“Hey”—he snapped his finger at me and winked—“call me Mr. D.”
“You got it, Mr. D.”
“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, Mr. D.,” 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 alclass="underline" 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. I can’t remember the stories, exactly, but I sort of feel like I’m still there right now.
“Anyway,” he continued, “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, A.J., 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.