First Love

Teddy Roosevelt on horse not disimilar from one ridden at Ann Marie’s 13th birday party.

My first kiss was with a redneck, non-catholic girl named Ann-Marie who lived in a ramshackled old farm house off of Wake Forest Highway between my house and my grandmother’s if you went the long way. It was her birthday, and although she was turning 13 and I was only 11, we were in the same grade together at Oak Grove Elementary School.

She was the biggest fan then, and probably forever, that the artist (formerly?) known as Prince ever had. It was because of her that I bought the Purple Rain album, the first time. And because of her that I searched out, in the dictionaires that came with the World Book Encyclopedia, the precise definition of ‘masturbation’ after listening to and reading the lyrics in the liner notes of Darlin Nikki. It was all downhill from there. It was also because of her that I bought the heinous purple sheen bookbag that plagued me for the better part of my 5th and 6th grade years.

Ann-Marie was turning 13, the virtual land of plenty – teenage-hood. I wasn’t sure whether she had sprouted hairs on her pubis, but I knew from the picture that she had clandestinely slid me after PE one day that indeed she was sprouting things on parts higher up her abdomen.

POISON: The Band

I was invited to the party along with a handful of girls with claw bangs for hair, and unnatural fascinations with the band Poison. I suspected that I may very well be the only boy at the party short of Ann-Marie’s father, and for a time after arriving late (as was my father’s policy), I was correct in that assumption. For the first twenty minutes or so after my arrival, we waded to the awkwardness of parties for prepubescents. Then I was propositioned by the gaggle of 8 or 9 girls for me to allow them to dress me up in some of Ann-Marie’s clothes, to which after a couple of minutes of hemming and hawing, I obliged. I didn’t know what I was getting into. The masquerade did not end with the gasoline jeans and girlie western shirt with puppies on the shoulders, it also invloved full facial make up and wads of toilet paper placed inside the shirt as faux breasts. Then Chip walked in.

Chip was Ann-Marie’s cousin that apparently kind of lived with her family when her aunt’s husband went on a bender that could not be dealt with by ordinary logic and she felt the need to get herself and Chip out of the house. Chip was a year older than me and a year younger than Ann-Marie and was already well into the process of adopting what we politely called ‘good old boy’ ways. Upon his arrival at the party, I quickly rushed to the bathroom with my boy clothes tucked under my arm and dressed as quickly as possible, performing a cursory wash of the make up off of my face. I came out, looking, I imagine, like a semi-pro drag queen after an all night show. Chip didn’t seem to suspect anything and we ran through the pumpkin patch in the backyard crushing the past due ones with our sneakers in a way that obly boys do such things.

After the usual party cake, coke and ice cream, the party moved to the screened back porch which would soon be the scene of the ‘incident’. There was the usual awkward joke telling, grabassing, and the occasional busted move. Ann-Marie’s mom had pulled a busted stereo speaker out on the porch and Purple Rain was on the turntable. We even got to listen Darlin Nikki at top volume without a single comment from the adults milling around.

Ann-Marie’s father who I had not noticed was not present at the party, came home in his late model Ford pickup from Kmart where he apparently had acquired a brand new Stihl chainsaw, which he put to work immediately cutting down trees in the dark in the woods off the backyard, for no apparent reason other than he had a new chainsaw. We heard the crack of the trees and then the fall. This happened several times and then the silent old man of 30 years or so lumbered into the house and was never seen again that night.

Although they were poor, Ann-Marie’s family managed to keep a horse for her, which was the only thing that she loved more than Prince. We went out to the little lot where the horse was kept and everyone except me took turns riding the horse completely unsupervised. I was too frightened to ride as animals that large tended to frighten me at the time. Ann-Marie convinced me to ride it with her, and we took a 2 lap trip around the 100 foot square lot. I think of it sometimes now, and how I have heard the stories of girls having their first orgasms on horses, and this is the only thing that can account for the seeminly unnatural fascination that Ann-Marie and all of the other girls at the party had with the horse. We retired to the porch and to a clock that said the party would be ending in a half hour.

Just as my father had a policy of delivering my brother and I late to parties, he also had a policy of coming to retrieve us early so that we would not ‘wear out or welcome”. I knew he would be there soon and so Ann-Marie and I sat beside each other for the remainder of my time in that magical place on a porch swing, and goofily held hands and listened to noone else, not even really speaking to each other.

Then the unmistakable horn on the 1975 Ford LTD bellowed out and around to the back of the house, and in a Pavlovian fashion I sprang to my feet, running out the screen door and down the steps and half way up the drive and into dad’s headlights, when I heard her, Ann-Marie, call out, “Bryan, can you come back for a minute.” I yelled to Dad to wait for a minute, and returned to the porch where without a word Ann-Marie stood from the swing and put her lips to mine, her tongue in my mouth, her arms around my neck and I blacked out. My hands fluttered like whirlibirds at my side and everyone laughed, but she didn’t seem to care, instead she kept up with the beautiful assault, and I lost several minutes of my life. Then there was the horn again and my conditioned response. This time she didn’t call me back. I yelled up as I ran out that I would see her on Monday and then I was off to home with Dad.

The party would go on after that, all the girls were staying over. I am sure there were frozen training bras, and lots of cola, finishing up of cake and ice cream. I am sure the kiss came up too, as several of the girls would not even talk to me at school the next few weeks. Ann-Marie did, as if nothing had gone down, as if we had never kissed in the first place, but we had. It was my first, and we never did it again.