Chapter 2

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.