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| Lums Bums, L-R, White Trash Pat, Laurianne (from France) Allan fourteen with a cigarette, Drea, Strickler, author, Long Live LUMS on Western Avenue!!!!!! |
***
After the performance I find Patrick.
“Dude, Did you see the girl who was sitting with
Strickler and ‘Drea?” I ask Patrick. Patrick responds in his customary
asserting nod with for some inexplicable reason cosigns him with the laconic
parlance of a drill sergeant first class .
“Yes
I did.” Patrick assents.
“Was
she hot?” I ask again, wondering.
“Yes
she is.” Patrick volleys back, nodding his head up and down in one singular
swiped movement of concurrence.
***
The nicotine addled poetic tongue Bohemians are
elbow-smattered around the kidney shaped side table at Lums, the table we have
christened as our own. My hair is still routinely sprayed, my face a
tea-kettled white sloshed dry with the baby wipe disinfectant used to deface
the makeup. The hold the rose that
Shannon gave me semi-flaccid in my forehand like a conductors baton marshaling
in the percussion in the second movement. The tables are smashed together and
there is Book Bag Bob and Pat, Hale and Jackie. Amber and Laurianne. Frogger is
oscillating around the table in a counterclockwise motion badgering anyone
within earshot range if they can give him a ride home in ten minutes, As I arrive stippled applause leaks out from
the avenue of the bodies of those I love most of all in this world. Patrick is
still holding up the sign that reads, “Go Elvis.” Hale is giving me what looks
like a marginal thumbs up, as if he has just reviewed a film for a televised
public audience. Between the transparent
curtains of cigarette smoke, in the antipodal area code of the restaurant I see
Strickler, seated with Andrea in the no-smoking section even though Strickler
is always the first one to fire one up, I perceive the steeple of what appears
to be the top of her forehead—long tresses of blonde hair streaming down both
sides of her forehead, emptying out into a slant of sunshine dappling her
shoulders as if in spring, she sits there, shy, wearing a short midnight blue
skirt that seems to stick to the interior of her untanned thighs.
As if wading through the shallow end of a kiddie
pool and trying to avoid contact with styrofoam noodles and water wings I
meander through the taupe-flavored vinyl cushions that is LUMS on Western
avenue into the non-smoking section to Kristina Pekowski. I still have the rose
that Shannon Moore gave me in paw. I present her to her as if I am bestowing an
honorary degree, my hand outstretched, clutching the ivory tips of her fingers,
introducing myself as Dave, thanking her for coming to the show.
Kristina looks down again and smiles.
She is wearing a rose top. Her hair is the color of hay in a schlacked Nativity scene.
There are formalities. She is wearing an aluminum
chain around her neck with a K in the center. When I hand her the rose she
blushes and looks down. Her skirt seems to stifle and pause midway down her
thighs.
Strickler addresses me by calling me Vinnie.
“Everyone is over in smoking section. Would you like
to come over and I can introduce you to some of my friends?”
Kristina Pekowski looks at me while her countenance
hushes out a shy smile. ***
After monopolizing more or less a week with Kitty Pekowski talking to her everyday on the phone after school this is what I will learn:
I learn that Kitty Pekowski’s favorite color is
pink, although not in an airhead cheerleader dream Barbie house sort of way. I
learn that she is reserved and quiet and looks down as if measuring the
distance from chin to feet in almost benediction like deference. I learn that
watching her face transmogrify into the
color of cheap wine coolers is so adorable the it emotionally impels me to
continue to say things that are trite and seminally witty just to make her
blush. I learn that she has been friends with David’s Andrea since like grade school.
I learn that she is the oldest and has one brother. I learn that she has a
hardcore affinity for Jane Austen. I learn that she plays trumpet in marching
and sits first chair in concert band. I
learn that she has had a total of two boy friends but none were very serious I
learn that she has been planning the prom since sometime last year and that she
was certain she was going with Boyfriend number two to Prom whom she met at a
band competition only he turned out to be going to Prom with a boy from another
school and, even though she doesn’t judge lifestyles, it was weird because she like
made out with him and everything. I
learn (from inquiring the obvious ethnicity) that her last name
isn’t really Pekowski only her
grandfather was some sort of an eccentric avid rock climber from Michigan and
Pekowski was his favorite rock (she amends that relatives on her mother’s side
think that he changed his name to avoid a tax evasion type o thing). I learn
that she is a Catholic even though she attends several youth outreach programs
in central Illinois. I learn that she wants to go to college and study
elementary educations. I learn that she is currently tied for number one
academically speaking in the class of ’97 and that the male who is also tied
for number one has been her rival-slash sporadic love interest since
gradeschool and that he is also Boyfriend number one. I learn that she thinks
he is also gay as well and that she has not received another that remotely
looks like a B on her report card since the time an insect landed on a copy of
her fifth-grade progress report on grandparent’s day six years ago.
I learn that her name is Kristina but that all her
close friends refer to her as Kitty which is kind of ironic because she is
allergic to cats and once broke out into a spate of hives at a slumber party.
I learn that she wears a custom made necklace with a cubed K in the center at all times indicative of the color of her name.
I learn that she wears a custom made necklace with a cubed K in the center at all times indicative of the color of her name.
I learn that it is hard to have a conversation
without her intermittently pausing every five seconds and waiting for me to say something.
I learn that she
really wants to go to prom.
***
***
“She’s been talking about you all the time. It’s
always, “Dave’s so cultured. He drinks coffee. He writes poetry. He listens to
Opera.”
Andrea says the word blah while opening her mouth
and jousting her index finger inside her agape lips.
“No, she just really likes you a lot. I mean, I’ve
never heard her talk about any boy the way she talks about you. You’ve made her
very happy. Just know that.”
I smile. Like the woman I am dating, I look down and
nod.
We order more coffee. Patrick entertains by doing
his RES DOG like a virgin speech. He stops before inquiring how many dicks is
that it before swiveling on his cushion and looking straight at me.
“ I mean, Dude,” Patrick says, “She looks just like
Julie Delpy. I mean, more Killing Zoe Julie Delpy that Before Sunrise Julie
Delpy but I mean, yeah man. She’s hot.”
We have been talking on the phone all week. I can’t
wait to see her again.
***
It is two days later. I have been chatting with Kitty Pekowski every night on the phone. We have left Lums, formed an automotive congo line with the front chrome of our bumpers and ended up at Hales
It will happen tonight.
I try not to think about her crossing her arms and reeling her top over the northern hemisphere of her body the time I called and her mom informed me that she was in the shower.
Hale, Frogger and the entire gang is inside and Kristina’s body is gradually gravitating
toward mine. I reach out to kiss her only to discern that her moist tongue has
already made itself quite at home in my mouth. Trying not to act to surprised,
I respond, by volleying my lips and shifting my tongue deep into her throat.
From below the belt, I begin to get aroused.
“Also,”
Kristina writes as a P.S. to her letter. “About the first time we kissed, sorry
I slipped you the tongue. It was something I had always wanted to try.”
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