“And you know less about women than I do, and I admit I know hardly anything. She’s a beautiful woman but you’re just too stupid to see that.”
Willie stopped chewing. He closed his mouth.
I was on a roll and kept going: “You have shitty taste in music . . . and you laugh like a little girl.”
He looked at me with surprise, as if he wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. I saw a little fear cross his eyes. Then he took a huge bite of cheeseburger and started chewing with his mouth wide open. Smacking the food between his palate and tongue in a loud, exaggerated way and staring right at me. Food flew from his mouth onto my plate.
And then I did it. I reached across the booth, grabbed the back of his head, and slammed his face into his plateful of food. He let out a muffled shriek, a very feminine-sounding cry. I didn’t let him pull his head back up for a few seconds. When he finally surfaced his face was smeared with grease, cheese, and ketchup, and there were fries stuck to his nose.
It was beautiful. A work of art worthy of Pollock or Picasso. I was very proud. I got up and walked to the counter as he started cursing at me. I handed my waitress-with-the-long-red-hair a tensky and told her to keep the change. Then I looked into her big blue eyes and winked. She smiled, her wide mouth revealing gorgeous white teeth, the top front two with a big gap between them. I walked out onto Northern Boulevard and despite the heat of that July night, I was cool. I was Steve McQueen.
three
Most nights that summer I came home around eleven or eleven thirty. My mother would always be awake and we would watch The Honeymooners or The Twilight Zone together. The night I buried Willie’s face in his triple-burger deluxe I got home earlier than usual. Mom was surprised . . . Wait . . . Hold on a second . . .
Let’s stop here and go back. I’m sorry. I’m a liar. A liar and a coward.
I did none of the valiant things I described.
I did not tell Willie he ate like a cow, had shitty taste in music, and laughed like a little girl.
I did not put Willie’s face into his cheeseburgers like he deserved.
I did not hand the-waitress-with-the-long-red-hair a tensky and tell her to keep the change.
I was not cool nor was I Steve McQueen.
No.
I did absolutely nothing that night. I suffered Willie’s humiliation of me and the slandering of my fair maiden in silence.
I ate my cheeseburger, drank my Coke, and split the check with Willie, and we walked back to his house like nothing had happened at all. I can’t even say that I was filled with hate for the guy. Well, maybe that night I was. Maybe that night I wished the Q32 bus would squash him into a humongous pancake that I could feed to all the starving children of Biafra and Bangladesh and win the Nobel Peace Prize.
And maybe not. Maybe I just felt sad for this poor, unfortunate soul. A pathetic behemoth doomed to live out his days trapped in a mind the size of a postage stamp. No . . .
More lies. Forgive me.
Willie was not as fat as I’ve made him out to be. He was kind of flabby and chubby but not exactly obese.
I don’t want to write about Willie anymore, thank you.
So I did get home my usual time that night after all. Just as the full moon rose into the sky over the opening credits of The Honeymooners. My mother always tried to be cheery when I came in and would ask if I had fun. My answer was invariably “Yes.” I knew she was tortured and tormented over the breakup and the passing of my father. Watching her force herself to look like everything was fine made me sad. It also made me hate him even more. Which is a terrible way to feel about your dear old dead dad. But that’s the truth. I’d yet to find any sympathy or compassion for the man.
You see, the straw that broke the marriage was my dad having an affair with a tenant of my mother’s cousin. So the whole family, and many of our friends and neighbors, knew that he was fucking the young Lithuanian chick who lived in cousin Joan’s basement. My mother was humiliated and her heart was broken. And it wasn’t the first time, but it would be the last. Then after he died she felt even worse. I know she felt bad for me: a teenage boy without a father. But I think she felt bad for my dad too, and I think she missed him. And despite all the pain he caused us, despite all the selfish shit he indulged in, I think she blamed herself for the whole thing.
And all I did to ease her pain was spend half an hour every night watching TV with her. At the time, this felt like a big sacrifice on my part. A great Act of Charity. What a guy.
As the summer rolled on, my mother became more dependent on some kind of downer/barbiturate, most likely quaaludes. I never found them, even though I searched the house high and low. I wouldn’t have taken them myself; pills weren’t my thing. I just wanted to dump them into the toilet so she wouldn’t eat them anymore. I always knew when she was high. She would get all glassy-eyed, smiley, and slack-jawed. She fell asleep with a lit cigarette on several occasions. I was sure she would soon burn the house down.
four
On July 31
