a novel by
Anthony Prato
Queens, NY
718-207-3856
APrato55@yahoo.com
For Sharon...I am so sorry, baby; I will always love you...
______________________________________________________And we swung our arms…joyfully like children.
*
So if you want to love me, then darlin’ don’t refrain
Or I’ll just end up walkin,’ in the cold November rain
“November Rain,” Guns ‘n Roses
I
June 14, 1994, 9:54 p.m.
Dear Mom and Dad:
I know what you’re thinking. Dad, you’re wondering where you went wrong. Mom, you’re wishing you’d quit drinking just a few years earlier. And Tracy, if you’re reading this, too, you’re thinking about how we used to be such good friends when we were kids, and regretting that since we became teenagers we’ve barely spoken.
All three of you are definitely crying.
But why? Today is a day of freedom. It is a day that Joel Joseph L’Enfant finally made a mature decision. His first as a man. And I know that despite what you’re feeling now, you will all be better off soon. So will many others.
I just wanted to write and let you know how it all came to this, and to make sure you understand that it was all completely my doing. It’s all my fault.
I’m so sorry.
There’s so much to write that I don’t even know where to begin. In order to really understand my plight, I need to start with the events of this afternoon…
***
So there we were, Mary and I, amidst the lush Strawberry Fields of New York’s Central Park. We were on the west side, a few hundred feet from the intersection of 70th Street and Central Park West, anchored to a splintery green bench. Exhausted and hot, we sat for a while in silence. After being with any person, even a friend, for almost four hours straight, it’s almost impossible to think of something to talk about.
I was humming Imagine, by John Lennon, and thinking about how true the song was, and how I wish I could feel peace—in my own life and in the world.
You know it: Imagine there’s no Heaven. It’s easy if you try. No Hell below us. Above us only sky. And I was humming so low that Mary couldn’t even hear me.
We shared an uncomfortable silence. For me, it’s difficult to have a comfortable silent moment with almost anyone, especially a girl, that’s not a close, close friend. I’ve always loathed those awkward quiet moments, and the feeling of nothingness they create between me and another person.
I probably never told you this, but it happens to me often. As far as I’m concerned, the only comfortable silence occurs when you’re alone. I might’ve felt alone in Central Park with Mary, but that’s not the same thing. Her chubby pale thighs were smooshed next to mine, so I couldn’t avoid her presence even if I tried. Compelled by my frayed nerves to break a twenty-minute long silence, I began to speak.
“See that building,” I said, pointing in the general direction of four or five ashen gray Upper West Side apartment buildings jutting into the transparent sky. “That’s where John Lennon was murdered.” She let out a quiet “oh,” and I continued. “That’s why this part of the park is called Strawberry Fields. It’s a memorial to John Lennon, named after the song by the same name.”
John Lennon’s murder has always fascinated me. A few years ago, I read a book about his killer, Mark David Chapman. If my memory serves me correctly—and it usually does—Chapman approached Lennon one evening in 1980 and shot him in the chest. Later on, when Chapman was being booked by the NYPD, he was asked for a statement. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he quietly pulled a copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye from his coat pocket, and presented it as his statement to the cops. Then he requested that they go back and apologize to the apartment doorman that witnessed the shooting. I guess he felt bad that the doorman had to watch the slaughtering right before his eyes. So, in a way, he was a nice guy. Weird, deadly—but nice. He had all sorts of reasons for killing Lennon, but the reasons have never interested me much. What I’ve always loved is that he offered The Catcher in the Rye as his statement, and that he asked the cops to apologize to the doorman. I know exactly how Chapman felt, about the doorman at least.
I couldn’t remember whether or not that part of the park was called Strawberry Fields before Lennon was shot. Hell, I don’t even remember him getting shot since I was only a baby when it happened. But I knew that it had something to do with his death or the Beatles or whatever, so I figured what the hell.
Mary didn’t answer me, but that was okay, because I knew that I’d told her something that she didn’t know. It was always like that when friends of mine from the suburbs visited me in the city. I always tried to impress them with my vast knowledge of the history and culture of Manhattan Island. I felt obliged to act cosmopolitan and divulge every little tidbit of information that I knew about New York, regardless of how insignificant or half-true it was. Don’t ask me why.
Anyway, we sat a little while longer in silence. Bums and freaks and yuppies walked, jogged, and roller-bladed by us beneath the emerald canvas of maple and oak trees above. Half of them weren’t even that weird, I guess. Some were children and families and old people. But they were all freaks just the same. It was Manhattan, after all, and sometimes I think that everyone who lives there is a kook in one way or another. You must think I’m crazy for saying that. I mean, I’d love to live in Manhattan, personally. So I guess that makes me one of them. Then again, they say the only difference between a freak and an eccentric person is that the latter has money. So I guess I’m the freak.
A man pacing near a splintery, graffiti-ridden, green wooden bench, about ten feet to the left, caught my eye. I watched him closely, desperate for some material to jump-start a discussion with Mary. Ironically, he was singing a Beatles song. Well, at least he thought he was singing. He started by mimicking that annoying guitar riff that starts the song: Bhruhm. And then: It’s been a hard days night, and I’ve been workin’ like a dog, he blared, completely out of tune. It sounded more like yelling to me. Then he abruptly cut short his performance to ask for money. Change, actually. Bums always asked for change, as if they had to make an important phone call or something.
Who would he call? I thought. Maybe that was a topic Mary and I could beat to death: What would a homeless guy do with spare change once he got it?
Nah. It was a decent topic, but I couldn’t think of anything witty to say, so I kept my mouth shut. I kept watching this guy out of the corner of my eye, trying to seem like I had no interest in what he was doing. Had I shown interest, the bastard probably would’ve come over to sing Hey, Jude or something.
It turned out that this one-man show had a one-man audience. I leaned forward a bit and looked again. A Japanese man sitting on the bench was taping this idiot with a silver camcorder. He chuckled as he taped and it pissed me off. I figured he’d probably take the tape back to Tokyo and show his friends what morons Americans were.
What a bunch of freaks, I thought.
A girl no older than eighteen roller-bladed by us with shorts so sheer that her underwear line was visible. Her top was even worse: it was more of a black bra than a shirt. She might as well have been naked.
Ah-ha! I thought. Now there’s something to talk about with Mary: nudity. But how could I broach it? I couldn’t just say, ‘Hey, Mary, what do you think of that girl’s tits?’ It had to sound more intelligent than that. Funny, but intelligent.
I thought for a while, gulped the remainder of my fruit punch, and asked, “What do you think about public nudity?” Like a baby that had just passed gas, she squinted her eyes and smiled a bemused smile. She didn’t seem disgusted, but intrigued.
“What do I what?” she asked.
“What I mean is, do you think that a woman should be allowed to walk around topless? Look at that woman over there.” I pointed to the chick on roller-blades. “Do you think that woman should be arrested for wearing that kind of top?”
She thought about it for a second. I sensed that, handled properly, this topic could lead into an even better discussion about sex.
“Well,” Mary responded, timidly, “I don’t know, really.” Okay, so she was confused. That only meant I should help her along.
“I mean, really,” I said, “what’s the difference between walking around topless and walking around with a flimsy tight shirt? I don’t think there is a difference. Public nudity is completely acceptable in some parts of Europe.” Where in Europe, I had no idea.
She paused for a few moments. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with it,” she finally admitted.
Bingo! This nice Irish Catholic prima donna prude from Jersey with a pussy as tight as mouse trap was suddenly a lot more interesting. Jubilated, I rocked from side to side on the bench, anticipating the intriguing conversation about to ensue.
But I couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. Desperately trying to figure out how to extend our conversation, I studied the roller-chick, who had stopped at the water fountain across the pathway for a drink. I stared at her ass for what seemed like light years, wondering why I was stuck with boring Mary when I could be hitting on her.
After at least another ten minutes or so, I thought, that’s it, I have officially run out of things to say to Mary. I just wanted to get up and walk away. That’s it. Bye-bye, Mary. See ya.
But I knew I couldn’t do that. I knew I had to keep sitting and talking for a while. Then I had to walk her to the goddamn Port Authority bus terminal and see her off. Shit. I just wanted to go the fuck home, lay on my bed, and watch TV.
As Mary stared straight ahead—blissfully ignorant of the uncomfortable silence consuming us—I stared at her face. Not bad at all, I thought. She had some bronze freckles scattered across her forehead, and a pudgy Irish. Her chalky skin looked soft and virginal. Two wide milky white cheeks, each with a half a dozen freckles or so, a small nose, and a small mouth, with an upper lip like an rosy eagle fully extending its wings. And wonderful ears—I always thought ears were very important—lay flat against the sides of her head. I would’ve nibbled on those ears today if I’d had the balls to do it. Pasty white thighs protruded from her lavender shorts. A bit flabby, yes. But how I wanted to see the tiny, fiery red flame between them. Heaven, I thought. Heaven.
But that wasn’t going to happen. As much as I desired to be physically close to Mary, I couldn’t bear becoming emotionally or mentally close to her first. I don’t know why—I mean, now that I think of it, I really liked her—but I just couldn’t take that first step.
But since I didn’t want to take the time to get close to her, and since she wouldn’t give it up unless someone at least feigned interest, she was useless to me. Thinking this today, I longed for her to simply glance at her watch and say it was time to split. Oh, Mary, we are done! I thought. Finito!
Christ, what could I say? A beautiful day in Central Park; robins chirping in their woody homes above; the sun piercing the tree limbs like pins poking through a green trampoline—and a pretty redhead boring the shit out of me.
“Public nudity,” I chuckled, half-heartedly. “It’s a funny thing.”
Okay, now I was desperate. Four hours of nonstop talk and fifteen minutes of pure silence was all I could tolerate. People continued to stroll by. Shielded from the bustling traffic by a thicket of bushes and shrubs, I could hear the dim tick of my watch. You know you’re bored when you here your fucking watch ticking.
Yet the more I think about Mary, the more I miss her. It’s not that Mary wasn’t all right to hang out with. She was pretty and bright. I knew she was on some sort of scholarship at college. I had thought it was a full scholarship, but before today I never asked much about it.
She’d sit around lazily sometimes at school, like everyone else, so much so that you’d think she was a slacker. I actually felt sort of a bond with her when we first met, because I thought we were both slackers.
But one night before a big test, she invited me to study in the library. I found her listening to Mozart on her CD player, sipping Chai tea, alone. She seemed to know a peace that eluded me.
We sat around and talked and laughed about how there was this big test the next day and neither of us was studying for it. But I knew that she was prepared and I really wasn’t. And she was so calm…and I was nervous as hell.
Startled by Mary’s tranquility and confidence, tensing up, breathing deep, I cracked a few sexual jokes in front of her. Not so much jokes, really, but references. Innuendoes. I was hoping that if I implied something subtly, she’d get the hint, and just magically take off her clothes. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to make out; I just wanted to see her naked without having to charm her or prove I was better than her friends.
It was especially titillating to think that about Mary, she had never let a guy feel her up, let alone see her naked. I wish I could have just snapped my fingers and made her clothes come off. Just like that. And after seeing her that night in the library, I resented her for not responding to my thoughts: “As you wish, J. J.”
I never allowed us to get close because I felt like she presented her friendship to me as a gift—a gift I didn’t deserve. So I also resented her for acting like I did. Resentment’s a funny thing. Even at this moment, I can’t figure out whether I liked her for resenting me or resented her for liking me.
But I liked her just the same. In fact, I just liked her as much as I could have possibly liked another person, given my life so far. I felt this way especially because I was an exception to her usual crowd of friends. She hung out with people mostly like her, who mostly did the same sort of boring stuff that she did. Her father was a deacon and a lawyer. Real educated. Very religious. But not very wealthy. He defended the poorest people he could find and received little pay for his services. I remember her telling me this the first day I met her. I don’t think she ever described what her mother did, but I’m sure it was a housewife or something like that. So her friends were different than me, and her family, I knew, was a lot different than mine. It’s not like you guys are evil people. You’re not. But Dad, let’s face it, you’re no deacon, and mom, you’re no ordinary housewife.
Mary and her family are from just over the bridge in Rutherford. But Even though she grew up pretty close to where I did—probably in a neighborhood that looked a lot like Flushing, too—she would’ve been shocked if she knew what sort of person I was, and what sort of things I’d done. It almost makes me laugh to think about it. I won’t bother describing why just yet. For now, I’ll just say that despite some similarities, Mary and I were two completely different people. That’s why I always felt strange around her. I couldn’t get it out of my head that if she knew my whole story, she’d never speak to me again, or that she’d somehow figured me out, but was too polite to ditch me.
***
I spoke to Mary a lot at school, in the library, and at lunch. But I’ve only seen her face twice off campus, once in Central Park today, and once last December, just before Christmas. Each December Hunter College hosts the Deck the Halls Ball. We’d only known each other for a few months, but Mary was the kind of girl who was happy going to a dance with a male friend. “It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other,” she said. Until that dance, I hadn’t been outside the house much since last June. “Come on Joel,” she pleaded. There’s an ‘80s theme and you once told me you loved ‘80s music.”
“I did?”
“Yes, the first day of school, the day we met.
I smiled. “Okay, I’ll go.”
The Deck the Halls Ball was held at the Plaza Hotel at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, right in the heart of midtown. In front of the Plaza was a golden statue of a man on a horse covered with pigeon crap. The pigeon crap, of course, wasn’t part of the statue. Marian and I stood beneath that statue countless times, kissing passionately, embracing. Across Fifth Avenue stood a skyscraper which housed, among other things, F. A. O. Schwartz, another place reminiscent of my dates with Maria. Several blocks below stood St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Saks Fifth Avenue. Maria and I spent so much time in this part of the city—going into Saks to browse, hanging out in the Park by the pond—that as soon as I exited the R train in midtown I was shell-shocked. I knew that would be the case; that’s why Mary had to twist my arm just to get me to go to the dance.
But, in addition to Mary’s pleading and the open bar, there was one other reason that I was willing to go that night: I wanted to see the inside of the Plaza. Whenever Maria and I went to the city, we always talked about going inside just to sneak a peak. I know it sounds dumb because it’s just a hotel, so why we were so nervous I have no idea. But we never did get to go inside.
The only way I could get through my first social experience after Maria was by drinking. Heavily. Thing is, I somehow had told Mary that I didn’t drink. I also smoked, but I told her I didn’t smoke, either. I guess I did it to give her the impression that I was a good and decent person, just like her. I knew that Mary had never smoked or even tasted more than a sip of beer in her lifetime; had she known about the real me, she surly wouldn’t have spoken to me, never mind ask me to a dance. The funny thing—now that I think about it—is that she never even asked me if I drank or smoked. I just somehow told her I didn’t.
So there I was, approaching the end of my first semester of college with this nice Irish girl from Rutherford—daughter of a deacon, for God’s sake—and I had to sneak off by myself and down a beer while she wasn’t looking. I still remember asking around for a piece of gum on my way back to meet Mary on the dance floor because I didn’t want her to smell my breath.
Eventually, I had more than a few beers—about five or six the last time I counted—and it started to show. Panting from the oppressive heat, my inebriated body practically slumped onto the dancers as I zigzagged my way back to Mary, beer in hand. My forehead was slick with sweat and my shirt was soaked. I was delirious. Somehow I got caught up on the dance floor in sort of a mosh pit, and I jumped around in a drunken stupor flailing my arms and screaming like a mother fucker with everybody there. Or nobody, depending on your perspective. The way I flagrantly disrespected my escort would’ve given even the saintliest woman a coronary. I feel so bad about it, now that I think about it.
By the time the dance let out, Mary was noticeably pissed. It was pretty obvious to her that I was drunk off my ass. But that wasn’t the biggest misfortune of the night. Once outside the Plaza, as we waited for a few of her friends to show, some asshole approached Mary and kissed her on the cheek. “Good night, carrot top,” he said, sweetly. And then he strolled away. Mary didn’t seem to mind his farewell. But I did. I was her fucking date! He stepped over some blurry line I’d drawn in my sloshed head—and I was pissed.
Jealously, I looked at Mary. Angrily, I turned my head toward the bastard as he walked away. I lunged after him through the crowd, pushing spectators aside as if I was in a field shoving ears of corn out of my way. All in one motion, I tapped him on the shoulder with my left hand and socked him in the gut with my right. Down he went. What happened after that I don’t recall. For all I know, he leaped up and beat me to a pulp in front of the most beautiful hotel in New York. From that point on, the scene is a blur; only the emotions I felt are crystal clear.
Horrified, Mary didn’t speak much after that. As I walked her to the Port Authority bus terminal, I still remember asking, “You’re not mad at me are you?” She smiled, politely, and forced out a “No, of course not.” But I knew that she was. And it kind of pissed me off that she didn’t show it. I dropped her off. She grimaced and turned her back and walked to the bus, silently. We both knew that whatever relationship had was over.
We didn’t make eye contact for the next several months following that, never mind speak. Then, just a few days before St. Patrick’s Day this year, we wound up in the same place at the same time and struck up a conversation. She confessed that she really was mad at me the night of the Deck the Halls Dance. But, she said, it wasn’t that I had sneaked off and gotten wasted, and not even that I’d decked the hood. “You tried to make yourself out to be someone that that you weren’t. I’m not angry, I’m really just disappointed in you.” That day I learned a profound lesson: Whenever you make believe you’re something you’re not, don’t slack off on the impersonation. That’s when you run into trouble.
Soon enough, Mary and I started to become friendly again. Not friends, but friendly. The difference is difficult to explain. But I do know this: The number one thing that kept our relationship alive was my attraction to her. I have to admit, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be friendly with her if she was ugly. But even with Mary’s good looks, I didn’t have the slightest desire to hang out with her outside of school. Mostly, I enjoyed being alone.
***
After school let out last month, she started calling me at home, asking me to hang out. At first I resisted. But she continued to bother me.
One night she called me and practically begged me to see her. I didn’t want to go, but she begged, and that was reason enough for me. It turned out that she was planning on going to law school, so I figured if we went out at least we’d have that to talk about. More importantly, I thought it would be a nice way to dovetail into more interesting conversation, on a more personal level. Even though I’d known Mary for a while, I’d never bothered to ask much about her life.
It turned out to be an eventful afternoon. I got more than I bargained for. So did Mary.
As I said, we were sitting there in Central Park during our “date” or “get-together” or whatever the hell it was—in what I think was Strawberry Fields—and I barely had the energy to continue speaking. I kept envisioning her stripping naked before me, just like I did when I was in class and she was sitting nearby. If she wasn’t going to get naked, I just wanted her to go back to New Jersey and let me go to sleep. What a mistake it was to see her! I thought. I would’ve loved to stay in my fucking room all day, nestled under the covers, air conditioner blowing hard. I was so bored that I knew it would be my last time out of the house for a long, long time.
I started thinking: Maybe forever. I swear I only started contemplating suicide so I wouldn’t have to deal with her any longer. I could see the headline on the front page of the New York Post the next day: Man, Early Twenties, Strangles Self in Central Park.
Finally—finally!—we started talking again—about her plans for the future, of all things. How fun. She rambled on and on about how she wanted to go to law school or something. Her goddamn plans annoyed me, so I tuned out.
My eyes began to rove, and then I was bewitched by a girl I saw. An angel, actually. She was short—only about five-foot one or two. And what wonderful hair. It was the color of anthracite coal, shiny and black, whipping in the wind she created with her speed. She was walking briskly, like she had to get someplace in a hurry, on the right side of the pathway across from the side I was sitting, dodging the people marching toward her.
And she had brown eyes, too. I could tell.
Her breasts were large, but in perfect proportion to her petite, compact body. She was a sleek black Stealth Bomber, parading uninterrupted and unnoticed by all except me. She was a miniature but glamorous model dressed in tiny white shorts that barely covered her ass. She was the type of girl who could make any man grovel on his knees, begging for her love.
I can’t adequately explain how I felt when I saw this girl. My mind began racing so fast. I remember breaking out into a cold sweat. All at once, I felt both love and hatred—both obsession and revulsion—for this girl I’d never even seen before. She was sexy, yet cute; confident, yet timid; mature, yet callow. She looked just like Maria. And she walked right by me as swiftly as she had arrived.
II
Dancing in the Dark
The thing about Maria is that I think about her all the time. Sounds like a load of shit, huh? Hell, lots of people think of lots of stuff “all the time,” right? But—and this must be made perfectly clear before I go on—I literally think about Maria all the time. No thought in my head is absent of Maria altogether.
It’s hard not to, because she was my first and last love, my first and last real girlfriend. Sometimes I think about her for a second or two—like if I hear a song that we danced to or pass by a restaurant we ate in—and a moment later I’ll think about her in a different way. But usually, like that day in the park, tons of stuff pops and flashes and echoes through my mind, like fireworks blowing up at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at midnight. It’s like I’m on an acid trip until someone pinches me. Actually, it’s more like a bad movie that you just have to sit in the dark and watch until it’s finally over—and then, just when you think it’s finished, it starts up again, and you have to watch it all over.
It’s impossible to get Maria out of my mind when that happens. It’s almost as if I have to re-live my whole relationship with her, from beginning to end, before my mind finally moves on to something else. And that something else is always Maria.
As cliché as it sounds, Maria changed my life. Had I not met her, I would’ve wound up a total geek or an alcoholic. Probably the latter.
In high school, when all these losers were dating lots of girls and getting laid, I never saw myself as much of a player. I guess I was pretty good-looking. And I think I usually got along pretty well with girls initially because of that. But still, in the end it was usually the more socially attractive guys—the goddamn jocks and hoods, especially—that got the girls, and not me. It always seemed that the bigger the asshole the guy was, the more the girls liked him.
Honestly, beyond my initial attraction, after a few minutes of conversation most chicks began to bore me. Nervously, I’d start cracking jokes about their hair or clothing, fearful that there was nothing else worth talking about. They weren’t always funny jokes, though. Having a sense of humor is a good thing, and that always helped me get girls to pay attention to me, on top of my looks. But what I mean is that more often than not my joking would become demeaning, as if I was blaming the girl for my boredom. I’m not sure if I noticed it before I met Maria, but I certainly noticed it today.
Marriage was a frightening thought, always. If I ever fell in love with a girl, how the hell would we manage to stay interested in each other for maybe thirty, forty, or fifty years? My friend Mike tells me that his parents, married over thirty years now, have developed a rut. Basically, they’ve had the same jobs since they were married; they go on vacation the same time each year to the same place; and they spend every possible weekend at his trailer in Upstate New York.
But Mike speaks of this rut fondly, as if it’s okay to have a predictable relationship with the only changes being his mom’s ass swelling and dad’s hairline receding more and more each year. Frankly, the thought of getting to know a chick so well that you could detect her fart a mile a way was pathetic. It made me want to vomit.
With such fears embedded in my mind, I always found it hard to justify being civil to a girl for more than five minutes after I met her. Occasionally, I’d date a girl just to have a girlfriend, because that was the cool thing to do. But I knew that after a few months of relentless conversation and ho-hum dates, a rut would develop and one of us would decide to break it off.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that before Maria, I never believed in love.
***
I met Maria at the first high school dance of the new year, on February 2, 1992, with about four months left to go in my junior year. Back then, everybody went to the dances. Once a month, that was the place to be.
After getting dropped off by our parents, every month we’d spend four hours stuffed in a muggy gymnasium, all hoping to leave later that night with a phone number. Singing “I got her number, I got her number,” hoods would skip out of the dance at eleven, showing off to their buddies. How I longed to be one of those guys.
With their sloppy hair and wide, baggy jeans that generally hung low enough to show a little ass crack, they were neither admired like jocks nor dissed like nerds. It was as if the Guidos of the late ‘80s had morphed into a similar animal of a different species. Pot- and cigarette-smoking, hip-hop-dancing losers, they wore colorful baseball caps, always backwards, of teams they’d never heard of, and drank forties of bitter malt liquor on street corners all over Queens. And they always seemed to walk hunkered over, like hunch backs, like hound dogs following a scent on the pavement. With their dark, floppy clothing and multicolored caps, hoods resembled homeless circus clowns to those who despised them. Nobody ever put these guys in charge of St. Ann’s, or any other high school for that matter, and yet somehow they ran the place. Everybody stood in awe of the hoods. No—we feared them. And we scorned them if only because they couldn’t be them.
Rebels without clues, my small circle of friends and I refused to join the ranks of the faddish hoods, opting instead to maintain the Guido style of the late-80s. Donning my Cavaricci jeans and a white turtleneck, I sat amongst my pals in the cafeteria dance after dance during my first three years of high school. Sipping Cokes and sweating to death, I’d think: Damn, why did I where a turtleneck? And then: Because it looks good, that’s why. The sweat would dribble off my brow and create a puddle between my chalk white Nike sneakers. I remember seeing that puddle many times. I was always so hot at those dances.
Occasionally, I’d hang out with a girl at a dance, pretty much ignoring my friends except to stop by and show off my latest catch. My friends were always cool about that, and they would’ve done the same thing if they had girlfriends.
Most nights, though, my friends and I remained in the cafeteria, part by choice, part by fate. The dance floor was so dark and stuffy that there was hardly a chance to hear a girl say her name, never mind have a conversation. Some guys grabbed complete strangers off the floor and jumped around like a bunch of monkeys. They’d dance all night, most of the time with people they knew all of two seconds beforehand, or didn’t know at all. Not my me and my friends, though. We’d sit there all night and hang out, striving to block out the hip-hop music emanating from within the gym, quietly ranking out the jerks and their chicks as they passed by.
Late September of last year, while sitting in the cafeteria jabbering about the oppressive heat, the awful music, or some other bullshit, I was introduced to Maria. I’m trying desperately to recall the name of the guy who introduced me to her. I recollect his greasy blonde hair and chubby face so well, but his name: Jeff Something…Jeff Rifkin…?
…Ripken! Jeff Ripken! Christ, does that name conjure up some memories!
I sort of knew Jeff before the dance; he’d sat next to me in Physics class that year. But it wasn’t until this dance that I really started to talk to him. I’ll never forget him approaching me by the soda machine in the corner and saying, “Hey, guess what? My sister thinks you’re cute.”
It’s funny how a minor event, the smallest detail, can shatter lives. My sister thinks you’re cute. That single innocuous sentence moved my world. What if I had been in the bathroom taking a piss when Jeff brought his sister around? Would Rick or Mike or Paul or Kyle be sitting in their rooms right now, writing what I am writing, doing what I’m about to do?
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 four 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 four planets 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 couldn’t look away from Jeff’s sister. 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 kicked 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 slapping Maria 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 pushed 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 lovable 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 recounted 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 avarice toward me. 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. 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 math classes he took in high school.
