A womb-like tightness, the shuffling of jigsaw serrated shaped props gnawing into the background.
A socket of darkness occluded by the ruffled bangs of the burgundy stage curtain segregating the actors from the yawping folding chairs faced in our direction like stoic yawns.
The opening paragraph of a dream.
The play is in two weeks.
I haven’t spoken with Anastasia in almost five days
either at rehearsal or over the phone.
***
The next day I look at the letter I received in the
mail. It is from Coach Ricca. The cross-country picnic is in five days. He says to call if we have any questions.
I call him on my own.
“Hi. Mr Ricca?” I say, almost stuttering. He says yes.
He says hi. He says he has heard good things about me. He inquires if I ran the ‘Boat.
He keeps asking question about my previous times.
***
The first part of rehearsal I fill in for Mayor
Shinn who is excused to attend to a family obligation.
Halfway through Iowa Stubborn when everyone greets me with a good morning Mayor Shinn I turn, and, almost like Gary Coleman, say it is if you are walking around in your drawers all day.
All I want to do is make Pam laugh.
Even when I am Mayor Shinn I am somehow always still Charlie.
***
He is hollow-cheeked gaunt-eyed with a searing look of a gladiator stowed in the pockets of his eyelids. A buzzed shock of red hair adorned his scalp like a skullcap. He was a vessel of optimal health and a dominating competitor. While in his late-30's he could easily average five minutes per mile over the discourse of a 15k. I had spotted this athletic titan twice, pedaling his arms and legs in inimitable stance, the chug of his elbows in metric tandem with the smooth lapping rhythmic sway of each foot gave him the appearance of a spiky-haired human sail gliding into a dazzled sprint across a cement pond of the earth leading a herd of numerical tank-top frenzied long distant road runners through the shuttle of the finish line. He teaches geometry and calculus at the south side high school I will to attend and he coached the sport in which I was expected to excel.
He is Coach.
***
The sets begin piece together in snaps. Several new people are introduced wearing microphoned headgear informing us when we are to take our places on stage.
There is a heavy and alluring musk wafting through the seats of the theater. Before rehearsal there is a lady with perm-damp sand-castle hair wearing shorts with sandals and socks.
Halfway through Iowa Stubborn when everyone greets me with a good morning Mayor Shinn I turn, and, almost like Gary Coleman, say it is if you are walking around in your drawers all day.
Pam explodes in drips of laughter.
***
I am the first to arrive. From a distance I can see him. He is stretching.
He is getting ready to run
He is getting ready to run
He is Coach.
***
We begin every rehearsal with Head shoulders knees
and toes. I sit at the back next to two younger male members of the chorus
ogling the females performing simple calisthenics. The stage is like the back
of a cave. We are moving. Our performance is in two weeks. We will have two
dress rehearsals.
Downstairs overweight volunteer
mothers scuttle about like pickalittle hens collecting costumes.
During the prologue my job is to point and gesticulate that the protagonist doesn’t know the territory. I get angry. I doff my tweed hat and spike it like a football when Harold Hill states that he doesn’t believe that he dropped his name and holds up his suitcase.
The sets begin piece together in snaps. Several new people are introduced wearing microphoned headgear informing us when we are to take our places on stage.
There is a heavy and alluring musk wafting through the seats of the theater. Before rehearsal there is a lady with perm-damp sand-castle hair wearing shorts with sandals and socks.
Pam introduces her as Terri.
“She is going to be in charge of the lightening. Please give her the same amount of respect that you have shown myself and Miss Janice.”
There is something about Terri that looks like she
could be a catcher in a female inclusive softball league.
I have not spoken with Anastasia in a week. I missed my chance with Andrea thanks to Ian and Guns-N-Roses.
“You go to Manual?” I inquire.
I ask how she knows Pam.
I tell Terri that I know what she means, figuratively speaking
I try to ask what class she is taking with Pam. I try to ask what the name of the English teacher is at Manual who will blow me away.
I remain quiet.
She doesn’t look back.
I take out my script and continue to mentally pummel
out my lines.
***
We can be cold as a falling thermometer in December if you ask about our weather in July.
***
“That’s a pretty impressive time you clocked at Steamboat.” He says again, iterating that for just having graduated from eighth grade the bulk of the Varsity cross country runners in the state couldn’t clock that time.
He asks me if I think I’m over doing it.
He tells me that god things are going to happen.
He tells me that the others should be here shortly.
***
I idle behind the lids
of the stage. I rehearse my lines. Miss
Jana rattles the diminutive planks of the ivory. Parents are downstairs taking
measurements, assisting kids with their costumes. Even though the musical is
set in the nineteen-teens there is something antebellum in attire we are
wearing. Most of us are wearing bow-ties
and suits. The traveling salesman have hats that look like flying saucers made
out of reeds. The last scene Harold Hill and the members of the river city boys
band attire themselves in the band uniforms from the high school I will be
attending in the fall.
There is Pam's cackle in
the back ground. There is Pam meeting with what she refers to as “company” at
the end of the night as she goes over the notes from the rehearsal. There is
always applause and there is always smiles and there is always the reminder
that are show is two weeks away.
Everyone seems to be
humming the whispering spring mist that is the minute in G.
I see Anastasia. She has been crying. The lavender elliptical swathes circling her eyelids correlate with the splash of velour that is her dress. She is pensive. She is morose. Her chin is facing down in the directions of the caps of her knees. The last chorus number she was somehow absent.
She is pensive. Somewhere there looks like tears have stained the planetary interior of her eyes. The smile that I have lived for every time I have arrived to practice has been superseded by facial expressions that can most aptly be described as vacuous and limp. It seems like some sort of metaphysical floor vacuum has skirted over the orchard of her cheekbones and sucked the rosy vitality out of the women I just cannot stop thinking about.
Pam is going over notes. The company is huddled around her like she is calling a hail mercy play on the final out of a homecoming game. She is distant. For whatever reason anthony is completely ignoring her The lights on the stage look somehow resemble glowering underwater steeples. As is slipping into a moonwalk, I take several scurrying steps backwards in Anastasia's direction. The moment she sees me something germane to a smile forcefully elevates above her chin.
Pam continues to cackle and give construct criticism. My right arm seems indelibly tethered around the creature I have been salivating over the past six weeks.
I give her another little squeeze around the topography of her shoulder blade. Through her tears she continues to smile.
Pam calls me again by my stage name. Calls me Charlie. Tells me to keep it up Charlie. Tells me that I am getting better.
I look back at the conductor of this adolescent sojourn and shoot back a nod. Anastasia looks back at me giving me a look that its okay for me to remove my arm from around the top of her arm now and that I shouldn’t feel compelled to give her all this attention.
“Do you want me to call you t’night.” I ask. With my glasses off her entire face is a glistening bulb of static. She gives a little nod. Pam is clasping the skeletal tongs of her hands together as if she is ready to say grace telling us all that the show is coming together nicely and that we are going for continuity. With my arm still straddled around Anastasia's shoulder I can feel her inhale.
“Call me tonight.” She says.
The palms of cast and company begin to collect and patter as if in prayer. As if some sort of life preserver, my limbs continue squeeze closer than I have ever held anything in my life.
As she leaves I hold my hand out grab her hand. I squeeze hard.
"Hey, stay cool, alright?"
Stacia looks back ay me doling a tear out of her left eye before a smile unbuckles from the helm of her lips like dawn.
***
.
They arrive in cars, thumping up and down with music
blaring in tandem of the streets. They park with the hood of the car still jutting up and down.
I see Jose. The captain.
I see Jose. The captain.
He has gentlest eyes I have ever seen. He is Hispanic and has a flattop.
The side doors of their cars open like wings. Coach points in their direction and tell me that my future teammates have arrived.
***
She calls me Charlie. She seems to know that it is me.
Stacia tells me its been a long last couple of days.
“I thought someone I was really in love with was going to give up something he loved more than life just to be with me but I guess I thought wrong.:"
I remember him telling me that Jose Munoz is a beast.
Coach looks at us. It is a picnic. Coach bought two boxed of chicken from KFC.
Coach states that we should do a light work out with
the hills of Bradley park. After we run we shall eat chicken and play football.
We run in an amoebic-bubble. We are trotting together over the cocnrete curvatures and dips constituting the swerve of lower Bradley park. Peacock steps ahead
I ask Jose what his P.R’s for Madison golf course. I tell him that I have a second cousin who ran cross-country for Manual in the extremely early 80’s and who went to state and has the freshman record on the course of 16:20.
The pace is solid, ordained by Munoz. We form and
arrowhead with our limbs treading over
vernal sheet of grass. We push across the lose loam and chained pyramids of the lower level of Bradley park. We push up the side trail, past the Columbus statue, near the 70's playground before sprinting down near the tennis courts.
When we arrive back to the picnic area coach chucks a football and Leatric catches. it. We gnaw into slabs of fried chicken. We play several pick-up games with Coach serving as quarter back. A photographer from the Journal Star saunters upon us and asks if he can snap shots of the game. Coach Ricca looks at me and says that this doesn't happen .
When we leave he says to check our mailbox. He says that he will be mailing out schedules for summer practice.
Jose looks at me and asks me if I need a ride home.
"No," I tell him, "I'm going to run."
***
An hour after rehearsal I call Anastasia up. There is three rings and she picks up.
She calls me Charlie. She seems to know that it is me.
“I thought someone I was really in love with was going to give up something he loved more than life just to be with me but I guess I thought wrong.:"
I tell her that I am sorry. I tell her that I wish I was there to hold her. I tell her that I miss not talking with her the last couple of weeks.
She tells me that she thinks she misses me too.
***
“Hi, I’m Jose.” The captain says to me, stretching out his hand.
There is a skinny lad with straight blonde hair who
appears to be the only other white boy on the team named Randy Peacock. There is Gabino who I remember thrashing
around on skateboards with Scott in Christ Lutheran church’s parking lot. There
is Quaynor and Leatric.
I am introduced. I remember Tony Di Greggorio
telling me to watch out for Munoz at the last Young Columbus contest.
Coach looks at us. It is a picnic. Coach bought two boxed of chicken from KFC.
We run in an amoebic-bubble. We are trotting together over the cocnrete curvatures and dips constituting the swerve of lower Bradley park. Peacock steps ahead
“I’m really honored to be running with you,” I tell
Jose, I tell him that I have seen him run all around town.
I ask Jose what his P.R’s for Madison golf course. I tell him that I have a second cousin who ran cross-country for Manual in the extremely early 80’s and who went to state and has the freshman record on the course of 16:20.
“You should be able to do that.” Jose says to me,
with a smile.
The pace is solid, ordained by Munoz. We form and
arrowhead with our limbs treading over
vernal sheet of grass. We push across the lose loam and chained pyramids of the lower level of Bradley park. We push up the side trail, past the Columbus statue, near the 70's playground before sprinting down near the tennis courts.When we arrive back to the picnic area coach chucks a football and Leatric catches. it. We gnaw into slabs of fried chicken. We play several pick-up games with Coach serving as quarter back. A photographer from the Journal Star saunters upon us and asks if he can snap shots of the game. Coach Ricca looks at me and says that this doesn't happen .
When we leave he says to check our mailbox. He says that he will be mailing out schedules for summer practice.
Jose looks at me and asks me if I need a ride home.
"No," I tell him, "I'm going to run."
***
“I really missed not talking to you. I figured you were pissed off at me or something.
"....."
“I figured you didn’t want to talk to me. I figured you were in love with J.C squires.”
"Couri said that you were like this with Anthony when he first came and with the boy who was first cast as my role. They said that you were all over them."
Anastasia is silent.
"They then said that you were only flirting with me momentarily and that the next actor who would cast you would be all over him and then Matt shows up and you guts looks like you are chemically waltzing like protons and neutrons in the center of an Atom."
Anastasia remains silent for over a minute.
She then tells me that she can't wait to accost Couri and Jenny at the next rehearsal.
"They don't know shit. They don't know what they are talking about. It's game on."
There is something sexy about Anastasia when she gets pissed off.
Something sexy indeed.
***
When I arrive home from the first cross-country outing the leading Democratic nominee is playing saxophone on Arsenio Hall.
The crowd just cannot halt with their applause.
By mid-June independent candidate Ross Perot has 39 percent of the vote. Bush has 31. Clinton is the caboose.
Some people are saying that Clinton is unfledged and just doesn't know the territory at all.
By mid-June independent candidate Ross Perot has 39 percent of the vote. Bush has 31. Clinton is the caboose.
Some people are saying that Clinton is unfledged and just doesn't know the territory at all.
***
“You know when I met
you, it’s like you opened something up inside my chest that had never been
opened before. You unlocked it simply by smiling and you made life somehow seem
brand new once again.”
***
I am on TV. Ice-T had releases Cop-killer. For some
reason Dan Quayle is making a huge deal about a song talking about killing cops
and about that being wrong. I am with Joey Neltner. We make gang signs with the
tips of our fingers. I am wearing two layers of shorts, granting me a semblance
to appear that I am sagging.
Joey asks me
why I always have that green thing wedged in my back pocket.
I tell Joey it’s a play.
“It’s a play. Like you wrote a play like the skit you always write for Sunday school?”
He looks nonplussed. I tell him no.
“No, It’s called Music Man. It’s kinda like the
plays we always used to do at Christ Lutheran back in the day only this one’s
at Peoria Players.”
Joey inquires where Peoria Players is at. I tell him
its down University. He looks at me and nods his head in his Starter cap.
“You were funny in that one play at CLS. The one wear you wore the highwaters. I mean, I be gagging.”
We go inside the record store. When we leave there is a television crew outside
Co-op records. They ask if they can interview us regarding the issue of censorship. Regarding Free speech.
Ice-T's body count album is being pulled.
Ice-T's body count album is being pulled.
I tell them that Ice-T has a constitutional right to free speech but when you talk about killing cops and listen to something like over and over again sometimes the young and volatile listener may want to emulate such behavior.
I don't use the word emulate or volatile.
Dad is proud of his son and tapes my interview with his VCR.
The next night at practice Wintrhop says in front of Pam that he saw me on TV.
I am coy. I tell her yeah. I mention Ice-T and censorship and the news.
"Charlie," Pam replies, "What are we gonna do with you, Charlie?"
Charlie Charlie Charlie.
Stacia has talked about
what a bitch Couri is for the last half hour. She is using words I have never
heard. She is saying that Couri is conniving and duplicitous. The morning is crisp, a lid of bruised
hyacinth erupts from the eastern patch of the sky.
“I need to go,” I tell
her, thinking about kissing her lips, her forehead, her cheekbones. Wondering
if her lips feel moist the way coifed lawns in west Peoria feel moist as I
amble across them with my Journal Star bag slung over my shoulder ferrying the
headlines of what is transpiring on this Christmas bulb of a planet.
***
There are two French classes left. Andrea comes in late smelling like chlorine and sun shine. Madame smiles in her direction.
At break Ian walks in my direction followed by Ross Perot. I am thinking about Stacia and sharing the dawn with her.
Andrea walks past. She is rattling change like she is about to cast dice.
She asks me if I would like a coke.
I tell her that I am fine.
“Dude, Andréa looks pretty smoking today.”
Ian again asks me what I am going do. If I am going to ask her out. I want to. I was on the phone all night last night with Anastasia.
Yeah, I tell them maybe. Maybe sometime soon.
***
“How did you stumble upon doing community theatre?” I ask him, noting that he is the last human being on earth I could possibly imagine seeing here.
“Oh I’m in class with Terri who’s doing the lights.”
“Wait,” Trying to figure stuff out.
“At Manual?"
“This is like so crazy. I see Laurie almost every other morning. She always says hi to me while I am waiting for the bus to go to French class.
Scott stoically nods again. He says yeah. He says life sometimes is like that.
From off stage I hear someone yelling out Charlie. Yelling out that my scene is ready to begin.
***
***
I am coy. I tell her yeah. I mention Ice-T and censorship and the news.
"Charlie," Pam replies, "What are we gonna do with you, Charlie?"
Charlie Charlie Charlie.
***
It is five o’clock in the morning. I have been
talking with Stacia all night. I need to do my paper route. I need to run and
then shower and then go to what will be
my second to last French class perusing my manuscript the duration of the bus
ride.
From down the street I
can hear the delivery truck dropping off the heap of papers coughing.
I tell Stacia thank
you. I tell her that I have never spent the night with someone on the phone
before.
“Just one thing before
you leave,”
I ask her what. She
tells me to look out the window.
“I want to share a
sunrise with you. Just look out and watch the sun, the nuclear button that
generating life and know that we are somehow here together.”
I want to tell Stacia I
love her.
Instead I am quiet.
Somehow I am holding her. I tell her goodbye.
I have papers to
deliver.
***
In French class words bloom like botanical pistons in hand bells resonating in molecular chimed unison above our foreheads. There is saw-vuh and there is Jim Lappelle and there is trey being. There is app-pray and there is voo-lay and there is parlay and there is music and there is the scent of Andrea is front of me. Madame continues to whistle out her fifteen minute inaugural monologue a la frrancais. Somehow all I am thinking about is Anastasia from last night, her breath fogging up the end of the receiver.
There are two French classes left. Andrea comes in late smelling like chlorine and sun shine. Madame smiles in her direction.
Andrea walks past. She is rattling change like she is about to cast dice.
She asks me if I would like a coke.
I tell her that I am fine.
Twice I have walked Andrea out of the French class into the brick cul-de-sac in the parking lot where her mother picks her up and twice, instead of saying goodbye, I have swiveled my chin and noted that it is a beautiful day.
“Dude, Andréa looks pretty smoking today.”
I tell him yeah, so.
“So you gonna hit on her? You gonna ask her out?”Ian again asks me what I am going do. If I am going to ask her out. I want to. I was on the phone all night last night with Anastasia.
***
We board the stage. It is dress rehearsal #1. We look like an antebellum Cruise ship. We have three more to go.
The play is in less than a week.
The play is in less than a week.
Terri is blinking the stage lights on. There is a man next to her. I do a double take and realize it is Scott.
Scott from the South Side. I know him from Logan pool and from hanging out with Nick Pribble,.
“Hey man,” I say to him, giving him a complicated South Side hand shake.
We talk about everyone we know.
Scott nods once with his chin.
“Pam is your teacher at Manual?” Scott does the same vertical motion with his chin.
“Wait—what is she teaching?”
“We’re in a poetry class together, It’s actually pretty cool. There’s only about four us but we really get along.”
Wait, I say again, my eyelids performing elementary mathematics as if on a trapeze. I think about the girl with the sandy hair who has always said hi to me while I am waiting for the city bus to go to French class.
“Is there a girl named Laurie in your class?”
Scott again nods his chin. Finally the equation is making sense.
Scott stoically nods again. He says yeah. He says life sometimes is like that.
From off stage I hear someone yelling out Charlie. Yelling out that my scene is ready to begin.
The next morning I do my route I see Mr. McQuellen looking out the upstairs
window. He is not wearing a shirt and his chest is hairy.
Almost like Columbus he seems to be looking out over
the prow of a ship.
Searching for some port that is lost and will never be found.
***
We are choreographing the kiss. Angrily I ample back on stage. Marilyn the librarian has just said goodbye to the duplicitous yet somehow noble Harold Hill and my job, portraying Charlie the Anvil salesman.
Marilyn the librarian’s real name correlates with
the current season of Summer and she states that this is the first time she has
ever acted. She is an incumbent senior at the school at the north side of the
town where Karen Christmas attends where every other kid seems to have a doctor
or a lawyer for a progenitor. She is Standoffish and seems to socialize only
with the coterie of the Pickalittle ladies who seem to adamantly abhor
Anastasia for no apparent reason. Midway
through the second act I stammer onstage irate, en route to thwart the
nefarious Harold Hill.
***
She tells me that Mary is inside.
***
I glance down and see a nest of porcelain fingers
and when I look up I see Anastasia, she is still laughing.
“I see you standing there. You think you’re soooo
cool. Why don’t you just FUCK OFF!!!!”
“Oh, by the way, I’m not supposed to tell you guys
this but the French word for fuck you is fu-toi.” Ross Perot continues to topple down in laughter. Ian
states that he only knows all the dirty words because he plays hockey with
Madame’s son and Madame si always having all these French people over at the
house all the time. “Fuck is fu-toi. Merde is Shit. Oh, and I think
Bitch is just Beeeeeetch..”
Ross Perot pushes up his glasses into his forehead and continues to laugh. Andrea is sipping a diet coke and she is next to Jenay. Our break is almost up. " So you gonna ask Mademoiselle Merde-shit out after
class today?” Ian tells me again that she wants you man.
When I say I should would like to do more than that
I vertically swipe my chin up and down
I refer to her solely as girly-girl.
“Don’t look at her butt!!” Pam cackles out. The
entire cast and company foams in a tuft of giggles.
Pam is admonishing me while she is smiling.
“No. No. I this were an adult production you would.
You are totally
When I look back at Summer I apologize. I tell her
that I was just acting.
She bats her eyes again in the opposite direction.
There are more giggles. From stage left I note that Anastasia’s countenance is
the color of cheap wine cooler she is laughing holding her hand just below her
naval as if she is in a second trimester..
“Let’s do it again Charlie baby. One more time.” Pam
notes.
“Remember Charlie baby. Children’s production. No
butt.”
More giggles. Summer snarls back at me.
She looks like she wants to bite my nose.
****
****
So by God stubborn they can stand touching noses
for a week at a time and never see eye to eye.
It it’s the Sunday before the fourth of July.
I’ve not stopped by the McQuellen’s for three weeks. The ten dollar tip the lady at the door gave me I used to pay their bill for the past month.
I see her in the yard mowing the grass.
She turns off the nasal gnaw of the lawn mower when she sees me on the other side of the street.
Without saying anything she gives me a hug
“Mrs. McQueelen.” I say to her.
“Thank you so much for the card.”
I don’t know what to say. I delivered the periodical that had her son on the front page talking about the accident in which he died.
“Would you like to come in and have some lemonade or something?”
I lie. I tell her that I am busy, though I still offer to mow her lawn.
Mrs. Mcquellen informs me that she shall see me next week.
"Sure we don't owe you more? " She inquires, once again.
I tell her no. I tell her that everything is good.
She gives me a hug goodbye. She is sniffling. I can tell she is thinking about her son.
When I leave I don't look back.
I don't want to see her cry.
Mrs. Mcquellen informs me that she shall see me next week.
"Sure we don't owe you more? " She inquires, once again.
I tell her no. I tell her that everything is good.
She gives me a hug goodbye. She is sniffling. I can tell she is thinking about her son.
When I leave I don't look back.
I don't want to see her cry.
There is a little squeeze at the cap of my knee.
“Don’t worry Charlie. I won’t get offended if you
publically check out my ass.”
She squeezes my knee again. I ask her if I can call her again tonight and
perhaps we can do the sunrise again.
“I would like that,” She volleys back to me via the
dip of her smile.
“I would like that a
lot.”
***
Today I have determined that I am going to ask Andrea
out. Even though the pulse of my heart belongs to Stacia. That I am going to see that perhaps maybe we
can meet for lunch and/or a movie or something. Today I am going to procure
the seven prime numbers constituting her
phone number.
During our break I avail my plan to Ross Perot and
Ian. Ian again notes that she is smoking hot.
“Yeah, just don’t interject with a GNR video. I was
really close to asking her out last time. I did enjoy Axl’s performance.”
Ian breaks out en medias stanza of Its so easy.
He holds up his middle finger like a lighter during
a rock ballad. Ross Perot is on the ground with laughter.
Ross Perot pushes up his glasses into his forehead and continues to laugh. Andrea is sipping a diet coke and she is next to Jenay. Our break is almost up.
I think about being on the phone all night last
night with Stacia. I think abouot how she seemed to blush when I referred to her
as Stace. I think about all I can imagine tumbling into high school with a
girlfriend who has dark mocha-flavored bangs and goes to a county school.
Andrea is hotter. I can't stop thinking about Stacia.
I want to saddle and mount her heart.
***
The next scene I am onstage with Harold Hill there
is an altercation. We have choreographed the scene extensively. I flail my fist
as I stomp on stage while Marcellus pushes me back. In the scene I get in
Harold Hill’s face and act like I am getting ready to pummel him. In the scene
I insinuate that Harold Hill is a musical fraud and a petty philanderer. In the scene I publically note that Marilyn
the Librarian is a hussy. In the scene I hold up the much sought after
credential and tell Hill himself that I am going to Mayor Shinn with the news.
And in the scene, with my fists in his face, Anthony
reaches back and, through extensive choreography, thrashes the gavel of his
fist through my cheekbones.
I get up shaking my own fist as if my right hand is
on fire informing the protagonist, the great Harold Hill, that I will somehow
get even.
That he hasn’t seen the last of me.
***
I want to take her out le Cinema. I want to take her out to dejeuner. I want to hold hands with her at La Café.
***
After class we wish Madame Au Revoir by flapping our
arms like fountains. I grope my French
books and my script. I walk out the door after Jenay and Andrea. Madame is wishing us A demain. Somehow Ian
and Ross Perot follow directly behind me like a caboose.
The parabolic curves of the hallways of ICC look
like the interior of an ashtray.
“Andrea, I was just wondering if you.”
She replies back in the affirmative. First in
French. She says the word we.
I look around. Ian and Ross Perot and snickering.
With the exception of last week when I was waylaid after class by Ian we have
walked each other out to the parking lot.
Whenever we say goodbye we always look around first
and comment that it is a beautiful day.
I want to take her out le Cinema. I want to take her out to dejeuner. I want to hold hands with her at La Café.
I want to kiss every part of her.
Ian is still snickering. There is a quizzical smile
spread across Ross Perot’s visage that looks like his face could implode
reverse paint by number style.
I repeat the same question. I am fourteen years of
age. I have just graduated eighth grade. Two summers ago I woke up in the
middle of the afternoon after falling asleep in the air--conditioned living room
to find a patch of wet jam sluiced onto my inner thigh, dreaming about my music
teacher, straddling me on her piano bench.
I tell Andrea I was just wondering again. She pauses
and nods the way she has seen every thoroughly antennae-decimated televised
high schooler pause and nod in every after school special she has ever seen.
“I was just wondering if…:
She is waiting for me to say something to add a
proverbial splash of pubescent narrative to her life.
She is waiting for me to say something profound. I
think about Anastasia and her forehead that looks like glossed produce.
It’s like I have a political choice between Anastasia
and Andrea and I am only allowed to scribble one name on the ballot.
Behind Ian and Ross Perot are snorting in meted stanzas.
Her eyes are the color of Neptune. She blinks twice as if swallowing me with her
vision. She is sexier than Anastasia. She is a cheerleader.
.“I was just wondering if you could tell me the
score from the Cubs game last night.”
Ian and Ross Perot erupt in coughing gaks. Andrea
looks back at me as if she is going to cry before telling me that she needs to
go.
Ian comes up to me and slaps my hand like we are in
a gang.
“That was great. You really schooled her. You should
have seen the look on her face. She looked like she was ready to cry.
I respond in the affirmative.
I respond by saying Oui.
***
As I am walking out of the dressing room after rehearsal I espy Stacia. She is beaming. Her forehead is the color of a bruised pomegranate. She has just gotten into an altercation with Couri about the rumors that were circulated about her and judging by the
As I am walking out of the dressing room after rehearsal I espy Stacia. She is beaming. Her forehead is the color of a bruised pomegranate. She has just gotten into an altercation with Couri about the rumors that were circulated about her and judging by the
“I told her that she can literally go suck it with her sorry ass.” Anastasia is smiling, blushing, grabbing me by the wrist, it will occur to me only later that I have never been this close to a female before. I can feel the atmosphere of her cent begin to escalate and rise like the golden planks of the nearest day star amidst the coastline of my flesh, part of my body tucked beneath the hemisphere of my torso is beginning to elevate. To ascend. To stretch and rise with the carol of every time Anastasia is for some reason sharing with me. She is still clad in the lavender drape of her costume. Her smile pushing past the cathedral of her lips, shining. She is standing so close to me, smelling like some sort of prize winning botanical entity that has been watered and groomed and prized just for me.
“I told her to suck it, I told her that if she is trying to start shit than there is no way that any of that shit is ever going to fly.
At the word fly the lateral front of my visage seems to bow in some sort of reverence into her face. I confirmation was last than two calendar months ago where we were purportedly supposed to bind unto myself this day in a virginal white almost wedding like garb. Now, in eternal deference to God the father it somehow feels that I am bowing towards something even greater. That I am placing my assurance in a fleshy seraphim, the tips of my fingers splayed, grope her occiput, the globe bearing the address of her smile, my left hand slips, chauffeurs behind her waist, I reel her back.
The kiss is terse.
It doesn't last.
Her lips taste like the seminally moist petal of a smile.
Her lips taste like the first day of spring.
"Call me tonight." Is all says afterwards.
I smile.
***
***
I see Laurie one final time. Again she is on her
bike. She is pedaling past as if ignoring me.
My thoughts are still riddled with Andrea and Stacia and Jenay.
I flag her down.
“Hey,”
“Hey,”
I know this is totally crazy and I don’t know how to
explain it but your poetry teacher, Pam Tucker- White is actually the director
in my play I have been telling you about. She is just amazing.
Laurie is nodding her head up and down. She goes to
say something and I interrupt her.
She even has most of your classmates doing lighting
and directing.
I tell her that I have met Terri Andrews. I tell her
that Scott is supposed to be doing something significant only he only shows up
about a third of the time.
Laurie and then tells me that Scott is really into
rap.
It’s weird that I met you. I mean, I met you and
then I started taking French class lessons and then I was in this play which I
didn’t really know what I was doing and I was cast as the villain and then Pam,
the director, who sometimes just has this laugh that I swear breaks molecules
turns out to be the director.
Laurie nods again. She said that yeah, it was pretty
weird.
I pause and look down. I tell her that I’ve had
some trouble but I think everything is coming along okay or as Pam would say, nicely.
Laurie looks down again while conveying to me that
she knows.
“If you get a chance I mean, you should really come
and see Music man at the Peoria Players theatre. I mean Teri and Scott are
already involved in it. And Pam. They would love if you were there to see them.
To experience what they have been working on all summer when you guys were out
writing poems.”
“Okay,” I say, not comprehending why the
short-ginger hair lass has been so aloof.
I look back out of the reverse aquarium eye-liner of the bus as it lumbers on to Western avenue and head off to my final French class.
Laurie is no more.
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