THE AFTERMATH

    It’s the next day afterJoey loses his virginity to Esperanza and he is deliriously happy

     The next day, Sunday, arises. As I wake up to a sunny late morning, it’s like I’m entranced in a soothingly sweet lucid dream.

Oh my God! Did it really happen last night? Had I truly become one in a magnificent, passionate embrace with - Esperanza?  I am possessed by happy demons. Infused with giddiness. As the day wears on, I am spontaneously bursting into insane song and dance routines like –

   “Wherever we go, whatever we do, we’re gonna do it together!” 

 I’m snapping my fingers. Doing pratfalls down the stairs into the living room, for God’s sake! Just out of control. That evening, as my sisters are helping my mother get dinner ready in the kitchen…for no apparent reason, I whimsically grab the broom from Maryanne, and go into this bizarre rendition of –

  “Do-re-mi” from Mary Poppins, and using this exaggeratedly theatrical voice. I’m doing pirouettes all over the kitchen, with the broom.

“Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun; me, a name, I call myself, far, far, far to run…”

My mother is looking at me, half smiling, and half very alarmed.

“Ewww, get out of here - freak! Snaps Maryanne.

“What are you - mental?” chimes in Karen.

They are not smiling.  

But, nothing - nothing, can deter my cheerfulness. Today, I’m in a giving mood. I actually come to their aid, pushing past them, and carrying the baked ziti and sausages to the table!

“Pardon me, pardon me! Allow me, madam.”

“What is wrong with him tonight?!” They both look at me disgustedly.   

I begin to serve out portions to them, like a butler, like Mr. French, from Family Affair. Yeah, I’m Mr. French now, that’s who I am! The thought of it cracks me up, as I start speaking in that English butler kind of accent.  I’m quite amused with myself. My father, is now eyeing me suspiciously.

“He’s on something, ma! I bet he got a hold of some speed, or uppers, from his black drug dealer friends at school!”  acuses Maryanne.  

“I wouldn’t talk, not with all those drug addict skanks you hang out with! Joe Baretti! Heh, heh,” I retort in a sing-song voice.

“Joe Baretti?! He’s the sweetest guy in the world! He doesn’t even drink beer or – “

“Drug addict! Drug addict!” I chant.

“Don’t let me find out your smoking any of that funny stuff, or whatever,” my father warns me.

“God! Can’t somebody just be happy?” I complain.

“Not that happy, my friend. It’s not normal.”

“He’s not normal.”  Maryanne condemns.

I cluck my tongue and sigh.

“I’m not on anything, Wallace (that’s what I called him, for some reason). Jeez…I’m just in a good mood.”

“I’m just saying, I find out you’re doing any of that stuff, I’ll have your ass in a military school so damn fast” …his voice trails off, as he proceeds to cut his meat into precise two inch cubes.

“Damn! Can’t anybody just be happy around here?”

This whole scene reminds me of this Star Trek episode that really annoyed me. The Enterprise beams down McCoy, Spock, and a few of the crew to this planet, where an expedition team from like a hundred years ago, supposedly got stranded on. Figuring everybody would be long dead by now, they’re instead shocked to not only find them all alive, but they haven’t aged at all, either! And they’re ridiculously healthy, too - and happy! There’s these flowers on the planet that shoot these spores, and it keeps everybody happy, healthy, and young. They work just enough to sustain themselves, and the rest of the time they just have sex and fun. So the flowers shoot the Enterprise crew with the spores also, and pretty soon everybody just wants to have a good time. When Kirk finally beams down, he, for some reason, is annoyed that everybody is happy. Even Spock.  In fact, Spock is hanging upside down from a tree branch, laughing - and he has a girlfriend! Spock! He only mates like once every seven years, usually. Whoa. So Kirk beams back up to the Enterprise in a huff, and devises a way for the starship to emit this ultrasonic sound wave, that destroys all the flowers. And everybody’s miserable again. Except Kirk, who’s feeling good about it! I mean, why did Kirk have to ruin everything? Why couldn’t he just leave it be?  

Even later, when they all get back on board, Spock laments –

“For the first time in my life, I was happy.”  What a bummer.

Anyway, Kirk is like my father, I think, just trying to spoil my fun. It doesn’t matter, though. All I have to do is think back to last night with Esperanza, the way it was so tight in her MG Midget, and how my leg would involuntarily jerk, once accidentally kicking the radio button on to Van Morrison’s, Crazy Love! I mean, how perfect is that? How the windows were so fogged up from the contrast of the bitter cold outside, and the steamy heat inside. How Esperanza would make these noises that murmured from deep inside her breast…sounds I’ve never even heard from another human being before. That’s all I need to smile and create a warm, tingly feeling inside me! And nobody or nothing, can ever take that away!

JOEY LOSES HIS VIRGINITY

It’s right after Joey and Esperanza’s first date - a twin bill of Death Wish and Lipstick at the Liberty Theater in Elizabeth and Esperanza is driving home - when suddenly -

Suddenly, she clicks on her right blinker, and turns into the driveway of the Tasty Cake Outlet Factory. What is she doing? My house is about another mile and a half down the road. She continues on and pulls onto this back road. Hope Avenue. I’ve been to this Tasty Cake place a hundred times before, and I never even knew this Hope Avenue existed.

Rows of factories surrounded us, lining either side of the street.  She stops the car - and cuts the lights. A lone streetlight casts its glow in the otherwise stark blackness of the night. She gazes into my eyes with such an intimate intensity, that I have to turn away. I bow my head. She moves closer, puts her face right in front of mine.  

“Papi, how did you feel when that guy was raping Margaux Hemingway When he tied her up to the bedposts?”

Long silence.

“I – I don’t know…it was um – kind of-”

“Did you think she was beautiful?”

(Deep breath) “Yeah! I mean, of course -”

“Did it make you all hot inside?”

She puts her index finger on my lips.

“Shhh…”

Taking my face in her hands, she cradles it tenderly. Starts kissing me gently at first, softly pressing her beautiful lips against mine, then my nose. Then my face. Her tongue begins to explore my lips again and again, until she thrusts it inside my mouth, increasingly more aggressively, passionately.  

She’s leaning over me now, tenderly pushing me backwards. I surrender, almost paralyzed. I allow her to take the lead as she continues to press on. She grabs hold of my jacket, pulls it off, and begins unbuttoning my gold silkscreen shirt. She’s starting to breathe heavily now…I am too, but mostly out of fear and uncertainty. Now, I feel myself start to shake, then tremble. Tremors are everywhere. Running up and down my body, like, I’m being dipped in ice water. I can’t control it.

“Don’t worry, papi, it’s alright…be calm.”

She puts my hand on her tit.  She’s pressed against me now, moving and grinding, and making sounds like a baby sucking a pacifier. My leg jerks spastically, kicking the steering wheel. She’s on top of me now. I have my hands under her bra, and, boy, it is the most amazing thing - her nipples grow right in my hands! I begin kneading her breasts, like a kitten groping for its mother’s milk. She pulls her dress over her head and flings it backwards. She has my shirt off, running her nails around my nipples. She’s moaning. I’m grunting, caught between desire and terror. Her hands go down and now she’s rubbing Mr. Johnson. Oh, that feels good! Sweat, sweat, and more sweat. This is it. This is it! She pulls down my pants and throws them in the back. Garments are whizzing around like a dodge ball game. She puts my hand down her crotch - and I’m rubbing her black lace panties. Oh shit, I don’t know what to do!  She rubs her tits in my face. It’s a frenzy!  She guides my Johnson inside her.  

“Oh God, oh God!” I scream out

THE FIRST DATE

Esperanza and Joey leave her great-grandmother on their way to ‘The Big Date’

We stop off first at Jack In The Box, for some tacos before the movie. It makes me feel proud to pay for it. I ask her about the pictures on the wall. She tells me the guy in the Navy uniform was her father, he left them when she was like four or five years old, and she doesn’t remember much about him. She had another sister, an older one, who died of bronchitis when she was nine years old, that her mother worked two jobs, cleaning toilets by day, and offices at night. Her great grandmother was 102 years old, and had outlived two husbands. And she was thirteen when she was, Miss Teen Puerto Rico, in San Juan, but nothing ever happened with it after that.  

I ask her why she doesn’t enter beauty pageants anymore, that she could definitely be Miss America. She smirks and says she doesn’t have time for that anymore, she’s got to make that money. And besides, only White girls ever get to be Miss America. By the time we finish eating, I feel more comfortable with her than I ever have before. I still don’t know what movie we’re going to see, though.

We get to the Liberty Theater, and there’s a double feature playing - Death Wish and Lipstick. Esperanza says she’s really looking forward to seeing Death Wish, and everybody’s been talking about it. Besides, she says she thinks Charles Bronson is so sexy. I go to get the tickets, while Esperanza stands off a little to the side.

“Can I see your ID?” asks the skeletal old black lady, at the ticket booth.

“Whadaya mean - ID?  Why do I need -”

“These movies are rated R, you got to be at least seventeen to get in here, unless you’re accompanied by a guardian.”

“Accompanied by a guardian?!  This is ridiculous. (I lower my voice) Of course I’m seventeen, I’m a senior at Roselle High.”

Well, I still got to see some ID.”

Panic starts to set in. I pull myself closer to her face, and lower my voice to a whisper.

“Please lady, gimme a break here; I’m on my first date with this girl - I -”

“I’m sorry, but it’s my job.”

“What’s the problem, honey?” Esperanza interrupts.

I - I forgot my ID,” I cut in, before the lady has a chance to say anything.

A slight scowl crosses Esperanza’s face. I immediately feel my johnson retract deep inside my tighty-whiteys.

We do get in, and I get the popcorn, trying to revive some vestige of my compromised manhood. But the embarrassment I just suffered there, feels like a mortal wound. As we sit at our seats during the coming attractions, I can’t even make myself look at her. She peeks at me with a sympathetic smile.  

“Don’t worry about it, papi.”

My johnson expands just a little bit, a tiny portion of relief spreading over me. About five or ten minutes into the movie, there’s this pretty brutal scene where these junkies break into Bronson’s NYC apartment, rape his daughter, and kill his wife. I look at Esperanza, who’s motionless - and emotionless - then mumbles something in Spanish under her breath.

Suddenly, a wave of intense fear, then nausea, breaks over me. Scenes of the rape I witnessed last year, of Butch Finnegan in the high school bathroom, race vengefully and unexpectedly through my psyche. Fuck! I can’t believe this! I’ve buried those thoughts way out of my consciousness for the past year, and now, suddenly, I’m replaying them?! Or rather, they’re being replayed for me. Against my will, with all the same stomach-numbing feelings and reactions accompanying them. I’m silently battling with myself to remain conscious; holding down what I’m sure is going to be a torrent of vomit.

I just want to reach out and put my arm around Esperanza, I want – need - somebody to hold me, but I can’t do it. Every time I just about build up the courage, the inclination to make the move, Bronson shoots another thug! Esperanza would be lurching forward, nearly spilling the popcorn to the floor, shouting:

“Yeah, get him! Get that motherfucker, papi!”

The second movie, Lipstick, is starring this supermodel, Margaux Hemingway, in her first featured role as - what else? A model that gets raped by her little sister’s music teacher. And then as the movie ends, she winds up blowing away the guy’s guts all over the parking lot with a shotgun! Just as he now attempts to rape the little sister.  

The lights go up and everybody in the theater cheers victoriously. After four hours of rape and revenge, though, I feel drained and emotionally spent.  Usually, violence doesn’t really affect me…why am I reacting this way?  What am I - a punk? A pussy?  A twinge of shame shadows over me as we walk silently to her car, and now driving quietly too. With only occasional peeks at each other, and quick (nervous on my part) smiles to break the spell. The gnawing sense that I have failed her in some way hounds me still, making me doubt that there has ever really been any chemistry at all. We cross over into Roselle, down First Avenue, heading to my house. Damn! I didn’t even get to kiss her tonight…and now I’m never going to see her again.

GRANNY

Joey has an interesting exchange with Esperanza’s ancient grandmother while he waits for her to get redy for ‘The Big Date!’

“Abuelita - Esperanza bends down to speak louder into her ear - tenemos un huesped.”

There is a stirring, as the old woman starts to slowly look up from the TV set.

“Te presento el Joey,” she says, pronouncing her syllables very carefully, as she points to me. The old woman cranes her neck to look up, and suddenly, her eyes lock on me, followed by a kind of tremor that shakes her body.

“Jorge…Jorge”

“No, no abuelita – Joey. No es Jorge - el se llama Joey.”

I peek over at Esperanza questioningly.

“She thinks you’re her son. She’s old, you know.” 

I nod sympathetically.

“Joey, tienes hambre?” She creaks.

“No abuelita, el no habla Español… es Italiano.”

“Italiano?”

“Si, no habla Español, solo Ingles.”

“She don’t speak no English, papi. She watches her grandmother for a minute.

  “Mira, listen, I’m going to change, and wash up and shit, OK?  You could sit here and watch TV, or something. I’ll be out in like fifteen minutes, OK?”

Her bedroom door shuts closed, and now it’s just granny and me, who continues to be fixated on me, like she’s in some kind of fog.

I smile nervously as I peer around the room, scanning for anything that I can rest my eyes upon. There’s pictures on the wall of Esperanza when she’s maybe 13 or 14 years old, with a couple of other girls in a beauty contest.  She’s wearing a banner that reads, Miss Teen Puerto Rico, holding a bouquet of flowers, and crying.

God, she was always beautiful.

There’s other photos, too, fading black and whites, probably from the 50s. A good-looking guy in a Navy uniform. Right below that, there’s a beautiful woman who bears an amazing resemblance to Esperanza, only from another era.

“Jorge, tienes hambre?” I’m awakened from my spell by granny, who’s now smiling at me. I have no idea of what the hell she just said, but I nod my head yes enthusiastically, anyway.

“Ven, ven.”

With a mighty effort, she slowly, carefully raises herself up from the chair, using the equally gnarled wooden cane, resting on it for support. Finally, she’s just about half erect, all four-foot-seven of her, and commences to plod deliberately to the similarly cramped kitchen. I’m torn between being terrified that she might fall apart, and observing her in a sort of detached way. Almost like she was kind of a science experiment. With a wave of her hand, she motions for me to follow, and sit down at the kitchen table.

“Sientase, sientase, Jorge.”

She hobbles over to this monstrous iron pot on the stove, and lifts the top. The mysterious aroma of Puerto Rican food hurries out. Scooping out some of it, and shakily placing it on a plate, she sets down before me a mound of yellow rice and, as far as I can tell, some sort of boiled chicken gizzards.

I just smile and silently pray to myself that Esperanza will be out soon to rescue me.

“Come, Come,” she urges me to eat, and then begins to tell me a story of some kind.

I, of course, am pretending to understand her Spanish, nodding my head the whole time, as she goes on and on. In between, I’m picking around the rice, attempting to avoid the alleged chicken gizzards, which are totally grossing me out now.  

Granny appears to be searching her memory. She’s spinning this story, suddenly alive, and becoming very animated…then cackling uproariously, as she bangs her cane on the floor.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho!!” I’m laughing along, slapping my knee. We’re having a grand old time, granny and me.

Finally, Esperanza emerges from her bedroom, in the process of putting one of her earrings in.

“What’s going on out here?” She asks, alarm tinging her voice.

Just when I think that she couldn’t possibly look any better - that nobody ever could - she takes it up another level. She’s wearing this black turtleneck mini dress, maybe its wool, I think? Black sheer stockings, and black stiletto velvet boots. Daaamn!

“Oh…uh – nothing! Just - uh - laughing with your grandmother, here.”

She smiles.

“She’s my great grandmother, honey.  You ready to go?”

I get up and thank granny, delighted to at last be escaping the prospect of the deadly chicken gizzards.

Esperanza pulls on her jacket, then bends down to talk to her great grandmother. They converse in Spanish for a minute. Esperanza gives her a kiss on the cheek, helps her back to her armchair - and we’re off.