Chapter 12

XII

Mortal Sin

At the end of October, New York was still in the throws of an Indian Summer. The air was heavy, choking. Cicadas still sang one Saturday morning as I walked up the block to the deli.

I didn’t work very hard that fall, only one Saturday day a week. Some of it was cool, though. I could take anything I wanted and eat it right there. I loved that deli food. I loved finding a few minutes when the customer traffic slowed down, so I could sneak a hero sandwich in the stock room and engulf it. I’d pile provolone, salami, ham, bologna, turkey, roast beef, pickles, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, vinegar—just about everything in the deli—on top of a big-ass hunk of fresh Semolina bread slathered with mayonnaise and mustard, sprinkled with salt and pepper and oregano. I must have eaten one of those things every Saturday during my senior year. And the moment I swallowed that last piece of hoagie each day, as I licked the vinegar and mayo off my fingertips, I walked out the back door smoke a butt. There’s nothing like a cigarette after a good meal.

One day, Rick came into the deli and asked me to hang out at his house some night the next week. He was going to have a party, he said, and his parents wouldn’t be home. Not only that, but there would be tons of beer and liquor and pizza and stuff. I begged him to ban all alcohol from his party, but he wouldn’t listen.

“You gotta do it,” I said, waving a leaf of romaine lettuce at him, “you gotta stop everyone from drinking. Drinking causes problems, dude.”

“I used to think that, too, L’Enfant, but trust me. I was with these guys this summer, and trust me, it so fucking fun.”

“I don’t know.”

“Trust me, L’Enfant.” I should’ve asked him why he was suddenly calling me ‘L’Enfant’; he never did before. It was almost like he was mocking me. I still don’t know.

But instead, I remember wondering, Should I drink at this party? To make up for what Maria said she’d done? Should I tell him about what happened with Maria? Should I ask for his advice about her lie? Rick had been out with a few girls—he could have given me some sound advice. It’s that last point that still smarts. I mean, what if I had asked him for some advice? I know he would’ve told me to forget about Maria’s past and drinking or whatever, and just enjoy being with her.

But I was so fucked up. I kept everything inside. I was too afraid to ask him for some help.

I was shocked that Rick had become a “drinker,” like people had in my family. Rick was the last person that you’d think would drink. He never really did so, not until that summer at least. But that summer, he was a valet at a club near Rockaway beach. Apparently, the guys he worked with there were all older than he was and they all went out drinking together. I was disgusted by it all. He was only seventeen, for crying out loud. It was as if, all of a sudden, I was friends with one of those goddamn losers at school that went out drinking on the weekends.

All my life there was always this distinction between adults and kids. All of a sudden, all around me, my friends were becoming adults, and doing adult things, while I still missed the kid things. And I secretly hated them for that. I didn’t want anything to change.

Between my family’s experiences with alcohol—yours, mom, grandma’s, and both grandpa’s—and all the lushes at school, I was convinced that alcohol should’ve been illegal. In fact, I thought that all drugs should’ve been illegal—beer, pot, cocaine, vodka, whatever. As far as I was concerned, any substance that altered the state of the human mind deserved to be banned. Anyone who used drugs, I thought, should go to jail, even get the death penalty. I figured that there were enough problems in the world without people walking around stoned and drunk. I had no respect for anyone who drank or did drugs. I had no respect for people who lost control of themselves like that. Like you, Mom. And that summer, I began to lose respect for Rick. I kept thinking about what he was like during freshman year, and how he had changed. And it depressed me. He was just a short, mousy little kid, who didn’t speak much at all. Of all the people I knew, Rick was least likely to start a fight, or say something controversial. He was just a good kid. He studied hard, worked after school, and went home. That’s why I liked him.

But summer before senior year, Rick went berserk. He’d call me up on Sunday mornings, hung-over, and tell me how much fun he had with his new friends. He’d describe the new drinks he’d tried—his favorite was Long Island Iced Tea—and encourage me to come out and drink with him. But I’d just yell at him, in a sort of friendly way, and tell him he was nuts.

I yelled at him that day in the deli, like I always did. And he responded like he always did: “You said the same thing about cigarettes two years ago.” He was right, of course. Before my sophomore year in high school, I vowed I would never smoke. But that was different. You can drive a car and smoke a cigarette, and they don’t make you lose your goddamn mind.

Kyle had been a big drinker ever since I met him, but I was used to it and it never bothered me. That was just part of Kyle’s style, I guess. But Rick’s behavior broke my heart. To see him drink was to hear Maria lie. It was unnatural, offensive, and evil. He’d changed so much that summer, I wondered if we could even be friends anymore. He didn’t become mean or anything. If anything, he was friendlier than ever before. More relaxed. Real California. He was more talkative, had more friends, and went out more often. I don’t know, I just hated seeing him become an adult.

As Rick told me more and more about the party, I got more excited about the free pizza than the free beer. I figured I’d go to the party, eat, and leave within an hour or so. I couldn’t stand to see him lose control. Actually, Maria lived nearby. I figured I’d make an obligatory appearance at the party, and then, since I had the car, I’d planned on serenading Maria from the sidewalk outside her two-family attached house. Funny how things never go as planned.

“Can I bring Maria?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. I smiled. “But is she as anal about alcohol about you?” I told him that she hated alcohol as much as I did, but tempered my words by adding, “don’t worry, she’s cool.” Again, I wondered about her trip Upstate. But I believed her story, and tired to forget all about what she’d told me.

Strangely excited about the party, I picked Maria up at her house the following week. As usual, she was beautiful. She had a white sundress with a violet floral print and new penny loafers. It was a muggy night, but Maria didn’t sweat a bead. I, on the other hand, felt bullets dripping down my back and forehead. I was nervous about that night, I admit it. I’m not really sure why. I suppose that I was unsure about bringing Maria to a party with The Family since we’d never socialized with my closest friends before. Also, there was Maria’s lie about drinking, and now we’d be among dozens of teenagers guzzling Heineken. But there was something else that. Something…indefinable.

With a queasy tingle in my gut, I rang Rick’s doorbell, expecting the party to be inside. Nobody answered. Maria heard some laughter coming from the backyard and motioned for us to go there.

My introduction to everyone was knocking over a beer keg as I turned into his yard. About 50 people stopped moving and talking and looked at me—but only for a second, thank god. Kyle, his eyes watery as if he was already drunk, laughed his ass off as he came running over to place the keg upright. The party was really going. There were tons of people, especially girls, who Rick had met over the summer. Mike was sitting on a swing set with a plastic cup filled with beer in his hand. Paul was playing basketball with himself, using Rick’s driveway hoop. I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I just yelled out Rick’s name into the crowd. He came running over to me, clutching a bottle of rum, saying my last name over and over again.

“L’Enfant! L’Enfant, baby! What the hell’s up, dude?” I could tell that he was already a little drunk, because he never called me by my last name, otherwise. It made me a little sick to see this nice kid from freshman year totally lose control of himself like that.

Revolted, I placed my hand firmly on Rick’s shoulder and said: “The name’s J. J. ” He didn’t seem to give a damn. “By the way, where the hell’s the pizza?” He said there wasn’t any left. I wanted to leave right then and there.

I glanced at my watch. It was ten o’clock and we’d only been there about fifteen minutes but I wanted to go home. A light rain fell from the sky, but that didn’t slow the party one bit. Maria tugged at my shirt, leading me around the backyard, saying hello to each of my friends. She was so fucking cool. She completely cheered me up. Suddenly, I realized that I was with Maria, my best friend, and that was all that mattered. As Rick and Kyle and even Mike downed beers and shots one after the other, Maria stretched her tiny fingers around my wet hand. “Are you having a good time?” she’d say every so often. “I love you, baby.”

Proud and pleased, I strode around the backyard with Maria by my side, showing her off to idiot after idiot. At first glance, when I noticed their smiles and laughter, I assumed that they were in awe of my beautiful girlfriend. But then the truth became obvious: The Family, as well as everyone else there, was oblivious to my existence. They didn’t give a shit about me or Maria. It wasn’t on purpose, that much was clear. They were just having so much fun, because of the alcohol, that they didn’t bother with the two sober nerds.

Between the humid rain and the noise and the liquor, it was a terribly uncomfortable night. Leaning toward Maria’s ear, attempting to speak over the music and laughter, I said: “Let’s go home.” She acquiesced.

We left the party, I dropped her off, and began to drive home on the Interboro Parkway. I was going nowhere in particular, and found myself on rain-slicked Queens Boulevard, heading west. I zipped by the Queens Center Mall, Stern’s, the European-American Bank, and made an illegal U-turn at 65^th Place near the BQE. Although I was only driving a beat-up Buick, I swear to god I felt like I was flying in a Viggen AJ-37, a sleek, gray, Swedish-made aircraft that I would probably never fly. It’s WEFT: a pair of small delta wings mounted on the side, in front of a pair of larger delta wings; a large, single exhaust; a pointed nose and bubble canopy; and a large fin with a small, slipped tip. Loaded with cannons, gun pods, missiles, rockets and bombs, it could easily level the mall in no time flat. What a great jet, I thought.

Around 46^th Street, I was neck-and-neck with the 7 train, which rumbled above and to my left, lit like a jack o’ lantern in the murky night. Thinking I was crazy for racing a train, I ached to act crazier still. So I began talking to myself out loud: “Maybe I’m missing something,” I said. “Maybe Rick and Kyle and the rest of them know something that I don’t.” Like a punch in the face, it hit me. I don’t know what it was—a feeling, I guess, a compulsion, a drive. I had the chance, right then and there, to experience something I’d never experienced before. I asked: “How often will I get to drink with my best friends before I get to Colorado?” While skidding into a tailspin at the corner of Queens Boulevard and Van Dam, just missing a tractor-trailer parked in front of the 24-hour newsstand, I made up my mind. Now heading back east toward Woodhaven Boulevard, I felt at ease, as if I was finally going in the direction that the magnet was pulling me.

I parked my car half on the curb and ran into Rick’s backyard. Not an adult could be found, only teenagers. I pushed my way through the crowd and found Rick and grabbed him by the arm.

“Where the hell are your parents?” I asked, surprised at my own inquiry.

“They’re in Florida,” he said. “They’re on vacation. You can sleep over if you want. Kyle’s staying the night, and so is Mike.”

I looked around me. I saw dozens of people, more girls than guys, dancing and laughing and screaming. Kyle walked over to me, obviously drunk.

“Have a beer, my man,” he said, shoving a cup of brown liquid in my direction.

“No thanks.”

He took a swig of his bottle of rum, the same one that Rick was drinking from earlier. Rick and Kyle stood there, telling jokes and laughing and having a blast. Once again, they seemed almost oblivious to my existence. And then Paul walked over. I thought he’d be the only sober person there, but I was wrong. Get this: he had a glass of red wine in one hand and a bottle of Yeungling in another. We all talked for a while. Outside of school, I hadn’t seen my friends much since before I went to Virginia. Rick was always with his beach buddies, and Paul was happy being at home if nothing was going on. Mike gladly went to movies alone, and Kyle did whatever Kyle did.

Considering all this, I don’t know why I did it, and I can’t remember how I began to say it, but I decided to tell them about my three flings in Virginia. I described what those girls looked like, what they were wearing when I kissed them, and which was better than the other. I said that I didn’t tell Maria about it, and didn’t plan to.

My words were stale, without emotion or care; they were just words. And, as I monotonously dropped each syllable to The Family, for no reason in particular, Kyle placed his cup of beer on the grass, stretched out his hand with a big, goofy smile on his face, and slapped me five. He was so drunk, maybe he didn’t even realize that he was congratulating me. I don’t know.

All I know is that with Kyle’s hand still gripping mine, I reached toward the bottle he was holding in the other, took it, and drank a gulp of rum. It was the vilest thing I’d ever tasted. I despised it. I’d imagined that alcohol tasted bad, but not that bad. It left a burning sting in my mouth, as if a bee had bitten my tongue. My mouth and lips grew numb, my eyes watery. I clutched my throat, and announced to my friends, “How could anyone drink this shit! How could anyone enjoy it?” I implored them to answer. But they just laughed at me. They knew it was my first time. I felt humiliated, but free. I smiled and silently vowed to never taste that shit again.

Then I took another gulp. It was more awful than before.

Then I took another. I thought: It’s not that bad.

What followed after my fourth or fifth slurp is hazy, at best. But I do recall a few details. I remember, for example, pulling my pants down in front of three or four girls—all of them Rick’s friends. And not just my pants, but my underwear, too. I grabbed hold of my dick, showing it off to the ladies, as they cringed in fear, as if I’d brandished a loaded pistol.

After I broke the seal, my urge to urinate was continuous and tremendous. It seemed that I could have stood at the toilet peeing for hours. At one point, I ran to the bathroom, grabbing my crotch and yelping in pain with this intense urge to go. Rick’s friend was kneeling at the toilet, making animal-like noises and vomiting. When it became clear that he had no intention of moving anytime soon, I stood behind him, the front tips of my sneakers against the soles of his shoes, and pissed a stream of urine right over his back. Kyle and Rick walked in and laughed their asses off. I was like a fucking fountain, peeing a yellow arch over this guy’s head.

For some reason, I completely missed the sink as I exited the bathroom, and didn’t get a chance to wash up. By this time, everyone had moved into the basement. It was around midnight, and had started to rain pretty hard. Everyone was drunk. Realizing that I had forgotten to wash my hands, I plunged my hands into a fish tank, and then wiped my hands on my jeans.

Whether most of Rick’s guests were amused by my behavior or not I have no idea. But I felt as if they were, so I continued with my ridiculous antics. And I continued drinking.

Even drunk, Kyle got more laughs from the crowd than I did. More genuine laughs, at least. Impersonating an Olympian, he completed a somersault at my feet, and announced, “I won’ the gold! I won the gold!” He could barely stand band yet he somehow managed to jump.

One of Kyle’s tumbles landed him smack into my knees; I fell to the ground beside him, chuckling like an idiot. Placing my arm around his shoulder, I whispered to him—although it was probably too loud to be a whisper—that he was my best friend in the world.

“I love you, man,” I said. He said he loved me, too. And then, somehow—and I really have no goddamn idea how this happened—Kyle and I were engaged in an open-mouth kiss, just for a split second. In disgust, yet hysterical, we retreated from one another’s faces quickly. Everyone got a kick out of it.

As drunk as Rick was, he still managed to place some plastic garbage bags beneath myself and Kyle in an effort to salvage his carpet lest anyone lose control and vomit again. But Kyle refused to lie on the plastic. He chose instead to hop on the couch nearby, and lay there, with his head on its side, hanging over the edge.

“Oh, man,” he moaned. “I think I’m gonna…” And with that, he proceeded to puke. I’d seen him eating potato chips earlier that evening. And now I saw those chips for a second time, swimming in a brownish, rummy river overflowing from his mouth, dripping down the side of the couch. Ashamed and saddened by what I saw, I promised myself to never drink another drop of alcohol again. What I saw before me was the reason I’d never wanted to drink in the first place. I’d seen it too many times before.

Rick stumbled down the steps into the basement with more garbage bags clenched in one fist and the remnants of a bottle of vodka in the other. I attempted to stand up, swinging my hands toward his, begging him to give it to me. Or maybe it was his brother. Everything was so blurry I still don’t remember. “This much more,” I begged, on my knees, with my index finger and thumb forming what looked like a pinch of something. “Just this much more.” I kept repeating it.

Somehow I approached two hot blondes that Rick worked with. “I just wanna tell ya,” I said, drooling, slurring my speech, “I love your boobs.

“No,no!”—I shifted my gaze from one girl’s rack to the next—“I love your boobs.” They looked more shocked than offended. Lucky for me they were drunk, or I probably would’ve gotten slapped. Nect thing I know, I’m pulling my dick out of my pants, asking, “want some of this?” and smiling like a goofy bastard.

Apparently, Rick’s brother felt that I was losing control of myself, so he yelled at me, “Shutup!” and pushed me down onto the plastic, threatening to beat me up if I didn’t go to sleep. Quickly, the room was emptied, and only me, Rick, Mike, and Kyle were left. Somebody shut the lights off, but I don’t know who.

***

The next morning I woke up on a black plastic bag on the hard basement floor, without a headache, hangover-free, as if I’d never touched the liquor in the first place. I peered at Kyle, lying on the sofa across the room. The left side of his face was encrusted with dried-up vomit. His pants were down, but nobody knew how they got that way. Without uttering a word, Kyle stumbled up the stairs and took a shower. Mike was opened his eyes and just started laughing at me. Although I didn’t feel hung over, I guess I looked pretty bad. Mike hadn’t drunk as much as Kyle or me, but he looked as ugly as he usually did.

Kyle returned. We had a good laugh about the party last night. I lit a cigarette. By the second or third puff, I was consumed by the urge to throw up. I felt as if I were choking on my own tongue, so I snuffed it out between my foot and the plastic beneath me.

Kyle smelled the rancid scent of burning plastic and announced, “I farted.” He looked a little out of it.

“You okay?” I asked.

He paused for a moment. “I’m still pretty drunk.” I found this hard to believe; but, then again, what the hell did I know? He was so messed up that morning, he said, that he showered on his hands and knees in Rick’s bathroom. He didn’t do a very good job, because most of the vomit was still stuck to his face and clothing afterward.

Somehow, we all got home that morning. I had my car, but I honestly don’t remember driving it. I offered to bring Kyle home, be he took the train with Mike.

At my kitchen table that morning, drinking a glass of orange juice, I wondered how to react to what to do. Nobody was home, and I had to be at the deli soon. I would’ve called Maria, but I couldn’t figure out what to tell her about the party. She might break up with me once she found out that I’d gotten drunk. I’d committed a mortal sin: I was the son of an alcoholic dating the daughter of an alcoholic who’d kill his girlfriend if she had ever gotten drunk—and I’d gotten drunk. And I didn’t give a shit.

I wondered: Why is it called a mortal sin if you don’t die after it’s committed?

Chomping on my Cheerios, faced with a dilemma—to lie or not to lie—I did what I usually did when I had an important decision to make: I took a nap.

Lying in bed, with the blinds drawn, amidst the darkness of my air-conditioned room, each sound of silence pulsated into my ears. It was always like that when I was alone in my room, especially when I was sheltered by my soft covers in the dark.

I began to doze.

I dreamt about a silent room, with tiled floors and nobody to speak to but the shadows. There was a deafening silence around me. As the fear within me filled my chest, and as I turned around to escape, I knocked goldfish bowl to the floor. Its crash echoed around me. Each shard of glass its own entity, making a unique crackle, then spinning like tops, as the water flowed into a puddle around me.

It was a lonely feeling.

For some reason, after Rick’a party, I was always lonely at night. I guess I should’ve been thinking about Maria to calm me. But since her past made me so tense, as I lay in bed each night, I felt death lingering just outside my window. It was a clawed hand ready to strike—ready to take me away, kicking and screaming, to Hell.

I had another dream. There was a janitor at school I knew. Not Zachary, but another one named Nelson the guy who always came in the gym after we played basketball or volleyball, and mopped up our sweat and spit. The thing is, he never seemed to mind mopping that stuff up. He sort of was glad in a way, like he was part of the game. He’d wash the gym windows or pick up the garbage, occasionally glancing over his shoulder in delight, catching a great volleyball play. Sometimes, he’d even stop washing the windows and stand in on the sidelines, cheering us on. Afterward, he’d walk gingerly to the court, wearing a big smile on his wrinkly old face. Most of the guys were oblivious to his existence. But I saw him waving as we filed back into the locker room.

The poor bastard really enjoyed his job. He was the closest thing to a cheerleader we had. Nelson was a real nice man.

One day, toward the end of our junior year, all the guys in our gym class decided to chip in and buy him a gift. A really popular asshole named Dwayne walked around with a brown envelope while we were all changing in the locker room. He asked for a dollar from each of us; that would give him a total of about thirty bucks to buy Nelson a present. I was the last guy he came to, because I always stood in the corner at the end of the bench, changing into my clothes. Actually, I wore my gym clothes underneath my shirt and tie and pants because I didn’t like to let anyone see me naked. But I still didn’t want to be near everyone else. “How ‘bout a dollar,” Dwayne said, “for our main man, Nelson?”

“Sorry, I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, come on, L’ Enfant, it’s only a dollar!”

“The name’s J. J. And, no, really, I don’t have any cash on me. I’m sorry.”

“Well, maybe next gym class, all right? Make sure you bring a dollar.”

But he never came back for that dollar, and he knew I wasn’t going to pay up. When my classmates discovered that I hadn’t donated to the Nelson Fund, as the called it, they began to disregard me. I used to ignore them, but now they ignored me.

I never liked gym, so I did everything possible to sit out of the basketball games. Usually, I’d tell the gym teacher that I was sick and he’d allow me to avoid participating. Occasionally, I’d B. S. with Nelson on the sidelines. He thought I was crazy for not wanting to play. “Why you so boring, J. J. ?” he’d say in a Jamaican accent. “If I were you, I would want to be in gym all day.” I’d just smile back at him, waiting for him to change the subject. My classmates often called out to me, “J. J. , get your butt in here, we need you” and then I’d have to rejoin the game.

But the next gym class after the Nelson Fund incident, nobody gave a shit when I sat out. Nobody asked me to join the game. Nobody even looked at me, sitting there alone in the creaky wooden stands. Not the gym teacher, not Nelson. When one kid got injured and had to leave the game, the team was left with 4 players against five. Down one man—and losing by about 20 points—they didn’t ask me to join.

I dreamt all of this that morning and afternoon, in no particular order, sort of all together, as I lay shivering beneath my covers in the darkness. The dream ended with an image of Nelson’s happy face—not his body, just his face suspended in midair—smiling at me and saying “hello.”

“Hellooooo,” said Nelson, and then—poof!—he was gone. I sat up, shivering yet sweating, wondering what the hell time it was, rubbing my eyelids open.

I wonder where Nelson is nowadays. He’s probably still a goddamn janitor. The poor bastard.