He felt as if he were about to cry, but the feeling was too unfamiliar to know for sure.
-Christopher Rice
A DENSITY OF SOULS
The Beginnings – Part 128: A REAL FRENCH KISS
Helen accompanied me to the bank. She has so much energy.
I fibbed to both Helen and Salima. I shared the news about meeting the French girl, Paloma.
I said, “Now I know what a real French kiss is like.”
I don’t know if I will ever know. Paloma cancelled our date. Oh well...
I called Paloma at 2PM and she said, “The fifteen year old house sister had her appendix taken out.”
Now we have confirmed our date for tomorrow night.
After work I ate mom’s homemade lasagna. I returned to my place and received my car payment invoice and a bill from SPIEGEL Catalog. I don’t favor mail like that. John was home and I allowed him to take my camera to the Warriors Basketball game.
After John left I started to work out with some cool tunes playing. I took a break and decided to call on Tammy once again.
“What are you up to tonight?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” she answered.
We had a good talk. She was expecting, Jeff, her pal from Castro Valley to stop by at around nine o’clock.
“Why don’t we go out this Friday for a drink at GALLAGHER’s?” I asked
“Okay,” she answered with a tone of surprise.
“And maybe we can go dancing at ECHO BEACH after that.”
“That sounds really nice.”
“Are you going to the skating rink tonight?”
“No.”
While I continued to exercise I thought she might be going skating after all. I had a feeling she may be lying. I decided to see for myself. I drove to San Leandro and I saw Frank Vasconcellos outside. I remained seated in my car.
Frank asked, “Why don’t you come inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on…I want to talk to you.”
And so, I went in. I was happy because I saw no sign of George or Jim. I did see the handsome Rick Clark. We exchanged looks that seemed to lock. We started to talk and went over to the pinball machines together. There were a couple of friendly people who said hi to both Rick and me. I could clearly feel that Rick was thinking of ‘me’ and I was thinking of ‘him’. There was clearly an attraction.
Rick finally said, “You know…I asked Sean about you.”
Sean is a good friend of both Frank and Tammy.
“That’s funny,” I replied, “Tammy and I were just talking about you, too. I tried to look you up in the telephone directory but I found out that your phone number is non-published.”
He nodded and wasn’t too forthright with giving his phone number.
I finally said, “Why don’t we leave here early and go for a drink elsewhere.”
He obliged me by saying, “Okay, I have no intentions of staying her all night.”
When we decided to leave Rick went to take his skates off. As he was removing his skates I saw George Jones! I clearly saw that he noticed me, too.
Tom greeted me and kissed me. Do I even know him very well? That was strange.
It all happened in a matter of seconds as George came by and he said, “Hi.”
It was awkward as I said, “Hi”.
I broke the ice further when I asked, “Did you receive the pictures I sent you?”
“Yeah, my mom really liked them.”
“Oh good.”
“You know…I have to talk to you.”
“You know…I have to talk to you.”
I said, “Okay.”
I motioned toward the doorway as I saw Rick still working on getting his skates off.
George said, “A lot of things were going on with me and you really deserve someone better than me.”
“I know,” I said in agreement, “At least it’s nice to know you haven’t totally blocked me out of your mind.”
He left for a moment and quickly returned to say, “Wait, I’ll be right back.”
Unfortunately, George doesn’t realize that he does not own me, so as soon as Rick was ready. We left.
Rick and I ate a waffle and a milkshake at LYON’s in Hayward. We talked about Rick’s ex-boyfriend. Rick is extremely handsome. I also spoke of me ex along with other subjects like Frank, Tammy, Hawaii, Bora Bora and the AIDS dilemma. We had a very good talk. At the end of the evening we exchanged a mere peck of a kiss. No, it was unfortunately not a real French kiss.
He did give me his telephone number and said, “My folks are going to L.A. for the weekend. Call me and maybe we can set up dinner.”
I will call him. He’s nice.
When I returned home John had a guilty look on his face. He was fidgeting with my camera. It kind of upset me because it was clear that the camera was broken in some way.
“As long as you get it back to top form again,” I demanded.
“It’ll be okay,” John replied, “Anyway…Paloma called you, she said she’d try calling you at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”
I decided to call it a night; however, Paloma, Rick and a little bit of Tammy are all on my mind now. I’m confused. The phone rang at half past midnight. I answered the phone but the unknown culprit hung-up. Was it Rick? Was it George? Could it have been the bewildered Frank? Was it Paloma? Was it Jim? I guess I will never know.
I hadn’t yet told her the truth about myself, for the secret seemed to be enormous.
-Paul Lisicky
THE LAWNBOY
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