The Kiss
When I was a boy, as a teenager, I used to curl up in the bottom of the hall closet among my mother’s musty old dresses that had fallen from the hangers. It’s an obvious metaphor—one I didn’t get at the time—but it also happens to be true. Of course, I did it for a practical reason. We didn’t have air-conditioning in our house, and when the summers started to heat up, it was cool and comfortable and dark in the closet. And I liked the privacy. When I couldn’t get time in the practice room at school, I used to go in the closet to practice the piano. I played scales in my head. Sometimes, I would just close my eyes and watch the music on the staff and hear the notes playing. This was something I thought everyone could do when I was younger, and I was surprised to find out was unique. I could lie there in the dark for hours hearing whole songs that way. Other times I would see the keyboard and my hands playing the music. Some people might say I was in the closet for other, less-obvious, reasons, but this wasn’t true. I just enjoyed my time in the closet.
That’s where I was when my sister brought Bobby McMillan home. My mom was working late at the club, and I guess Meg thought Bobby and she would have the house all to themselves. I heard the front door slam as they came in. I heard a low voice but didn’t recognize it. Meg laughed at something. I stayed where I was, enjoying the safety of my hiding place. It was nice to listen to the sounds of the world without participating in them. Meg turned on some music, some eighties pop she was into at the time. And I stayed where I was, just listening. I thought briefly about how I would explain myself when I had to leave, but then I thought, why leave?
When the door opened, I tried not to look surprised. The boy was muscular, though not tall, with weightlifter’s arms and a stocky upper body that made him look like a bowling pin balanced on end or one of those musclemen in old cartoons. If standing, I would have been taller than him, though I was a year or two younger. He wore a football jersey and running shorts, and he was barefoot. A jock—he was definitely Meg’s type. He stood on his toes and looked for something on the top shelf then shouted over his shoulder, “I don’t see them.” When he turned back around, he saw me and stopped. He ran a hand through his dark hair. He arched one eyebrow. “Hi,” he said. I nodded and tried not to look like anything was unusual about being curled up in the bottom of a closet. His eyes looked sleepy, and his full lips were pinched up, with one corner turned up in a wry smile as if the two of us had just shared a private joke that made him want to laugh. I wanted to kiss him right then. He shut the door, and I was back in the dark with my thoughts.
I had just begun to ponder the strange feeling that had come over me at the sight of those ripe lips when the door opened again. Meg stood in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she said. She glared down on me with all the scorn a sister could muster. “Jesus! Grow up and get out of there.” She grabbed a cookie tin off the top shelf then slammed the door.
Out in the hall, Meg’s door was closed. I turned the knob gently, but it was locked. Placing my ear against the door, all I could hear was the ocean roaring far away. I went in the kitchen and grabbed the last four Oreos from the bag and ate them while I sat at the kitchen counter. I brushed the crumbs onto the floor and kicked them under the counter. Then, I made myself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and went into the backyard, slowly sliding the glass door shut. The grass was tall and brown, and the flower beds along the house were planted with hard dirt and dry weeds. We never worked out here and almost never came out here after my dad left. I sat in the flower bed with my back against the wall, in the shade under Meg’s window, and ate my sandwich. The window was open—all our windows were open that time of year—and I could hear Meg and the boy talking and the slow creak of the springs in her bed. When their voices stopped I knew she was kissing him, kissing that smile meant only for me.
I was sitting on the couch, playing piano on the edge of the coffee table, when Bobby came out of Meg’s room. My fingers drummed across the wood, and the music sounded in my head. Bobby stood, shirtless, in the entrance to the room, watching me. And I watched him, though I tried not to show it. I rocked soulfully at my instrument, playing at different tempos, hearing my rhythm section behind me. When I played like this, I could convince myself that I was actually at an instrument, that I was not wearing away the edge of a battered, chipped, and stained old coffee table. “What are you playing?” Bobby said, and the music crashed to a halt.
I looked up, and again I saw the smile, the shared joke. “Monk,” I said, wanting to say something more.
He just nodded. “Got a smoke?” he said. I said yes and ran down the hall to my mom’s room. I rummaged in the bottom of her panty drawer and came out with a couple Winstons and a book of matches. Back in the living room, Meg and Bobby were sitting on the couch with their arms around each other. She looked contented and happy, willing to put up with me, for a few minutes, at least. “Hey brat,” she said when I entered the room. Her curls were a bit matted. She wore a gray pair of sweat shorts and a faded T-shirt with a picture of the Go-Go’s on it. Like Bobby, she was barefoot, and her toenails were painted pink. The two of them rubbed their feet together. I hated her.
I struck a match and lit a cigarette, breathing in the hot sulfur and tobacco. Passing the smoke to Bobby, I let my hand touch his. His hands looked enormous next to my slim fingers. I lit another cigarette for myself.
“Bobby,” Meg said, “this is my little brother Eric. He thinks he’s John Coltrane.”
“Not Coltrane. He’s a horn player.”
“Thelonius Monk,” Bobby said. I admired the natural way he smoked. He touched the cigarette to his lips and inhaled luxuriously, like a French film star. “Straight No Chaser,” Bobby said and let the smoke trail out of his nostrils.
“How did you know?” I said.
“Music appreciation,” he said, then snorted. If I didn’t love him before, I loved him then.
They left not long after that. “Nice to meet you,” Bobby said with a smile and a wave as they walked out the front door. I had to agree. I peeked out the window as they drove away in Bobby’s truck, waiting until they turned the corner. Then, I waited for several minutes, watching the street. I scrambled to Meg’s room and quickly scanned her dresser and bookshelf. They were both covered with dolls and knickknacks. My mom wouldn’t be home till late, but I left the door open. I didn’t want Bobby and Meg to come back without me hearing them. Then I ran into the front room and locked the front door. I took another look out the window. I dug through Meg’s drawers and found the bra I liked, and I pulled a red dress from her closet. I ran down the hall to my room, as though someone were in the house with me and I was trying not to be seen. I closed and locked my door. I was excited and scared, breathing quickly, and my heart was beating rapidly. I rummaged through the bottom drawer of my dresser until I found one of Meg’s lipsticks that I had hidden there.
I kicked off my sneakers, pulled off my T-shirt and jeans. I pulled the bra over my shoulders and struggled to hook it behind my back. Then I stuffed it with knee socks. I hated how I looked. It never looked real until I put on the dress. I looked sad, skinny and pale, in that stuffed bra and a pair of white briefs. I pulled the dress over my shoulders and wiggled to fit into it. That was when it felt most real, and I felt most feminine. Because I couldn’t see myself, I could imagine myself with full hips, a slim waist. I turned to inspect myself in the mirror and squeezed at the bra until my breasts looked more natural. My legs were pale and skinny, and the dress showed off my shoulders, which were still as thin as a girl’s. I took a small mirror from under my bed and inspected my face. Although my face was smooth, I still looked wrong. Leaning close to the mirror, I slowly applied lipstick. My lips were a deep blood red but disappointingly thin.
Dropping the mirror onto the dresser, I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. I imagined that Bobby was on the bed with me. Softly, he touched my face, my full red lips with his fingers. He leaned toward me, and slowly, softly, we kissed. I stuck my hand under the dress, continuing to imagine Bobby and me together.
The next time I saw Bobby, I was at school, sitting alone at one of the vandalized picnic tables scattered around the vast open square of cement that students knew as the “Flat.” Desultory groups of kids sprawled on and around the tables, in many different poses of indifference. Loners like me tended to sit on the cement planters, but if we got there early we were guaranteed a table by ourselves, since no one would face the shame of sitting with an outcast, which I most assuredly was. My biology class before lunch was nearby, so I sat alone, eating a dry peanut butter sandwich and watching the empty center of the Flat. That space was taboo. No one could endure the scrutiny of their peers as they crossed that vast emptiness. All during lunch, kids skirted its edges but never dared cross it directly.
I was munching on my peanut butter sandwich and glumly reflecting on the upcoming PE class and the general pointlessness of my life, trying not to look directly at anyone, which predators might perceive as a threat, when Bobby strolled out to the center of the Flat with a football tucked under his arm. He shouted, “Chuckie,” and pitched the ball straight at his friend’s head. At the time, Chuckie was looking the other direction, talking to a girl. He wore a football jersey and a Stetson. Chuckie turned, holding his hat on with one hand, and snatched the ball out of the air with the other hand in one fluid movement. Both of the boys laughed, acting as though no one was there but the two of them. I watched Bobby move and envied his self-possession. The two of them tossed the ball and shouted back and forth in the hot center of the Flat. I watched Bobby move; his movements had an economy I could never duplicate—short snaps of the arm to pass the ball, quick spins, just enough movement but not too much.
Just as I was thinking this, Bobby saw me. Chuckie seemed to disappear instantly from his awareness. “Hey Eric,” he shouted, pointing at me with the tip of the football, and I flinched, thinking I was about to have a football rocketed at my head. Then Bobby trotted toward me. Chuckie turned back to the girl he was chatting up.
Bobby dropped casually onto the bench across from me. “How’s your sister?” he said.
“Hey Bobby,” someone shouted, “who’s your boyfriend.” Laughter scattered around the Flat. Bobby flipped them off without looking. “What a bunch of dicks, huh?”
I was surprised that Bobby was even talking to me, but that was what I had liked about him from the beginning. He had seemed friendly to me. He seemed to actually like me, and he seemed unafraid of the teenage social system that said he couldn’t be my friend. “You still playing music without a piano?” he said. I nodded, so enamored I was afraid to speak. “That’s amazing,” he said. He shook his head, and that smile returned. “How do you do that? You can hear all those songs?”
I took a bite of my sandwich. I hadn’t ever really talked to people outside my family about it. “I can just hear it. It sounds real. I can see the keys, hear the music.” Then I looked down, afraid of watching his mouth any more.
“You’re a fucking genius. It’s too bad you don’t have a piano of your own to play.” He watched the people wandering around the square and avoiding eye contact with each other, trying to be invisible. I watched him, carefully, stealing looks at the side of his face. “Maybe your sister can bring you over to play on ours some time,” he said, smiling at me. “My parents used to try to get me to play--but I’m tone deaf.”
“That would be great,” I said, forcing myself to look straight at him. He was blindingly beautiful to me right then, his kindness, his warmth.
“Great,” he said, standing quickly. “Chuckie,” he shouted, and rocketed the football at his friend. “Have Meg bring you,” he turned back and said. “She knows where I live.” I just nodded, and he jogged away across the square, ending our first private audience.
Soon after, Meg drove me over to Bobby’s house. All the way, she chatted with me and seemed happy and friendly. I thought of Bobby and talking to him. I couldn’t believe that he had invited me over. I looked out the window and played love songs in my head. I was thinking about his smile and the way he had talked to me so easily, and I wasn’t noticing Meg.
When we got there, Meg pulled up in front of Bobby’s house, and I climbed out of the car. The house was a lot bigger than ours, in an area of town with old trees and large houses set back from the street, with immaculate lawns tended by gardeners. As I climbed out of the car, I thought of what I was going to say at the door. I imagined him leading me to a grand piano, listening to me play. I imagined all sorts of things before I heard the door on Meg’s side slam behind me as I was walking up to the door. “What are you doing?” I said.
“I’m coming in,” she said as she trotted up the walk, smiling the happy smile that I only now understood.
“You don’t have to. I know Bobby. I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping that, miraculously, those words would drive her away.
“Don’t be a moron,” she said, laughing. “Do you think he wants to see you? Mom didn’t want him at our house, and I needed an excuse to come here. What a dork.” She sailed past me and rang the bell, and I slowly followed her up the steps, noticing only then that Meg was very dressed up and made up. I stood on the step with her and looked her over. Her hair was in ringlets, and she wore bright red lipstick. This was clearly a set up. When Bobby came to the door, he wore his usual jersey and jeans, but he looked her over and whistled. Then he winked at me. “Your sister’s one hottie,” he said, to my embarrassment. Meg laughed and told him to shut up. Then they kissed as I watched. She leaned into him and tilted her head up, and he touched her face gently with one hand. I felt like crying.
Bobby led us in. The house was huge and clean, nothing like ours, and in the heat, it felt cool. Off the foyer a staircase ran upstairs, and another room to the left held bookcases and a grand piano. Nothing looked like it was ever used. Bobby smiled at me, and he said, “Help yourself” and waved at the piano. Then he led Meg upstairs, leaving me standing alone in the foyer. I didn’t know what to do. What if someone were there? I looked in the room, and it was empty.
I slowly walked to the piano bench and sat down, but I was thinking of Bobby and Meg. I began to play, softly, and I imagined Bobby’s body. I imagined him beneath me. I imagined kissing his body, his face, his mouth. I played a soft and lonely blues until Meg came in, smiling, and took me home.
In the next few weeks, I returned several times, to play, always watching as Meg and Bobby laughingly wandered upstairs, leaving me alone. Bobby was always friendly, and sometimes spoke to me for a while, but I never spent any time with him. Still, because of his kind nature, I imagined he was my friend. I always imagined spending time alone with him. At school, I looked for him in the halls and in the distance, and I returned to the Flat, hoping I would see him and talk to him. Sometimes, I thought I saw him in the distance, and a surge of excitement ran through me. I almost shouted his name, then realized it was Doug Felt, an asshole that would rather kill me than talk to me. When I did see Bobby, I would wave or try to talk to him now.
Once, I saw him in the hall with a group of his friends, a group of football jocks hanging in the hall together. They were all tall, broad shouldered, and menacing in their matching letter jackets, but I didn’t notice any of them. I ran straight to Bobby, who was leaning against a locker and talking, his back turned slightly to me, so I could see the right side of his face. I almost shouted his name, I was so happy to see him, but instead I just touched his shoulder. He turned, looking suddenly surprised, and immediately I was aware that he was frightened. He looked around at the other guys quickly before looking back to me. And then he returned to his laconic pose. He relaxed into the locker and crossed his arms. I couldn’t see anyone but him. “Hey, what’s up, Eric?” he said.
“Bobby,” I said, realizing I didn’t know what I wanted to say to him, “can I come by tonight?” There was some laughter from the group, low, and a little dangerous sounding, and I looked up, suddenly aware of the group that surrounded me. They were all watching me. “He wants to come by, Bobby,” someone said, and he laughed a predatory laugh.
“This is Meg’s little brother,” Bobby said.
I looked back at Bobby at the sound of his voice. “I want to play your piano,” I said and the group laughed even louder, making me realize I was in danger. “Your piano,” another voice snorted, “maybe he should play your organ,” and the whole group laughed.
Bobby looked worried. “Fuck off, you guys.” He turned to me, scowling. “Eric, can you just get lost,” he said, and he gave me a small shove to get me moving. I turned and walked away, listening to the laughter and derisive comments of the group but thinking of Bobby and the look of anger on his face.
After that, I didn’t see Bobby for a while. I wasn’t invited to his house, and Meg went to see him alone. I lay around the house mooning for him and imagined talking to him as I played love songs. I called his house a few times and hung up when someone answered, and once I left a message on his machine, acting friendly and casual, pretending nothing had happened and asking if I could use his piano. I waited, but he didn’t call back. I wanted him, to see him, so badly that I began walking the streets after school and the halls at school, trying to find him. I went to the football field after school and sat in the stands to watch him play. I was afraid someone would notice, as I wanted Bobby to notice.
Finally, on a Saturday night when I was home alone, I decided to go see him. I took a bus across town, clutching a brown bag with bottle of Schnapps I had taken from my mom’s cabinet and had been drinking for courage. I was warm in the back of the bus, breathing peppermint fumes and imagining what I might say to him. Thinking of it now, I don’t know what I imagined would happen, except that I believed that somehow we would become friends. I didn’t expect anything from him, but I imagined his mouth, his cheek. I imagined that we would hang out and talk and that somehow we would be friends again. I bent down so the bus driver couldn’t see me and took a furtive drink from the Schnapps in the brown paper bag.
The bus let me off a few blocks from Bobby’s house. It was a cloudless summer night, and through the trees that arched over the street, I could see the moon. Crickets sang in the grass and somewhere in the distance I could hear voices. I was comfortably drunk, and I strolled slowly through the empty suburb.
As I walked, I imagined what I might say to him. I couldn’t think of a good reason why I was there on Saturday, half drunk, halfway across town. I thought of every variation on “I was in the neighborhood.” None of them worked, and I decided that I wouldn’t think about it.
The house was all lit up when I got there, and several cars were parked in the driveway. I could hear laughing and shouting from the backyard. I almost turned back right then. I should have turned back, but my Schnapps warmed my heart and led me on. I thought that maybe I could just wander into the party and not be noticed. Slowly, timorously, I walked up to the front door. I could see a couple guys in the front room through a big window, drinking beer and laughing. I knew them, jocks who had harassed me in the halls before, brutal young men who seemed exuberant in their strength. Drunk, I wasn’t scared of them, though I should have been. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I knocked again. I thought about turning around, but I suddenly realized that I had an excuse. I rang the bell bravely. I thought of how happy Bobby might be to see me. I pulled the bottle of Schnapps out of my pocket and shook it and listened to it slosh. I even had an offering. Finally, after I rang the bell again, the door opened, but it wasn’t Bobby who answered the door.. It was another guy from the football team, a a big linebacker. He wove in the doorway, obviously drunk. He towered over me and looked like a giant shadow with the light behind him.
“Is Bobby here?” I said, barely whispering. I thought about turning around, but it was too late. The figure stepped onto the porch, very close to me, so that I could smell the beer on his breath.
“Are you a friend of his?” He gestured at me with a beer can. I wasn’t sure what the gesture meant.
I stepped back off the porch and mustered up enough nerve to speak. “I’m here for Bobby,” I said in a quavery voice.
He stepped back and waved down the hall. “Come on in,” he said, but his voice didn’t sound welcoming. I noticed a couple other guys had gathered in the hallway behind the hulking figure, and they were smiling and laughing. “Bobby,” someone shouted, “you’re girlfriend is here,” and there was more laughter.
I was about to run away when Bobby pushed his way through the crowd. “Eric, what are you doing here? Where’s Megan?”
“She’s not here,” I said, feeling relief at seeing Bobby, but noticing that he looked worried. He seemed unable to look directly at me. He kept looking around a the other boys. “I heard you were having a party and I brought something to drink.” I raised the bottle and shook it. “Just a little drink between friends, right?”
Bobby stood there watching me and not saying anything. “Are you gonna have a drink with your girlfriend, Bobby?” someone said.
“Shut up, asshole. This is Megan’s little brother.”
“Little sister, you mean. She’s got a crush on you.”
I looked around, suddenly realizing that I was surrounded; they were boys, but they were all bigger than me, muscular, clean-cut, healthy, all muscle and aggression. I backed away, looking at Bobby. He just watched me, with the same anger as the rest of them. Tears formed in my eyes and I felt my face constricting. When I backed far enough away, I turned and ran. I heard a bottle hit the street behind me and more laughter. “Run faggot run.” I thought I heard Bobby laugh.
Several blocks away, I sat at the bus stop and drank some more Schnapps. I found myself crying, sobbing at the hate I felt from that crowd, from Bobby. Deep sobs shook me and I let my head drop to my knees. I was there, waiting, not knowing when the bus might come, drinking and intermittently crying, when I heard the voices in the distance. In the distance I saw a group of the boys coming, huddled together, laughing, shouting. I looked quickly around for a place to hide but there wasn’t a place that seemed hidden enough. I got up and started to walk away from them, looking back occasionally, trying to be unnoticed. But then I heard a shout from them and they started running toward me. I ran as fast as I could, dropping my bottle on the street and stumbling and panting. I was scared and confused. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I felt like someone in a dream, unable to run fast enough, and then they were upon me. Hands grabbed me and pulled me around so that I was facing the group of boys who obviously hated me. “Where are you going, faggot?” one of them said. Right in the middle was Bobby. He looked angry and frightened.
“Bobby,” I said, but he didn’t say anything, I repeated his name softly. He just watched me. He hated me for loving him. “But you’re my friend,” I said. My voice was choked, and I gasped for breath. I looked around me. I recognized all their faces and the faces hidden behind their faces. I wanted to run. I would have given anything to run. “I thought you liked me,” I said to Bobby, and the other boys laughed at this. “Please,” I said, and I looked at his beautiful mouth and thought that he was going to cry, the way his lip quivered.
Then he hit me, hard, in the face, and I fell against the boys behind me. I couldn’t see. All I felt was pain, and I heard the other boys shout. “Faggot!” someone said.
“Hit him,” said someone else, and Bobby hit me again. Then they were all hitting me, and I covered my head and cried and tried to curl in a ball, but they held me up and shouted like animals and hit me again and again.
Then someone said, ”Come on. Let’s go.” I felt oddly distant. Someone said, “Come on. Hurry.” They let go of me, and I dropped to the sidewalk. My head hit the cement, and I saw a quick flash. Then I couldn’t see really—just the cement a few inches from my face and the little sparkling flecks in the cement and a dirty wad of gum baked into the cement. The ground was still warm and comfortable from the day’s heat, and I just lay there watching a spot on the cement a few inches beyond my nose.
A sprinkler came on and chattered in the background. I could smell the wet grass. I lay there a long time. The crickets hummed. A dog barked. Blood dribbled from my face and pooled on the sidewalk in front of me. My face hurt; my body hurt. “But you’re my friend,” I said to no one. “I love you.”
I didn’t hear Bobby when he returned. He lifted me up and turned me around, and I collapsed into his arms. I was blinded by his truck’s headlights. He held me up. “Are you all right?” he said. “I’m sorry, Eric. I’m sorry.” He was crying. I held on to him. His body was warm, and he smelled healthy, like warm bread. His eyes, only inches from mine, were red, and tears ran down his face and snot ran from his nose. His lips were twisted as though he were the one who had taken the blows instead of giving them. I leaned into him, and he didn’t pull away, and then I kissed him slowly, imagining that he returned the kiss, and again he didn’t pull away. When I pulled back, his face and lips were smeared with my blood, and I was crying again.
He wiped his face with his sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
He drove me home. He seemed scared--almost in shock. He kept repeating that he was sorry and asking if I was all right. He said several times that I should have stayed away. Once he got very upset and shouted, “What did you come over for? Why didn’t you stay away?” I was silent, listening to his steady tirade and watching the darkness zoom past. When we arrived at my home, he pulled me out of his truck in front of the house and dropped me onto the lawn. He ran around to the other side of the truck and climbed in, and then drove away. After a long time, I pushed myself up and stumbled to the front step. I struggled to get the key in the lock and open the door. The house was dark. Leaving the lights off, I felt my way to the closet. I curled up in the bottom, among the musty smells of old clothes, and shut the door. I waited for the music. I tried to summon it, but all I saw were Bobby’s lips, covered in my blood.
