You stand in the dark and hold your breath as the curtain rises and the audience applauds. You feel a sense of pride and wonder if they are applauding the set, which you stayed up all night completing. Then, John is entering from stage right and saying his first line and it’s really happening. You stand, with your back pressed up against the wall. You try to pay attention to the play, so that you can compliment everyone and sound like you know what you are talking about. All you see is John. He is magnificent, making the audience laugh and gasp in all of the right places.
When the play is over, all of the cast and crew go to some 24-hour restaurant where they talk loudly and act like typical theater kids. You just sit, quietly at the end of the table, drinking a strawberry milkshake.
“Hey. The sets were awesome, man.”
You look up and it’s him, grinning and wearing a black skull cap. His eyes sparkle under the bright restaurant lights.
“Uh..thanks. Your performance was amazing.”
He rolls his eyes and slides your shake away from you, taking a long sip. You watch as his lips make contact with the exact place your lips had been mere seconds before. Some of the milkshake drips down his chin and he wipes it away with the back of his hand.
“Your name is Oscar, right?”
You nod.
“Cool. Hey, Oscar, you wanna get high?”
You find yourself unable to speak. You aren’t really sure that you do want to “get high.” But you shrug your shoulders and follow him out into the parking lot. He leads you down the street a bit, to a small park. He sits down on a swing and pulls a lighter and a joint out of his jacket pocket. You sit down on the swing beside him and kick at the dirt with your shoes, waiting as he lights the joint.
“You’re new at Hamilton, aren’t you?” His voice strains as he struggles to hold in the smoke, before blowing it out through perfect, pursed lips. He hands the joint to you and you stare at it for a moment. You are seventeen years old and have smoked pot exactly once, with your cousin Rico and some of his friends. You hadn’t felt anything then and wondered if, maybe, you were immune to marijuana. You lift the joint to your lips.
After smoking the entire joint, passing it back and forth to John, and telling him the entire story of your parent’s divorce, you realize you aren’t immune. John is high too, apparently, and he is swinging as high as he can on the swings, tilting his head back to look at the sky. You, somehow, stand up and walk over to the monkey bars, holding on to one of the bars and lifting your legs off the ground. You are lost in thought. Graduation is a month away. You know that you will work over the summer and, in the fall, move away to Philadelphia for college. You are going to be an accountant. You are good with numbers.
“Oscar, don’t leave me. What are you doing over there?” John runs toward you, laughing and you straighten your legs, letting go of the bar.
You grin at him, “Wanna go down the slide?”
You take turns on the small slide, rasing your hands above your hands and acting like you are on a roller coaster. Eventually, you decide to walk back to the restaurant to rejoin the others. As you walk, John leans over, brushing his lips on your cheek. You stop walking and he quickly passes you, rushing ahead to the restaurant. You lift your hand to touch the spot and it crosses your mind that you should never wash your face again.
You smile at John whenever you pass him at school or in the theater, but you never talk about the kiss. Four weeks later, you graduate and he moves to New York to study acting. Many years later, you are watching a movie with Gil and there he is, onscreen before you, a lawyer arguing in a fictional courtroom. You turn to Gill, who is on the couch beside you.
“Hey, sweetie,” you murmur, squeezing his hand, “Wanna hear a story?”
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali