Michael Cocchiarale
It's Up to You
1
No way in hell I
was going until Randy pressed my arm against the locker door and
said, “Don’t give me that shit. I know this sweet sweet
girl, senior at St. Joe’s. She’s smart like you like
them, model UN and all that.”
The edge of the
door deep creased my skin, driving it against bone. All I wanted was
to be left alone to brood over my recent misfortune, but Randy
Brupner was a starting middle linebacker for St. Ignatius -- All-City
two years running. The dude was built to have his way.
“So you’re
going,” Randy said, grinning like a protractor, “or I
pull up and turn.”
I loved my arm.
Frankly, I was attached to it. He crammed her number in my mouth and,
the very next night, I found myself in front of the fauxdobe façade
of the Memphis Avenue Burrito Barn, peering through the window at the
stunning incongruity of a tall, dark skinned girl in a royal blue
dress, her back flush with the tangerine cushions of a booth.
I stepped inside,
ordered a beverage, and shambled toward her. “You must be
Maria,” I said, politely enough.
The
girl gave a look like a finicky child in front of a plate of refried
beans.
“I’m
Michael.”
“Nice...costume,” she said.
I looked down at
the silk-screened turmoil on my shirt -- the head of a screaming man
bursting through a pain of glass, fork tines buried in bleeding eyes.
It was a reproduction of one of my all-time favorite album covers,
as well as a reasonable rendering of my current mood. This was no
costume; it was nothing less than a genuine bearing of my soul! And
besides, who was she to talk, sitting here in a fast food joint
dressed to attend an opera?
I
attempted a tough guy drop into the booth; unfortunately, that move
was a bit undermined by the cushion, which responded with a
flatulating poof.
She
laughed -- a grunt, really, accompanied by a sardonic slide of the lips
across the face.
“Look,
you want to go to prom or what?”
At
that point, I didn’t care if she stood up and swooshed herself
right out of here. After all, this rejection would be more like a
release -- a kind of express ticket to the friendly confines of my
bedroom, where I could jam in perfect hard rock solitude and take my
mind off the fact that, two days earlier, that fine arts college in
New York (my number one choice) had sent me a paper cut sized letter
which read (and I almost quote): Dear sir, no way in hell.
But
Maria did not leave; instead, she commenced with an interrogation:
What are you reading? (“Warning: ‘Comics’ is not
an acceptable answer.”). Who is your favorite classical
composer? (“And don’t’ say Beethoven, like they
all do, because he’s Romantic.”).
Have you read Marx? What are your feelings on socialized medicine?
Female reporters in the locker room? That trickle down dickhead of a
president? Caught off guard, I could only stutter out
semi-intelligible answers while she nodded, nodded, nodded, taking in
information like a frog does flies. I imagined her going back to St.
Joe’s on Monday morning, commandeering the P.A. system, and
broadcasting my stupidity to some of the sweetest looking Catholic
girls in Cleveland. I’d never get within dating distance of a
West Side girl again.
Just
as I was ready to confess total ignorance of worldly affairs, Maria
stopped with the questions and, after a pause to shatter a tortilla
chip between her teeth, she told me about her life, which began in
some west coast college town. Raised without television (no Happy
Days, no Mork and Mindy, no Six Million Dollar Man -- can
you believe it?), she not only learned to read by the age of three,
she was devouring all she could get her hands on -- especially those
cutting edge children’s books that challenged her to “think
outside the playpen.” She grew up questioning everything and
everyone -- eventually even her parents, who after years of almost
irreproachable liberalism, slipped shamefacedly into suburban home
ownership and sundry other trappings of the “despicable
bourgeoisie.” In disgust, she’d escaped this past summer
to Paris to read and write in sidewalk cafes and meet other temporary
expatriate teens eager to lament obscene incursions of commercial
America abroad.
Maria
couldn’t wait for college -- that is, for college to come and go.
Only after graduation would her life truly begin. She didn’t
want to bore me now with the particulars, but suffice it to say that
she would jet off to places I’d never heard of and do things I
could barely dare to imagine, all of which would go into the best
selling and universally acclaimed books that, block by five hundred
page block, would build toward her Nobel Prize for everything.
Throughout the monologue, I found myself watching the incredible
rubber banding of those lips; the intense dart of aspirin-sized
pupils; the frenetic, playground swing of silver earrings against
unblemished cheeks. When she stopped, tapping a nifty drum fill on
the table with her knuckles, my eyes fell from the sudden weight of
inexplicable embarrassment. Beads of perspiration slunk down my soft
drink cup.
Hours
later, I lay wide-awake in bed, afflicted by a profound, concussive
dopiness, trying like mad to remember the plans I knew we must have
made for prom.
2
At the first fuzzed
out strains of “Addicted to Love,” couples swarmed the
kaleidoscopic floor, shirts untucked and cummerbunds discarded,
pastel colored gowns hiked to expose nyloned calves and knees and
sometimes thighs. Beside me, Maria clutched the sides of a chair,
her lips a puckered rose of incredulity.
“Do you want
another pop? Anything?”
She narrowed eyes
in my direction like I’d said something awful.
I spoke more
loudly: “Anything...you...want?”
“How about...a pair of...PUNC...TURED...EAR...DRUMS.”
That evening, I
could have been cooling my thighs on an aluminum chair in our church
auditorium and cheering on mom as she pined away for Bingo. Better
still, I could have been locked away in my bedroom, learning cool
guitar licks from The Clash or BOC. Instead: this insipid rite of
passage, which served no other function than to remind me yet again
of a theory I had been developing throughout the long years of my
hapless adolescence -- namely, that nothing (no way, no when, no how)
would ever come of my sorry excuse for a life; that, in other words,
all goals I fervently attempted to accomplish, all events I chose to
participate in, would inevitably meet not only with failure but total
(and public) disaster, this night being simply the latest (and,
therefore, most excruciating) instance.
Now
if my theory were true, the burning question then became: How best to
respond? It seemed I could struggle futilely against the inevitable,
but that would require a tremendous amount of energy on my part (this
from a guy who seldom spent more than a sitcom worth of time on
homework). The second option was to lovingly embrace the disaster,
ride it over the raging Niagara in a barrel for all it was worth.
There was a third option too, one that came to me with snow day like
surprise, and that was to simply begin singing along with the
inimitable Robert Palmer. So what if I couldn’t carry a tune
to save my life? So much the better. I started with a gentle hum to
get my bearings; then, as the words finally floated back to me, I
carried out a full-scale assault: “You like to think that
you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah!”
Maria
turned to me, her jaw dropping like a necklace into the dignified
cleavage of her royal blue gown.
“Closer
to the truth is that you can’t get enough...Might as well
face it-”
“Do
I...have to...call security?”
“That
bad?”
She
slowly lowered her forehead to the table.
Since we were on
the subject of my incompetence, I shouted in her ear about last
Wednesday after school, tie still noosed around my neck, waving that
official envelope with all the ebullience of a Grammy winner. A full
ride to this arts school was to be just recompense for all those
early guitar lessons from ear-jerking Sr. Robert Ann; for those
countless after school pep band practices; for weekly compromising my
musical integrity at the ten o’clock mass. I took a deep
breath, tore open the letter with a flourish, and stared open mouthed
at the incontrovertible N, and the big fat apple of an O. The news
left me empty as Municipal Stadium during a Wednesday night Indians
game.
It was loud enough
in the hall to figure that Maria simply hadn’t heard me. But
then, after several hopeless moments, she turned my way -- cheeks
puffed, eyebrows raised. “I’m sorry,” she cried
above the din. “Really...”
At
that moment, Randy boogied by the table, the heels of his wingtips
wearing dark satanic smiles into the floor. Girlfriend Maureen tap
tapped behind, clutching at his tails, looking like an escapee from a
cuckoo clock. Since dinner, I’d seen Randy only once, and that
was in an open bathroom stall, strewn across a toilet seat, flask
pressed against his lips.
“Mikey!”
he boomed now, driving a forearm into my back. “Why aren’t
you out there?”
I played nonchalant
with a shrug and sheepish smile, all the while worried Randy might do
something crazy, like pin me against the chair and force butter
squares into my mouth until I succumbed to the fun.
Fortunately,
he just dropped into a chair, placed his two huge hands around a
sweaty water pitcher, and proceeded to dump its lukewarm contents
down his throat. “Do I have to beat you?” he asked, a
perverse poignancy creeping into his voice. “Do I have to take
you outside, roll up these sleeves, and pound you literally,
figuratively, and otherwise into submission?”
Maria bore the
brunt of Randy’s open-mouthed sigh. Her eyelids fluttered and
vaguely threatening tones issued from trembling lips. Looking
equally capable of passing out or punching him in the face, she
seized my arm instead and yanked me to my feet. By the time we
arrived at the floor, some lachrymose Madonna tune was just
beginning.
“Great, just
great,” she said, hands on her hips, a hot stream of air
blowing bangs out of her face. After an eye-rolling pause, she
tossed her arms into the air, and they came down karate chop like on
my neck.
“Now go,”
she commanded. When she kicked my foot, my legs shifted with a slow,
prosthetic grace. After a few awkward turns, Maria dropped her
hands to my side and said, “Zombie, move your hips.”
Maria led by fine example, which surprised me, given her general
disdain for the frivolity of this event. But what surprised me more
was that, with each revolution, I felt a loosing of my body. Sure,
Madonna was anathema to me, but this was senior prom, and I was close
to the body of this strange -- this suddenly attractive -- girl. Perhaps
my existence was governed by another, more benign theory, one that
held that, my past life notwithstanding, anything was possible.
Perhaps I could learn to be at home in my thin and awkward body.
Perhaps I could get the girl. Perhaps I could even sing like
Madonna, our nation’s holy mother of pop: “You see I’m
crazy for you...Touch me once --”
There
was a sharp pain at the base of my skull. Maria had a handful of my
hair and was ready to rip. I got the hint and shut my mouth. She
waited a moment and then smiled -- in a playful yet vaguely homicidal
way.
3
In
an effort to block out the sound of saliva and languid backseat
moans, I concentrated on the vacant baseball diamond beyond the
windshield. My hands clutched the wheel, as if I were inching along
the Interbelt at a quarter to five; my right foot smashed the brake,
even though the car was in park. Less than two feet of vinyl cushion
separated the smooth pleats of my right pant leg and the flounce of
Maria’s gown.
After
a seriously uncomfortable time, a hand seized my shoulder and began
bending my collarbone out of shape. “You have to do her,”
Randy said, spraying Busch soaked words into my ear. “Go
ahead. It’s the next step.”
From
deep in the shadows of the backseat, Maureen giggled, the sound not
unlike the high pitched weeee! of air escaping from a birthday
balloon.
“Randy,
I dumped you once,” Maria said, popping a fist into her palm.
“Don’t think I won’t do it again.”
It dawned on me,
like mom flipping on the bedroom light at 6:30 Monday morning. “You...actually went out with him?”
I took the hard
stare through the windshield as a yes.
“What
happened?”
“I
don’t suffer fools gladly,” Maria said, turning to me,
eyes churning like the blades of a radial saw.
I glanced in the
back seat to see if Randy was listening. His head was gone -- deep
beneath voluminous folds of fuchsia.
“Am
I a fool?” I asked.
“At this point?” Maria looked me up and down and brushed
something from my lapel with a few nail bitten fingertips. “You
could go either way.”
Something
heavy thumped the back of my seat. I half turned to see a tiny,
pink-nailed foot kicking at the interior light. Maria looked out
toward first base, down the faded line and all the way to the fence.
She had the smallest ear, beautiful as calligraphy. Crucial moments
seeped away -- moments of pure paralysis during which I sat with hands
in lap, staring at the drooped needle on my Nova’s speedometer,
daring to imagine the consequences of reaching out to touch that
smooth brown shoulder...or brushing the cheek with the back of my
fingers...or turning that chin for a slow motion graze of the
lips.
Just as I decide to risk a move, Randy released a satisfied grunt and
zipped right up. That was enough for me. I slid the key in the
ignition, anxious to get out of here, anxious to get myself home.
4
“Did I
penetrate you, last night?”
“Shut up,”
Maureen tittered.
“Did I plumb
your depths? Did I fathom you? I have a right to know.”
She smacked Randy’s
shoulder with a doll like hand. The slap of flesh on flesh unnerved
me. I glanced at Maria, whose elbow lay on the open window with all
the tension of a cocked and pointed Magnum. It was late the
following morning, and the four of us were rattling along Route 2 in
Randy’s Reliant on our way to Cedar Point.
“All we need
is a place to put it,” Randy said after awhile, either because
he meant it or he wanted the figurine beside him to slap his arm
again.
“I used to
think you were a moron,” Maria said, leaning forward from the
backseat, speaking softly by his ear. “Now I’m sure
you’re just an asshole.” She seemed in a foul mood ever
since we’d picked her up. Could she actually have been upset
that I didn’t try to kiss her in the park last night? Or had
Randy failed to tell her that Cedar Point was integral to whatever
seamy bargain they had struck? Maybe she was scandalized by the fact
that the day had compelled her to dress comfortably -- in khaki shorts
and a T-shirt (royal blue, of course). Regardless of the answer, I
was screwed -- unceremoniously plopped back down at square number one, the one address at which I
felt entirely at home.
A silent peace
presided until Randy swerved to hit the long dead carcass of a large
still furry beast.
“Totally
gross,” Maureen said.
This
seemed to release some pent-up nastiness in Randy, for without
warning, he shot his head toward the backseat and said: “You
know your problem, Maria. You know it and you call it your crowning
glory. Look at me, look at me,” he sang, “I’m
a national merit finalist. I edit the school newspaper.
Americans are greedy and couldn’t give a shit about the rest
of the world.”
“Be
quiet.”
“Blah, blah,
liberal bullshit blah.”
“The world’s
bigger than the puny reach of your dick.”
Maureen looked
about ready to cast a dissenting vote. I took this opportunity to
examine the wrinkled maps flowering out of the passenger seat pocket
in front of me.
“I
mean, right now,” Maria said, leaning over the seat. “Right
at this very moment, to take only one
example, I just read about all this radioactive material floating
over the Soviet Union. We don’t even know how bad it is, what
the impact will be.”
“Who needs the commies?”
“You think we
can afford to ignore what happens in the rest of the world? What are
you going to do when it all comes wafting toward you? Huh?”
“And you
wonder why I dumped you. All your goddamn preaching. All your
‘awareness.’ I tell you what...”
Maureen squeezed
his arm. “The road, Randy. Please.”
“You’re
a rank chauvinist. You are exactly why
the world hates us!”
Randy
gave the highway an obligatory glance. “It’s a free
country, and that means I’m free, if I want, to live and die a
stupid, happy, beer bellied jerk!”
The silent eternity
from Vermillion to Sandusky gave me ample time to explore the
cartographical banalities of Ohio: roads that fanned out like so many
varicose veins; the light green blotches of state forests; the
miniscule pin points that represented one nondescript, landlocked
community after another. My eyes traveled south into the obscure
reaches of state -- down through Massillon, and Ashland, and Cambridge,
and Clerestory, the tiny burg that housed the school my friend Nick
Strait was attending. The other day, when I told him about being
rejected from the New York school, he pleaded over the phone, “Come
down, man. They’ve got music stuff here!” On the map
directly above the town was a giant green blob of a state forest. I
imagined it making slow, inexorable progress south. In two years or
three, both town and university would be overcome like some backwoods
Pompeii. No, I told Nick, I’d rather stick with the concrete
splendor of Cleveland State, my humble and much more proximate second
choice. At least I’d be in a place some people still called a
city. At the very least, there’d be enough tall
buildings nearby to pretend.
5
At
Cedar Point, we went our separate ways. Randy seemed his usual
happy-go-lucky self again, hooting and hollering and dragging his
barely willing Maureen toward the Gemini, but Maria was still
steaming. She stalked down the midway, forcing me to break into a
jog just to catch up. I felt the need to make some kind of
apology -- for Randy’s immaturity, for my stupid silence, for
dragging Maria out to this amusement park on such an oppressive
day -- but instead, without thinking, I blurted out, “Why in the
world did you go out with him?”
There’s
this terrifyingly simplistic ride called the Demon Drop. You get
into a car that carries you up more than a hundred feet in the air.
Then the bottom drops out and you plunge back down to earth, so fast
the scream barely has time to jump out of your mouth. In the ominous
silence following my question, I felt like I was one of the
unfortunate riders...with the safety bar slipping out of place.
Surprisingly,
Maria wasn’t upset like I thought she’d be. In fact, she
just shrugged her shoulders and said matter-of-factly, “He’s
good looking...and funny. And he was nice at first. He did this
amazing imitation of a gentleman.”
The
Randy I knew was borderline psycho, but I held my tongue.
“We
got in this big argument once...about the pros and cons of the
current administration. For a football player, he actually made a
fairly informed argument for Reagan’s stance toward the
U.S.S.R. But then he got going about national defense and that led
to defense against the immigrants and other ‘welfare leeches.’”
She scraped away the few strands of hair that had the temerity to
cross her face. “In the end, he proved to be just another
middle class dumbass.”
“So it all
came down to politics?”
“Well, it
didn’t help that the next day I caught him with this girl from
Mags...in a movie theater restroom...”
Two years ago,
Randy had sort of adopted me as his own personal guitar geek. He’d
come across me in the band room playing Zeppelin licks and that was
enough to break down any kind of social barrier. He sat down
backwards on a folding chair and told me to do “Whole Lotta
Love.” When he discovered I not only had met Neil Geraldo, but
also had a cousin who lived a handful of houses down the street from
where Cleveland’s very own guitar wizard spent his pre-Benatar
youth, Randy seized my shoulders and swore to be my “fricking
friend for life!” The only problem? His friendship turned out
to be more curse than blessing. It did not help gain me entrance to
any privileged society of the cool and cocky; rather, it set me up
for a daily dose of “friendly” bullying, epitomized by
that moment a few weeks ago, when Randy had thrown me up against my
locker. If only I had been ready for him then: if only I had ducked
below his charge and swooped my arm around his neck. With the
element of surprise in my favor, I might have been able to lift him
from the floor at the same time I cut off his breathing. I could
have turned the tables on him.
I
could also have been killed.
But
at least I would have gone down fighting.
Vengeful
feelings were tempered by the sympathetic impulse to be there for
Maria -- to utter soft words or offer a shoulder for her to cry on. The
only problem was she looked more amused than afflicted, as if the
mere telling of her story had undone whatever damage it may have
initially caused. When I asked if there was anything I could do to
make things better, she insisted I buy her a large order of fries,
which she went on to splash with a near lethal dose of vinegar. I
ate one burnt nub to be polite, even though the tang made me bite the
inside of my cheeks. Meanwhile, she inhaled them one after the
other -- like deep-fried fudge or something.
“Okay," Maria said, wiping her hands together two minutes later and crushing
the oily paper cup. “Let’s play.” She took my
hand and hurried me across the park, weaving in and out of slow
moving families until we pull up in front of the one ride I’d
always loathed: the Rotor.
“Ha,
ha! This looks like fun,” she said, weaving through the
serpentine gating to the beckoning operator.
My smile turned
tepid, but I dragged my feet along the pavement, kind of like a dead
man walking.
As
we spun, our backs and arms and legs hard against the wall, the floor
dropped away, and I held my breath to hold down the half digested
breakfast that scrambled madly up my throat. Maria turned her head
to me. Between the strands of hair fanning against her face, she
stuck out her tongue.
Round
and round and round until my vision blurred, until I felt like I
might vomit...or else tumble into the droll abyss of love.
6
Later,
we strolled along the empty beach, and I took to gazing out at the
lake in that way we Ohioans have, fantasizing that Erie’s
pathetic rippling is actually the surf of the mighty Atlantic.
“I
really wanted to live in New York,” I said. “I wanted to
be there in the worst way.”
“What
for?”
“Are
you kidding me? We took this band trip sophomore year, and they put
us up in this great Midtown hotel. After our shows, we went just
about everywhere: Times Square. Broadway. Fifth Avenue. Central
Park. For God’s sake, The Village!” The names and
places began to avalanche across the quaint small town of reason in
my head. “To have everything at your doorstep -- ”
Maria’s
laugh was careful, sardonic as usual but not without an element of
something lighter -- something that graciously acknowledged both my
rejection and the difficulty of making a quick and radical revision
of my goals.
“And
last fall, after my audition, I rammed around on the subway and found
all the legendary places -- Max’s and CBGB’s...”
Maria
shrugged her shoulders.
“Man,
for awhile, they were the center of the musical universe -- ”
“Your
music.”
“The
Velvet Underground, Mick, Dylan, Lennon, Petty...where they all
hung out.”
To
a Mozart fan, I realized, these names were of precious little
consequence.
“And
Warhol too. You like art, right?”
“Soup
cans and Marilyn Monroe.”
“Exactly!”
“I
was right there, standing in front of musical history!"
Maria
was still waiting patiently for the words that might impress her.
I
gave up. “It’s the city that never sleeps, you know.”
She
laughed.
“Seriously.
You just try going to “Midtown” Cleveland on a Saturday
night, say 11:30 or so, and what do you find? Boarded up buildings
and a few isolated well-dressed stragglers hurrying from the Allen to
lonely parking lots around the corner. That’s not night life.
It’s death or abduction just waiting to happen.”
“There’s
The Flats,” Maria said. That was true. Down on either bank of
the Cuyahoga River was a made over strip of nightclubs and eateries
that was becoming all the rage. The problem was, you had to be
twenty-one to play. In my mind, that anomalous wonderland couldn’t
even count for another three years.
Behind
us was the vague thunder of a roller coaster, the backfire of antique
cars, the reedy screams of children. Growing up, Cedar Point had
been our family’s summer default vacation spot. The night
before, I could never sleep, flopping back and forth in bed like a
Lake Erie Walleye on the hook. In the morning, on the way out to the
amusement park, I colored and munched Pop Tarts while dad whistled
soft rock favorites and mom pointed out cows. I couldn’t
believe the good fortune of having been born just fifty miles from
such an entertainment Mecca. Now, having worked myself into a mild
depression, the place struck me as a cruel parody of a resort -- just
the kind of place that would content a Clevelander.
“I’ve
got something to tell you,” Maria said in a low and troubled
voice.
I
just nodded, thrilled to hear the softening of her voice, thrilled
that she felt she could already confide in me.
“You
won’t be angry?”
Maria’s
eyes were as big as I’d ever seen them. They swelled with
something unprecedented. Could it be concern? I was moved. I was
this far from being in love. How could I
be angry?
“Well,
here’s the thing. I’m going to NYU.”
“Really?
That’s great.”
I
did a poor job of being polite, but quickly overcame the guilt when
she went on, explaining how she was going to major in French and
International relations. In between exams and papers, she was going
to do everything possible -- protest, write angry letters, ridicule
small minded people in bars, on sidewalks, and wherever else she
could find them -- to get the Republicans out of the White House. That
accomplished, she would use 1989, her junior year, for a UN
internship overseas, aiding the poor of some French speaking country
still in the throes of post colonialism. After graduting summa cum laude, she’d
follow in her parents’ footsteps and spend a few years in the
Peace Corps -- in Central America preferably, where she’d get a
chance to solidify her Spanish. Then she’d squeeze in a law degree before stepping into an
embassy position in Bordeaux or Bern or even Antananarivo (where??)
for the few years it would take for her to truly internationalize her
perspective on the world. By her mid thirties, she’d settle
back in New York, with a UN job in the Department of Peace-Keeping
Operations.
“But
I wouldn’t mind, I mean I might...you never know...return to Cleveland,” she said, almost as an apology. “After
all, I grew up here.”
Heat crashed like ocean waves to the surface of my skin, burning me darker than any summer sun. Simply stated, I was angry -- angry at the image of the worldly “New Yorker” returning at Christmas for a quaint dose of Clevelandicana before heading back to the places where things really happened.
“Yesterday,”
I said, attempting to muster some kind of defense, “they
announced that the rock and roll hall of fame is going to be in
Cleveland.”
Maria kicked the
sand, and it shotgunned out before of us. “And where did they
make the announcement, huh? Where are they going to hold the
induction ceremonies? New York, New York. Think Chuck Berry’s
going to want to come here and...and...”...Maria
had maxed out her knowledge of contemporary music. I had to laugh.
At the same time, I was filled with resignation. Judged unworthy by
the world capital of culture, I was one of the many who would be left
behind to live a life of mundane things. Come fall, I’d be
busing down to Cleveland State, 22nd and Euclid, Midtown Cleveland, pretending the Detroit-Superior Bridge
was the George Washington. After classes, I’d hang out at the
Rascal House for pizza and video games or walk down to the Arcade for
some upscale shopping and a meager bit of architectural edification.
When I came of age, I’d prowl the Flats, down Miller High Life
on the deck at Rumrunners, listening to the sordid Cuyahoga lapping
against the pilings, or, if I were feeling in the mood for something
particularly exotic, take the ferry across to the West Bank and pop
into Shooters, pretend to be sophisticated while sucking down test
tubes of Lemon Nipples and scoping out high heeled babes. Gee! There
would be no end to the fun.
“I’m
sorry,” Maria stammered. “I didn’t mean to go on...In light of...Sometimes, I’m a bit much.” She
was wincing because she knew she would make a sizable dent in the
world, while I would just splat against its side like a bug against a
windshield.
“Don’t
be upset,” she begged, tugging my shirt affectionately. “I
still like you.”
We walked a bit in
silence, while I prayed to God for a dimmer to tone down the glow her
admission had created.
Perhaps
there was another possible response to this news -- one that brushed
against me two or three times like the evening breeze before sinking
into my skin, before finding my heart: I could simply refuse to be
angry. After all, what did Maria have to do with my being rejected
from that school? Why begrudge her glittering road to success? And
why denigrate my more humble path?
My foot moved
against something shell-like on the shore. I reached down and
picked up a small mauve mound of plastic -- someone’s dental
retainer. I turned it over in my hand then -- a stroke of genius! -- I
lifted it to Maria’s lovely ear.
“Gee,”
she said, clapping her hands. “I can hear the ocean!”
Yes, I thought, the
ocean. I lifted it to my ear. The roar was palpable.
“Who
needs it?” I said, suddenly.
“Needs
what?”
“New
York. You know, to hell with it.”
I
lifted a long, firm, angry finger to the East.
“That’s
Indiana.” Maria turned my body around, while I tingled with
delight. “New York is that-a-way.”
“I’m
not going to make it there,” I said.
“Please don’t
sing.”
“I’m
just a hick from waaaay out here.”
“I’m
warning you.”
“It’s
up to me, Cleve-land, Clevelllllland.”
Maria punched me in
the arm, good and hard.
“Bah
bah DAHhdahDAH, bah bah DAHdah DAH.” I shuffled my toes
through the sand, clicking my fingers and closing my eyes while she
plugged her ears and screamed, “Stop, stop, stop already!”
She
scooped up sand at my face and then took off down the beach, long
brown legs punching at the sand, hair reaching back like an
invitation to give chase. The thing was,
Randy had told us to meet them by the picnic pavilion five
minutes ago. Maybe the Big Ole Brupner was late as well, stuck in a
line because Maureen wasn’t leaving without a big box of pastel
colored salt water taffy. This, however, was highly unlikely. After
all, Randy had been trained since his Pop Warner days to obsess about
the clock. He’d been chewed out by any number of coaches for
failing to do one thing or another. These people had turned him into
the time harrowed bully he’d forever be.
Was
it worth it to chase Maria down the beach, even if it meant that the
evening might end with me riding home in the trunk, jumper cables
wrapped tightly around my chest, a wad of salt water taffy flowering
out of my mouth? I sighed. I swallowed hard. I said to myself:
“You bet it was!” Not in order to catch Maria, since
even if I did -- even if I grabbed that royal blue T-shirt and spun her
around and planted one on those gorgeous, sassy lips -- come August
she’d be gone with a whoosh, on to New York City and the great
world beyond. No, I’d give chase to show that instead of hard
feelings there was joy -- or soon there would be -- in simply staying put,
in waking up tomorrow, the next day and the next, in going off to
college and then to work, in living and breathing and falling
sometime soon again in love, in Cleveland, in Ohio, the diminished
dot in the great big heart of it all.
©2005 by Michael Cocchiarale
