The Pretty Pirate

It was the sixth grade championship. All seemed lost when we were down to our last out, even with Jimmy up. He bounced a double out into right field and then it was Keri McFarland's turn. Keri was the kind of girl who would rather be doing anything else but playing a competitive sport. The political correctness of boy-girl-boy-girl order in the kickball line up didn’t make her feel liberated, it just interfered with her ability to gossip about how cute the guys were when they got all red-faced, sweaty and heated up about such a silly sport as kickball.
The other team knew this, and the taunts came bouncing in. Faint at first, they just kept increasing in amplitude and anger. I heard Heath Pollard, that little shit, call her McFartland a couple of times and then call her Gobbler.
I cringed when I heard that.
No, check that, my blood started to boil. I wanted to kick Heath's ass. I was pretty small back then, compared to everyone else, but I was a scrapper, and I was mad as hell.
You see, anyone calling Keri “Gobbler” was my fault.
I came up with the name four years prior, when girls still seemed yucky and you wanted nothing to do with them.
Well, a lot of eight year old boys didn’t, anyway.
By that point though, I didn’t mind them.
There was this bunch of girls who prowled the grammar school playground known as The Kissers. The Kissers were a group of girls that would let the boys do all of their “boy stuff” for most of recess. They would wait for that moment when the teachers weren’t watching and swarm down on the group, each girl picking out a boy to kiss. Then they would each kiss him and run away.
If a boy saw them coming for us, he would just yell “KISSERS!” and everyone would run away.
Scattering like the rabbits from hawks, we would all fend for ourselves and each find our own escape hole. If you got picked off, it was just nature. The first couple of times it happened, Keri got me. I figured it was because I was right in the middle of stuff (revise for precise lang.) and couldn’t get away. Then I realized they hunted in packs and she was the Queen. They all funneled me back to her. They were like lionesses on the hunt.
I was a fast little guy and soon learned how to avoid the lioness.
That was, until I had a crush on this little brunette named Katie Gardner.
She wasn’t a Kisser when it first started, but she became one and I definitely took notice.
I would run away only to meet her behind the library so she could catch me.
It was a perfect plan until one day we were caught.
Just as Katie Gardner laid a kiss on me I heard some boy yell “Bobby Ferguson let himself be kissed! Bobby Ferguson let himself be kissed!” (Too long, not believable as a chant. Maybe “Bobby Ferguson wanted it!”?)
My first reaction was angry embarrassment and I started to run after that kid to kick his ass, but then I got a grip on myself. I reached back and grabbed Katie’s hand. We walked up to the line hand in hand, and everybody was OOOOOOHHHing and AAAHHHHHing at us.
It didn’t matter. We walked together with pride.
A few hours later, when we had been dismissed for the day, I left with the rest of the walkers that were going my way. It was a group of about 25 kids ranging from kindergarten to 6th grade.
Out of nowhere Keri came up to me and pushed me. She was much bigger than me in those days. Her shadow even weighed more than I did. I craned my neck and looked up into her green eyes flared wide with fury.
She was mad at me for kissing Katie.
I rose to my feet, dusted the dirt from the ass of my school pants and tried to shake off the embarrassment of being pushed down by a girl. She spread her yap scary-wide as she yelled at me, “Why did you kiss Katie?”
I just blurted out that she looked like a turkey and I hated her gobbler (or “You look like a turkey and I hate your gobbler!!!” for more impact). I flicked my index finger and it snapped against its intended target. The excess flesh spanning from her chin to her larynx rippled like stale Jell-O, sending shockwaves of humiliation surging through her body. The waves crashed in crimson against her skin and emblazoned her in burning red.
A couple of older kids busted out laughing and started making turkey sounds. Time froze for a moment when our two panicking glances collided and we held onto each other with a stare. The black of her pupil swelled open and pulled me in. I entered her mind and I tasted that all-too-familiar bitterness of ridicule. I withdrew in shame, peeling my eyes from her panicked glare.
I ran one way and she ran the other.
I cursed my mind and my tongue for being quicker than my better judgment. With every step, I replayed the incident in my mind, hoping that the ending would be different. It never changed. Curse words mingled almost audibly into every exhale and peppered my breathing with swears. I kept my head down, fixated on the sidewalk. The spaces between each block of concrete flickered by like the last of the celluloid as it passes through the projector.
My father remarried later that year and I moved to a different town, only to move back a year and a half later when he divorced. (What grade?)
Keri wasn’t a Kisser any more and I wasn’t a little kid. We became friends, but not the kind that everyone could notice. We both knew our reasons...
Everyone started screaming.
I snapped my focus back onto the game. I saw Keri running to first, as the red ball floated over the stubby arms of Heath. It was just a little dribbler, but she kicked it into a spot where nobody was. Now Keri was on first and Jimmy was on third.
I bent over, arching my head up so my chin was perpendicular to the asphalt, and focused in on the release. Faster than I could describe, my eyes picked up the red rotation of the ball as it skimmed down the black tar and sent the correct geometric calculation to my leg. I took two and a half steps and my right foot sent that rubber ball flying further than anyone on that playground had ever seen a ball kicked. The ball left the schoolyard entirely, clearing the wooden palisade fence of the yard bordering left field. I jogged around the spray-painted bases, smiling as everyone was still looking at where the ball went. I soaked up the triumph.
When I crossed home plate there were twenty-five kids and two teachers in the chaos. I pushed myself through it and found Keri.
She was with two of her friends and they all turned to look at me as I ran right up to her. She was unaffected by themoment.
I grabbed her hand.
“You’re not going to kiss me!” she said, laughing.
I echoed her laugh and pulled her closer with a hug.
I kissed her like I was Hollywood. I was old style black and white. I was the rogue with a giant heart, the pretty pirate that promised a life filled with passion.
I was Errol Flynn.
That moment, so simple and innocent, always seems to creep up on me when I least expect it. I shrug off the heavy here-and-now daydream into a smile.