Little Boy

by Anthony Prato

  Probably not. But it’s an interesting thought.

  Anyway, until that point, I’d never bothered to speak to Jeff in school unless I was asking him for an answer on a test or something. But dances, like drugs, changed personalities. Sometimes, they made even the weakest kids feel confident and bold. Jeff was one of the least popular guys in school. But arriving at the dance with a girl—even though it was his sister—thrust him into the spotlight, and made him somebody other than he was: a big shot. From a distance, most people probably assumed his sister was his girlfriend. I’m sure he did little to change their minds. That assumption was enough to make him strut around like a cock on a farm. And to impress his sister, he made believe that he was buddies with the whole goddamn school. The sorry fat-assed bastard.

  Uncharacteristically cool, Jeff introduced his sister to my group and we all bull-shitted for a few minutes. I checked out Jeff’s sister. She was fat. Well, not fat, but certainly not thin. And she was pretty flat-chested, which sucked. What a combo: fat and flat. And she didn’t seem to be capable of closing her mouth. She wasn’t talking or anything; she just stood there, right near my chair, with her rumpled mouth drooling like she was a Basset hound waiting for a biscuit. I guess she was nervous, because she was so close to a guy that she was hot for, namely me.

  We sat there for a while, me and my friends, Paul, Rick, Mike, and Kyle, while Jeff and his sister stood next to us, with Jeff doing all the talking. What he said I can’t remember exactly. I just recollect thinking that if he kept his mouth open any longer he was going to eat someone—or French kiss his sister, whose own lips seemed propped open by toothpicks, as if she were about to say something and then froze when she forgot what it was.

  Somehow we all wound up on the dance floor. It was fucking pathetic. There we were, me and my friends and Jeff, dancing around this one fat chick. Boy was she happy to get all that attention. That’s what the dance floor could do to you. All that music and murkiness and people shouting and having a grand old time makes it easy to forget that you’re a big fat girl being shared by five horny Guidos.

  What’s worse is that I didn’t even know how to dance. What’s worse than that is that I hated trying to make believe I knew how to dance. But I did it anyway, because, like I said, those dances really make you act like another person.

  We were a solar system revolving around an expanding sun close to supernova. I prayed she would explode and end my misery swiftly. Finally, in a way, she did. Along came the final dance—it was always the biggest dance of the night—the dance to the slow song at the end when every loser that hooked up that night dances with his loser girlfriend or whatever you want to call her. Somehow I wound up dancing with Jeff’s sister to this dreadful ballad that always blared at the end of dances called In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel. Usually, by the time it started, I was upstairs lunging for my coat in a math class-turned-coatroom. Not that night.

  There we were, dancing in the dark, me bored as hell, and Jeff’s sister gazing into my eyes, loving every goddamn minute of it. Just like when you see a retarded person at the mall, I didn’t want to look at Jeff’s sister, and yet I couldn’t look away. Smiling her foolish smile her mouth looked as though it was trying to expel its tongue, like her face was smashed against a pane of glass and she was suffocating to death. This, apparently, was how she expressed joy. She had no clue that I was making fun of her in my mind. I could tell that she thought I liked her.

  It revolts me to this day, but after the dance was over I kissed Shamu goodnight. Right there on the dance floor. I don’t know why I did it. I really don’t. I guess I just wanted to make a homely girl happy. Maybe Jeff will be happy, too, I thought, and he’ll weasel me some answers on the next Physics test.

  My bloated admirer and I rejoined Jeff shortly following the last dance. My friends had gone home by then. On the way up to get our jackets, Jeff started waving happily at a bunch of people descending the stairs. At first, it seemed like he was attempting to show off in front of his sister. You know, keep acting like he was best buddies with every guy in St. Ann’s. Then I realized that the group consisted of a few girls. The only person at my high school with tits was Jeff, so, if he knew them, they had to be from his sister’s high school. As he introduced me to them I remember being so bored that I wanted to run toward the door.

  “This is Nicole,” Jeff said. “And that’s Jessica. And that’s Maria.”

  “Hey, what’s up?” we all said to one another.

  “Uh…” Maria said, cupping her hands over her mouth as she giggled and stared at my crotch. “You’re fly’s open.”

  You’re fly’s open. She exposed me. Literally. Imagine that being the first sentence your fated lover ever says to you. More embarrassing, however, was that Maria announced her discovery to everyone within earshot, not just our little group. And then she started pointing and laughing at me. No polite glance in my direction. No whisper—Psst…you’re fly is open… Only a public exhibit. I felt like Michelangelo’s David.

  Jeff chuckled like a madman. His pudgy sister cackled and drooled like a mule. Everyone surrounding us gaped toward my cock. What’s the big fucking deal? I thought.

  Maria was a spicy little dish burning me up with shame. Long black, wavy, greasy hair. Not naturally wavy—I was sure of that. It costs about 60 bucks to make hair look like that. Not naturally greasy, either, but loaded with hair spray and mousse like it was going out of style.

  She not only had all this shit in her hair, but a seven layer makeup cake on her face. Right then and there, I wanted to yell at her: Wash it off, you bitch!

  She was wearing an inconceivably tight shirt. Her thimble-like nipples stood at attention beneath a white cotton v-neck top. A giant gold cross dangled between her gigantic breasts—the type of tits that no guy could walk by without a double-take. Melons. Water Balloons. Un-fucking-believable. I remember thinking that they’d generate a sweet scent upon touch. Her tight black Cavaricci jeans outlined an unbelievably cute ass. She was about five-foot one or two, but was artificially elevated by red patent leather high heeled shoes. Basically, Maria was a fashion faux pas explosion. But, to my untrained and horny adolescent eye, she was a bombshell. I wanted to fuck her right there on the cold, generic secondary school, vomit-colored tiled floor.

  But I felt so lousy, I couldn’t even think of a comeback after she dissed me. Not only had I spent the night dancing with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum, not only had I eluded contact with every pretty girl there, but to top it all off I was insulted by this stranger, this bitch. I was in the shithouse that night. Totally depressed. Lower than dirt.

  I used to get like that sometimes, when things didn’t go my way. It was a nasty routine, and once I sank in, it took days to climb out. I’d think: Things aren’t going my way…things aren’t going my way. And I’d kept thinking about it and thinking about it. Sooner or later, this feeling would diminish and transform into euphoria. Then I’d be happy again. And I’d be like that, maybe, for a few hours, sometimes a few days. And then I’d go and dance with a fat girl, and get insulted by her sexy friend, and almost immediately, it’d start anew.

  Since I couldn’t fuck her, perhaps punching Maria in the nose right then and there would have boosted my spirits. She had no right to embarrass me like that. But it wasn’t the embarrassment that pissed me off. The tragic part of it all was that I didn’t even have a comeback. I just stood there like a clown without an act and didn’t say a word while everyone laughed. There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being shit on, and not having the strength to pull it away from your eyes and react whimsically. I’m usually pretty sharp with comebacks. Generally, I can dish it out as well as I can take it. But when I can’t think of something to dish out, well, I guess I become furious. And totally depressed like I was that night.

  You’re fly’s open. Those were the only three words Maria said to me at that dance. Depressing, huh? Maria’s group continued to descend the stairs as me and Jeff and his sister pu
shed our way through the crowd toward the coatroom. Before me and Jeff said goodbye, I asked him for his sister’s phone number. I whipped out my wallet and hastily wrote on my bus pass. When he told his sister later on, she was probably wet with anticipation to see me again. I had spoken less than two words to her that whole night. I knew she liked me, but I certainly didn’t like her.

  Fighting these truths off, I smiled boyishly in her direction. God forbid I end the night without some girl’s goddamn phone number.

  ***

  That’s really all I remember about the dance. Other than “hello,” I didn’t say a word to Maria that night, but I told all my friends that I got a girl’s phone number. I didn’t say it was from Jeff’s sister, though, because I knew they’d all laugh at me since she was so unappealing.

  The first guy I told was one of my best friends, Paul. Paul and I had met the summer before high school at this guy Kevin’s eighth grade graduation party. Kevin and Paul had met at some nerd camp the summer before eighth. It was held at this all-boys prep school that specialized in training young guys to become priests. That’s the way those priests are—they get you when you’re young, before you know too much, and brainwash you into thinking you should devote your life to Jesus.

  But Kevin and Paul didn’t want to become priests; they just wanted to learn how to speed-read and do some high school-level math even before they graduated from elementary school. I thought it was so pathetic. I made fun of Kevin about it for months before the program even started. I think I called it Geek Camp or something like that. When Kevin introduced me to Paul, I immediately mentioned the Geek Camp and laughed about it. They talked all about how much fun it was, and about how they’d met some great priests there and everything, but I knew it was all baloney. They must have been bullshitting, because there’s no way they could have enjoyed that goddamn camp.

  So Paul, like Kevin years before, was pegged as my innocent nerdy friend from the first day I met him. And from that day on I ceaselessly mentioned that priest camp to him and laughed in his face about it. I don’t even know why the poor guy hung around with me, but he did. We kept hanging out throughout high school, and we’re still sort of friends today, though I haven’t seen him in a while.

  The point of all this is that I always picked on Paul, just because he was Paul. Picture it: He was a short guy, with connected eyebrows, and two nostrils big enough to snugly fit a can of Coke a piece. It’s difficult to describe.

  But aside from all that, I made fun of him because he’d never had a girlfriend. I don’t think he was gay or anything. Oh, he tried like a sonofabitch to get girls, but never to any avail. I didn’t so much make fun of Paul as I did talk about my girlfriends in front of him all the time. And I knew that while Paul approved of my adventures on the surface, deep down inside he was confused as hell: He wished he was as successful with girls as I was, and yet my stories sickened him. I tacitly ridiculed him for that, too: for consistently resenting me but not having the balls to say so.

  Paul was so goddamn insecure and confused that one time he actually made believe he had a girlfriend when he didn’t. It all happened after I told him about Rachel, this girl who whacked me off next to a fire extinguisher in the third floor stairwell. Like always, he looked pretty jealous that day. But the next day he came into school and told my friends and me that he’d met a girl by the bus stop that morning. I was shocked, but happy for the guy. Shit, he’d never even kissed a girl, and he was already a junior in high school. I will never forget the girl’s name, either: Julie Di Benedetto. After a few weeks of dating her, he told us that she broke up with him. Not that she wanted to do it; it’s just that her dad wouldn’t let her date guys until she was sixteen, so she had to do it. I felt so bad for Paul that I almost cried in the cafeteria as he told the story.

  Believe it or not, a few days later Paul told us that he met another girl, also at the bus stop on his way home from school. I will never forget her name, either: Joyce McCormick. But after they went out a few times, she broke up with him, too. And for the same reason that Julie Di Benedetto did, because she had a very protective father.

  I knew something was up at that point, because he’d dated two girls in just a few weeks and nobody had seen them but him. So I asked Paul what high school Joyce went to and he told me. Little did he know that I didn’t believe him, and that I called up the high school asking if they had a student registered under the name Joyce McCormick. And you know what? They didn’t. Paul had made the whole story up. There was no Joyce and there was no Julie. He just wanted to gain respect and sympathy from his friends, so he lied through his teeth.

  Looking back on it now, it’s easy to laugh about it. But in high school me and my friends pretty much never let Paul forget it. Every day at lunch time when we all sat together, we’d crack jokes about it. “Hey, Paul, how’s Julie doing?” Shit like that. Even the last time we spoke, I think I mentioned Julie and Joyce to him. But he still doesn’t know that I got Jeff’s sister’s number at the dance that night. I guess he thinks I got Maria’s number, since she’s the one I eventually went out with. Not that I did anything to change his mind.

  Even though I had a lot of reasons to make fun of him, he was a good guy, overall. Despite his obvious jealousy, he was always willing to lend me an ear when I had a problem. Don’t ask me why, but he’d spend hours on the phone, encouraging me to ask a girl out or giving me solace when I was down. He gave me all sorts of guidance. More than anyone else, Paul encouraged me to be me. Despite his jealousy, he never once expressed jealousy toward me, whether or not he actually felt it. Like a mother doting over a baby, he’d praise my accomplishments, encourage me to study, and congratulate me when I had success with a chick. Why he did this I’ll never know. Some might say that he was living vicariously through me, at least when it came to girls. Or maybe I was living vicariously through him, when it came to morals. But I tend to think that unlike most assholes in the world, Paul truly cared about me. I sort of wish I could call him up right now and ask him what to do. But I won’t.

  I used to call him up a lot. Especially the night before a big math test to ask him to teach me everything he knew that I didn’t. I never had anything to teach him, though, because he always paid attention in math class and I rarely did. And he used to take all these extra math classes—really hard ones, too—so that he could have some college credit when he graduated high school. But I must have been pretty smart to have gotten the same sort of grades he did, when I didn’t even pay attention half the time. Looking back on it now, I don’t even know why I paid attention at all in high school. I mean, I worked my ass off most of the time, especially before a test, and got good grades. But what the hell was the difference, because, in the end, nobody gives a shit about high school grades anyway.

  At the time, though, I did care. Grades were only of slightly secondary importance to girls. When I slacked off in school, Paul was always there to help me out. And because we were good friends, and because he always helped me with math, he was the first person I told about getting Jeff’s sister’s phone number. But like I said, I didn’t mention that it was Jeff’s sister at all.

  I still can’t believe Paul lied about dating those girls. I mean, one little white lie is okay, but making up entire relationships was another. It only gave me more ammunition to use against him, more things to make fun of him with. He was one sorry bastard, that Paul. But he’s doing okay now. He got a summer job with some big company in the city. He’s out there, working hard, doing what he always wanted to do. He’ll graduate from college a year early, I’m sure, because of all those extra classes he took in high school.

  Chapter 3

  Jets

  A few days after the dance I called Jeff’s sister. By then I’d figured that at the very least I could get to know other girls through her. Everybody knows that ugly girls usually hang out with hot ones. You can’t blame them, though. When all you got is dog food, you’d better hang out with filet mignon. Naturally,
sexy girls attract the better-looking guys. Why not hover around that sort of magnet?

  I might’ve felt bad about using Jeff’s sister to get girls, but I figured what the hell. As Kyle and I always say, we don’t make these rules, we just abide by ‘em.

  And besides, at that point in high school, I didn’t have that much experience with girls, and I needed all the help I could get. I’d made out with a few, probably six or seven, and that was better than average among my friends. But I’d never had sex before.

  Sex.

  S-E-X!

  The word itself sounds so exciting to me. It’s a goal that everyone knows he’ll eventually reach. It’s just a matter of when; and, more importantly, how. So much of high school was spent pondering these two concepts—when and how to have sex—that I hardly remember thinking of much else.