Assessments reigned that day, in the classroom. Test were being taken to determine certain things for the state of Texas educational system.

One little girl took things too seriously: her mother put her hair in a bun and covered the little ball of blonde hair with a netting of off-white crochet.
“Oh, brother,” I said her. “Is that necessary?” I had just learned the word “necessary,” inadvertently when I groaned at what I thought was in perfect unison with my other classmates who had groaned about a last minute homework assignment from our third grade teacher. For some reason, my groan came on the tail end of the others. Boy did the teacher grab that tail and say to me “Petey was that necessary?”

“Um, no,” I answered, instantly learning that necessary was a word I needed to know.

So back to the little girl: she patted her bun and gave me that sleepy look of annoyance she gave most boys. We were at that age where boys were against girls and vice versa.

All morning and afternoon we took tests. We tried to prove ourselves. It was dumb.

And unnecessary.

It was a coincidence that we happen to be at the same bookstore in New York. I never come to this part of town and the only reason I ducked into the bookstore is because it was raining and I was wearing my Everywhere sport coat, only to realize you can’t where it everywhere or at least not in any weather. I found her in the magazine section, her face behind an issue of Muscle and Fitness. She did workout and I couldn’t notice her nicely sculpted arms as she held up the magazine. It was very obvious to me that she was hiding from me.

“How could you?” I asked.

Her head remained hidden behind the magazine. She did not put it down when I repeated my hurt phrase. So I left–but didn’t leave the bookstore; I walked up the two steps to the platform to the coffee shop part of the store. I ordered a small black and sat down.

She joined me a moment later.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Me too.”

“But not for the magazine,” she said. “But for ignoring you.”
This made me smile.

Roadside, the spring flowers bloomed and my uncle stopped to look at them, to pick one. I was mesmerized that a grown man would pull up on the side of the road to pick a flower. Just one flower. It was unheard of. Or at least in my little world it was. He single-handedly expanded that world for me.

Kneel before me, I instructed. And once he did, I had no more instructions.
I mean, I did have some reason for asking him to kneel. But hell if I can remember. I don’t have Alzheimer’s. But I have had a lot on my mind. Church, taxes, nuclear war, the price of shampoo.
Sir? he said, looking up at me with innocent eyes. What do you want from me.
I then knelt in front of him. No, my friend, I retorted, as a light bulb went off in my head, “What is it that you want from me?”

Evidently everyone seems to be kissing now. No one made a big announcement of it. It was almost like a prolonged holiday I’d forgotten to observe or join. I mean really forgotten. Because no one had yet kissed me.
My friends talked in class about their kisses. The chapped lips. The smells of the boys. All while I nodded and played a Duran Duran song in my head.
I wondered secretly why no one had kissed me. They said it was because I was religious. But we were all Catholic! And my parents were no more devout than theirs.

I think they were lying to me. But why? I wasn’t ugly or fat. But it did bother me for some time, to be left out of this new experience. And then it finally happened. With a new boy who’d just moved from Killeen, who smelled funny and gave me chapped lips, I wasn’t really impressed. I just felt sad. I wondered who else had not been kissed. Who else was playing 80s songs on in their head, nodding, while the rest of us whispered? But I know that once I found those unkissed girls and looked into their eyes, I would give them the same spiel as that  the kissed girls had give me. I would be lying to them too.

But it usually doesn’t. There always a moving forward toward a count of 3-2. Small numbers that seem reachable. And usually are.

But for now you are at bat. Deal with it.

When I preached, I tended to spit. I almost always got the first two rows easily. It was embarrassing. But even more embarrassing would be not to preach. I didn’t have any other skills, though my congregation was quick to point out that, with my oratory skills, I could go into radio broadcasting. But all I could imagine was a microphone slimed with saliva.

No, I told them. I’d better stick with preaching.

Oh, they groaned.

But to their credit, I did take their advice and visit a dentist to ask her if there was something that could be done about my spitting.
She told me to pray. And then she laughed at her own joke. She spit on me a little bit, while she was doing it.

With nothing to hand over, it seems the couple really only had themselves to hand over, but they had no idea who they were supposed to hand themselves over to. Possibly some authorities but even that they were unsure of. So they went to a supermarket nearby, which wasn’t really super but certainly more market than they’d need. And it gave them something to do until the authorities came. Whoever they were.

Are there any other kind?

Yay for me, for the inconsequential exercises, for the way I quiet my breathing when I meet my beloved while the spaghetti boils in the pot and the pasta sauce has simmered to near-perfection.

I don’t know whether to go or not. But I will at least stay for dinner.