A Kiss. What tremendous power it can wield. It can stop time, causing the outside world to stand still, and can shut out the sound of every noise, not just from the world outside that joining of the lips, but the internal noise that often occupies our minds as well. It can be an opiate, a magic carpet ride, transporting us from the cares and concerns of the world. And perhaps no kiss makes as much of an impression on our memories as that of our first kiss. It may not necessarily be our best kiss, and if may not be with the love of our lives, but it is the one that we remember the most. The memory of it transports us to not only the moment of the actual kiss, but to a place in our personal history, that includes the music, the fashion, the friendships, activities and our surroundings of that time. The memory of that kiss instantly conjures up a tidal wave of thoughts and feelings of what it was like to "be" at that time.
My best friend Ronnie (not my partner in the kiss) and I were 13 years old, and walking through the West Covina Fashion Plaza on an Autumn Saturday afternoon, when we spotted 2 girls our age standing about 60 feet from us. One of the girls was quite attractive, wearing an all-white outfit which contrasted nicely against her long dark hair. I didn't have to think on it long before suggesting to Ronnie that we go talk to the girls. He was all for meeting the girls, but with one catch: He wanted me to approach the girls by myself, start chatting them up, and after putting in a good word for him, wave him over. I rolled my eyes. I never got that about him. He was voted "biggest flirt" in our school yearbook, and he never had a problem talking with the girls at school. But I guess that was his comfort zone, because when it came to approaching new girls in public, he always got shy. Then again, that often worked in my favor. Although at first, it didn't seem like that was going to be the case in this situation.
But I agreed to approach the girls on my own, and after laying the groundwork, I would call him over. Only there was another problem. We both wanted to pair up with the girl in All-White, who's name we would later learn was Tammy. So we were arguing back and forth as to who was going to pair up with Tammy (As if she had no say in the matter). When I realized that the girls would probably be long gone if things between Ronnie and I progressed to the point of us tumbling down the escalator and crashing through the display window of Payless Shoe Store, so I came up with a solution: We'd flip a coin. Only the mind of a 13 year old boy could come up with such a brilliant solution. I envisioned for myself a bright future as an International Diplomat and problem solver, with me being given a ticket tape parade, being invited to the Playboy Mansion, and the image of a spinning newspaper coming to a sudden stop, with the headlines reading, "Ambassador from El Monte brings peace to the Middle East." Being that Tammy was from Baldwin Park and I was from El Monte, Peace in the Middle East probably would've been easier than bringing peace between our two cities.
So we flipped a coin, with each of us agreeing that the winner would be the one who got to talk to Tammy. We flipped... I lost. Ronnie was beaming, and I was scowling, but I began my trek over to where the girls were (remarkably) still standing. But somehow, in the 10 seconds that it took for me to reach them, I totally forgot about the coin flip. And as I flashed my big Rico Suave smile, I turned to Tammy's friend, and I pointed to where Ronnie was standing and said: "Hey! My friend over there, the one who's pretending that he doesn't know I walked over here to talk to you, well, he thinks you're cute and wants to meet you!"
Well it goes without saying, that Ronnie's smile turned upside down, and he was a little disappointed with the turn of events. But sometimes, that's just how it turns out when you're content to only being the wingman. Fortunately, Tammy and I both felt we lucked out. After that first meeting, we exchanged phone numbers, and then very long phone conversations, and then decided that we wanted to start dating.
Later, after Tammy and I had been dating a while, I told her about the coin flip. To my surprise (remember, I was a 13 year old boy), she didn't see the humor in it. "You flipped a coin for me?! Are you serious?! You mean the only reason we're together is because you flipped a coin?!"
"Nooooo... Baby... You don't understand. We flipped the coin... BUT I CHEATED!" I guess some girls just have a hard time understanding how romantic a teen aged boy can be...
So it was a week later after we first met, on yet another Saturday afternoon, that I took the bus to Baldwin Park to meet up with Tammy. We agreed to meet at a shopping center which was both near the bus stop, and across the street from Morgan Park. I called her from a payphone (remember that we had those before cell phones?) when I arrived at the shopping center, and she told me that she and her friend Lorraine would meet me there in about 30 minutes. After a while, I got kind of nervous. Not about meeting her, and not because I thought she might not show, but because without my glasses, I couldn't see so well from a distance. I was a little worried that I might see girls in the distance, wave them over, and that they'd be the wrong ones. The last thing that I wanted was for Tammy and her friend to show up, and to see me talking to other girls! So when Tammy and Lorraine did show up, they stood across the street, in front of the park. They kept looking my way, and I kept looking in their direction, wondering if it was them. I'm sure that they were wondering why I didn't walk over to them, and with my not being sure whether or not they were who I was waiting for, I stood my ground, unwilling to commit. It must of looked like two gunfighters from the Old West, standing in the middle of the street, each waiting for the other to make a move. I could almost swear I heard the whistling theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" playing in the background, and looked out of the corner of my eye in case I had to suddenly dodge any errant tumbleweeds.
Finally, after what must have seemed like forever, Tammy and Lorraine then crossed the street to where I was. "Why didn't you cross the street to where we were?" Being too embarrassed to tell the truth, I said the first thing that came to mind. "Oh... Well, I always make the girls come to me." Yeah...that was much better. And like you, I'm also starting to wonder if I'd get that kiss.
So we all crossed back across the street, and sat down at a bench at the park and began talking. After a while, it was about to get dark, and Lorraine asked us if we'd walk her home, so we got up and left the park. After walking Lorraine home, Tammy and I then walked in the dark to the Jr. High School that she attended in Baldwin Park. Although Lorraine was cute and fun to talk to, I was definitely glad that Tammy and I were now alone. We sat down next to each other on a bench that was under a covered patio on the school grounds. We were silent for a minute, and then we started talking. Tammy pointed in the direction of a white house across the street, and said "That's a whore house." My eyes grew just a little bit wide, and I asked "What?! Why do you say that?" She replied: "Because all of the girls who live there are sluts!" I kept looking in the direction of that house for a minute, until Tammy asked, with what sounded like a small hint of irritation in her voice, "Why are you still looking over there?" I said, "Oh, I was just trying to memorize the address."
Even though I was just being a bit of a smart-ass, (A name I was quite surprised at age 18 to find was NOT part of the birth name recorded on my birth certificate) Tammy definitely didn't appreciate the remark, and she quickly turned her face away from me. She had her head down a little bit, with her hair hanging down on both sides of her face, and she looked sad. I said, "Hey...look at me." But she kept her head down. I felt bad, because I really liked her, and I had made her feel sad with my stupid joke. She was sitting to the right of me, in her blue-grey sweater, and her grey corduroy pants. And I put my right arm around her shoulders, and with the index and middle fingers of my left hand, I reached across and lifted her chin while turning her face in my direction. Damn, she was beautiful. I said, "I'm sorry. I was only joking. I only like YOU." I then leaned in and kissed her. It was my first real kiss. It was slightly sloppy because it was my first time, but it was great nonetheless. We sat kissing in the dark for a long time, and then my left hand started to wander, and it began to caress her right breast. She murmured "Uhn, uhn", as if to say "no", and I responded back "Uhm, hmm."
Now, in spite of my being a hormonally charged 13 year old, when I murmured "Uhm, hmm," what I was trying to express was "OK, I'll stop." But she thought that I meant "Yeah, we're going to do this." That was an easy misunderstanding, especially since my hand had lingered for an extra second before it moved away. So she again murmured "Uhn, uhn" just as my hand had moved away. As great as the groping felt, part of the reason that I did it was because I felt that I was supposed to. This was my first real kiss, and I didn't quite realize that 2nd base was a lot for many 13 year old girls back then, especially on the first "date". We continued kissing, and she later walked me to my bus stop at the end of our visit.
Instead of going home after I got off of the bus in El Monte, I went instead to the home of my best friend Ronnie, where I would spend the night. I called Tammy on the phone to let her know that I had gotten home ok, and then I apologized for my groping and explained what it was I was trying to say by mumbling " Uhm, hmm." I told her that I really liked her, and although I enjoyed the touching, that I didn't want to do anything that she was uncomfortable with. She thanked me, and for the rest of our boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, I kept my hands to myself, but my lips I continued to share.
"A Kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years." - Rupert Brooke
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