the kiss of death
the other night i met my girl for an after work drink in midtown manhattan. we don't usually hang in that swanky party of town, so we just milled around until a door man directed us to an irish pub. this was not your average irish pub; it was a bit more for the theater crowd. so we were accommodatingly less affectionate so as to not offend. i was surreptitiously fondling her inner thigh when the woman next to us loudly belted, "so i guess i have the kiss of death." i laughed rather loudly and turned to face the woman full out.
gwen was an older woman with decades of smoke in her lungs and at least as much in the lines of her face. she was irish in the way that women can be loud and powerful, but not more than her man.
she told us the story. bill was a regular at the pub; a regular in that he came in regularly...on thursdays, not a regular in that gwen, a true regular, knew nothing about him.
bill was an older gentleman. he sat at the end of the bar. he drank straight whiskey.
gwen had been seeing bill at the bar for years. they would talk about the weather, about gwen's work, about her husband (often at the other end of the bar).
two days before christmas, gwen saw bill come in. he came to his spot at the bar and sat. he looked distant; something was on his mind. gwen, being the natural listener, sensed his need and asked him what was wrong. bill told her that night more than he had said in the years they had known each other. he told her his mother had just died. and that she was all the family he had left.
they hugged. she consoled him as much as he would let her, which was in that almost stranger, awkward, hands on back but don't move them way. she told him that she and her husband wanted to go to the service, to be there for him. he agreed that he would come in later in the week and tell them about the service, so they could be there...for him.
later that week, thursday, gwen was just asking the bartender if he knew about the service when bill walked in. she could tell that he had made his rounds of the irish pubs in the theater district. he'd had his drink, and she could see it on him. she asked him about the service. he smiled, meekly. the service would that saturday. this is when she gave him a big kiss on the mouth. "like a kiss kiss?" I ask, not looking for gossipy details of course, but just aiming to clarify. "no, not like. . . , but you know a nice big kiss."
she went out for a cigarette and when she came back bill was off to the next irish pub. gwen said that was his way, one drink in each bar. i suppose that is how he was able to be recognized by everyone, but known by no one.
Gwen came in the next day to ask the bartender the details of the service. he told her that bill had made it to another bar or two that night before he dropped dead, straight whiskey in hand.
bill's mother died on sunday. bill died on thursday.
"so you were the last person to kiss him?"
"well, i don't know about that. he may have kissed someone else at another bar before. . ."
gwen trailed off.
whether or not gwen was the last person bill kissed before he died, the word at the bar is that gwen has the kiss of death. and everyone laughed.
i laughed.
two days later i got a message on my voicemail from tiffany, an old high school friend who i see about once a year, though she lives on the upper east side. she is married. she and her husband own a real estate business together. and so i see her once a year.
regardless, in the annual call to say merry christmas she says that she is in our home town in northern california and has seen some of the old gang. she catches me up on a couple of juicy tidbits and then she gets to the juiciest.
"i don't know if you remember him. he was in your grade. he was real into photography. his name was peter."
his name was peter. i knew before she said his name that it was peter schmidt, and i remember him clearly. he was beautiful and so incredibly talented. my senior year i took photo just to be close to him. to try to get his attention.
it took all year, but at our safe and sober grad party peter finally touched me. we had a torrid affair, which at that time meant that we snuck away in my mom's or his mom's car as many nights as we could snag one. we would make out all night. he left his mark all over my virgin neck. it lasted about a month before he was offered an amazing position at a computer company in san fransisco. he was brilliant too. did i mention that? the story going around town was that he would be making 6 figures before the rest of us made it through college.
he came back at christmas and called me up. i was living with another boy by this time and couldn't see him. i never heard from him again.
my ten year reunion came up a few years ago and i checked daily to see who was rsvping. there was only about 3 people i wanted to see. amanda was in australia and couldn't make it back. sarah would be there. and peter, well i learned not long before the reunion that peter wouldn't be able to make it as he was driving tanks in iraq.
i almost didn't believe my source. we grew up in green party country where marijuana is god and the republicans are the devil. we had all attended at least one anti war protest as a requisite for graduation from arcata high. but the story was too incredible to not believe.
something had happened to peter after he left arcata that summer after we graduated. he had apparently become conservative, conservative enough to 'fight for our country,' a line that we had all cringed at growing up, a line the republicans say to brain wash weak minded kids to do their dirty work. peter was not weak minded, not when i knew him. nobody had an explanation for why he was there.
i decided not to go to the reunion. i mused that i would go to the 15 year and give peter a hard time for turning coats.
"a road side bomb went off and he died."
guess i'll never be able to give him a hard time.
in high school peter and i had few one degree connections. he dated sarah for a while. so that was not a good path to get to him. but he was good friends with eli. eli was the uber cool and dangerously smart guy who sat in the back of the class. half the teachers loved him because of his thirst for true knowledge. half of them hated him for it. i remember him sitting in the back of physics reading mao while i slept off the night before.
i drove eli to school. we both lived in a smaller town north of arcata. we listened to pearl jam and waxed political about a world that he understood far more than i did. or at least i thought he did.
eli and i ended up running into each other again about a year after we left high school in a psychology class in college. he was just as cool in college as he was in high school. we took a couple more classes together. we would meet up before class or after class, or sometimes we would cut out in the middle, and go to elis place and smoke weed. i really enjoyed his company, and my latent high school crush was sparked. granted i was living with my boyfriend at the time, so i didnt pursue anything. except one day we had left the psychology of critical thinking a teensy bit early, got some hot dragon noodles and some booze. we curled up on my couch (mine and my boyfriend's) listening to music, drinking and laughing. he turned towards me with his whole body. i could feel him gazing at my profile. he let his finger fondle my ear lobe. i didnt move.
he kissed me, and i let him for a minute too long.
i only saw him one more time. another year had passed and i had left my boyfriend, and twenty pounds with him. i was pulling out of the campus parking lot after dance class, wearing a leotard. i almost hit eli as he crossed in front of me. i gave him a ride home. and i flirted.
several years ago, when i was back home for christmas, i was with tiffany at one of the four local bars in arcata. we ran into someone she used to know and followed him out of the bar towards a party he knew about. he still lived in arcata and was catching us up. we walked by the house with the front proch that eli and i used to get high on. the guy referenced it as the house where that guy who was the son so and so who owns that restaurant OD'd and died. it took me a few verifications of degree of separation before i would believe that it was eli. but it was. he died.
eli and peter were not only the coolest guys in high school (at least to me), they were also the only two guys at arcata high that i kissed. and they both are dead.
maybe gwen isnt the only one with the kiss of death.
gwen was an older woman with decades of smoke in her lungs and at least as much in the lines of her face. she was irish in the way that women can be loud and powerful, but not more than her man.
she told us the story. bill was a regular at the pub; a regular in that he came in regularly...on thursdays, not a regular in that gwen, a true regular, knew nothing about him.
bill was an older gentleman. he sat at the end of the bar. he drank straight whiskey.
gwen had been seeing bill at the bar for years. they would talk about the weather, about gwen's work, about her husband (often at the other end of the bar).
two days before christmas, gwen saw bill come in. he came to his spot at the bar and sat. he looked distant; something was on his mind. gwen, being the natural listener, sensed his need and asked him what was wrong. bill told her that night more than he had said in the years they had known each other. he told her his mother had just died. and that she was all the family he had left.
they hugged. she consoled him as much as he would let her, which was in that almost stranger, awkward, hands on back but don't move them way. she told him that she and her husband wanted to go to the service, to be there for him. he agreed that he would come in later in the week and tell them about the service, so they could be there...for him.
later that week, thursday, gwen was just asking the bartender if he knew about the service when bill walked in. she could tell that he had made his rounds of the irish pubs in the theater district. he'd had his drink, and she could see it on him. she asked him about the service. he smiled, meekly. the service would that saturday. this is when she gave him a big kiss on the mouth. "like a kiss kiss?" I ask, not looking for gossipy details of course, but just aiming to clarify. "no, not like. . . , but you know a nice big kiss."
she went out for a cigarette and when she came back bill was off to the next irish pub. gwen said that was his way, one drink in each bar. i suppose that is how he was able to be recognized by everyone, but known by no one.
Gwen came in the next day to ask the bartender the details of the service. he told her that bill had made it to another bar or two that night before he dropped dead, straight whiskey in hand.
bill's mother died on sunday. bill died on thursday.
"so you were the last person to kiss him?"
"well, i don't know about that. he may have kissed someone else at another bar before. . ."
gwen trailed off.
whether or not gwen was the last person bill kissed before he died, the word at the bar is that gwen has the kiss of death. and everyone laughed.
i laughed.
two days later i got a message on my voicemail from tiffany, an old high school friend who i see about once a year, though she lives on the upper east side. she is married. she and her husband own a real estate business together. and so i see her once a year.
regardless, in the annual call to say merry christmas she says that she is in our home town in northern california and has seen some of the old gang. she catches me up on a couple of juicy tidbits and then she gets to the juiciest.
"i don't know if you remember him. he was in your grade. he was real into photography. his name was peter."
his name was peter. i knew before she said his name that it was peter schmidt, and i remember him clearly. he was beautiful and so incredibly talented. my senior year i took photo just to be close to him. to try to get his attention.
it took all year, but at our safe and sober grad party peter finally touched me. we had a torrid affair, which at that time meant that we snuck away in my mom's or his mom's car as many nights as we could snag one. we would make out all night. he left his mark all over my virgin neck. it lasted about a month before he was offered an amazing position at a computer company in san fransisco. he was brilliant too. did i mention that? the story going around town was that he would be making 6 figures before the rest of us made it through college.
he came back at christmas and called me up. i was living with another boy by this time and couldn't see him. i never heard from him again.
my ten year reunion came up a few years ago and i checked daily to see who was rsvping. there was only about 3 people i wanted to see. amanda was in australia and couldn't make it back. sarah would be there. and peter, well i learned not long before the reunion that peter wouldn't be able to make it as he was driving tanks in iraq.
i almost didn't believe my source. we grew up in green party country where marijuana is god and the republicans are the devil. we had all attended at least one anti war protest as a requisite for graduation from arcata high. but the story was too incredible to not believe.
something had happened to peter after he left arcata that summer after we graduated. he had apparently become conservative, conservative enough to 'fight for our country,' a line that we had all cringed at growing up, a line the republicans say to brain wash weak minded kids to do their dirty work. peter was not weak minded, not when i knew him. nobody had an explanation for why he was there.
i decided not to go to the reunion. i mused that i would go to the 15 year and give peter a hard time for turning coats.
"a road side bomb went off and he died."
guess i'll never be able to give him a hard time.
in high school peter and i had few one degree connections. he dated sarah for a while. so that was not a good path to get to him. but he was good friends with eli. eli was the uber cool and dangerously smart guy who sat in the back of the class. half the teachers loved him because of his thirst for true knowledge. half of them hated him for it. i remember him sitting in the back of physics reading mao while i slept off the night before.
i drove eli to school. we both lived in a smaller town north of arcata. we listened to pearl jam and waxed political about a world that he understood far more than i did. or at least i thought he did.
eli and i ended up running into each other again about a year after we left high school in a psychology class in college. he was just as cool in college as he was in high school. we took a couple more classes together. we would meet up before class or after class, or sometimes we would cut out in the middle, and go to elis place and smoke weed. i really enjoyed his company, and my latent high school crush was sparked. granted i was living with my boyfriend at the time, so i didnt pursue anything. except one day we had left the psychology of critical thinking a teensy bit early, got some hot dragon noodles and some booze. we curled up on my couch (mine and my boyfriend's) listening to music, drinking and laughing. he turned towards me with his whole body. i could feel him gazing at my profile. he let his finger fondle my ear lobe. i didnt move.
he kissed me, and i let him for a minute too long.
i only saw him one more time. another year had passed and i had left my boyfriend, and twenty pounds with him. i was pulling out of the campus parking lot after dance class, wearing a leotard. i almost hit eli as he crossed in front of me. i gave him a ride home. and i flirted.
several years ago, when i was back home for christmas, i was with tiffany at one of the four local bars in arcata. we ran into someone she used to know and followed him out of the bar towards a party he knew about. he still lived in arcata and was catching us up. we walked by the house with the front proch that eli and i used to get high on. the guy referenced it as the house where that guy who was the son so and so who owns that restaurant OD'd and died. it took me a few verifications of degree of separation before i would believe that it was eli. but it was. he died.
eli and peter were not only the coolest guys in high school (at least to me), they were also the only two guys at arcata high that i kissed. and they both are dead.
maybe gwen isnt the only one with the kiss of death.
posted by Solador at 1:57 PM
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