Little Boy (8 page)

You wanted to leave Queens but mommy wanted
to stay. So you drove to Newark every day and put in forty hours a
week, not counting the commute. You never once bitched or moaned.
You did your duty for family just as you had for your country. You
worked silently, day-in and day-out, without recognition, like a
gymnast who trains endlessly for the Olympics and doesn’t even win
a bronze, but trains even harder right afterward.

Hey Mom and Dad, I often wonder if you guys
really went through the same stuff as me when you were my age. You
may think so, but I say probably not. Hell, I don’t even know what
you guys saw in each other when you met. These days, no two totally
different people would ever fall in love like you did. When thunder
marries lightening all you get is a storm.

Occasionally, I blow the dust off of your
old, musty high school yearbooks in the attic and stare at your
pictures. Mom, you beamed like Megan Tyler Moore. And Dad, you
glared defiantly like James Dean. You guys actually look normal and
attractive.

But, Mom—and this is where I get so fucking
confused—you must have been a mental case back then, too! That’s an
awful thing to write, I know. But it must’ve been true. As far back
as I can remember, you were always a little crazy. You never beat
us, and you bought us everything we wanted, but you just couldn’t
control your mouth.

You were never like all the mothers I saw on
TV. On all the other shows the moms were the same—pleasant and
gentle and caring. But you were never like those moms. I’ve always
been pissed at you for that. I mean, there was dad who had fought
in the war, and he was really cool and collected. Even when me and
Tracy were bad, dad always understood and never went crazy. But
you, Mom—holy shit! If you couldn’t control yourself, why did you
bother to have children in the first place?

I admit that I forgave you, Dad, for your
mistakes very early in life. Any other woman for a wife and you
never would’ve cheated, I know that. Your flaws never affected me.
You always kept yourself in control. Mommy, on the other hand, even
though you didn’t hit as much, you never had any control of
yourself. I remember one time you got angry and actually went at me
with a fork. Maybe I was bad that day. I don’t know. But why
couldn’t you just hit me and send me to my room? Why’d you have to
go crazy like that? And that’s no exception to the rule. That shit
happened day-in and day-out. You couldn’t control her mouth,
either. All the moms on TV would ask nicely for something the first
time, and then yell later if the kid didn’t do it. Not you. You’d
yell the
first
time, or even curse, and never asked nicely
for anything.

Most of the time, I guess, it was the alcohol
talking. When you were sober, you weren’t as bad. You always bought
me and Tracy clothes, and gave us tons of presents for Christmases
and birthdays. As a matter of fact, you gave us too many presents.
If I were a parent, I’d never waste so much money on buying so many
goddamn toys each holiday. But that’s the thing—you’d shower us
with gifts all the time, but all I ever really wanted was for you
to be nice and stop drinking and cursing. You never understood
this. And I never bothered explaining it to you, because I didn’t
know how to back then.

It’s not like I never loved you. I did. But
when I was a kid I hated you more often than loved you. I loathed
you for having no control over yourself when you drank. I know that
soon you’ll start seeing your shrink every day, instead of just
once a week, after all that you’re going to discover about your
beloved son
. Take this journal to your shrink, mommy. This
is
my
official statement.

Growing up with an alcoholic, I came to
recognize and anticipate your routine. One rum and Coke induced a
few moments of passivity. Two, and you started to talk a lot, with
a look in your eyes that said, “Why isn’t anyone listening?” By
your third your eyes were glossy and your voice spewed quick and
obtrusive half-sentences. By your fifth rum and Coke you were
loaded: One hundred and nineteen pounds of simulated supremacy,
like when Charlie Chaplin dressed up as Hitler and kicked a globe
around. You’d screech petty orders and hurl ugly expletives at me,
Daddy, and Tracy. Six or seven drinks and you were gone, passed
out, occasionally in a puddle of vomit in the bathroom, but usually
on your bed. The sound of your bedroom door slamming shut never
came too soon.

Occasionally, when you drank and lost all
control of yourself, Dad would glance in my direction and nod
furtively as if to say, “Hey, kiddo, I know she’s messed up. Don’t
worry, she’ll be asleep soon.” Amazing, but you never let her
bother you too much. You gave Mom’s drunken ravings as much
attention as I give a strong breeze, allowing it to take its course
and then settle down. And no matter what she did, no matter how
crazy she was, you always took Mom’s side. I never liked that, of
course. But, looking back on it now, I understand why. You didn’t
want to make her even more crazy by siding with me. You always knew
how wrong she was, but you tried to be a good husband and
father.

Tracy never flinched when Mom went berserk.
Two years younger than me, she was still sharp enough to realize
early on that Mom was unmanageable. She never reacted the way I
did. For some reason or another, Tracy never seemed to be bothered
by that type of stuff. But I always was. Sometimes Tracy would say
to me, “Hey, A.J. , why do you let mommy bother you like that? Just
ignore her when she drinks.” It was good advice, I guess, but
easier said than done.

Rum and Coke and Smoke—that’s what I called
you one day. I was eight years old, and I suppose the rhyme sounded
cute to me. You mashed your cigarette into a crystal ashtray and
called for Daddy to reprimand me. As punishment, dad smacked me
with his belt. To a little kid, watching your father unbuckle his
belt—hearing the clank of the brass and the rip of the leather—was
like having a cocked revolver put to your head. The sounds hurt
more than the leather. Nevertheless, Mom, you always accused Daddy
of going soft on me. God, I despised you for wanting to see me
punished more severely. And I always wanted to say or do something
that made you rethink your behavior and grasp how viciously you
treated us all. But nothing ever got through to you, sober or
otherwise.

***

As I thought about all this, overlay images
of Maria, and the life we could spend together if I only could
forget my own past. I kept watching the poster like it was a movie,
and then switched back to the photo. First one, then the other, and
then back again. I smoked a few more cigarettes, and cried one more
tear for you, Dad.

I thought a lot that night. I thought about
this guy named Richard that I worked with in an office the summer
before. Richard was a short little man with thick black glasses and
a big shaggy beard. He was a real slob, even more of a slob than my
friend Kyle. Hell, he practically never had his shirt tucked in.
And, even though he never wore a tie, he always kept his shirt
buttoned up to the top. Fucking weird. Worse, sometimes he’d tuck
the front part of his shirt into his underwear and then his
belt-less pants would fall a few inches, displaying an elastic band
that read
Hanes
. He was thirty-five, unmarried, and living
with his mother when we met. He hadn’t shaved his beard for almost
twenty years, and he hadn’t left the island of Manhattan since he
was eighteen. I once asked him why he hadn’t gotten married, and he
responded: “Because I don’t want to lose my freedom.”
What
freedom?
I thought.

I used to pick on this guy non-stop. It’s not
like I made him cry or anything; he always knew that I was just
busting his balls. I started little arguments with him about
everything. I argued for everything that he was against. He was one
of those orthodox Jews who justified moral righteousness by quoting
Biblical passages.

I also busted his balls every time he asked
me for help. At least once daily, he'd approach me timidly and say
something like, "A.J., can you show me how to use the photocopy
machine?" or "Please help me turn on my computer. I forgot how." My
response was always the same: "You've been here fifteen years and
you can't operate the copier? Yeah, right!" I thought he was trying
to unload his work on me, the bastard.

Despite these exchanges, we were friends in
the office, and he knew I never meant any harm. But one day, about
halfway through the summer, my supervisor pulled me aside and said
something like, “Don’t be so hard on Richard. He’s
retarded
,
you know.” At first I thought this was funny, because everyone knew
that Richard was more than a little retarded. But then I noticed
the somber look on my supervisor's face, and suddenly it all made
sense. Richard had been working at the same office job for almost
fifteen years; he lived with his Mom; he acted like a weirdo; he
dressed like a hobo with bad taste. It hit me:
Shit! I've been
making fun of a retarded guy! A guy with actual Down’s
Syndrome!
My stomach sank like the Titanic and my mouth went
dry. I couldn’t believe that I’d been making fun of a real retarded
guy all along.
Poor Richard!
I thought. I had been dissing
the weakest person available. I don't think I spoke to him once
after I found out what he was.

I thought about all this stuff for a while.
Finally, after an hour or so, I regained my composure.

I smoked a few more cigarettes, wrote about
the dance in my journal, and I fell asleep right there in my
clothes and sneakers. Lucky it was a Friday night, because I didn’t
wake up until around noon the following day.

***

At school, two days later, I told all of my
friends about what happened at the dance. The response was what I
expected: Kyle asked, “Did you bang her?” knowing full-well that I
only danced with Maria. Rick tried to drown out my story with his
own, but had failed. Mike smiled like a big dope, because I knew
he’d never even talked to a girl much less danced with one. Mike
had so little experience with girls that he thought I exaggerated
the whole story, even though I didn’t. But Paul’s reaction was
different. He wasn’t like Mike. Paul was in disbelief because he
knew that everything I said was true, and he couldn’t believe that
I’d had yet another success with yet another girl.

“What’s her name?” Rick asked.

“Julie McCormick,” I said. Mike laughed his
ass off. Rick laughed harder. Kyle laughed the hardest. Paul
frowned and looked at his shoes.

My friends were in awe. I told Paul that I’d
give him Lynn now that I was done with her. I know that sounds
crude, but, Christ, we were guys, and we all talked that way.

It was a great lunch time that afternoon.
Usually we talked about all sorts of stuff—girls, sports, teachers,
whatever. But that day all we talked about was me and Maria. They
kept asking me if I hooked up with her, but I responded by smiling
like a Cheshire cat, letting them believe what they wanted to. I
had the feeling there would be plenty of stuff to tell them during
lunch time in the future.

After lunch, me and my friends walked back up
to our lockers. That year, our junior year, our lockers were close
to one another. So after we got our books, as usual, we hung around
near the stairwell and bullshitted for a while until the bell rang.
Kyle towered over all of us. He’s about six foot two or three,
maybe even taller. He had dirty blonde hair that fell straight down
to his shoulder blades. His face was gaunt and seldom clean-shaven.
A circle of dirty blonde stubble lined the circumference of his
lips nearly every day. Worse than that, Kyle's stringy hair dangled
below his shirt collar, well beyond his neck. This sort of hair
style breached the school's dress code. But of course, Kyle never
got caught by the Brothers. Not once! He slyly tucked his hair into
his collar, never raising an eyebrow from the faculty. How he
managed to escape trouble through four years of high school looking
like an out-of-work drummer is beyond me.

Between his gray, creaseless, slacks and shit
brown shoes Kyle was a fashion train wreck. And when I say he wore
this crap every day, I mean
every
day. He could have passed
easily for the poorest kid in school. Kyle was, well, Kyle was
Kyle. But the thing was, he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought
of him. And he was pretty happy with the way he was. I’ve always
admired Kyle for that. I always wanted to know his secret. Still
do.

I remember the first time I met Kyle. It was
the last day of classes during our freshman year. Mike had known
Kyle since elementary school. As everyone piled out of school, Mike
plucked me from the crowd outside and said, “A.J., this is Kyle.
Kyle, this is A.J.” As we shook hands hello, I noticed how unkempt
he was. So there I was, with this weirdo friend of a friend, lanky
as hell, and all I could think to say to him was, “You have an
earring.” And he sure as hell did have one, a big gold spider web
earring dangling from a thin gold chain attached to his ear lobe. I
think it even had a spider on it, too. I couldn’t believe that Mike
was friends with such a freak. Earrings were for losers!

“No shit? I have a dick, too. Wanna see?”
Kyle replied, without missing a beat. And that was that. I didn’t
see him again until the beginning of our sophomore year. But
whenever I spoke with Mike over the summer, he had a new Kyle story
to tell me. It wasn’t until the next fall when school began that
Kyle and I became friends. And how did we become friends? How did
two seemingly different people manage to kindle a relationship? The
answer is simple: We both thought Mike was a Pollock.