My Very First Kiss

Little did I know that this would be my last Halloween at 13 yrs old. It was 1975, in The Neighborhood there was a hayride driven by a yellow toothed former Carny that would slowly circle the mile long ring of the Cul-de-Sac that was stacked with hundreds of condominiums and apartments. He drove slowly, making it easier to cover ground with kids jumping on and off all night. It was near that city pool that was my second home that summer, that we all got off the hay laden truck bed for the last time. Me, Ricky, Marie and Angel.

“Can you believe the night we’re having? Ricky said as he combed his hair out of his eyes.

“Good to Give and Good to Get” I said while staring at the two girls on the truck.

“Yeah yeah what a night, let’s get off this slow tractor ride.”

None of us were in costume. There was no way we were dressing up. That was kid stuff. We were teenagers not little punks; we were too cool. Ricky and I just wore jeans and tight white t-shirts like a couple of 50’s greasers with some black mascara haphazardly painted on our faces like baseball players or crooks holding our pillowcases filled with the nights haul.

I didn’t know which girl I liked more but half secretly wished my almost friend Ricky wasn’t there. Angel wore a pink pastel low cut gauze blouse that contrasted with her shiny long black hair like a box of good and plenty. She was a mysterious street tough Italian broad I’d seen before at the pool. Her best friend Marie, who I’d never met until that night, had dishwater blond straight hair and flirty green eyes. She was sizing me up as she sat there cross legged in her tank top and shorts. Unlike me, they all went to the public school and Ricky had a reputation for being a smart mouth who loved to instigate trouble, having learned that art by Butch, his 18-year-old mechanic brother who notoriously picked on him.

It was 10:30, late by trick or treat standards as we anxiously stood under the greenish yellow streetlight while I looked nervously around. Curiously there were no bugs as it felt like a summer night with a humid sweat that was now starting to make me perspire. If we were to enter the pool, we would have had to hop the 6 ft high pad locked fence.

“Let’s all go swimming…skinny dipping” Ricky, quickly urged.

“Dude that water should’ve been emptied over a month ago, it’s gotta be so gross.” That was the last thing I wanted to do as I tried to end that line of questioning.

Angel asked knowingly, “Ricky do you even know how to swim? I’ve never seen you at the pool this whole summer,” seeing through his transparent request to see them undress.

“Yeah, I know how, I was probably helping my brother with his white ‘70 barracuda when you went.” Ricky said while he lit up a cigarette trying not to cough.

“I’m surprised you ain’t helping him now since you know so much about cars.” I said, trying to give him a backhanded compliment not knowing what else to say. I didn’t want to come off as some selfish sore sport. But boy, I sure wished he was the grease monkey he claimed to be and was at that very moment helping his brother out.

“Ricky you can leave if you want now and go help Butch” Marie said, not even looking at him while putting her arms around my neck.

“Yeah, Tony will walk us home” Angel mouthed as she put her arms around my waist while Marie kissed me. Before I could find a word and mouth it out loud, Angel gave me a much longer kiss. I thought…are you kidding me? I’ve been slapped, rejected and ignored for years and now the 2 hotties from the neighborhood both wanted to kiss me?

God, I love Halloween.

A delirium overcame me with a feeling of being sacrificed on some altar of maturity. I was being led away to be slaughtered happily by these two sirens of iniquity. I never protested but offered myself willingly.

Ricky would have none of it, throwing down his smoke and furiously yelling, “He’s kissing you both with his eyes open! Look at him he doesn’t even know how to kiss, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing!”

I vehemently attacked his accusation, “You’re an idiot Ricky; my eyes were closed!”

“They were not!”

“Were too!”

“Were not!”

I kissed the girls again to prove to them I had closed my eyes, since that apparently was the correct way to kiss. I tried ever so slightly to peak, like an oyster shell, cracking my eyelids to see if Angel and Marie were opening their eyes to check on mine. I knew Ricky would have his open with another opportunity to call me out for any other infraction or foul I might make in my first championship game. I ping ponged back and forth, Marie, Angel, Angel, Marie back to Angel on that first kiss as fast as I could before Ricky tired of being the referee would call the match. Just as time was running out, a car with bright lights and the high beams on exposed us.

The treat was all but over when Ricky’s staccato voice declared unemotionally,

“Yeah yeah let’s go. Here do you want one of my Milky Way or Three Musketeers bars?”

“I don’t know, I can’t decide.” I said somehow knowing that this night as well as my childhood was coming to an end.

We proceeded to walk the girls back home to their street on the other side of The Neighborhood with my one hand self-consciously in my pocket and the other hand, holding my pillowcase filled with the night’s prizes, as the song, “Miracles” by Jefferson Starship blared out the passing car’s radio driving by.

“Good to Give and Good to Get.” I asserted, recollecting the treat of my first taste and last Halloween.