The Kiss
Elton Chase was taking his evening walk in the park and was
halfway around the loop when a woman's lyrical voice halted him in front of the
bench on which she was sitting.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you remember rock and roll?"
asked the elderly woman who sat alone. "And Elvis Presley?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, and smiled wistfully.
"Don't we all remember Elvis?"
"Remember all the protest our parents made over him?
They said he was destroying the youth. And his music was sinful and
evil."
The poor lady is a bit addled, Elton thought. His
mother had been like that in the months before she died. He was surprised and grateful that he still
had all of his faculties. He was, after
all, eighty-one years old.
"Oh, I'm sorry for imposing on you, sir. It must be
very annoying to have a perfect stranger get on your ear uninvited. But
I'm old you see, and the only friends that I usually would talk to are already
in their graves. Sometimes I even talk just to myself."
"I'm old too," Elton said, "and I often talk to
myself."
He took the liberty of sitting next to her on the bench, and got a
better look at the woman. And after a startling instant of sudden
recognition, he proclaimed, "My gosh,
imagine this! Why I know you.
You're Dorothy Craig. And do you know that I've thought of you almost
every day of my life for the last sixty years?"
A
brief look of fear crossed the woman's pretty face, but fear quickly turned to
curiosity, and then to recognition. "Oh, my. Can this be
true? Elton Chase? After all these years. And I can still see
the boy in you."
"I
think not. It's been a very long time since I've been a boy."
"Oh,
it has, hasn't it? It's been a long time for everything. Imagine us
meeting like this in our old age. Such a coincidence."
"Maybe
not such," he said. "I walk here in the park every night.
I live right across the street in the Rosedale Seniors House."
"Why
so do I. For a month I've lived there."
They
both looked across the park at the four-story red-brick building on the other
side of the avenue.
"Then
it's not such a coincidence, is it?" Elton said. "I took an
apartment there because I thought it would be some kind of comfort to live in a
building that had once been our high school. Is that maybe why you live
there?"
"Not
exactly," Dorothy smiled at him affectionately. "It was
my daughter Margaret's doing," she explained. "I was living
with her until she started her second marriage. Her first marriage had
ended very badly, and I did not want to be an impediment her second time
around. Margaret knew that Rosedale High School had been converted to
apartments for seniors, and she thought I would like the idea. And I do."
"Well
I'm very glad you're here. It's a joy to see you again."
"And
you too, Elton."
"Dorothy,
do you remember that party at Betsy MacFarlane's house? We were just
kids. And we played that silly game."
"Oh,
yes, I certainly remember that. It was called 'We Dare You'.
"Right.
And the other kids voted that you and I should do a joint dare. I was
ordered to kiss you in front of all of them. Remember?"
Dorothy
nodded.
"Well,
it may seem bizarre, but I think about that challenge just about every
day. And I regret very much that I did not kiss you when I had the
chance. Everything might have turned out differently if I had."
"But
you did kiss me, Elton."
"That
was no kiss. That was just a quick peck on the cheek. I mean I
should have really kissed you. Like a man kisses a woman."
"Elton,
we were only sixteen."
"We
were old enough."
"Perhaps."
"I
didn't dare kiss you. Because I was afraid you might resist me, or even
scream."
"Now
you know that wasn't the reason," she replied gently. "It was
just that you were too shy. And I certainly wouldn't have gotten
upset. Actually I was disappointed that you didn't kiss me like a man
kisses a woman. It would have been my first time too."
"If
I had only known that," he lamented.
"Kiss
me now, Elton. Kiss me like a man kisses a woman."
What?
Why that would be so ridiculous. I'm an old man and she's an old woman.
And
yet! He suddenly felt those long-inactive juices tingling in his body.
"Close
your eyes," Dorothy said. "Please. Just for a
moment."
Elton
closed his eyes.
"Now
open them, dear Elton. And you will see me as the girl I once was, just
as I now see you as the handsome boy you were."
Elton
opened his eyes and gazed at the beautiful teenager girl with long sandy hair
and the wonderful brown eyes that could pull a guy's heart out of his chest.
"Kiss
me now, Elton. Kiss me like a man kisses a woman."
The
jogger arrived at dawn, just as the light of day was seeping into the park. He had only begun
his trot along the rotary pavement when he saw the couple on a bench far down
the path. They appeared to be locked in a passionate embrace.
When
the jogger reached the bench, he gasped at its occupants, and immediately
pulled out his cell phone.
The
police arrived quickly.
"I
don't understand it," the sergeant said to the other officer. "This
boy can't be more than seventeen. And the girl about the same. For a
couple of kids to die just like that. And no signs of violence. And
look at the way they're dressed. The boy's wearing mouse-trap shoes for
god's sake."
"Well,
what do you think of this, sergeant?" The other officer handed him
the driver's license that he had removed from the boy's sport jacket.
"Date
of birth is March 11,1940," the sergeant said as he studied the license
and noted that the photo was of an elderly man. "This kid had no ID of his
own, but I can see a strong resemblance to the old man. Guess he must
have snatched his grandfather's license, don't you think?"