Kissing Michelle (cont'd)

"You think you and Gwen are gonna' do it?"

Keith looked down and smiled. "Maybe. Last Saturday, down in her parents basement, it's like a rec room, we were makin' out like crazy. She's Frenching me, like all the way down my throat, and I'm thinkin' chick's gonna pull out half a tongue dripping with acid and little bits of black-eyed peas. Anyway, she slipped her hand, like it was an accident, like, right on my fucking thing--then she goes 'Ooops', but she doesn't let go. Lemme tell you, it's a lot nicer than doin' it yourself."

"You tellin' me Gwen touched--you fucking with me?" I was more jealous than skeptical. "If you're fucking with me-"

"No way, man. This is the truth, not that I should be telling you. Listen, don't say a word to anyone. Anyone! She'll fuckin' go nuts. 'Sides, her mom and my mom are best friends. I'll get killed! Promise me." He was serious.

"Cross my heart." His smile came back.

"Okay, so, so, where was I? Oh, yeah, so then I got my hand inside her bra and slipped it down. I'm lookin' at this big naked titty, and I'm just about to kiss it--I mean I was right there! Do you understand me, right there! Then her stupid sister yells for her down the stairs. Man you should've seen her jump. And when she buttoned that shirt," Keith is up and bent now, hands racing up and down his chest, "FLOOSH! Chick was like the Flash! No shit!"

I slumped back against the wall, awestruck by the horrible backwardness of it all. Keith had always looked up to me. I'd never asked for it, didn't deserve it, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Moreover, I had come to expect it--he was my Tonto, faithfully riding a few steps behind, supplementing or admiring my mastery of the things that mattered, and occasionally picking up after Silver (surfacing now and then in my placid stream of stoic sarcasm were the sporadic emotional messes of the adolescent artist's mildly tormented soul). But now he'd violated the sacred code. The sidekick doesn't pull ahead into uncharted territory and claim it triumphantly. He doesn't have hair-raising adventures on a treacherous mountain while the star meanders at the base looking for a safe way up. But, by the grace of the same god who was about to will Alberta's bra and panties to the floor, perhaps all of that was about to change, and the order of the world would be restored. Order, like a Weeble, or a storm-blown buoy would always right itself. And as Keith and I sat waiting for Ol' Faithful's finale, Langston confessed that he was going to the devil, and wouldn't go to heaven if he could. I delighted in knowing that, with a little luck, I might not be far behind.

•
"YO, WHASSUP, MAN? You get over?" It had become a chorus, each refrain taken up by some other boy in some other part of the school, on some other day.

"You know, I hear that when you, like, stick a really fuckin' uptight little virgin like Michelle, she turns into a fuckin' who." Wisdom from "Keef da Beef" Lamberti, a 245-pound, olive-skinned kid who would let me in on secrets like this because, as he said, I was allright. This was another. "You know, if I call you eggplant in Italian, it means I'm callin' you a nigger. But like, why an eggplant? A Tootsie Roll maybe, but a fuckin' eggplant? Jeez."

"Nice, Keef. Now, what in the hell is a 'who'?"

"A who, man!"

"A Who? Like what Horton heard?"

"Huh? Whauddya you, a fuckin' jerkoff? A who-uh, a fuckin' H-O-R-E."

Now it was Hector Morales, the only kid in the seventh grade with a full mustache, a kid who'd never even spoken to me before. "I hear you gettin' some a dat suh-weet chocha. Why she picked you?"

And on it went. With each day my burden grew heavier--not because of the grave charge by my fellows to deflower the one virgin in the school who was somehow more virginal than the rest, the one whose virginity seemed absolute--sealed by a goodness in her eyes, by a delicacy of the soul not seen, I was certain, since the days of chivalry and sonnets. My burden grew because I just knew Michelle must've heard the chatter of the barbarian boys, and the glories conferred upon me. I hadn't anticipated this. All I could think about was letting her know that I had nothing to do with it, that I liked her because she was smart and pretty and sweet. She needed to know that I wasn't like them, that I wasn't trying to Shanghai her virtue. Granted, I didn't vigorously deny having claimed her virginity, but I certainly didn't encourage these flattering fictions. I didn't laugh and swagger, or exchange knowing glances with boys who just as likely didn't know. But, in my conversations with Michelle this never came up. As we walked home from school, sat by the reservoir buried among the reeds and dragonflies, on all our study dates and movie dates, it never came up. There was only one way to the point I desperately needed to make. I would never touch her. And I never did. I must confess that shyness was virtue's collaborator in the battle to preserve Michelle's honor, and was by the second month, its better, but the end result was the same--her chastity was never threatened. Two months later she broke up with me. With cloying sincerity she insisted that it was at the order of her over-protective mother. Within days, however, there was a new rumor in the mill--Michelle Davis was single again because she had grown tired of waiting for her first kiss.

•
KEITH WAS MY best friend in part because he was a weird artist kid too, but mostly because he was a compulsive listener. He listened to little kids on the bus whose parents just could not bother explaining what the hell that goddamned thing was that just went by. He listened to the old widow next door go on about pasties and g-strings and other seedy-life accouterments of a distant day that not even her recently departed Arthur knew about, let alone the neighbors--you know how people talk. This skinny Black boy, with the sensitive eyes, slender, almost feminine hands, a complex fantasy world manifest in countless original comics, and a raging obsession with Farrah Fawcett, this boy listened to the lyrics of Paul Simon songs and would tell you what they meant, even in the seventh grade. Like most, I found it easy to talk to Keith--he had a way of seeming more vulnerable in the listening than I did in the telling. He seemed somehow more affected by my life than I was.

"You never asked me if I finally got over on Michelle."

"Well, I figured you'd tell me if you did. Besides, I didn't think you would." It was an annoying statement that rolled too easily off his tongue.

"Fuck you! Why not?"

"Okay. Did you get over on Michelle."

The two of us in unison, "No."

"Truth is-"

"Truth is you never kissed her."

"Can I tell you something, man?" I winced and looked at my hands. "After a while I was afraid. I was afraid to kiss her."

Keith looked at me with a face that moved quickly from reflexive derision to sympathy, then to something close to pain. I was grateful. "I don't blame you. She's really nice. And beautiful." He paused. "I mean, her tits could be a little bigger-"

"Fuck you!"

"Kidding, man. They are kinda small though. Heh, heh. Anyway, there was a lot of pressure, ya' know? Too much pressure. Every sonofabitch in school wanted her. You didn't want to come off like you were just trying to get some play. But, in a way, you shouldn'ta been afraid. I mean, she liked you. She wanted you to kiss her."

"I don't know, man. I guess I kinda made myself crazy."

"That's for sure," Keith agreed, "cause she wanted you to kiss her or she wouldn't have gone out with you. Trust me. I know." I let the smugness roll--he'd earned it. "But just think. If you made yourself nuts wondering if a girl who wanted you to kiss her wanted you to kiss her, what the hell are you gonna do when you're not sure?"

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