Little Boy

by Anthony Prato

  I was impressed. What a louse her father was. I decided right then and there to show her what a real man was—gentle and strong, hard-working and industrious. Maria is a tough little girl, I thought. Stronger than me.

  We continued to watch TV, occasionally chatting. As usual, the conversation was great. Maria was unlike most girls because she actually paid attention to what I said, and then responded intelligently, continuing the conversation. A good conversation can last a lifetime.

  A recruitment commercial for the U. S. Air Force came on TV. It showed a quintet of F-14’s dashing through the sky. “That’s amazing,” Maria said. “How do those things fly?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was asking rhetorically, and was too nervous to ask. “It’s very simple, really, it all has to do with Newton’s third law of motion: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The way a jet rocket works is simple: the engine creates a high velocity blast of air and blows it out the tail end of the plane in an appropriately sized nozzle. This is what thrusts the plane and the rocket forward.”

  Maria was listening intently, so I just continued.

  “Man had never flown until December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But modern flight didn’t begin until Goddard helped perfect the rocket, which had been worked on for centuries beforehand unsuccessfully. Most people don’t know that the first rocket-propelled ‘jet’ took off from Germany in 1928, twenty-five years after the Wright brothers’ first flight.

  As I explained all of this to her, she seemed truly interested. That’s what I loved about her.

  “You’re so freakin’ smart!” she exclaimed. And then the funniest thing happened: we both started to giggle uncontrollably.

  Five minutes later, calming down, panting and smiling, we embraced. Maria started sliding down me, as if she wanted to lie down. But I encouraged her to stay up, because I was planning to kiss her soon. It had been a while since I’d last kissed her. I gazed at her lovable face and sweet lips and could almost taste her flesh in my mouth. She wore a snug white scoop-neck top with small oval collars. It was the same shirt every other Megan Louis girl was wearing, but only Maria looked like an angel in it.

  Although we were barely touching, I could smell her body; I could smell her hormones aching for mine. She was so beautiful—and I was so in love—that I could have broken down right then and there. About to keel over from the intensity of my desires, I finally gave in and leaned over and kissed her. It was the most passionate kiss we’d had, the most enthusiastic I’d ever experienced. I drank her saliva as our tongues wrestle; I clutched her face on either side. She was getting wet, I knew it.

  Slowly, I moved my fingertips down her neck and past her shoulder. Grasping her skirt’s waistband, I inserted my fingers and pulled the front tail of her blouse out. For the first time ever, I felt her tummy. And I can’t call it a stomach, because that’s too harsh. It was a tummy. And a sexy one at that. Covering her belly-button with my thumb, I fanned my fingers across her tummy, slowly moving upward. She didn’t seem to mind; I was thrilled that she didn’t balk.

  I couldn’t say she was chubby, but she wasn’t a stick. Whatever it was, I loved it. And what I loved more was less than an inch away. That inch disappeared, and soon I was poking my index finger underneath the hard wire that supported her large bosom. All at once my right hand was cupped over her left breast, engulfing her large, soft nipples. I couldn’t have been holding her breasts for more than five seconds when, suddenly, she grabbed my wrist and yanked it out from under her blouse.

  “I’m not ready yet,” she said, shaking her head apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not ready? But what about what you said last night on the phone?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t feel comfortable.”

  “Oh, come on, what a tease you are—saying one thing and then doing another!”

  “Listen, A.J., I’m just not ready!” She started to cry. A perfect day ruined right before my eyes! I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, her dog started to bark. For a second I thought Maria was going to sic it on me.

  “Let me go and check on Maxie,” she said.

  She practically ran away from the sofa; I heard her sniffling and then blowing her nose in the kitchen. ‘Maxie’ stopped yelping as Maria cooed at it and called it ‘baby.’ I was so angry and, yes, jealous of her dog. She treats the dog better than she treats me, I thought.

  To this day, I’ve never experienced a more uneasy feeling than I did that afternoon. I was angry, but also sad that Maria had become so upset. I couldn’t help but imagine losing her over this whole disagreement. I’m just the kind of guy that likes his friends to keep their word. I hate liars. I really do. And I despise two-faced girls, especially.

  I started thinking of what my friend Kyle would do in the same situation. When I’d told him about Lynn and what happened in the mall, and then about how I broke up with her, he didn’t react as I’d hoped. I really thought that, of all people, Kyle was the one who’d slap me five and say, “Way to go, Gahdfaddah.”

  But when I told him about what happened with Lynn, he just looked at me grimly and responded: “Hey, boss—better judgment.” He’d never said that to me before, but it wouldn’t be the last time. It would’ve been a slap in the face had he said that in front of Paul or Mike. But, as usual, Kyle was a cool consigliere, and he advised discreetly. I didn’t really know what the hell he meant when he said it. But I guess what he was trying to say was that using Lynn and then dumping her was wrong.

  Well, I wanted to use good judgment with Maria. As a matter of fact, I wanted to end the spat as swiftly as possible. When she returned from the kitchen, and sat on the other side of the sofa from me, I reached over and rubbed her thigh gently.

  “Is it okay to rub your thigh?” I asked.

  “Don’t be a fucking dick,” she said, angrily. I don’t know why, but it was always sexy to hear her use profanity.

  “Oh, come on, Maria. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you weren’t ready. But you shouldn’t go around telling me that you’re prepared to do something you’re not.”

  “Go around? Huh? Are you saying it’s my fault?” I didn’t say a word. “Because I thought I could trust you enough to tell you what I was thinking. And just because I was thinking about something, that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”

  “I really thought you meant you wanted to do it. Maybe I misunderstood—or you didn’t explain it well enough.”

  “Most of the guys I’ve known are too dumb to understand the difference between thinking and doing. I thought you were different.” She hit me right where it hurt with that comment; I loathed being compared to the loser guys she’d dated.

  “I’m different!” I insisted. No response. “Really, I am. And I’m sorry. From now on I’ll listen to you more intently. And I won’t assume anything. Because you know what happens when you assume—you make as ass out of you and me.” Finally, she laughed.

  “I’ve never heard that before,” she said. I didn’t tell her that it was Sister Domenica from St. Ann’s who told me that to my face when I announced sarcastically that I assumed I could shout in the school library.

  I took Maria’s hand in mine. “Listen, let’s just forget this altogether, okay? You tell me when you’re ready to go further than kissing. The ball’s in your court.”

  Smiling, Maria looked up at me, scooted down the couch, and leaned her head against my shoulder. I could tell that she was still somewhat skeptical. She didn’t know if she should remain angry with me or not. And, to be honest, neither did I. Finally, it was just as the disagreement hadn’t even happened. The hostility simply dissipated.

  We were huddled together on the couch, much closer than we usually were on the blanket in Central Park. I heard birds chirping outside, and the cool early summer breeze whirled through her window.

  Maria closed her eyes for a moment and didn’t notice as I crooked my neck and pressed my head against the i
nch of painted wall between the two mirrors directly behind me. The left half of my face was divided from my right. It’s weird when you do that, because you can see how different one side of your face is from the other. Actually, it looked sort of scary, so I quickly pulled back and returned to staring at Maria, smelling her sweet black, syrupy hair.

  At last, she reopened her dark little eyes and looked up at me. “Thank you,” she said with a sigh. “For a minute there I thought you were like that guy in the park, or all the other guys I’ve met.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I promise, baby.”

  Kyle would’ve been proud.

  ***

  Several days later, when I saw Maria again, I gave her the following poem that I’d written about her:

  It’s so easy to hurt the one that you love—you don’t even have to try.

  Without second thoughts or serious doubts, you’ll place a tear in her eye.

  Testing her love must be done, though you know it’s not the right way.

  But when it happens you simply must hope she’ll love you again the next day.

  I wrote the poem because, more and more, I was falling in love with Maria, and I knew that she felt the same way. But I had two problems. First, I was getting more and more jealous of her, and I was beginning to not be able to stop myself from testing her, questioning her. It’s hard to describe. Strangely, I still feel the same way even though I know she’s not around.

  The second problem I had was getting her to say “I love you” first. I don’t know why I wanted it that way. I just did.

  She read the poem and nearly cried. I knew that by the end of our conversation, she’d say I love you to me, and I’d say it back. But the conversation was tough. It was difficult to get it out of her. She implied that she wanted to say it, though. In fact, I remember her saying, “A.J., there’s something I want to tell you,” at least two or three times. I asked her if it was a good thing, and she said that it was. I couldn’t wait to hear her say it.

  “Has anyone ever told you that she loved you?” she asked.

  “No,” I responded. “Nobody has ever said that before.”

  “Have you ever told anyone that you loved them?”

  I hesitated. “No.”

  I lied. I’d told Rachel that I loved her about a year before. But I was only fifteen back then, and now I was seventeen, and I really did love Maria. I didn’t want to break her heart by telling her the truth.

  “Has anyone ever said they loved you, or vice-versa?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” she said. “I wouldn’t let them, and I wouldn’t let myself. It’s immature to say it unless you mean it.”

  Again, I hesitated. “Were you surprised that I used the word ‘love’ in my poem?”

  “I was, but I was happy that you used that word. Did you mean it?”

  I was going to respond, but she interrupted before I had the chance.

  “A.J., there’s something I have to tell you.” All at once, I was nervous and excited. Just hearing those words—I love you—from a girl like Maria was all I could ever ask for. She was so beautiful. And she’d never had a boyfriend before. I knew she’d had a hard life. It must be so difficult for her to trust anyone, to express love, I thought.

  “You know,” she said, “my mom always tells me that I don’t hug people enough—that I never hug anyone.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I continued to listen.

  “But it’s not that I don’t want to hug her or my father or my friends, it’s just that I don’t want to get that close to anyone. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” I said. I should’ve stopped there, but I didn’t.

  “But what’s the big deal about hugging someone?” I asked. I was so immature.

  “What’s the big deal? A.J., hugging a person is an act of love, of caring. You’re placing your entire body within another’s arms, and theirs within yours. You’re saying, ‘I trust you.’ You’re saying to that person, ‘If I fall, please catch me, because I trust you enough to place not only my body, but my heart and mind under your care.’”

  “That’s very eloquent,” I said. And it was. Maria didn’t usually speak that way. She lived in Ridgewood, along Fresh Pond Road, a working class neighborhood where kids still played stickball in the streets, and hung out on in front of bodegas all hours of the night. Often, she spoke like a girl who spent a lot of her time hanging out on those corners for most of her young life. So, naturally, she began to speak like the people she hung out with. Instead of saying “these,” she sometimes said “dese”; she often replaced “talk” with “tawk”; she referred to her dog as a “dawg.” I guess I did it a little too, because I’m also from New York, but Maria took it to another level. Her Brooklynese was exotic. It was like listening to a very intelligent woman with a foreign accent, but that accent is from your own city. It sort of turned me on.

  But Maria had a way of wiping away that accent when she needed to—especially when she spoke with me. I don’t know whether it was conscious or not. It might’ve been totally offhand. Either way, when she dropped her Brooklyn accent, her voice was like a mature woman’s, even though she was only sixteen. And her words were, too. But most importantly, her feelings were mature. There was no doubt in my mind that night that when she said “A.J., I think I’m falling in love with you,” she meant it. No matter the accent, Maria would never say anything that she didn’t mean.

  “A.J.,” she said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Why don’t you say it, then?” I think that came out a little harsh, and I didn’t intend it to sound that way. But Maria knew what I meant.

  “A.J., I love you.”

  Pause. Dead silence. I didn’t say a word for what seemed like five minutes. Then I responded:

  “Maria, that was a very tough thing for you to say, I’m sure. After all that you’ve told me about yourself—and I’m sure I don’t even know half of everything there is to know—I’m, well, impressed that you had the guts to say what you just said. And flattered. It’s difficult to tell someone you love them when you’re unsure about how they feel about you. And it seems to me that we are each in search of someone special, someone to confide in. I think that both of us have been screwed a lot in the past. I think that, finally, we’ve each found in the other someone that we think we can trust.” I grinned in delight. Maria grinned back. “Most importantly, we’ve each found someone to hug, because we both know that the other will be there in case the other falls.”

  No response. I think I was a little long-winded, but I wanted to get a lot of stuff through to her before I expressed my love.

  “Thank you for saying that, Maria. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you express such a powerful emotion. I can’t thank you enough. But I guess a good start might be saying “I love you,” as well, because I really do love you, Maria.”

  For a split second, Maria and I shared a silent but mature bliss. It was as mystical a moment as two teenagers could have.

  We continued to talk for a little while longer. It was almost as if what was just said hadn’t even been said—but in a good way.

  Before I left that day, I said that we should celebrate that day, June 14, 1992, forever and ever, because that was the day that we expressed feelings we’d had for each other for so long.

  “Happy June Fourteenth,” she said. “Have a good night, A.J. I love you, hopeful.”

  “I love you, too,” I said. I flew home in the Skylark, happy as could be. When I got home, I wrote the following line in my journal:

  “I love Maria. Need I say more?”

  I’m glad I was alone, because I was speechless. I never felt so speechless again until today when I was in Central Park with Megan.