Little Boy

by Anthony Prato

  “Can we get one?” I asked, pointing at the velvety flag above us.

  “Sure,” my you said. “Anything you want.”

  Back in Queens, the flag and the photo of you, Dad, would forge a shrine to the Air Force right in my own little bedroom. They would inspire me each morning to work hard, to get into the Academy.

  “Put it right on your wall,” you said, smiling. “I’ll even help you hang it up.”

  And you did. We placed to the right of my V-J Day poster and to the left of my picture of you. I was glad I had the kind of dad to help me with stuff like that. I could’ve murdered a man, and been completely guilty. But still, you would stand right next to me as I was being sentenced, pleading with the judge to set me free. That’s just the type of man you were—and still are. He was everything Maria’s father was not. There’d never been so striking a contrast until those few days in Colorado.

  In Colorado, I thought about Maria’s dad, and about Maria. For a while, I thought the feeling I had, the vacuum in my stomach, was just my conscience telling me to call her. Once I even ran to a pay phone when you were in the bathroom, and thought about giving her a call. But as the dial tone hummed in my ear, it became apparent that a simple phone call couldn’t eradicate whatever it was that was bothering me. Besides, I had no idea what to say to her. I was still so angry at Maria. But the void didn’t come from her. It was something else.

  Seeing all those jets made me think of arcade games I played when I was a kid. Do you remember, Mom, how you used to let me go to the candy store on my skateboard? I remember going there after school hundreds of times.

  I used to play Gauntlet and Double Dragon. Sometimes I’d play alone, but often against the other kids. We’d place our quarters in a row on the top of the machine, the next quarter representing the next person who got to play the game. It was a rudimentary yet remarkably fair system. So easy and innocent.

  My favorite game was called1945—about a secret World War II mission to Japan. You were a pilot, flying what looked like a Bell X-1. It probably wasn’t a Bell X-1, though, because those weren’t used in World War II. That was the first plane to fly at the speed of sound, Mach 1, on October 14, 1947. Anyway, the stupid kids at the arcade thought they were flying an F-16 when they played 1945. But I knew better than them. I knew that F-16s hadn’t even been invented yet.

  It was a cool game, because you could blow shit up with rapid-fire machine guns and bomb the hell out of miniature buildings and cars below. I still remember the day that I beat that game. It took me sixteen quarters and 45 minutes, but I did it. I was the hero of the arcade the day I beat the game. And I was only ten or eleven years old when I did it.

  That day in Colorado, I wished that I could be ten years old again. What a life I had back then, a life filled with candy store arcade games. No worries about Maria and her past. No knowledge of the past at all, or the future for that matter. Just the present.

  Maybe that was the feeling that was bothering me, the feeling that I hadn’t played a video game in years, and that now I was going to have to do all this stuff for real. I didn’t have any qualms about shooting an enemy plane down; and it wasn’t like most of the Academy graduates ever got to actually be in combat, anyway. I don’t know. Now I was aware of the past and the future, and could always contrast and compare them to the present. And I thought about how hard it was to get into the Air Force Academy, and how hard being a good person was, in general, and wished it all was as easy as beating that goddamn game.

  Chapter 14

  L’Enfant Reformation II

  About halfway through my senior year of high school, I began to sleep more often than I used to.

  In between my naps, I would ruffle through the Air Force Academy brochure and application, and contemplate how exciting it would be to finish it up and finally get in. The application was large and complex. I had to write two 500-word essays, secure recommendations from both my Congressman and my teachers, and provide the Academy with tons of detailed personal information.

  Among my many after-school and evening naps, I recall one in particular that truly rattled my soul. One afternoon, I dreamt that I was drifting along a neighborhood block in Queens that looked similar to my own, holding my arms close to my body to protect myself from the chilly wind. Cigarette smoke, along with my frozen breath, blew from my lips and created a cloud tailing behind me down the desolate street. It was the only moving body beside myself—and the trees.

  The trees above swayed with the wind. Their colors were changing right before me. A season of nature’s work was compressed into only a few minutes as a kaleidoscope of vibrant shades and tones appeared above—red, yellow, orange, brown—each brighter and livelier than the next. The colors turned as the wind blew stronger.

  One by one, each leaf dropped. Within moments the street was paved with a mattress of leaves and twigs. I wanted to tumble to the floor and roll among the foliage.

  I picked up a large leaf. It was golden yellow with brown specks on the surface of its blades. Its texture felt cold and leathery; I admired its three pointed spears.

  And then, suddenly, somehow, a wooden ladder appeared before me. It was leaning against the trunk of a tree like the one in front of my house growing up—one of those London Plane trees, whose bark peels off in shards of gray and tan and yellow, as if it’s growing so rapidly that its shell can’t contain the insides. The ladder itself was old and splintery. It dared me to ascend.

  So I did. Though I didn’t realize just why at first.

  After reaching the top of the ladder—it was only about five or six steps tall—I began to comprehend my mission. Without a second thought, I pulled from my coat pocket a roll of tape that I didn’t know was there until that moment. It surprised me only for a second.

  I glanced at the yellow leaf with brown specks before my eyes. I tore a piece of the tape off, lifted the leaf to the barren branch above, and stuck it on a limb. Then I climbed down the ladder, grabbed another leaf, climbed back up the ladder, and reattached it. I did this over and over again, tree after tree, for what seemed like days, until the carpet of leaves below had disappeared completely, and the trees were brimming with colorful life once again.

  After descending the ladder for the final time, I began walking down the street, proud of my accomplishment. I had saved the trees.

  But, as I reached the corner of the block, I turned my head back one last time and admired my work. And that very first yellow and brown leaf fell to the ground once again. All the rest followed. I don’t know just why, but when I ran back to the first tree I’d climbed, the ladder was gone. And I began to cry.

  ***

  When the cold November rains arrived, just starting to bring on winter, I had only spoken to Maria a few times since she admitted to her lie. Each time I called her I became angry and hung up. Then I would call back again, and hang up again.

  I bought a forty ounce bottle of Wild Thing malt liquor at the bodega near my house, the same brand I’d seen the hoods drink on street corners in Maria’s neighborhood. One night in my room, I consumed every last drop in under an hour. I was drunk.

  Sitting on my bed, gazing at the Air Force flag, as well as the World War II poster and my favorite photo, I thought about the Academy. I’d already gotten all of the major paperwork done. But I still needed a testimonial from someone in the military, someone not related to me. For a while, all I thought of that night was Maria’s father.

  But I remember looking out the window, beckoned by the moon. The evening was approaching; the fall brought on darkness sooner than it had for the last four or five months. To funnel the breeze through my room, so that the smoke from my cigarette would quickly disappear, I kept my window wide open. But there was no wind. A wall of chilly air adjoined my room, and reminded me that I was sane, that my bones still had life. I could have sworn that I heard crickets outside, but it felt too cold for there to be crickets.

  Luckily, my grades were great. Instead of speaking
with Maria on the phone for hours, night after night, I did all my homework and studied for the SATs, striving for a 1300. I’d been getting along with you better than ever, Dad, especially since we visited Colorado. And even you, Mom, were not so bad all of a sudden. Not speaking made me love you more than ever before.

  Thinking about all of this in my drunken trance, I felt lonely. I felt as I’d felt before Maria and I ever met. It was dreadful. I was so goddamn lonely that I actually called a phone sex number advertised in a porno magazine I’d bought

  I still remember the woman’s name—Natasha. She said she had big tits and a tight, shaved pussy. She moaned like a whore and begged me to fuck her hard and come on her ass. I listened, silently, without a clue, without an erection. A few minutes into the conversation, if you can call it that, I said to Natasha: “You’re a fucking skank,” rather politely, actually. Then I hung up, and was as lonely as I was before.

  My life is really pathetic, I thought. I hadn’t kissed or dated a girl since Maria, and I didn’t want to. Anger filled my heart and soul as I envisioned her getting wasted Upstate. But I still longed to talk to, maybe, apologize.

  It’s a strange emotion when you hate a girl, but also want to apologize to her. I guess I hated her because I wanted to apologize. I can’t explain it. But those two notions swirled within my head like two twisters, each fighting the other.

  I could easily nap like a baby each afternoon. But I couldn’t sleep through the night without being awoken by the twisters, always sweating hard, yet shivering.

  Should I call Maria, and ask her to be my girlfriend again?

  I asked Kyle. “Call her,” he said. “Boss, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, you she didn’t do nothing’ wrong.” He feigned a Brooklyn Mafioso accent like he always did.

  “Call her,” Rick advised me. “If you didn’t love her so much, you wouldn’t be thinking about it.” Interesting point, I thought.

  “Do you love her?” asked Paul. “Do you really love her?” Somehow Paul had a knack for making a tough situation worse. Where does he come up with questions like that?

  I was so confused. Stretched out on my bed, filling the still air with warm, swirling cigarette smoke, I began to cry. My friends were right. Why, then, was it so difficult to listen to them?

  All I wanted from life was to grow old with The One. But in order to do that, I had to accept Maria’s situation for what it was: a minor indiscretion committed by an otherwise wholesome and genuine person.

  Am I a man? If so, what kind of fucking man am I? Why won’t I listen to my friends? What would my father do in a similar situation? I mulled these questions over until, exhausted by deliberation and reflection, I fell asleep.

  My slumbering rationalism woke with me early the next morning.

  It’s time for L’Enfant Reformation II, I thought. It’s finally time to ‘get my act together,’ as my mother always says.

  I stood up, walked over to the Air Force flag, knelt down, and stroked my nose on its velvety fabric. It smelled new and fresh. I sensed a new me. I will call Maria up, and I will forgive her.

  ***

  We had another perfect date a few days later. I was so proud of myself. Mom, you were sober for a while, and I had no beef with you. I remember smiling when you asked, “How was your date?” after I got home from being with Maria. We didn’t talk, but still, I knew you were trying. I was, too.

  Dad, all was well between me and you, but inside your face I saw doubt. You knew I was suffering for some reason, and you wanted to help. But I never did more than just look back at you, empty-eyed. To this day I wish I had said something about my problems with Maria. Now I know that they could have been solved had I just told you my story.

  Still, there was a calm in my life. I had taken Maria back, and for at least a little while I never brought up her past, or her drinking.

  One night she called me. It was one of those special phone calls, because I was thinking I wish she’d call me but I didn’t expect to hear from her. I got a lot of those calls back then. And I still remember what I was thinking when she called, and as it turned out, she was thinking the same thing.

  “Let’s go to Central Park,” she said, as if the weight of the world had just been lifted off her shoulders and she wanted to celebrate with a holiday.

  “The pond?”

  “Of course. It’ll be fifty-five tomorrow, and that’s warm enough to have a picnic. I’ll make sandwiches. Do you want baloney or ham and cheese? And you like the sour pickles, right?”

  “What are you, a deli?” I chuckled. She sounded so cute. “Sour pickles, yes. Baloney and cheese sounds great. But not too much mayo.”

  “We’ll buy a Snapple in the park.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And I have something special to tell you tomorrow. But I’m sorry, I can’t tell you on the phone.”

  “Oh, shit, now I’ll be thinking about this all night.”

  “Don’t worry, I promise it’s not bad. It’s super-good.”

  I was nervous, though. I always hated it when people held back secrets, even good ones. I remember not being able to sleep that night, comforted only by the thoughts of taking a nap by the pond the next day.

  “So what’s your secret?” I asked, over and over again, from that phone call into tomorrow, where we found ourselves munching on celery sticks and homemade hummus and baloney sandwiches.

  “Give me a few minutes, okay babe?” Maria asked, palming my cheek. Her hands were warm and even the air around us felt warm. It was a humid day, and we were actually sweating. A light breeze blew and evaporated the perspiration on our faces. Even though I was desperate to find out her secret, my attraction to her that day won out.

  I leaned in and kissed Maria. Her lips locked onto mine perfectly. No need to move our necks, no cause for lip adjustment. Fastened to one another’s lips, our tongues met, each massaging its counterpart, gently and evenly. I grabbed her hair and kneaded the back of her little head like dough. It was so small I could palm it like a softball. Our bodies pressed together and we crashed to the blanket, and rolled on and off it, back and forth, on the blanket, then on the cold grass, charmingly and beautifully embraced…and kissing, kissing, kissing.

  I loved Maria so much at that moment. I didn’t care about her past, or her lie. She was ten times better than me. No, a hundred times. And I knew it. I was embracing gold, and it was melting all over my body.

  I managed to release my hand from in between her butt and jeans and turn on my cassette player. Seconds later, Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel was playing softly, but just loud enough for us to feel the vibrations of the speakers. We rolled and rolled and rolled, kissing and groping like only teenagers could.

  After a half-hour or so—and I’m not exaggerating, it really was an hour—all of a sudden the sky cracked and rain came pouring down. It literally went from a blue sky to a black one, and not just rain but hail was coming down. Passers-by ran for cover as the rain splattered the stone bridge overlooking the embankment.

  Maria and I jumped up. “Let’s get out of here!” she screamed. I grabbed her hand and gathered up all the stuff on the now-drenched blanket. Hail pummeled us as we rain up the slope, to the pathway, and onto Fifth Avenue. By the time we got to the R train we were soaked and shivering. But the feelings we had just had in the park remained. I clutched Maria’s body and we both went sound asleep. More than a dozen stops later and we were dry and comfortable, awakening from a nap. “I’ll walk you to the bus,” I said.

  “No, A.J., it’s cold outside. You keep going, I’ll be okay.”

  “No, no, I have to go. You never told me about your surprise.”

  “Oh, God, that’s right!” She grabbed my hand and practically dragged me up the stairs to the European-American Bank on the corner of Grand Avenue and Queens Boulevard. There we waited for the Q58 bus, which would soon take her home to Ridgewood.

  Nobody else was around, which was strange, because usually there was a long
line for the bus. Sitting alone in the bus in the bus shelter, protected from the elements within that strange glass box, we sat silently, me dying to hear what she had to say and her apparently too nervous to tell me.