MY FIRST KISS DIED

I was thirteen. He was two years older. I was blessed with clear skin; he on the other hand sprouted a different pimple assortment on any given day. You never knew where they’d pop up. Tip of his nose, bottom of his chin, a whopping weeping third eye in the middle of his forehead.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t one to pick or care. And no one in our street dared to point out the latest rising constellation on his face. He was the leader see, the Fonz of Happy Days, Tony, from West Side Story, Danny from Grease; he was the one.

Twenty two children lived in Andrew Street. Our ages varied but at least half of us were in our teens, spread over forty or so houses. I lived at one end. His house hugged the corner of a cross-street further in, sitting high on the block.

A few of us got into the habit of walking home from school, down along High Street, stopping only once, outside the chocolate factory; taking big open-mouthed breaths to savour the delicious smell.

He came along some days, walking slightly ahead, thin shoulders back, a swagger in his step which the younger boys tried to copy.

He asked if I wanted to come in one afternoon, both of us standing painfully awkward outside his gate. I said yes. He had a brother and three sisters and was the middle child. Somehow, he had his own room and his own small black and white TV, which impressed me no end because I still shared a room with my younger brother. We had one TV and it sat in the kitchen.

He kissed me. I felt the fuzz of hair on his upper lip, maybe a pimple or two near his mouth. It was a good kiss. It was my first kiss. He smelled of unwashed clothes, boy-sweat and chocolate from our earlier stop outside the factory.

We kissed many times since. At each other’s weddings, celebrating birthdays, other milestones; welcoming several children between us. Different kisses those. The pimples and the fuzz long gone, but the friendship between us enduring.

Forty years after that first kiss, I stood at his coffin. He wore a black suit, a black shirt and a bright red tie. His dead lips had been botched up, stretched and sewn too tight, giving him a Joker look.

I leaned in and kissed them anyway. They were cold, stiff. I’d never kissed dead lips before. He smelled of unwashed clothes, boy-sweat and chocolate.

They say the mind never forgets a smell. It doesn’t.