Karen and I re-enacting my first kiss (II) under the very same tree!
Part I
Except for a brief homosexual crisis during my drug-addled era, I have always been comfortable around women. I like girls. They are generally better conversationalists than men. They almost always smell better. Then there is that sex thing…
My first kiss was not consequential. It happened in second grade on the playground. Frankie Silvestri had a Snickers bar and I wanted half.
“You want half of this?” Frankie said, holding it temptingly close to my face. “I’ll give it all to you. All you gotta do is go kiss Donna Clark on the mouth.”
Donna was with a group of girls over by the basketball court playing jump rope. (Sounds clichéd, but that’s what I remember them doing. The long one, where you jump in and jump out.) She was standing to the side, not swinging or jumping. I came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. As I recall, I thought Donna was cool, so my task was not entirely repugnant. When she turned, I put two hands on the sides of her face, pulled her in a little, and laid one on her. While my memory would like to embellish this with a little electrical connection or a hint of a favorable response, I’m pretty sure she jerked away, screamed, and pushed me savagely. She might have spit.
I used to teach an Advanced Creative Writing class which was essentially a filmmaking class. One semester, for our group project, we decided to flesh out the above anecdote. A sweet innocent girl gets force-kissed on the playground. She is mesmerized by the dashing rake who committed the daring deed. But she’s a military girl, and her family moves away shortly afterward. Fast forward ten years. Dad has been reassigned and Sweet Innocent is back at the local high school. She watches from afar as Dashing Rake is entwined with Hottest Girl as Cutest Couple at the school. But she remembers the kiss, and she believes in destiny. We called it Waiting for Wesley. (Waiting for Dallin had no music to it.)
The film was a failure. My own son was cast as Wesley, and I had two beauties for Hottest Girl and Sweet Innocent. But we never finished it before the class ended. My fault, no doubt. I still think it’s a great idea, and I’m sure I have the screenplay packed away somewhere. Hollywood, can you hear me?
Oh yeah, when I got back to my friends after the raid, Frankie handed me an empty Snickers wrapper.
Part II
This is the real one. Happened in the fifth grade, and her name was Brooke Hanlon. I don’t think that hormones had kicked in yet, but I was discovering mysteries and attractions and, er, developments about girls that I found fascinating. Of course, social intercourse between the sexes in the fifth grade consisted mostly of insults, mock outrage, smirks, shrieks and giggles. A more friendly, familiar relation was usually negotiated by a third party. But I preferred a more direct approach and that gave me an advantage. Primary energy is so much more vital. I asked Brooke to meet me behind the building when school ended. She agreed. Early in my Creative Writing teaching experience, I wrote a poem about it:
The First Kiss
She had freckles and real soft lips
And I told her I would meet her
Under the oak tree after school.
Her hair was a color between red and blonde;
I said something outrageous, like
“I want to kiss you.”
She liked that and her eyes fired up
And her lips were oh so soft.
A teacher saw us and became very angry
And I was led to believe that she was cheap.
And so I took my vow of poverty.
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