French
Kissing Freddy Emerson
Dad
drives like a maniac. Ma hates it. I don’t mind it so much, all the rolling
around in the back of the station wagon with pillows and blankets is actually
pretty fun. I do sometimes get a little sick to my stomach when he takes the
hills too fast. There are times it feels like there’s an old elevator falling
from the top floor of a really tall building at warp speed in my belly. Once after
an especially steep knoll I threw up a whole
package of Fun Dip all over a brand new Archie comic we bought at the grocery
store with our road trip snacks. Ma was pretty peeved but more at Dad who made
me barf in the first place. He just laughed his fool head off. Hey, I’m only a
ten year old girl I can’t control what he does even when I tell him he’s not
the boss of me even though he is and
then Ma doesn’t like it when I tell her to get control of her man but he gets a
real kick out of it. He drives like a freak on purpose just to get on her last
nerve. On any given run to the store or road trip her head explodes from the
twisty turns and sudden stops. She’s forever calling him Larry-Lead-Foot and a few other things I’m not allowed to repeat while
her knuckles turn snow white gripping the dash. The last time he herky jerked
the breaks Ma’s forehead smashed into her sun visor that flopped down. She
punched him so hard in the forearm. I
thought he was going to flip his lid or go off the road for real but he just
rubbed the spot where her nubs landed and joked, “Punch buggy, no return?” He loves her so much, maybe even more than
me. I don’t care because I’d rather them be lovey smoochy than be like my best
friend Margie’s parents, always bellaring and hollering and calling each other God
awful names. Don’t tell anyone but I don’t even know what some of them mean. For example, the last sleep over
at her house, her mother said right at the breakfast table that her husband was
a cocksucker. What the inferno is that? Candy shaped like a rooster? A
chicken flavored lollipop? I wanted to ask someone so bad but was too nervous.
Like, what if I should know that it means at my age and I don’t? Just like when
I thought French kissing was two French
people sucking face but then Benny Briggs demonstrated on the back of his hand
what it actually was. So disgusting. I’ll
never live down the fact that I didn’t know what tongue kissing was so forget
even asking what a cocksucker is.
So,
me and Ma and Dad just got back from a weekend in Pugwash. They failed to mention
they were going to a funeral and that I’d be staying with Fiery Toots, Dad’s
older sister and my Amma Louise. We call her Fiery Toots behind her back because
she has something called an irritable bowl and it causes her to breaks wind
twenty four seven that is so rank it would
send Satan back to Hell. I protested the whole time we were packing up the
Buick that I’d rather pull my fingernails off one at a time with rusty pliers
than stay there without them for two whole days. I tried everything, I faked
a stomach ache, stomped my high-tops, threatened to lock myself in the attic, and
even swore to run away and never come back. Nothing got their goat. I had no
choice but to climb in the wagon with my book bag full of Archie comics,
cassette tapes, my Sony Walkman, and a stash of penny candy Dad bribed me with,
“Sour lips for my sour puss?” I grabbed the bag reluctantly and took a
chance, “Cocksucker.” And, that’s when I discovered the word had nothing to do with candy of any kind. Dad snatched the sour lips
back after slapping mine.
Amma
Louise was on the front porch waving like a crazy person when we pulled into
her driveway after two swervy hours on the road. I imagined she was farting up a
blue streak while flailing her meaty arms all around like a demented windmill.
Dad shunted me up the front stairs, his quick shove made me plummet straight
into her ginormous dupes for a bone crushing hug, “Oh my God, let me look at you, Annie-Poo. When did you get so tall!?
Who said you were allowed to grow!? I got the room all set up for you. You even
get your own bathroom all to yourself this time now that cousin Marty is up in
Halifax.” This was most excellent
news since Amma Louise’s bedroom is on the third
floor and cousin Marty’s room is the in the basement.
I retreated to my room at record speed, threw my bag on the double bed and peed. My first order of
business was ripping down the naked girl calendar on the wall in front of the
toilet. It took me a minute to realize her vagina was showing because she
looked like a smooth caramel. I wondered if maybe she was sick because there
was no hair on it. It freaked me out so I shoved it behind the clothes hamper
so I wouldn’t have to wonder about her. When cousin Marty joined the Navy he
left his stereo system behind with all of his records. I got busy standing in
front of a floor length mirror belting out the words to every Dr. Hook song
into the end of my hairbrush. Amma Louise tired of that quickly. I knew I was
in for it when she pounded her hefty heel on the floor overhead and wailed, “Plug the GD headphones into that thing would
you!” I did as I was told until I got tangled up in the long cord from
vigorous dancing and accidentally jerked it out of the stereo. Since I had
headphones on I turned the volume up sky high so when the plug popped out of
the socket AC/DC literally shook the foundation of the house all night long.
Amma Louise blew a gasket. She flew up out of her arm chair and swiftly booted
my arse outdoors, “Stay where I can see
you, young lady. And, keep your nose clean, you hear me?”
Amma
Louise lives between a small stretch of beach and a farm. That’s the one thing
I do like about going there because I can hunt for cool rocks and beach glass plus
if the Emerson’s are around they let me play in the barn and sometimes even ride
the horses. I waded in the water for a little while trying not to step on the
gazillion jellyfish that lined the shore. I poked a few with a stick but I was
afraid they might fly up and suck my face off so I happily abandoned the ocean
for the pasture. Freddy Emerson, the youngest boy next door, two years older
than me, was messing around in the barn. He invited me through the fence to hang
around, “You ever milk a cow before?”
I told him I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that and then he dared me so I did.
It wasn’t so bad once he showed me how to do it right. My first tug on the
udder was an epic fail because I squirted myself right in the face. Freddy
roared. “Frig you, snot burger! I’m out of here.” I got up from the
little stool to race off and my bare foot came down in a baking heap of cow bleep,
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He doubled over
laughing and I know my face was red as a beet from embarrassment. I was so mad
at myself for doing that in front of him I wanted to die. But, Freddy helped me
back to the stool and washed my foot off with warm water and an old towel he
found nearby. With my putrid dung-stained toes in his hand he smirked at me and
it made tingle in the same place that girl on the calendar had no hair. “You’re pretty cute, you know that?” I blushed
and looked everywhere except at his stupid face, “Am not.” Could I have been
any lamer?! “You are twelve ...,” he
started to ask but I cut him off to tell a lie, “Uh huh. Yup, I’m twelve. That’s right. So?” Freddy chuckled, “So, you ever kiss anyone?” I started to
sweat, “Have you?!” He wasn’t having
it, “I asked you first.” I nodded
yes, “I kiss tons.” Freddy put my
foot down and inched closer to my face and in that moment I had the worst cramps
in the pit of my stomach, “Kiss me then,
with your tongue.” Oh, not the tongue kissing thing again I thought. I took
a deep breath, “Fine.” Freddy put his
face really close to mine and I could smell the mint of the chicklets he had
been chewing earlier. I closed my eyes and prayed I didn’t shit in my shorts. Nothing
good came of it. Keep in mind that my only reference to tongue kissing was
Benny Briggs licking all over the freckled back of his plump hand. So, when
Freddy leaned in to plant one on me I flattened my tongue against the softness
of his lips, basically took a messy lick and hoped for the best. He winced on
contact from the wet of my tongue and cracked up laughing. I was afraid to open
my eyes. At the exact same time I slobbered all over his face, Amma Louise appeared
in the barn door with a carton of fresh eggs in her hand from the Emerson’s coop, “Annie Cameron Landry! What on God’s green
earth are you doing?! If your father could see you! Get out of that barn right
NOW!” I was in deep trouble if Amma used all three of my names. Freddy
disappeared like a bat out of hell and I got my ass kicked all the way back to
the basement, banished to the
basement for the rest of the night, “And
NO stereo, do you hear me, young lady!? I mean business.” I laid there in
the dark thinking about the day, the long ride to Pugwash, my marathon music
fest, prodding jellyfish, exploiting a cow, and my first kiss. I mean I think it was my first kiss. I’d ask Ma
but she’d probably tan my hide. Dad would for sure because he is always telling
me that I’m too young to like boys or be worried about things like that. Things
like what I’ve always wanted to ask but I keep my mouth shut. I should have kept my mouth shut today. I bet the naked sick woman on the
calendar would know if it was really a kiss. There’s something about her that tells
me she would.
When
we got home I went to the arcade with Margie to hang around. After two days in
the sticks I was dying to play Pac Man. Unfortunately Benny Briggs was there
too and overheard me telling Margie that I was French kissing Freddy Emerson
all weekend. He started mauling his hand with his mouth, calling me Annie-All-Night. Everyone busted a gut.
I rolled my eyes and tried to hide my humiliation, “Cocksucker.” That time I got it right.
/the end
