Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried Charissa could barely stand the sight of him. Rejected by his own Mother, Tommy grew up with a deep crave for human touch.
One day, watching the sad boy dancing in front of Charissa, Mike had an epiphany. The Coach recruited him for the school football team's mascot Ray Raven and Tommy
flourished
.
Under the suit's anonymity, he quickly became by far the best Ray Raven to ever grace the gridiron.
Crowds cheered and laughed so hard they cried as Tommy, the Maestro of Pranks raised a storm among cheerleaders, players, coaches, and officials.
Home team or visitors, nobody was safe from his wacky antics, be it on the field or on the bleachers.
He joined the youth automotive training program to become a car mechanic.
He worked after school in his Dad's garage fixing the neighbors' cars to help out his Mother with the expenses.
He galvanized crowds on Fridays at the school's football field, cheering for the Black Birds.
And at night in bed, he'd lament the deafening silence that had taken over the old house, recalling the loud music that had once filled his childhood.
Tommy managed to stay true to his vow of celibacy until the age of eighteen when on an autumn afternoon coming out of practice in his Ray Raven suit, the tall young man bumped a brunette beauty rushing out of the girls' bathroom in tears.
Both fell on the floor.
"Are you alright?" Tommy turned to check up on her.
"Are you a bad boy, Tommy?" Madeline Poppe sat sobbing. "Do you enjoy breaking girls' hearts too?"
"Y-you know who I am?" he recoiled. As many Brooklynites, Tommy knew of the Poppe family. Thugs, thieves and troublemakers, they all knew the cells of the Metropolitan Detention Center inside out. Out of that abject cesspool came Madeline, a talented rose with a gentle heart and a limitless imagination.
"I'd recognize that swagger anywhere, Tommy," she whimpered. "You walk like Goofy."
"I... do?"
"Mascots are part of the cheering squad, right?" Her sunken chestnut brown eyes pleaded. "Do you have some cheers for me?"
Watching the once chirpy girl reduced to tears was heartbreaking.
Tommy got up and sprung into the Ray Raven dance; an old school fila punctuated by air flares and Jackhammers leading up to a robotic arm wave that peaked on a bop to her nose. Madeline burst into a delighted laughter and Cupid's arrow pierced straight through Tommy's young brown heart:
"I could listen to that sound for the rest of my life," he thought.
Brown and beige paper flowers decorated the hallway, leftovers from the homecoming party. The young man snatched the biggest one for her.
"Thank you, Ray Raven, you have a heart of gold," she grinned as Tommy pulled her off the ground. Holding onto her brown paper flower, Madeline strode away with a renewed bounce in her gait, glancing at him over her shoulder while classmates cackled.
"Look, Ray Raven is in
love
!"
Madeline started coming to practice, sitting on the bleachers with her sketchbook, drawing and staring at Tommy in his suit while he trained routines with the cheering squad.
A month later, the young man was eating his brown strawberries in the school cafeteria when she sat in front of him.
"So, Tomasz Izydor Balagan... do you know other moves besides the Ray Raven dance?"
Through the corner of his eye, Tommy saw Madeline's ex-boyfriend, Ricky Tinsley disengage from Kay Cordoba and glare at them. Tommy had never liked Ricky, a snob punk with a pretentious Mother who thought herself royalty.
Ricky's Dad, in an attempt to escape from under the umbrella of his filthy rich Mother-in-Law, had moved their core family back to his Brooklyn roots. There, he had opened a studio hoping to build a name for himself and instill in Ricky the ethics of a hardworking man.
Watching his Dad at work, Ricky developed a taste for the arts from a very early age and once enlisted at Marlon Merlo Brooklyn High, the boy was swept off his feet by Madeline's talent. Added to her kindness, her bubbly personality and their shared love for cartoons and he quickly fell madly in love with her.
It took longer for Madeline to return his feelings. She didn't take kindly to his critical eye for her artistic shortcomings and his pompous air, but as time progressed and she improved in her craft, Madeline grew to value his input. He was one of the few people who could hold conversations on subjects that she was passionate about. Madeline was amused to watch their bitter clashes of opinions turn into pleasant debates, fascinated to discover how much they had in common and delighted to see his eyes light up each time she floored him with her latest art piece.
Their Cinderella story was short-lived.
Once Ricky's Mother Kitty learned of the girl's family, she swiftly shut down their little fairytale. Kitty had grand plans for her son and they didn't include a lowly spawn of street criminals. Quickly, she shoved Kay Cordoba into her boy's arms. The once wealthy Cordobas had been hit hard by the Stock Market crash of 2008, but their relocation from a lavish Tribeca address to a Brownsville loft hadn't dented their standing with the woman.
Kitty saw herself in Kay's eagerness to rejoin the Manhattan socialites and was thrilled to pair her son with such an ambitious young lady.
Under her wing, Ricky and Kay became the hottest new item at school.
Now, watching his entitled sneer wither into a frown, Tommy realized that the pompous boy still had feelings for Madeline.
'Well, tough luck!'
the young Balagan thought. For once he too deserved a slice of happiness.
"Why, Madeline Poppe, are you asking me to the Winter Formal?" Tommy smiled. "I dunno, I would have to check my schedule."
"Pick me up on Saturday at seven," she stole one of his brown strawberries. "
Don't
wear the Ray Raven suit."
Tommy feigned a pout and Madeline pecked him on the cheek, winking.
Charissa was far from elated with this development, having grown colder toward the boy since Carl's coma. Despite Coach Mike Lawrence's help around the house, the place had fallen into an untidy mess, made worse by her need to juggle two jobs to keep the family afloat. Getting her to agree to let him go to the party was a challenge, so the young Balagan poured his heart into the performance of a lifetime.
Popping and Locking in front of her in the kitchen, sliding the Typewriter across the living room, he finally managed to yank a smile out of her thin bronze lips with a Happy Feet Dance while handing her a pizza dinner.
Wearing his Dad's suit, that night the young man glided through a forest of brown and beige dresses and black and blue suits holding Madeline in his arms.
Feeling her chest pressed against him as she panted out of breath and listening to her excited laughter, for the first time in his life Tommy tasted Heaven. As he stared into her gorgeous chestnut brown eyes, he realized this was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Madeline must have read his mind because she leaned forward and her bronze lips touched with his. From the other side of the room, Ricky Tinsley glared at them livid and stormed out dragging Kay Cordoba with him.
Giggling in the backseat of Tommy's Dad's Pontiac Grand Am later that night, the lovers couldn't undress fast enough. It was Tommy's first time and having been rejected all his life, he was nervous. But he was also in love.
Madeline saw the apprehension in her lover's eyes and soothed him with a tender kiss while guiding his fingers toward her intimacy. Her flowery scent filled the car interior as she opened herself to the young man.
"Relax," Madeline smiled as she kissed him, showing him how to stimulate the sensitive hood of her love bud. "Gently."
With soft caresses from his fingers and delicate touches from his tongue, Tommy slowly licked Madeline toward her peak.
"Now," she lead him inside her. "I am ready."
Magic coursed through his body when they joined, feeling her tight and damp womanhood yield to his slow advance.
Thrusting into her for the first time with loving passion, Tommy finally found himself where he belonged. He kissed her naked body, drawing her nipples into his lips as their sexual tension increased.
"Ooh, Madeline! You are amazing!"
"Hn! Oh, Tommy! Yes!"
His first climax came too soon.
"Oh, my God, Madeline! Oh!"
"Yes! Yes, Tommy, give me all of it!"
He continued entering her long after their orgasm. Twice more they mated on that night.
So
this
is what being loved felt like.
They dated for the rest of the school year. The cheerleaders had to pry them apart every time Ray Raven was needed on the field. In the backseat of his Pontiac, the locker room, and his bedroom whenever Charissa was at work, every sexual encounter was a glimpse into Paradise, as Tommy watched in wonder Madeline's delicate frame writhing on top of him, the necklace with the back door spare key to the Balagan house dancing around her neck.
But alone at night in his room, the dark thoughts would trickle in.
"You're just a rebound, her heart belongs to Ricky Tinsley."
Still, the color blind lad was determined to enjoy his stint in the sun for as long as he could.
The sun set on their little tryst on a cloudy May afternoon.
Tommy was strolling down Bradford Street carrying a bouquet of brown roses in his hand when he heard shouting coming from the dingy house Madeline shared with her alcoholic Dad.
"Are you
trying
to
ruin
your future? My Dad asked me to show him your latest work but you don't even draw anymore, always hanging with that guy," Ricky Tinsley shouted. "I can't believe you're sleeping with such a loser!"
"Well, I can't believe you're sleeping with that
cow
," Madeline shouted back.
"I'm not sleeping with her and she's
not
a cow. Kay's a good girl, her family and ours have been friends for generations. Mother says..."
"Oh, you always gotta listen to Mother, don't you? God forbid her precious son was caught dead with that filthy Poppe girl from Bradford Street."
"Don't talk about my Mother like that!" Ricky burst out of the front door fuming with Madeline in tow. "At least my Mother's not a
whore
who cheated on her Husband and birthed another man's child!"