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.
I endure each day wishing the past had never passed, that the future had never arrived. Every monument of my childhood and adolescence has crumbled. Angelo and Al’s Pizzeria, as it was called just a year ago, has changed ownership. Now it’s called Sarino and Sons. Fuck Sarino. And fuck his sons, too. The F-train runs on the old R line, the R on the old F line. On Fresh Meadows Lane, the old Mom and pop stationary store and shoe repair shop have been displaced by a lousy Starbucks. Perhaps fate will find a substitute for me, a more clear-headed young man in a future not so far away.
I regret that reaction as much as I regret every decision I made during my year with Maria. These days, regret is all I feel, as time crawls by me like a crippled turtle. I can’t see a future for myself in the distance, only what I am, what I caused, and what I should have done. I crouch behind my memories, pushing them ahead of me again and again each day. They’re bundled up into a boulder, one that grows perpetually and moves continuously in one direction. Without it in front of me, I would see the sun and the trees and the people. And I don’t want to see those things anymore. I refuse to notice them without a girl named Maria in my life.
I had such a plan for us. But it spun out of control.
Maybe now that I’m out of her life, she’ll pursue her dreams as my friends did theirs. Maybe she really is getting married, and she’ll finally write her Great American Novel. And, who knows, maybe she'll even write about me. I’d always dreamed of that, of Maria sitting there in the bedroom in her little basement, next to her little faux-window, typing away a love story about the two of us.
What is your novel going to be about, Maria? I whisper aloud in my room tonight, as the words drift out the window with the breeze, to be heard by no one. It’s something she should have heard from me over and over again. If only I had the chance to do it all over again.
Why not write a love story, Maria? Write it like Shakespeare would have. I know you can do it, baby. I love you. I love you. I have confidence in you.
What will you call your novel, Maria? Perhaps…Little Boy…
***
I miss the feeling of knowing someone loves me and cares for me, and having someone to grow old with. I can’t live without that security, without that power over my own life. I hate myself for losing control over my destiny. Maria was my personal flight navigator. Had I listened to her, to the decoded messages she sent me long before our breakup, we would still be together this very day. That I’m sure of. But I ignored her instructions; I decided to go at it alone. Doing that was the second greatest mistake of my life. My worst mistake was remaining alive for even one day after Maria and I parted.
In addition to the ceaseless sadness of knowing that I decapitated a beautiful relationship, I live with the anger of having allowed myself to fall into a quicksand like no other. The quicksand I’m submerged in doesn’t pull its victims completely under. It allows only their eyes to hover above its surface, compelling them to watch the rest of the world pass by as they are locked within its grip.
What I’m about to do makes me want to cry. But I won’t.
Never mind. The tears have just begun to swell under my eyelids and roll down my cheeks. They are splashing splash down into my crystal ashtray, and onto this very journal. This journal should have contained dozens of happy memories. But now, it reflects in words all of the events, both great and small, that I brood over each and every day. Within it you have finally discovered the mysterious nature of my life.
Mommy, now you know how much I hated you. Yet I am proud of you for conquering your demons, something I was not brave enough to do. I love you—I hate you—I never trusted you—I…I don’t know. I love you.
Daddy, I’m a man now. I’m finally a real man. When we visited the Academy together, when I was so scared and didn’t tell you, I remember wondering when and how this day would ever come.
I know I am tearing your hearts out. But I promise you will happier lives without me seething in my den above your heads each night.
I’ve always enjoyed the security of knowing, at the very least, that the events of the p
ast year were vaulted within my mind. That nobody, save Maria and, I suppose, Megan, could even catch a glimpse of my life. It doesn’t matter now, though, because even with each and every minor aspect of the past year on paper before the world, nobody will know much more than they do already. No person could possibly know, unless he’s taken each step that I’ve taken, and dealt each blow that I’ve dealt.
All my plans have been shattered. There’s only one thing left that I have complete control over, only one swift action which will give me a pride I haven’t felt in eons. It has, I know, been a certain conclusion to my struggle for quite some time. But I’m weak. And only now have I collected the strength to do it. I have only one plan left. And this plan shall yield positive results soon.
Please note: I’m not doing this because I didn’t do what I should have done, but because, given the chance to do it all over again, I’m not sure if I’d have the courage do it right.
I can’t guide my life toward anything save an inevitable monotony of sorrow. However, at the very least, I can control precisely how it ends, as well as the words that describe it.
I’ve considered many endings for this letter—“Sincerely, A.J,” “From, A.J.”—and most recently I contemplated ending this letter with “Love, A.J.” But none of those phrases describes the situation honestly.
It’s time to pen a final journal entry which shall capture this moment like no other can. Although nobody has understood me throughout the past year, or throughout my entire life, this one sentence is as self-explanatory as the blood that spouted from Megan’s nose:
“I’m dead.”
Love,
A.J.…Little Boy
Little Boy Page 33