On Friday nights in autumn country girls wear tight jeans and makeup and ride around chauffeured in Firebirds by parents who drink beer....

I am seated on the cement steps of the only house I have ever known lost in the late breath of another October, fifteen disconcerted-dervish out of control elliptical loops around the sun and it is autumn, the hard grandfather pocket candy of autumn availing itself in colors splashed against the semi-bare calligraphic tufts of trees, bleeding shades of raspberry and crimson and somehow mingled with a hint of joy. Autumn when the breath of planet begins to skirt across front lawns in plosive exasperations—the billow and bulge of a young child squinting as he heaves his breath over a frosted plateau alighted with candles celebrating the swerve and dip, the incipience to another year heralding the mystery of existence.

 

It is autumn and I am waiting for the sight of the girl who began to inexplicably phone me in the late-summer massacred Indian afternoons of August. The girl who is hot as heel. The girl who goes to the high school on the other side of town.  The girl who used to date my best friend (aptly named David Best) a year earlier. the girl who has a chic haircut and is my height.

The girl I just cannot stop thinking about.

The girl I have been psychologically rehearsing asking out later on tonight.

 

The Firebird pulls up. The phoenix emblem adorned on the shield of the hood with prominent almost aquiline features. It was the original car that picked me up three weeks ago, sitting in the movie theatre, images of a 50’s ivy school autumn spilling across the screen, Renae commenting how much my hair looks like Brendan Fraser with her scent next to me, her body next to mine, each sniff opening up an olfactory arboretum of consciousness, as of yet unexplored.            

The wing of the car door flaps open.  I am fully anticipating seeing Renae Holiday’s hot mom.

 

Amy is the first person out of the Firebird. She is seated in the front passenger seat where Reane's mom's friend Jillian was seated the last time she picked me up. Amy is standing straight up. She smiles. I recognize her immediately from hearing her voice from incessant autumnal afternoons with Renae on the phone . Tall, semi-ample, an effusive smile spilling from her lips, rubicund. The sleek chariot is ferrying some of the hottest females I have ever seen inside. There is a certain cadence to the way Amy talks, bobbing her head as if following an electronic flouncing ping-pong ball shaped period during karaoke. At the wheel her father begins making cracks. The backseat of the 30,000 dollar vehicle is fraught with the scent of three of the hottest females ever.


Mentally my heart says the words god and damn.

“It’s a little packed back there but I figured you wouldn’t mind be lodged in the backseat with three hot girls.” The man behind the helm of the vehicle says. With my glasses still doffed and folded in the upper hand pocket of my shirt like a pack of cigarettes I slide in the back seat of the vehicle, the second time I have been inside the car.

The first thing that greets me is the fragrance of their bodies. The perfumes. It is the same vehicle where Renae’s mom picked us up almost exactly a month ago.  There are already three girls in the back seat. Country girls. Girls wearing make-up and jean jackets.  Girls giggling the moment I enter the car. 

It is packed.  There are two females I have never seen before next to me in the backseat.

 

Renae is on the opposite end.

I look at the man in the front seat. He looks like he is half the age of my dad. He is wearing a cool brown leather coat.  He is driving fast. I was half-expecting her mom but her father seems just as cool.

“Mr. Holiday.” I say, extending my hands over the peaks of shoulder pads, telling him through the nest of perfumed limbs that it is indeed a pleasure to meet you sir.

 “Please,” He says, swiping his palm flaccid in front of his face in a singular motion as if one of the girls in the envelope sealed tight jeans just performed the angelically inhuman act of somehow farting. “Call me Larry.”

            “Larry,” I say. The name of my Uncle, realizing that this is the first male adult who has ever requested that I address him as such.

Renae’s father looks like he is barely in his thirties. He is wearing a brown leather jacket. He is cool. He looks like you would see him drinking beer in a late-80’s Michelob light commercial.

I remember that Renae told me that he is into bungie-jumping and skydiving.

The vehicle blasts down Sherman plowing through a crisp confetti of autumn leaves.

One of the girls comments that they are thankful that they don’t have a home football game or a band competition this weekend. After I shake his hand Larry apologizes stating sorry we are late but I had to drop off Renae’s other boyfriend at the country club first. Renae responds by saying dad, making an aggrieved face at him.

“We’re meeting some of the guys there.” Amy says.

Amy seems to be doing the bulk of the talking in the car. Laura is a brunette and has long Rossetti trusses splashing against the shoulder-padded crags’ planted below her neck. 

 She says that we are meeting two of the guys at the Civic Center so that I get to meet the whole gang tonight.  Every time  Renae or Amy refer to their close-net cadre of friends as  quote the gang I want to interject and comment how that word means something polar-opposite in the Southside of Peoria where I go to school.
 

 As was the case on the car ride to the last movie Renae is coy, looking down. I want to call her my little mermaid. I want to make an allusion to how, during School Ties , I couldn’t refrain from brushing up against  the warmth interior of her denim thighs.

I look at the cherub I am anticipating asking out later on this evening. She is pressed against the window. I am next to Laura. Amy is in the front seat next to Larry. He is driving fast. No one in the car is wearing a seatbelt. I am completely locked at the hip with Laura as if we are in a three legged race. The girls are hot.  I can’t stop sniffing.  I am lost in an ocean of perfume.

My olfactory senses are having an orgasm.

 

After I shake hands with Larry I shake hands with Laura and Kristi.   Renae and I are split pieces of the same rye bun somehow sandwiching her friends in the middle of the backseat of a vehicle whose list value is the price of our house.

I bend down and smile towards Renae. She smiles, examines her lap as if she dropped a contact lens.

“I had to put you on that end because I heard you were really fast.”

 

I figure call-me-Larry is talking about cross-country. It was the same Icebreaker call- me-Debbie employed when she picked me up last month.

“Yeah, I was having a good season then I got injured. I was suppose to run in Conference tomorrow but coach is giving me another week off so that I can heal.”

Larry is breezing down Main Street. He seems to be going ten mph faster than the speed limit.  Larry starts to heckle. I wonder if he is making fun of my season.
 

“I didn’t mean you were a fast runner I’m talking about being fast with the girls, man. I’ve only know you five seconds and you already have a harem in the back seat.”

Kristi and Laura laugh.  Renae bites her lip and looks down. She is blushing.

“That’s why I had to keep you on the far side of the Firebird, make sure you keep your sleek hands off my innocent daughter.”
 

The girls laugh again. I’m not sure how to respond.  Main Street furls into upper lip of downtown. The twin towers look like vertically stacked ice cube trays.  The Commerce Bank building shoots up like a corrugated penis shooting from the ruffled limn of a mortar board. I want Larry to like me. I want to be accepted in the Holiday household.
 

Larry says that after he drops us off he’s looking for a bar that serves Coors on tap.
 

“None of this Coors light silver bullet shit. I want Coors. Back in the day we used to have to go all the way to Colorado to get Coors and people would come back by the truckloads. Now it’s available everyone is drinking Coors only it’s the light shit.”
 

At the word Shit both Laura and Kristi cup their hands over their lips and giggle once again.
 

“I don’t know. I don’t drink. I think there’s a bar on Adams called Sully’s.  They probably have it.”

“You sound like you know a lot about the Peoria night life for not being a drinker.”

I want to socialize with Mr. Howard. I want to be witty.  I want him to like me. I want him to be cool that I am about ready to ask how his only child.

“I mean, if you like, they serve beer in the civic center, maybe you can come to the game with us..”

There is a pause in the car. Reane has not been looking at me the entire ride. After I invite her father to join us Renae shoots me a look like don’t say something in jest to get him going b/cause he will actually try it. Mr. Holiday is circling around the Civic center. I need a clever rejoinder.
 

“I mean, I hear they are having auditions for the Nut Cracker on Ice afterwards.  I’m sure you’d look really cute in those tights while triple-luxing.”
 

The girls laugh. There is a look of petrification on Renae’s face. When I look in the mirror I see Renae’s cool father is shooting what looks like a smile.
 

“Better keep your hands off my daughter or I’m gonna put you in tights and crack your nuts.”

The girls are laughing again. Kristie sounds like she is hiccupping while she is laughing. Amy latches open the door.

The Gideon bible is still lodged in my right pocket.

I try to be polite as I say goodbye. I lance out my hand telling Mr. Holiday that it is a pleasure to meet him, sir.

“Damnit Dave my name is Larry. Not Mister or sir. Larry!”

I say sorry, sir. I mean Larry.

We shake hands. There is a sort of proverbial father-son twinkle in his eye. He smiles at me as I step out of the vehicle.

“Alright Dave, I’m gonna go down to Sully’s and have a couple of Coors just for you. I’ll tell Sully that Nutcracker Dave sent me and told me to have a couple of Coors while you step into those goddamn tights and get ready to skate around and pirouette or whatever.” 

 The girls laugh again. One by one we exit the back of the car. Amy pushes the seat back and then stamp shuts the door. The car speeds off as if participating in an underground drag race. 


We get out of the car. The night is about to begin.


                                                             ***

 

I turn to Renae. She is wearing a leather coat.

“There you are.” I say, buckling my arms around her waistline. I want to kiss her forehead. I want to kiss the side of her cheek in the manner I have seen adults of the jousting sex do who are not married.

Instead I give her a hug. I tell her that she smells good at the same moment she tells me that I smell good.

“Your dad is really cool.” I tell my date, refraining from mentioning that I’ve harbored a school boy crush on her mom from the moment I met her.

“Yeah, he drinks too much though.” Renae adds, stating that he is going to go out and get hammered and then call mom and start cussing and mom will have to follow him home in her car to ensure he doesn't get DUI.

“He seems like a fun guy. He seems like the sort of guy you would like to hang out with if he was drinking.”

Renae looks back at me and shrugs. She is smiling.

“It’s weird how they want me to call them by their first names. All the adults I know almost insist that I call them Mrs. or Mr. Your parents are just really cool. That’s all I’m saying. “

We are idling next to each other waiting for the rest of the quote “gang” to arrive.  Laura starts laughing.  Kristi is looking around. Her boyfriend Tim is coming with their friend Lee. We are to meet them outside of what passes for a box office.


Out of all of us only Tim and Kristie are a bona fide couple.  

Bodies are passing us by. We walk around the cement parabolic adorned with pictures of Bradley Basketball greats and yearly Rivermen team photos. Amy is ahead of us wearing a crooked smile. All the girls are wearing their Limestone jackets.

I wonder if we are together. I wonder if Renae will object if I squeeze the contours of her hand.

 I am looking for an icebreaker. This is the third time I have seen Renae in person and the first without my David Best.

  “I wonder what good old David Best is doing tonight?”

Renae says that honestly he’s a good guy but she can care less.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to seem so weird but I mean, you dated David for a long time and David has been my best friend since kindergarten. Hence the name David Best. “

I tell Renae that my other best friend is also named David only his last name is Hale.

“He’s a freshman at Limestone. Do you know him?”

             Renae says nope. She says not to worry about David Best.

“We dated for about eight months but honestly he was more like a brother.”

Renae seems to pause. She can tell that somehow I am, perhaps inadvertently,  conveying a 'bros before ho's" persona.

“I mean, I love him to death, we just weren’t …”

Reane pauses. The box office area outside the Arena smells like expired beer and cigarettes.

Renae says Hell, we only kissed once.

Renae and I still have yet to kiss.

“So I guess if were to kiss you twice right here I would already have him beat?”

Renae is blushing. I wonder what would happen if I were to kiss her in the middle of the Civic Center auditorium. I wonder if somehow the bite of our enjoined lips would christen us as a bona fide couple. Without thinking I grab her hand. Without thinking I tug at her like a little kidding tugging at his mother's dress in a check-out lane. Without thinking I am swiveling her in a balletic posture towards my direction, the sheen of her forehead prominently visible, for one brief moment she is facing my direction like we are indelible plastic caricatures atop a wedding cake, for one brief nanosecond I am ready to bend her over in a manner of a recently announced War World Victory, I am ready to watch her eyes close and to kiss her twice, one for my purported brother who won’t stop talking about how fucking cool band camp is, one just for her a toast for the future ahead of us that somehow inevitably is to come.

She is in front of me and the next thing I know her body is going in rewind, she is pirouetting the opposite direction.  It is Laura who is reeling her the opposing direction. She is yelling out the word “Lee!” At first I think of Leatric my teammate who fucked with the television in Mattoon so we could all watch porn.  Then I realize she is referring to the “guy” in the gang.

Their names I will learn are Lee and Tim.

 

Both lads are wearing oversized  Hockey jerseys with names of  Canadian players I have never heard emblazoned on the back.  Kristi’s Tim is wearing a Detroit Red wings cap.

Laura runs over and hugs Lee. Tim is standoffish. He looks like he is on a hunting excavation.  Kristi runs over and gives him as hug. For as hot as his girlfriend is Tim barely hugs her back and acts like he doesn’t want to be bothered.

 

The Hockey game is about to begin.

We enter the inside of the arena together and yet we enter all alone.

                                                                                 


                                                           ***

That night in New York City they are honoring the troubadour who changed the world.

They are singing his poems.  They are shouting. There is Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton and Tracy Chapman and a duet from Pearl Jam.  There is Mary Chapin-Carpenter and Johnny Winters, Chrissie Hynde and the Band.

The event is showcased on Pay-Per-View.

They are singing songs of the troubadour. They are performing his music. They are venerating the clamors poetic din of Mr. Tambourine Man. It is sold out,. It is Pay-per-view. It is a holistic hootenanny. They are thanking the minstrel. They are plagiarizing his Lyrics. Neil Young is talking about Jokers and thieves while wearing flannel and christening the name of the corner with moniker.

It sounds like Civil war soliloquy. Songs about protest and unease.  They are singing songs. They are celebrating a poet. When the minstrel gather son stage he rips into his guitar with a nasal sneeze telling us that it’s alright mom, he’s only breathing.

He performs with a member of the Beatles, with Tom Petty with Neal Young with Roger McGuin a riveting rendition of My Back Pages.

The entire ensemble comes out on stage and breaks into a rendition of Knocking on Heaven’s door.
 

 

After the applause he comes out. He is walking over. He is an old man although he is not that old. He stands up with acoustic Guitar and a harmonica wreathed around his neck. He  is performing a solo encore. His voice is nowhere near  key. It sounds like a jagged  buzz saw cutting into consciousness of all mankind.

                                     

Tonight the Rivermen are playing the Kalamazoo Wings. Our seats are bunched together in the upper bowl near where the digits of Bradley University basketball players are retired against the wall. We sit towards the top near a vacant thatch of seats We walk several rows higher so that we can be spread out appropriating vacant seats to be more comfy. Renae and I sit next to each other. Amy is three seats down. Behind us sit Lee followed by three vacant seats followed by Kristi and Tim in tandem.

 

Laura is in front of myself and Renae. She has the whole row to herself.
 

It occurs to me only later that this is the Kristi who David Best briefly dated before he met Renae. Kristi who David monikered was an official member of the itty-bitty-titty committee. Kristi whose brother I will layer learn played Oliver Hix in Music Man last summer.  Kristi who is almost paralyzing gorgeous. Blonde hair that swoons down her back. Skin the color of a frozen piece of wedding cake unearthed from the artic of the deep freeze a year after the big day. Because of David Best’s keen assessment of  Kristi’s anatomy it is almost impossible for me to go five minutes without covertly shooting a glare at what constitutes boobs. 

 

 

They are the coolest kids I have ever met.

 

I want to thank Reane for always including me. I want to tell her that every time we hang out I feel like I am a part of something,  I want to tell her that I don’t have a group of friends like this at Manual where I can go out on a Friday night and just hang out.

The game is about to begin. As we stand up to salute the Canadian national  anthem I can't help checking out Renae's ass as we stand up and face the flag with the menstruating Maple leaf in the center. 

 

On the ice below hulking players jostle with phallic sticks. They skid past and gnash into the glass. They barter a black urinal patty between them in calculated glides. There is constant motion. I am astounded by how seamlessly a group of players transition and replace each other in and off the ice in one galloping hurdle of the ledge. Peoria has serious hard core hockey fans for a minor league farm team of the St. Louis Blues. The team scores in the first 28 second. Every time a team scores a goal a police siren shrills  from above both nets.  

 

Lee states the old adage about how a bunch of people went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.  

 

Every single hockey coach I have ever seen is going bald and has a  moustache.

Kristi’s boyfriend Tim doesn’t talk. When I shake his hand he looks the opposite direction. He is wearing Detroit red wing cap and glasses. He is aloof. Kristie and Tim look like they are polar opposites together.

I’ve never been to a hockey game.  I tell Renae that maybe during halftime we can go on the court and make snow angels or something.

 

Lee reminds me that this is hockey, there's three periods in a single game.

 

"The last time Renae had three periods in a single game I threw a tampon at her."

 

Lee erupts in laugher and says good one. Renae purses her lips together and flirtatiously blushes. Perhaps this is my moment. I want to tell Renae that she is luminous. I want to tell Renae that I think about her incessantly. I want to tell her that my heart pulsates to the gilded key-signature of her name.

 

Laura is in the row in front of us by herself, swaying back and fourth, making funny faces at Renae.

“Look, this is a monkey face! Look this  is a clown face! Look this is a monkey making a clown face!!”

For as hot as Kristie is Tim still is seated, He is not touching her.  He looks like he is taking a dump in his chair while watching the River men game.   I am trying to hint to Amy that I need a second just to talk with Renae like alone. I make a weird orchestral notion pointing with my nose. Amy nods up and down, grabs Laura wrists and then head up to the top of the Civic center where all the Bradley and River men numbers are retired.

 

I want to say finally. I want to take a deep breath. The first thing I do lasso my right arm around Renae’s shoulder. The second thing I do is marshal my right knee so that it bumps against the bottom of her left knee and the now she somehow loafing on my limbs.

I shouldn’t be doing anything with my right leg since I am still trying to get healed and have a very important meeting with Coach Ricca in the morning.

 At this moment I really don’t care.  I am waiting for the apposite moment to ask her out when life somehow pauses and the only thing left is the sight of her smile and the blink of her eyes.

 

Renae says band is driving her nuts, combined with Speech. She says this may be the last year she does one or the other or both because she just wants to enjoy high school for once. She wears her jeans tight. She tells me that last week on Beverly Hills 90210 Dylan and Kelly had a serious quote “moment” together at the homecoming Dance where Shaw was invited and all  interracial hell almost broke loose. 

I should take this moment to ask her out. Instead, all I can think of to inquire is if she has any plans for the weekend.

 

“So do you have any plans for the weekend?”

 

Renae says that she has woodwind band rehearsal and then rehearsal for speech.

 

“I have a meet tomorrow. I’m still not running. I’m still icing my leg every night. It still hurts like shit.”

 

Renae says she is sorry. She says that she knows how much running means to me.
 

“I had one of my fastest times of the season last week then my leg started acting up again. In all honesty I probably shouldn’t have run but I did. It was an out of town meet and coach really wanted me to compete.”


Laura and Amy arrive back. Laura is looking at me like she is clutching the bible and I am some sort of felon who did unspeakable things to her first born.
 

“It’s kinda cool though. Coach is going to pick me up before the race. He says he wants to talk with me about something. For all the failure I’ve endured this season by getting injured and everything I really do have the coolest cross-country coach on the planet.”

Renae nods. She says the Cross-Country Coach at Limestone also teaches behind the wheel in Drivers’ Ed.

I am still trying to be witty, I tell Renae that even though she doesn't have her drives' license doesn't mean that we can't still hang out in the back seat of a parked car for a mad make-out session. Renae blushes like a little girl and before I know it Laura is grabbing her by the wrist, telling me uh, be back in a second Dave.


I wonder what I did.

I look back. The creature known as Lee tells me not to worry. That sometimes Laura is a tad on the cautious side.

"She's just really religious and looking out for her friend."

I smile. I wonder if I struck out with Renae.
  

“Your last name is Von Behren, right?”

 

Lee has braces and an altar boy haircut that is somehow chic. He tilts his head and points his finger in my direction.

 

I tell Lee yeah. I ask him if he knows my cousin Amanda or something. He says yeah, vaguely.

“Your Uncle, though, is the principal at Monroe, right?” Lee says I nod.

“Yeah, that’s my Uncle Larry. He’s a good guy.”

“He’s my inspiration,” Lee says, a smile that looks like an aluminum foil moon emanating from his face.

“He’s like the coolest teacher I have ever met. Always inspiring. Always makes me smile.”

 

I nod.

“One time he had an egg class and he was doing something with it and it broke on his head and it was like the funniest thing ever.”

 

I tell Lee that I heard that story. Lee keeps going on. There is so much metal in his mouth it looks like one could employ a recycling bin with his jaw.

 

“Oh, and his pantomimes every year. I love his pantomimes. They crack me up. The whole school goes crazy. You actually have to audition to make the cut to do a pantomime in front of the school in the spring.”

 

I tell Lee that I used to go to the pantomime every year.

“One time when I was in second grade we were outside the cafeteria waiting to go on for lunch and he told a little kid that they were having Sauerkraut and he started to cry. He’s my inspiration. He’s the coolest human being on the planet.”

 

I smile. My uncle is a cool guy. From talking with the cadre it turns out that only Tim and Lee went to Monroe. The girls all graduated from Oak Grove West.

 

 As I am talking with Lee Amy interjects. She has a smile that is just juicy as her effusive persona.

 

“Dave it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I tell her the same. Even though Amy isn’t in band she is one of Renae’s best friends.”

 

I tell Amy that it is cool hanging out. I tell May that  Renae is just awesome.  When I confess that we spend collective hours on the phone together every night Amy concedes and says that she already knows.”

 

“She’s just really paranoid about seeing you and meeting everybody, all her friends and all.”

 

What?”

 

“She’s just really paranoid about you meeting everybody.”

 

“Is that the word she used? Paranoid?”  For some reason when Amy says the word Paranoid I see the word Pyromania. I think of the Def Lepard cover bearing targeted building, a blossom of incendiary assault rising from the side like a homecoming boutonniere

 

“Amy stops as if she doesn’t know how to respond to my query.

 

Renae is coming back with Laura. Renae apologizes. She says sometimes Laura has a hard time going pee on her own.

“Renae I wanted to tell you something really important. Something I’ve been thinking about all day.”

 

Renae looks at me and says what.

 

“I feel really paranoid tonight.”

Renae says huh. Amy is looking at me and laughing much in the same manner in which she swooned and laughed every time Renae’s cool dad made a comment in the Firebird.

 

“I don’t know I just feel really paranoid all of a sudden.”

 

Renae is looking at me as I am complex. Amy begins to laugh.

 

  I tell Renae to come here. She is seated next to me. I am still debating how or when I should ask her out.  Suddenly I refrain from talking to her as a potential date. Suddenly I am bleeding with gratitude. Suddenly I feel like am a part of the cool high school bloc of friends that David Best would boast about after he entered high school. For the first time this semester it feels like I am a part of something. For the first time this semester it feels like I have friends. They are all wearing their Limestone jackets that have the words BAND adorned on the back in thick lettered font.

 

For the first time ever it somehow feels like I am a part of something, hanging out with cool kids.

For the first time in the totality of my high school experience it feels like somehow I belong

 

 Be long.

                                                              ***

 

 

At the end of the first period we are already up three-zip.  I have had my arm periodically wreathed around her shoulder for the duration of the period. When she is not making monkey faces Laura keeps shooting Renae looks indicating that the person seated next to her is moving way too fast. Lee perpetually goads the athletes on the ice to fight.

 

Taciturn Tim has still remained completely taciturn even when his hot girlfriend is next to him.

 

“Renae thank you for inviting me. I can’t explain it. I have two really good friends at my high school who are my brothers and who serve as my emotional rod and staff but honestly for the most part, even with my Cross Country teammates I feel all alone almost all the time. Thank you for inviting me and making me a part of your group. Your friends are beautiful people.”

Renae looks down the way she has been periodically locoing down and blushing all evening.

“You wanna know something I have a secret to confess to you.”

 

“Again, thanks for inviting me.”

 

Renae is blushing; I can’t stop optically sniffing the scent of her smile.

 

Renae says that actually she has a confession to make.

 

“There was no extra ticket and spare vacancy at the last moment. I just really want to see you again.”

 

“I wanted to see you too.”

 

I reel my arm around her tight. Laura's does a clown doing a monkey face doing that of a nun.

 

Renae is not looking in her direction.

 

                                                ***

"So you are seeing Renae?” Hale asks. I tell him yeah. I tell him that I really like her a lot.

“I really like that one girl Dawn. She was special. Really intelligent too.”

Hale then casually asks if I ever here from her.

“Well, since I’m seeing Renae, I never do.”

I tell Hale that I talk with Renae every night on the phone.

                                                  ***

 

 

“Do you know why my forehead is so big?” Renae rhetorically asks me, sometime during the second period, out of the arena-chilled ether.

 

Renae tilts her head. There is something very sexy in the way she tilts her head.

The Rivermen are up by four. I am not paying attention to the game in the slightest.

 

I tell her I don’t know. I tell her that I find her forehead exorbitantly sexy. I tell her that in the middle-ages  a fair forehead was an aristocratic symbol of fecundity.

 

“When I was a little girl my mother always tied my hair back into a pony tail. I always had  hair in a pony tail and it was always rolled back so tight that it permanently shaped my skull.”

 

I look back and nod. This is the first intimate piece of sata we are sharing with each other.

 

 “That’s why my forehead is so big,” Renae says, as if she in pre-school and it is show-and-tell.

“You know what I love about your forehead?”

Renae says what. I tell her to come close.

 She leans in closer. She says what again.

I close my eyes. As if an astral landing I plant my lips in the sheen above her thoroughly plucked eyebrows.

I look back she is smiling.  From the periphery on my left hand side I see Kristi standing up and then trouncing downstairs.

“One second,” Renae says, panting, Laura manacling Renae’s hand from beneath my arms watching as  they topple down the cement steps in the Midwestern acropolis. Amy looks back and is smiling. Lee is watching the game with his knuckles on his chin in a posture that is reminiscent of performing some serious soul-searching while taking a dump.

I wonder what I did.

“Be just a minute Dave, Kristi is having one of her world famous nervous breakdowns. I should probably see if she’s alright too.”

Amy leaves. I love Amy’s candor. I love he goofiness. I love how she just plain out tells it like it is. I love how Renae tells me that she is into rap and shakes her butt in a funny way as she dances to hip-hop.

 

I turn around Lee and Tim are behind me.

“She totally want s you dude.” I look back. It is taciturn Tim. It is the first words he has spoken to me all night.

“What?”

“She totally wants you. That ball has your name on it. All you have to do is rush it to the end zone and spike that shit.”

I am still bemused. I am not sure what taciturn Tim is alluding at.

“Besides man, she’s had a crush on you a long time. You’re all she ever talks about at school.”

I look back. Tim is bleary eyed. His girlfriend is a knockout blonde and they don’t even look like they are together. They have barely said two words since they arrived into the arena.

“I hearya bro. Maybe when she comes back. It was kinda of weird at first because she used to date Best but I really have gone to care for her as a person. She just blows me away.”

I swivel my chin. Tim is still situated like he is taking a dump inside upper level of Carver arena. He is reticent. He looks lost.

“Thanks for your advice,” I repeat, “Maybe I’ll ask her out tonight”

“What?” Tim says. His voice sounds different. I have no clue who was talking to me, goading me with such advice.”

Renae and Laura are coming back up. Laura sits with Amy two rows ahead of us. Renae sits down right next to me.

“Hi,” I say.

Renae is blushing once again. If I squint hard enough I can make out lip prints on her forehead.

It looks like a glazed rhombus. Euclid arriving at the Pentecost blessing the faithful with incendiary logic for all mankind.

                                                                 ***

                                                          

There is a lull in the hockey game. I’m befuddled and keep on momentarily forgetting that Hockey has three periods instead of rather two or four.  Laura has again tramped down the cement steps leading to the atrium. Tim is still behind us.

 

I can hear Tim telling me that this is my time, dude.

It is hockey. It is an arctic ballet. It is men missing teeth flagellating Yukon Bo’s attacking a whisking black punctuation mark on the lip of the ice. In between what I have learned is periods a machine come out and mows the ice. The machine has a funny name that sounds like a sub-Sahara like creature.

Lee can’t seem to go three seconds without standing up and emitting a verbal YEAH!! Somehow showcasing his braces even more.

 

In my head I am perusing the moral calculus. In my head I am thinking the thoughts hashed over in the mirror while I was scrutinizing the countenance mirrored back to me earlier in the day.

 

“Renae,” I say her name again. I can’t stop thinking that out of all the girls I have been droopingly infatuated with over the last six months her name

 

“Listen Renae,”

 

I am lost in the angelic sheen of her forehead. My glasses have been in my side pocket the entire game.  From being me Lee is talking about some guy being an enforcer stepping on the ice so we know things are going to get good.

 

I want to  reel my arm around her. I want to draw her close. It seems like are all alone and somehow have all the time in the world.

“Listen,” for reasons unbeknownst to me I can’t start a single sentence with Renae  next to me without saying the word listen.

 

I am trying to convey to her that I think about the refulgent spring of her smile nonstop. I am trying to convey to her that somehow intrinsically I have had a wild crush on her for over a year, since the first time ambled past Mrs. Best’s office last October and she had the picture of Renae and her son imprisoned in a miniature frame on top of the filing cabinets. I am trying to tell Renae that I fell just a little bit hard for her last spring when I was flirting with her over the two-way calling, telling David Best  witticisms that he would press down on the receiver before asking if Renae is still there, only to be the auditory mitt of her laughter,  press down the receiver again before telling me that she is laughing out of control.

 

I want to tell her again that I think about her nonstop. I want to tell her that her father is like the coolest adult I have ever met. I want to (somewhat unremittingly) confess that her mom is hot as shit, but of course, nowhere in the same ball park area code of her daughter.

 

I want to tell Renae all this. At this moment there is no Laura sweeping back and forth in the row of seats in front of us like she is performing a puppet show. There is no Hunter Tim, who still looks at his hot date as if he expects her to cook and clean the den for him.  At this moment there is no Amy who keeps butting in with ill-times asides.

                   

It is only myself and Renae. I wonder what would happen if I would just kiss her. I wonder what would happen massage the right side of her face with my right hand ad is playing a vertical octave on the piano before e reeling her visage into mine. I wonder if I would somehow be able to discern my dual reflection in the lids of her closed eyes.  I wonder if I would kiss her once, stating that know I am equal with her ex-boyfriend and then kiss her a second time, indicating that a new area somehow has yet begun.

Hockey seems to last fucking forever. I hear someone behind lament that after the second period they  quit serving beer so that fans have forty minutes to sober up before they go home.

 

Reane is looking at me as if she is a mouse. This is my moment. Instead of inquiring if she would like to hang out, if she would like to perhaps date I lean forwards, I am ready to kiss her, I am ready to t ell her to baby come here and kiss her once, tersely, telling her again that that was for David before kissing her a second time, finding myself baptized by weather patterns of her breath

 

At this moment there is only myself and Renae.

“Listen, I was wondering if maybe you..”

 

From behind me there is a collective yawp followed by a fuck yeah. I first I think Lee and Taciturn Tim are cheering me on. The next thing I realize is that there is another fight.

 

The entire stadium is standing up as if on stilts Everyone is screaming. The referees are trying to peel the adversarial players away. There is a tear drop of blood on the ice.

 

“Kick his fucking ass man. Kick his fucking ass!!!”

 

Everyone is standing. For a second I see that Amy and Laura look bored as does Kristi, who is seated next to a turret syndrome Taciturn Tim.

 

All  can think to myself is fuck.

 

Tim turns to Kristi and asks if she saw that shit. Kristi gets up and runs downstairs. Both Renae and Laura follow.

 

I move two rows down and sit next to Amy.

 

“Don’t worry. This always happens. Tim shows more interest in the hockey game and then Kristi runs downstairs crying. At the end of the night they make-up and everyone is happy.”

 

I don’t know how to respond. I feel like I missed my chance to ask the self-christened creature of my dreams out again..

 

Kristi normally cries for then she goes through a roll of toilet paper blotting her eyes then she needs to reapply her makeup then she needs Renae and Laura’s opinion that she looks okay the she goes to win Tim back.

 

Amy mentions that the only reason Kristi is so infatuated with him is because he is a Junior and already has his Drivers license.

 

“So Kristi has it pretty hard for Tim?"

 

Amy smiles. She mentions something about the pencil circumference that is Kristi’s waistline having to do with not eating lunch for the last three days.

 

The game continues Penalties are awarded. There is a power play for the Kalamzaoo and only two minutes left of the game.

 

They have a chance to tie it up.

 

“Renae should be back shortly. If she didn’t follow Kristi to the bathroom while she had her twice nightly pre-menstrual breakdown she would never hear the end of it come school on Monday.”

 

I nod.

 

Tim is still Taciturn due to the lack of violence on the ice. Lee is yelping like crazy.

 

“I’m really glad we got to hang out Dave. Renae thinks the world of you.

“I think the world of her. I wish we had more time just to chill.”

 

“Well ask her out?”

 

“What?”

 

Ask her out. We’re all waiting. Hell, we all thought you were going to ask he out when you saw School Ties. You don’t know how conflicted Reane is.”

 

“That’s the thing I’m trying to..”

Amy interrupts me and points down and says look there they are. The moment they begin to clamber up the cement steps a police buzzer erupts over both goals. It is the end of the third period. Kristie walks next to Tim. It is just as Amy said. You can tell she was crying and then sopped up her tears with discount toilet tissue before reapplying mascara.

  

Everyone is reaching down into the seat fishing out their respective coats.

I pick up Renae’s brown leather coat and, instead of handing it to her, settle in on her shoulders like  a cape.

 

“Sorry,” Renae tells me, sometimes this happens

It’s okay.

Laura says come on, we got to go. Amy’s mom is probably waiting.

 

 

                                                    ***

We are walking out after the game. Laura and Kristi are walking ahead.  Tim is next to Lee. Lee can’t go three calculated steps without crunching his fist into  his chest and yelping out the name of the hometown team followed by a YEAH!! Our ride is idling on the curve, waiting for us at almost the exact same location where Mr. don't-call-me Mr. Holiday dropped us off three hours before.

 

 “Amy’s mom is driving us home. She’s really cool. It won’t be like my dad’s car where everything is scrunched together.”

 It looks like a minivan that was used in the gulf war. Lee sits up front. For some inexplicable reason there is a Labrador stationed between the front seat. Amy tells us all to meet Mondale. When Mondale starts barking Amy says Mondale no. Somehow Lee and Amy’s parents have a bond. Lee is talking all about the game is if he is a post game commentator.

 

 

 

Somehow even though Amy’s parents are driving a van we are still scrunched together. I have failed to Renae Holiday out.   Both Laura and Amy keep saying that we won. Both of them Keep talking about the players on the Rivermen as if they attended our high school.

I am seated next to Reane. Amy’s Lab Mondale knows Lee pretty well and keeps licking his palm 

 

 

 

I close my eyes. Amy is giving her parents succinct instructions on the location of my domicile.  I have again failed in my quest to ask Renae out.

the night flashes by like oscillating blurs in the cherry socket of a slot machine and the next thing I realize the Gulf-war mini-van is mowing down Sherman, the street I have referred to as home for my entire life.

The side door of the min-van is sliding open in a gravitational hulk and the next thing I know I am kissing Renae's forehead.  I kiss her forehead in front of Chrome-countenance Lee and Amy and Mondale. I kiss her forehead in front of monkey-face Laura who I swear crosses herself and Amy's parents.


I have failed in my attempt to ask her out.

 

But in that moment I kiss her forehead and she is mine.

I look back she is smiling.

“Hey, is it cool if I like call you tomorrow?”

 

Renae bobs her head.

Renae responds in  the chorus of a smile.