Childhood Map: First Kiss

CHILDHOOD MAP: First Real Kiss


(An older woman reminisces aboout a first love to audience. Black stage, the woman is at a card table playing solitaire. Spotlight. Faint traces of mountains painted behind her in the darkness. Dawn is slowly breaking. Dogs barking in the distance.)

What I remember most was the way Billy Joe smelled. Not so much the kiss. Or the way he looked, mind you. But a good whiff of Brut aftershave takes me back to that night. It was so odd the way he called me up on the telephone out of the blue—we just had a phone put in a few months back so the novelty of getting a call hadn’t yet worn off. It wasn’t the courting tool it is now. (She gathers up the cards, reshuffels, and deals.) Damned cards. Seems I can’t get enough of them. Sill use real ones. No virtual solitaire for me.

I used to love listening in on the neighbors. I could recognize Old Man Latinfdorf’s thick accent, and Mrs. Decker’s nauseating voice. They lived at the end of the road, neighbors, but they didn’t ever speak to each other. She was a spinster, you know. Worked for Guide Dogs for the Blind. I guess Lorna was a reject. Those damned German Shepherds barked their heads off the minute a bird flew overhead or if you stepped outside to fart. You could even hear their barking echo down the stovepipe when you built a fire in the mornings—this was pre- fancy wood stove days—someone made it out of boiler parts. We didn’t have any interior heating. I grew up between eras it seems.

Saturday mornings Mrs. Decker’d be cooing—Looorna, good doggie Looooorrrrnaa —in this voice that would cut through sleep like a rusty sword. I used to fantasize about shooting her damned dogs. One summer I worked in Switzerland, I was so homesick, that when I awake to barking dogs, I thought I was home. I was so lonely even Lorna sounded good to me.

Old Man Latindorf, he was German Counsel. During the war, Grandpa was acting Counsel. Latindorf must’ve hid out in the hills. There was a lot of vigilantism in those days. Once I found a buried knife when I fell in the scree below the Big Rock—it had an enamel Nazi insignia on it. I showed it to some guy who said I couldn’t have it but he kept it for himself. Why do guys always think they have inherent rights when it comes to guns and knives anyway? I don’t know why I didn’t fight back. I was young, I didn’t understand but I knew there was some secret shame coming from that knife. Do intimate objects carry karma? I don’t know but my math teacher Archie Williams, he let us hold his gold Olympic medal that Hitler gave him. He shook his hand too. Hell, we were so naive, we hardly even knew who Hitler was. But I swear the weight of that medal outweighed the gold.

Where was I? Billy Joe. His mama—her name was Bobbie Joe—it seems they had a real fondness for Joes in that family. Maybe johns would’ve been more appropriate. Bobbie Joe, she was from Tennessee, or some place like that. Came west to escape the stigmata of the Blue Ridge mountains, but Joe Senior, he couldn’t hold her. Just long enough to breed the kids, Billy Joe & Cottie—I used to call her Cottie Joe, and then their mama was off to god knows where with Cottie, my best friend, in tow. I was heartbroken. We used to play solitaire, hearts, crazy eights till dawn whenever I slept over. Later it was strip-poker. I guess we had our own Appalachia festering right here in West Marin. But she had bigger plans and skedaddled.

I remember the way Bobbie Joe drew on her eyebrows like she was always surprised. With her Betty Boop lips she was the Queen of hearts. Everyone was mesmerized when she wore those cowgirl shirts with the fringe —even the weaner calves were lovesick. My mind keeps wandering. Where was I? Just look at that dawn breaking. I never can get enough of it.

Billy Joe, he said to me on the phone he wanted me to come on down to his house but to come in the back door. As far as I knew there wasn’t any back door. I knew it wasn’t right. But I went on down the road like a sheep to the pen. Fog was rolling in over Mt. Barnabee—Barnabee was Samuel Taylor’s pet white mule. Buried near Devil’s Gulch, he was. Why call a jackass Barnabee anyway? Maybe Barrabas.

They say a first kiss is supposed to be charmed. You know, remember it forever. But I nearly got more than what I bargained for. I was so scared, all I could think of was how to .... Aha! Won the game. Finally. You know the real cause of carpal tunnel syndrome? Electronic Solitaire. All them mouse clicks on Jokers and one-eyed jacks. Not word-processing. Billy Joe was a real jock, Course cheating’s a problem with real cards. My neighbor Agnes loved the cards—used to cheat on Lucien when he was at sea. But then she was the type to play solitaire till dawn with a deck of 51 and a bottle of Bourbon. But he gave her diseases, cancer got her. Uterus turned black.

The door to Billy Joe’s room was on the 2nd floor. Those old farm houses with their narrow halls were firetraps. Billy Joe lowered a ladder down and hoisted me up. Fog made my hair curly. Like an angel he said as he touched it, and drew me in. And closed the door. Cat and mouse or cat and dog—more like it. I was treed and I sure wasn’t going to make it out the front of the house without getting noticed. His granny and mine were friends. I was too ashamed to call out for help.

I remember how my jaw ached from his kisses—the stubble cut my face like knives. He was wearin’ these gray sweats—this was before the days of elastic. One thin drawstring between me and...it was poking out like a tent. I couldn’t stand the tension. Why is it men always think if they get you off alone, they have the right to take advantage? He was like that dog barking, barking, barking. If only he didn’t rush it, things might have been different instead of living in this hole of a room playing solitaire with ghosts. Or I suppose I might have wound up like Bobbie Joe always looking beyond the next ridge. You know, sometimes when I’m playing a good hand I get a faint whiff of Brute, as if some man was stirring in the next room.


MFA Playwriting
Brighde Mullins
Feb. 22, 2002