Little Boy

by Anthony Prato

  Customarily, I’d forgotten all about the opera fiasco by the next day. So it was over. Everything was pretty much okay after that for a while. We went back into the city a few days later and I waltzed Maria through my famous Christmas tour. I did this each year, no matter what girl I was dating. And I always did it the exact same way. The only difference each year was the girl.

  First, we took the F train to the 47th-50th Street/Rockefeller Center stop. That brought us to the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. We entered the plaza from Fifth Avenue and made our way through the crowd, past the row of my old friends, those white angel sculptures, flanking the shrubbery that divided the crowd. All you need is love, they trumpeted, though only my ears could hear them.

  As we pushed our way toward the tree, I recalled the other girls I’d brought on my famous Manhattan Christmas Tour. The year before I went with Maria, I’d taken a girl named Leslie, and the year before that, Rachel. It had taken me two boring girlfriends and two uneventful tours to find The One. Maria grabbed my hand, and pulled me excitedly toward the base of the tree.

  At that moment, I realized that the tree grew smaller each and every year, as the gray Rockefeller skyscrapers towered above the tree higher and higher. I looked at it, despondently aware of this.

  A lone Santa Claus stood in Rockefeller Center. Occasionally, he paced between one half of the giant tree’s bottom and the other. “Ho, ho, ho!” he bellowed. “Get your picture taken with Santa.” A small black tripod sat nearby, as well as an even smaller person dressed as an elf.

  “Maria, let’s get our picture taken with Santa!” I exclaimed.

  “Sure.” She smiled and clutched my hand.

  We walked over toward Santa Claus. The closer we got, the more I realized that he was not a jolly old St. Nick, but a filthy wop in a red suit. He was supposed to be covered with chimney soot; instead he was coated with urban grime. The elf that accompanied him was even worse. He was a short, pudgy black man, and held a rotten cigar between his lips. His face was as purple and wrinkly as a prune. His pot belly had split his green vest open. I could see his stomach as it hung down like a pregnant woman’s ten seconds after she broke water. I didn’t know which was worse: the stench of the burned out cigar or the odor of two bodies that hadn’t seen a shower for weeks.

  “Do you two lovebirds want to get your picture taken with Santa?” they asked. “It’s only twenty dollars.”

  “Twenty dollars! Twenty dollars! It’s Christmas, and you’re charging little kids and couples twenty bucks to get a stupid picture taken!?” I lifted my head and gazed at the undersized tree.

  “Fuck you, Santa!”

  Fuck you Santa! God, that line rings in my mind to this day. It reminds me of how I met Mike: “Go fuck yourself, Mike!” Ha! I love it!

  Maria wasn’t as entertained as I was. She was so embarrassed by my outburst that she swiftly grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away. Her face said “Bad dog! Bad!” But her mouth remained closed. Good. A fight had been avoided. As planned, we exited the plaza and walked up Fifth Avenue toward St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

  St. Pat’s looks as though it was constructed with lofty upside-down granite icicles. I’ve always loved St. Pat’s because it’s even more out of place in midtown than the tree. And yet, Manhattan wouldn’t have been the same without it. I’ve always loved anything that looks out of place but still seems like it belongs.

  After sitting on the steps for a few minutes, just holding hands, we decided to go inside. More trouble ensued as Maria and I walked through the cathedral’s giant iron doors. Some old guy—I don’t even know if he worked there or not—tapped me on the shoulder and asked, quietly, politely: “Would you mind removing your Yankees cap in the presence of the Lord?” Startled by his request, I turned my head as he repeated the question. The second time around I noticed an Irish brogue, and smelled whiskey on his breath. “Why, are you a Mets fan?” I asked. He ignored me, but I thought I was pretty funny. He but continued to gaze in my direction as Maria admired the cathedral’s lavish ceiling. She firmly clutched my bicep as if to say, “Hey, A.J., take off the fucking cap.”

  There were plenty of little friggin’ kids in the place wearing their hats, so what the hell was wrong with mine? Cocked and ready to challenge this old bastard, Maria pulled me away, this time before I could get in a word edge-wise. I took off my baseball cap. If you ask me, my messed up hair was more offensive than my goddamn hat. Christ, there’s a fucking gift shop in the cathedral. My cap’s no more offensive than the archdiocese hocking plastic Jesus figurines for $12.99 a pop.

  Now angry for all sorts of reasons, I dragged Maria out of St. Pat’s and walked up Fifth Avenue toward Central Park. I ached for the spring when, for some reason, I had complete control over our dates. With each passing month since then, however, my authority had weakened. I was once the pilot, co-pilot, and navigator of a beautiful Caribou C-7A, but now I was its helpless cargo, stowed away beneath its belly, blind to its destination.

  Cursing out Santa Claus had given me back the ability to command my destiny, if only for a brief moment. But now I was a sad ghost once again, floating down Fifth Avenue, flitting to and fro, above everybody and everything, watching the pavement pass beneath me and being noticed by none. I wasn’t walking down Fifth Avenue; I was drifting. Mentally, I was directionless.

  It was the exact opposite of flying a jet, because when you fly, you’re in command. Its your sky to drill through. You pick a spot and you make a beeline toward it. Your two little hands guide tons of steel through the clouds. It has to be that way, or else the aircraft would spin out of control and crash. But with Maria that day—and most of the days before it, and all of the days after—there was little order to my actions. I wanted so badly to be in control once again.

  Maria’s past shielded my eyes, preventing me from navigating and flying myself toward a beautiful destination in the distance. I could muster few thoughts beyond those pertaining to Maria’s life before me, and her drinking binge Upstate. Helplessly, aimlessly, I gripped Maria’s hand, hoping that she’d guide me away from my endgame, and toward a destination that she alone could see.

  But for the moment, our destination was F. A. O. Schwartz, the largest and most extravagant toy store in Manhattan. We stood in a line brimming with wide-eyed children and their patient parents, in the concrete square at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, directly across the street from the Plaza Hotel.

  Maria and I shuffled in through the revolving glass doors and immediately heard the sound of children singing. Welcome to our world. Welcome to our world. Welcome to our world of toys, caroled the choir of plastic children above the door’s entrance. They were sitting atop a decorative, swirling carousel perched on an ornate tower near the entrance. F. A. O. Schwartz pleases the eyes and ears, if not the wallet, more than any other attraction in Manhattan. I have always loved it there. Quickly, we dove into the store’s corner display, a large mountain of colorful stuffed animals, $19.99 to $129.99, depending on the size. Surrounded by the heaps of bean-filled velvet animals, we playfully smacked each other with dolphins and apes and laughed and giggled like toddlers.

  We raced up the escalator to the second floor, hoping to unearth more juvenile treasures. What we discovered awed us both. There before us stood two large, battery-powered toys: a red Corvette and a gray F-14 Tomcat, each designed to fit one youngster. For $6,899, I could have my very own jet and Maria her very own sports car. I checked my wallet. Eighteen dollars. Oh well.

  “Let’s get inside them,” Maria gasped, “and have our pictures taken.”

  “But there’s no vagrant Santa Claus with a tripod in sight,” I quipped.

  “A.J.!” she said, excitedly. “You know what I mean!”

  I had, in fact, brought my camera with me to Manhattan that afternoon, hoping to capture a moment in Winter Wonderland with my Wonder Woman, Maria Della Verita. Amidst the toys and children I suddenly felt cheery, and was happy to be with such a beautiful girl w
ho loved me so much. We’d better take a picture, I thought. We forgot to take one in front of the tree.

  Maria’s little body fit snugly into the driver’s seat of the shiny red Corvette. Although her tits were smooshed against the steering wheel, I could tell that if she had a charged battery—and, of course, that $6,890—she would peel out right then and there, and zoom down Fifth Avenue.

  I still remember how beautiful she looked. “Turn this way,” I said. She smiled a toothy smile as her hair draped the sportster’s trunk. Flash! I snapped the picture and saw a thousand butterflies.

  She vacated the Corvette with great ease and graciously accepted the camera from my hand. “You’re turn,” she said, gesturing for me to board the F-14. It’s WEFT, in real life: high-mounted, variable wings; duel exhausts and two turbo fans; a long, slender fuselage and bubble canopy; twin tail fins. It was similar to the F-15 and F-16, although the F-16 had a single tail fin, unlike the others. Also, in real life, the F-14’s wing span was 64 feet, it’s length 62. The model before me: length, 6 feet; width, 5 feet. Shit, I thought, I’ll never fit into this thing.

  But Maria encouraged me to give it a shot. I placed my right foot in the cockpit, then my left. My knees cracked as I squatted, setting one ass cheek on each tail fin. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t fit in that damn plane.

  “That’s the best I can do,” I said, regretfully.

  “That’s okay,” she said. Flash! Startled by the light, I toppled out of the cockpit and onto the floor. Maria chuckled.

  “You should’ve seen your face,” she said. “You looked like you didn’t know what you were doing there.”

  “I didn’t.”

  We left F. A. O. Schwartz, crossed Fifth, and found ourselves near the pond that we’d gone to on our first date. We embraced, passionately, and celebrated the marvelous day, and rolled around in our puffy winter jackets on the cold grass. Once again, I felt a lonely emptiness swelling within me. I wish I could explain how I felt—I loved Maria so much, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about her past. Even as I am sitting here writing this, after all that’s happened, I am angry at her for having a life before me.

  Embracing Maria, just when I thought I’d lost all sense of direction, all perception of romance and wit, I looked into Maria’s innocent eyes. They inspired to take my house key from my coat pocket and key our initials into a giant London Plane tree. As I carved, pieces of bark fell to the ground to make way for our initials. And those fresh initials—JJL + MD—represented a new beginning for us.

  I extended my arms and smiled and announced, “Look how beautiful this place is!” The gray webs of tree branches could have been the back-drop for a horror movie; however, they could have just as easily been the scenery for a romantic one, too. I preferred the latter image. Some things, like jets, were almost too amazing to have been created by man. That day, the remarkable beauty of Central Park was too ravishing even to have been produced by nature. Maybe there is a God, I thought.

  “From this moment on, this is our tree, Maria. And we’ll come here—to this wonderful winter wonderland—every Christmas from now on and stand here, and reaffirm our love. I love you, angel.”

  My words were corny, but they reduced her to tears. Good tears, for once. We embraced beneath the pine tree, and barely felt one another’s bodies through our jackets. We were still, and had only our frozen, moving breaths to remind us of our existence. I peered at the carvings on the tree bark. I felt as if my eyes were shooting a red-hot laser beam into its frigid husk. Maria and I will remain in this blissful state, I thought, as sure as those initials will stay carved in that tree.

  ***

  “Why don’t you come over my house for dinner on New Year’s Eve?”

  That’s how Maria began our phone conversation the night before January 31st that Christmas vacation. I’ll never forget it. It was that night, New Year’s Eve, when so much happened.

  With that phone call from Maria, I realized that this was my chance to get to know her father. I’d met him before but never really had a chance to speak with him much. He’d gazed into my eyes almost as if I was the son he never had when Maria opened up her Christmas gifts before him. But that was the extent of my relationship with him for the six months or so that Maria and I were dating. She never wanted him to spend too much time with me. She was embarrassed by him.

  He was a nice man, it seemed, and he always referred to me as “friend” or “guy.” He was very friendly and relaxed. At first I thought that maybe he knew he was a drunk, and he knew Maria told me so, and he was amicable to compensate for the negative image I’d already established in my mind. But then I realized, somewhat reluctantly, that he was a proud man. He was proud of his Maria. He also was proud because he was finally getting help. And with that help came a more loving relationship with his family, as well as a better perspective on life, I suppose.

  Donning a pinstriped blue suit New Year’s Eve, I strolled into Maria’s home around eight o’clock like a prosecutor set to make his final argument of a case. I was going to have sex with her that night. I just knew it.

  Maria’s family owned a house in Ridgewood. It was modest and well-kept, but not ostentatious, unlike the homes of many Italian-American families in Queens. On the foyer wall of Rick’s stubbornly Irish house, there hung two photographs: a picture of the Pope, and a black and white image of President John Kennedy. Maria’s Italian house was slightly different. Her parents, also devout Roman Catholics, had hung a picture of the Pope as well. To its right, however, were two more framed photographs: one of Joe Di Maggio, and one of Frank Sinatra. I chuckled silently to myself as I promenaded confidently through the foyer. It was the first time I’d ever noticed those pictures because usually I entered Maria’s apartment through the basement entrance.

  When I walked into the living room, I noticed the long, vertical mirrors along the wall behind the couch. I looked at Maria, and looked back at the mirrors, and looked at Maria again. She knew what I was thinking, and she appreciated my remembering them.

  We sat down and ate a pleasant dinner of London broil, stuffed shells, fresh broccoli sautéed in olive oil and garlic, and a salad. Of course, we ate the pasta first and the salad last. Maria’s chubby sister wolfed down her food in a frenzy, all she could do to avoid eye contact with me. At first I figured the big fat pig had heard so much shit about me from Maria that she felt I didn’t deserve the respect of her conversation.

  Then I thought: No, she must be jealous of Maria. After all, Maria was gorgeous. She had an hourglass figure, huge tits, and a perfect face. Her sister—I wasn’t sure if her name was Leslie or Lizzie—was revolting. She looked like Elvis Presley in the mid-1970’s: ancient and bloated. As I munched on my salad, I strived to avoid gaping in disgust at her hideous sideburns.

  She’d been dating a guy who lived around the corner with his mother, a guinea named Lester, for the past five years. Lester wasn’t a Mafioso. He was worse. He was a greaseball who longed to attain the status of a Mafioso. He owned a beat up Iroc-Z and two T-shirts. That’s it. He was a plumber’s assistant, a high school drop-out…and I was A.J. L’Enfant, a good-looking, well-spoken gentleman about to enter the U. S. Air Force Academy. Boy, was I on top of the world that night.

  It was a pleasant evening for all until we brought in the New Year with a toast of champagne. The moment was frozen in time. Maria didn’t know whether she should drink the champagne or not. Mr. Della Verita was equally hesitant, but for different reasons. Not a second had gone by when, just like that—gulp, gulp, gulp—the frigid moment melted away as both Maria and her dad drank up. So did I.

  Maria’s father had more than one glass of champagne that night. I felt bad for the guy, because I knew he shouldn’t have been drinking. Mrs. Della Verita quickly lit a cigarette, perhaps to help overcome her nervous jitters after witnessing her husband’s loss of self-control. Within minutes, or so it seemed, Mr. Della Verita was wasted. Maybe he wasn’t; maybe he just wanted to be
. Either way, that’s when he started asking me about the Air Force Academy, shooting one question after another, seldom giving me a chance to respond completely. I told him that I’d been to Colorado recently and he seemed pleased.

  Despite the champagne, his tone was lucid and polite. And although he was born in Italy, forty years in Ridgewood had diluted his foreign accent. After dinner, he eased comfortably into a stuffed rocking chair, rocked to and fro, and fired an intelligent question at me almost every time he leaned forward. I sat awkwardly on a brown hassock about five feet before him, fielding the questions as gracefully as Di Maggio played centerfield.