legally separated for a year, and my mother took my father to court to try and keep me. I was so upset that I failed all my classes and got left back.

“So there you go, A.J.—Whew!—” she chuckled defiantly—“now you know every little detail. Now I am truly free. Now there’s nothing more you could possibly ask me. I won’t allow you to make me relive that one. I’m one-up on you, A.J., for the first time ever.

“I want you to leave my house and never come back. Got that?” She poked my sternum so hard that I almost fell over. “And it’s not just because of what you told me today. In fact, I thank you for cheating on me, really, because it’s given me the chance to break up with you—to never see your fucking face again—sooner than I thought.

“I can’t wait to call Lynn and tell her. Remember Lynn? She was my best friend until we both met you. Oh, but you wouldn’t allow me to be her friend. It was against A.J.’s Rules. So guess how many friends I have now? Zero. None. I haven’t had a friend other than you in almost a year. I remember that Kelvin and I used to hang out before class; nothing really, just talk and that’s it. But you said Kelvin couldn’t be my friend, so I haven’t spoken to him in months. I used to tell Cindy all about you in history class every day. But I stopped speaking to her after you went ballistic in the mall. And you said lots of other people couldn’t be my friends—even when you didn’t say it, you implied it—and I was afraid to have a friend besides you. I never trusted people much, but that was always my choice, based on my experience. It was never forced upon me, through fear and jealousy, by a person that made love to me, a person I gave myself to.