Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

She was as confident and hopeful as my old friends from high school seemed to be. And it killed me. I thought of all of them at that moment. Kyle and Paul and Rick and Mike—they’re all doing well. Kyle, currently the youngest DJ in the history of Long Island’s WNHR, is destined to be a famous comedian, I’m sure. He always managed to be crass and make people laugh without offending and harming people, and now on his morning show he’s being paid to do just that. Paul’s doing an internship with Chase Manhattan Bank this summer. I guess those extra math classes finally paid off. Mike’s the editor of New York University’s daily newspaper—a first for a freshman—and he reviews two movies per week. His dream is to review movies for the Daily News , and I have no doubt he’ll realize it soon. Rick’s at the New York Restaurant School, majoring in restaurant management. He co-manages a bar in Greenwich Village part-time between classes.

And Maria? Well, I ran into Lynn last month on the R-train and she updated me on Maria’s life.

“So, A.J.,” she said, “where are you going on the R-train at 8 a.m.? To morning work out at the Air Force Academy?” She chortled, vindictively, like the Wicked Witch of the West as she set upon Dorothy’s ruby slippers. But I had no lightening to zap her away.

“No, I go to Hunter College now. I decided to take a year off before the Academy.”

“I see,” she said.

“What are you doing on the subway so early? Gonna catch a train in Grand Central and head up to Saratoga to race?”

Unfazed by my sarcasm, she responded: “No, actually, I’m on my way to a bridal shop on Central Park South. I’m going to be a bride’s maid in a beautiful June wedding. June 21 st, to be exact—the first day of spring. Isn’t that romantic?” She spoke as if there was a viper up her sleeve.

“Not really,” I said. “I think marriage is a waste of time, no matter what month it’s in.”

“But don’t you want to know who the bride is?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She smiled. “ Maria .”

My heart fell to the subway’s filthy floor. I stared at the ground and searched but it had already degenerated. The train screeched to a halt at the Fifth Avenue and 59 thStreet stop. Ding-dong went the bell, signaling everyone to board or get off. “Toodle-oo,” I heard her say. I looked up and she was gone.

To this day I have no clue if Lynn was telling the truth or not. Hell, what are the odds that Maria got engaged and was about to get married all in a little over a year? Regardless, it stung. Regardless, it made me realize how much of a shmuck I really was, how pathetic I was.

I used to think I was so cool. But the more I reflect on my mistakes, the more obvious it becomes that I was a putz. I think a lot about Maria getting married, wearing that beautiful white dress, and how she told her new husband what an asshole her ex-boyfriend was. I think a lot about the time that Mike and Rick dumped water on my head, how Kyle reacted so coolly as I screamed in anger. Only now do I realize that they weren’t laughing at us. They were laughing at me . All of these realizations and thoughts struck me like lightning bolts at that moment in Strawberry Fields.

Megan remained silent, wondering what the hell had just shaken me. I ignored her as every second of the plan Maria and I never shared together exploded before my eyes—every detail that I’ve just described, every memory that should have been. It’s been a long time since Maria and I met at that dance, well over a year since we laughed and played and talked near the pond in Central Park. One year condensed right before my eyes, like a movie on a giant screen, with Dolby surround sound. I was all alone watching that movie, as sure as I was alone in the blackness of my room each night watching the baseball game.

I longed to show Megan the movie, to grab her back of her head, and force her eyes toward the colorful screen before me, like when they force Alex’s eyes open in A Clockwork Orange and make him watch those movies. Only then would she understand. Only then would she shut the hell up and hold my hand not as a stupid friend, but as dear a confidant as Maria might have been.

But I knew that that was too much to ask for. She refused to watch the pictures flying toward my eyes in vivid color and fascinating sound. Her smile, she felt, was an honest defense of her ignorance and innocence. She’s a phony , I thought, like everyone else, pretending to be blissfully uninformed as sure as Maria was conveniently unaware of my presence when she scurried past the bench just a few feet away .

Any parent knows that the worst thing a child can do is lie to them straight in the face. “I didn’t spill the milk.” It sounds so innocent; however, it’s deadly poison when you know it’s a flat-out lie. And I was being choked with such poison by Megan’s calm and friendly composure. Every muscle in my body screamed for a solution to my plight.

It was time to issue Megan her Last Rites. It was time to punctuate this relationship with an exclamation point, so I’d never have to think about it again.

Megan turned toward me and asked, “Is anything wrong?” But all I heard was: “I didn’t spill the milk.”

I rose, cocked my fist, and smashed my knuckles into her face.

For a moment, she didn’t scream. In that moment, I admired her beauty. The warm, red blood flowing from her nose and the acrid tears streaming from her eyes seemed to blend nicely with her strawberry-red hair. Right then and there in Central Park, Megan was transformed into the only genuine confidant I’ve ever had in my life. She was not only watching the movie; she was viewing it in 3-D.

As she whimpered, her face was frozen in a look of surprise even though she was frowning. “Why?” she asked, over and over again. “Why?” She looked confused. As Megan tried to wipe away the blood, she wailed like a freshly-shot elephant and the bellowed like a beached whale inhaling its last breath. Both clichés, I know, but true just the same. Trust me, I was there.

Had someone done that to me, I would’ve punched back. Or, at the very least, run away. But Megan didn’t attempt to retaliate or flee. She knew as well as I that she needed that punch to learn the secrets she never even knew had existed before. Megan had no right to plan her future in a neat little package, not until she knew I was out there. Not until she saw what I had been through. Not until she became aware that life was not the perfect bundle of joy she thought it was.

I spun around and ran away.

That happened today. And as I take the last drag of my last cigarette and mash it out in the gorged crystal ashtray beside me, as I gulp the final mouthful of tepid beer in my favorite mug, I can barely think of another word to write.

I've been sitting in this uncompromising oak desk chair for the last eight hours or so, writing in the very journal that until today had remained untouched since I inscribed: “I love Maria. Need I say more?”

I’m scheduled to begin classes next semester. I’m due at the deli tomorrow morning. A new guy is working there tonight. I hope it’s not too busy, for his sake.

I don’t think I’ll go to work anymore, or back to school. It’s not that I fear facing Megan once again. It’s not horror of going to jail. Christ, at this point, I’d consider jail a blessing. Being locked in a cell with only my thoughts to keep me company would only expedite a process destined to take place in my den each and every night, anyway.

And that’s just what my room is these days—a den. Even a bear, however, eventually awakens from his hibernation, and emerges to feed and forage in the forest once again. I choose not to leave my den. No—I can’t leave. It’s simply not imaginable for me. This afternoon I saw the sunlight and it’s just too damn hard to adjust to it.