Chapter 16

XVI

Maria’s Bed

We rebounded the next day, as usual. She called me early in the morning and began yelling and screaming.

“Look,” I said, “I was just upset that I wasn’t the first guy to bring you to the opera show, that’s all.”

“But you were the first guy!”

“What I mean is, you’d done it before. I’m sorry, okay? I love you. Let’s not ruin the rest of Christmas vacation.”

“I’m starting to think that no matter what we do, it has to be my first time ever, with anyone, or you’ll go crazy.” I refused to respond.

It’s funny how normal that conversation seemed at the time. When she ruined a date, it was forever discussed; when I ruined a date it was seldom mentioned again. Business as usual. In retrospect, such a habit seems sick and twisted and obsessive. There was, I cringe to admit now, little difference between me and murderer. The only difference between us is that, unlike a killer, I was too much of a pussy to choke a person’s spirit in one fell swoop; instead, I preferred to smother it, allowing it to slowly suffocate and die, like a baby trapped under a pillow.

But, hey, I was seventeen years old, for Christ’s sake. I was jealous. Being a girl’s first at everything was, I thought, a possibility. Back then, reason was my reluctant foe, compulsion my persistent ally. Not to mention my best friend of all: short-term memory.

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 47-50th 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 names 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. 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 Clause 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 continued to gaze in my direction as Maria admired the cathedral’s lavish ceiling. She firmly clutched my bicep as if to say, “Hey, Joel, 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 diocese 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 59^th 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.

“Joel!” 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 who 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 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.

“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. But 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 pine tree. These 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 pine.

***

“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 modest house. 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.

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 Joel Joseph L’Enfant, a good-looking, well-spoken gentleman about to enter the U. S. Air Force Academy.

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.

Mr. Della Verita ceased rocking and stared at me intently. “You know much about jets, Joel?”

“Sure,” I said, “I know a little.”

“When I was just a little older than you, I flew an F-4D Phantom in Vietnam. Ever hear of it?”

“Sure, one of the most versatile jets used in the war. It’s the first U. S. Navy jet to be accepted for service by the Air Force. And you know how strong the rivalry is between the Air Force and Navy.”

“Navy men are a bunch of pussies!” he bellowed. Maria and her sat silently, startled at his burst of profanity. Mrs. Della Verita lit another cigarette. Not too drunk to be embarrassed, Mr. D glanced at his wife and daughter and quietly apologized.

“I know what you mean, sir,” I said, trying desperately to continue the conversation unabated. “The Air Force did the real work in ‘Nam.”

“You bet, guy. And that F-4D Phantom II did more work than any two battleships combined. It carried two laser-guided bombs and three air-to-air missiles. We blasted Charlie to hell, I tell ya. The Phantom could do it all: photo reconnaissance, bombing missions, anti-radar assignments. I can’t think of another jet that did so much.”

“My dad said he always wanted to fly the Phantom, but he got stuck with a B52D Stratofortress.”

“Stuck? Are you kidding me? If I could’ve flown any other aircraft in Vietnam, it would’ve been the Stratofortress. Hell, the Phantom flew close to the ground, almost got us killed a hundred times over. But the Stratofortress dropped its bombs from what, 20,000 feet?”

“30, 000,” I said, smiling.

“30, 000 feet! Christ! I bet he came home without a scratch on him!”

“He got home okay, just like you did.” My words hung conspicuously in the air as if in a cartoon bubble. Mr. D downed another glass of sparkling yellow champagne.

Maria and her mother sat upright, parallel to one another like two tight-lipped totem poles, on the sofa across from the rocking chair. I got the impression that Maria was pissed at me because her father and I were so buddy-buddy. Mr. Della Verita was oblivious to his wife and daughter as he continued to reminisce about his war experience. Suddenly, I had the strangest feeling: It was almost as if he was hinting that his marriage destroyed his love affair with the Air Force, because that’s when he had to settle down and become a garbage man in New York. He went on and on, literally for hours, drinking champagne and telling me amazing stories about his life in the Air Force.

“Anyway, you need anything, guy, to help you get into that Academy, and I’ll give it to ya. I’ll make some phone calls for ya. You just let me know.” That’s how he concluded our conversation about the Air Force at one in the morning on January first of the New Year.

Mrs. Della Verita stiffly motioned for Maria to bring me down to her room. She was mighty pissed at her husband. I could tell that a fight was brewing.

Once in Maria’s room, apologies gushed out of her mouth as quickly as the tears fell from her eyes. I had no idea why she was crying.

“I’m so sorry, Joel, for my father’s behavior upstairs. I don’t know what got into him. I was angry at you at first for being so friendly with him. I was jealous, because we hardly ever talk that way anymore. Me and you, I mean. And, actually, me and him. But now I realize that I was actually angry with my father for allowing himself to lose control.”

“It’s okay, angel, really. I was—sort of angry that he started drinking, too.” But, to be honest, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. All I could think about was that recommendation I needed.

“Really? Is it okay?”

“I’m okay, really. I’m over it. But I wish you hadn’t had that glass of champagne. That was sort of sad to see.”

“I’m sorry!” she howled at the top of her lungs. It was not in anger but fear—fear that I would storm out of her house right then and there. But I wasn’t angry with her at all. Hell, I had the perfect match: her father’s admiration for me and her loss of whatever respect she had left for him. At that moment, for the first time in months, I was the only person in the world she could turn to for love and guidance.

“It’s all right, baby. Really. I love you so much. I forgive you. I know why you drank. Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve, right?” For a moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could tell her that I’d learned to enjoy drinking, that maybe we could be drinking buddies.

But she looked at me with those doey eyes and said, “I don’t want to turn into my father.” She sniffled.

It was then that I realized how sorry she was for drinking the previous summer. Tonight, I thought, I have truly forgiven her. But I would’ve forgiven her for anything that night, I was so happy.

Soon we were entangled in a passionate kiss. With the rumble of her parents’ argument thundering above our heads, we stripped naked and rolled around on the carpet. It was cold outside that night, but I felt nothing but a warm little pillow that was Maria.

After nearly getting rug-burn, we rose and walked toward her bed, stopping intermittently to kiss and kiss again. And as I swirled my tongue within her mouth, as I felt her breasts flatten against the middle of my bare chest, my hands found her bulbous ass. She was a woman with a nine year old girl’s behind, a schoolgirl with a woman’s touch. It was tight, yet yielding, and it thrust my hard-on though my boxers in one fell swoop. Of all the things I experienced that New Year’s Eve, I’ll never forget what happened before the sex: the feeling of Maria’s ass clenched tightly within my two hands like two ripe cantaloupes, and my dick piercing her belly like a knife. There’s no other feeling in the world that compares. I remember it well.

She welcomed my body as we fell on to the bed. Interlocked, we tore at one another like a lion and a lioness. I kissed and nibbled—everywhere. Her head, face, neck, breasts, shoulders, arms, and belly. I felt as if I weren’t making love but eating a fine meal. And she smelled like one, too. There is nothing in this universe like the scent of a naked woman you love—the fragrance of a dab of perfume between her breasts, the aroma of her perspiration, the subtle bouquet that arose as I smooched my way down her tummy and toward her vagina. It’s not flowers or perfume, but flesh and skin. A warm body aching for mine. Such a smell can’t be reproduced by Calvin Klein or accurately described in a romance novel. The closest comparison would be to that of a security blanket I embraced when I was just a kid while sucking my thumb—completely barren of anything that was unfamiliar me, familiar yet fresh, and oh-so-comforting.

We were both virgins. But Maria knew exactly where to place her hands and mouth and cheeks; and I answered with all that I knew could pleasure a woman at the time. I covered her entire body with gentle kisses; her body erupted in goosebumps. I sniffed her eyebrows and ears; I bit and tugged at her nipples and elbows. Each movement was a prelude to the next. We flowed like the water rolling onto the sands of Rockaway beach.

And just as the waves come together, that night there was a total surrender of my body to Maria’s. I savored the most private part of my body melding with the most private part of hers. I felt Unity. But even that word itself does nothing to begin to illustrate my feelings that night.

Our rhythm was perfect. It was almost as if each previous kiss together had been practiced solely for one act. The thumping above us was drowned out by lustful breathing. The room we were in, the bed we were on—they did not exist, either. That night Maria and I soared higher than any jet, well beyond each cloud we had gazed upon in Central Park. All that I desired at that point and time, all that I needed in the world, had been secured during those few hours in Maria’s bed.

Maria’s bed. Now there’s an image that pains me to ponder. It’s just past midnight now. I could be in her bed right now. I had my future. I had Maria. Had I died that night, I’d have died a peaceful man. I almost wish I had died, right then and there. Peace like that has eluded my life since Maria. I wish for that kind of peace in my next life.

The rest is too difficult to repeat. It’s always most difficult to reiterate the greatest times we shared. All I can say is this: To this day, I’ve never felt as close to a girl—to any person at all—as I did that early morning with Maria Della Verita. We were in complete and holy isolation. We basked in the sun of a solar system that consisted of only two heavenly bodies.