FIRSTS – VOLUME 1

For the next blog or two or whatever, I’m gonna talk about some of the “firsts” in my life.

My First Kiss

I was 15. And a half. Almost three-quarters. Anyway, it was April 1980 and I had a date with destiny in a week. Specifically, it was Saturday night and the Spanish Club Banquet was the next Saturday. At that banquet, I was going to be crowned “Spanish Club King” and as part of the coronation ceremony I would be tasked with giving a coronating kiss to the new Spanish Club Queen, an extremely lovely young woman by the too-perfect name of Allison Apple.

Allison Apple was a Senior.

Allison Apple was a Cheerleader.

Allison Apple was a SENIOR CHEERLEADER.

I, on the other hand, was a never-kissed sophomore whose high school career highlight to that point had been Not Yet Sodomized In Gym Class. The thought of my first kiss taking place in front of a room full of people, two of whom would be my parents, was causing me almost as much anxiety as the whole gym class sodomy thing.

(NOTE: Now that I am a man of the world, having lived in as many as three other cities since high school, I have been made aware that my high school’s tradition of newly crowned kings and queens – homecoming, prom, Spanish Club, what have you – actually tongue-kissing each other as part of the coronation ceremony is not a universally observed practice. And now that I think about it, it is odd that the same school officials who would suspend or paddle students for making out behind the art building not only tolerated, but encouraged, that same behavior as long as it was in public and involved some combination of sashes, tiaras, and scepters. Plus it’s just creepy.]

But before I was faced with that dilemma, God intervened. And he took the form of a Catholic Youth Conference up in Oklahoma City the Saturday before the banquet. During the day, the conference focused on Catechism training, post-high-school religious education, and other Catholic-y stuff. That was followed by a giant pizza party, if memory serves. It might have been burgers. But after the sun went down and the lights came up, the conference became a disco dancing paradise.

No bullshit.

I’m fuzzy on the details – plus I was super distracted about having to kiss a cheerleader in front of my mom in less than 170 hours – but I seem to remember there were about 1000-plus kids at this thing, so it must have been a pretty big dance floor/DJ setup. I remember walking around the perimeter of the venue about five times trying to work up the nerve to ask this one girl to dance. Not sure why she stood out. For all I know, she might have been the only girl remotely observing my repeated laps around the dance floor.

In any event, I finally asked her to dance. It was a slow song. Probably Lionel Richie. Or the Commodores, featuring Lionel Richie. Or Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. Probably. After the dance, we went and sat down together and I began the gut-wrenching process of putting my arm around her. Seventeen hours later, my left hand was over her left shoulder. Her leg was touching my leg from the hip to the knee. I could actually smell her hair.

Oh—her name was Wanda. That was her actual name. I can still remember her last name and her hometown and there’s a slight chance that I found her on Facebook and, for about one nanosecond, thought about sending her one of those “You probably don’t remember me, but” messages that one hopes will be written with just the right combination of charm and self-deprecation to be met with a nostalgic smile and a warm response, but in reality just sounds totally fucking creepy and results in an angry and threatening reply from her cop/biker/military husband.

So…yeah. We’ll stick with just “Wanda.”

Anyway, the arm around the shoulder eventually blossomed into full-blown hand holding and it soon became apparent that this girl – Wanda – expected me to kiss her. Thank God we had fast danced just enough to justify at least some of the perspiration coursing from every pore in my body.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my sweaty pants and turned to face her. To face Wanda.

My time had come.

I leaned in and closed my eyes.

Strike that. Other way around.

I closed my eyes and leaned in.

Unfortunately, I leaned in too quickly and way off course and landed my first kiss, somewhat violently, on her chin. And I’m talking about the “neck side” of her chin – not the lip side.

I was a quarter-inch from missing her face entirely. If I were an Olympic gymnast and the goal was to stick the landing with both feet, I basically landed on my ear and both elbows.

Perhaps it was my nascent charm. Perhaps it was the pulsing beat. Maybe it was the holy spirit. I don’t know who or what gets the credit for the fact that Wanda did not, at the very least, burst out laughing or, at worst, point and scream and run away.

But she did none of those things. Instead, she just sat there, quietly, with her eyes closed, waiting for me to find her mouth. Which I did about two seconds later. Which was followed by one of those epic 30-minute, uninterrupted, make-out sessions that only people who have no idea what sex is would ever think to engage in. We would probably still be making out if our Youth Director hadn’t smacked me on the side of the head and told me the group was leaving.

I wore a smile on my face the whole drive home. And the whole week at school. And the whole day Saturday leading up to the Spanish Club Banquet.

I was ready for Allison Apple. The MC called our names.

She placed the traditional Spanish Club King sombrero on my head. I placed the Spanish Club Queen tiara on hers. We faced each other a long moment. I leaned in to give her a peck – just a peck. I swear. She was a Senior Cheerleader, for god’s sake. This was no time for a peasant to go forgetting his station in life.

But then I learned that I was not ready for Allison Apple.

I’ll leave it to the people who were there to debate whether the coronation make-out session that ensued was appropriate or not. But let there be no doubt or debate about one thing:

I stuck the landing.

© 2014 Lee B. Weaver