Nothing but a kiss

The little girl is standing alone in the park

beneath an oak tree in the rain. She looks about

thirteen. I'm eating my lunch in my car like I

always do. I work at the new Arby's that they just

built out on the edge of town beside the

interstate. I make sandwiches, just like the one

I'm eating right now.

The little girl sees me and comes over and knocks

on my window. I guess she wants to come in so I

say to myself, why not, and open up the door. My

mom told me never to talk to strangers but the

little girl doesn't look very strange. Just wet. The

blond curls on her head look like a bird's nest and

she has a pretty red mouth, but her smile is sad

like a doll that doesn't want to be a doll anymore.

She's shivering so I take off my shirt and give it

to her so she can dry her hair with it. She says "

thanks." She's very polite. She just sits in the seat

next to me in a blue dress with a white plastic

purse in her lap, minding her own business. I

guess she's waiting for me to finish my sandwich.

I decide not to say anything to her because I don't

want her to think I'm stupid. I never learned many

words in school on account of I never learned

how to add or subtract very good and I get my

numbers backwards and I have trouble

remembering anything and I have a paying

attention problem which has a name but I can't

remember what it is. That's why I got a job

making sandwiches.

I need to drive a car to work because there aren't

any buses that go from our house all the way out

to Arby's, so I had to go get a license in order to

drive my mom's car to work. I knew the answers

on the drivers' test backwards and forwards but

they made me write them all down on a piece of

paper and I wasn't paying attention and got them

all mixed up and they wouldn't give me a real

license.


My mom wasn't happy about that and she took me

right back down there to the motor vehicle

division the very next morning and made them

give me a learner's permit instead. They ask the

questions for that test right out loud and I got

almost all of them right. I'm not supposed to drive

by myself because it's a restricted license, but my

mom has a job dancing bare naked at a club

downtown at night and she takes in laundry during

the day so I have to drive my own self to work.

My mom takes the bus because one goes right by

where she works. I guess there must be more

people that like watching people dance naked

than there are that like going out by the

interstate to Arby's to eat sandwiches. I help her

load up the washer and dryer sometimes. I like

being with my mom like that. I think she enjoys

the company.

The rain is really pouring down now and there's

big cracks of lightning in the sky and the thunder

is so loud I can't hear what the little girl is trying

to say to me. So she slides across the seat right

next to me and she says, "I'm scared of thunder,

do you mind?" She's sitting practically on top of

me but I tell her I don't mind. I'm done with my

sandwich anyway. Then she takes my napkin and

wipes the mayonnaise off my face and says, "I

really appreciate you letting me get in your car."

And then she kisses me right on the mouth.

That's when I hear the policeman bang on my

window and shout at me through the window, "

roll that goddamned window down right now, or

else . . . and I'm not kidding!" I guess he's mad

because he's standing out in the rain getting wet

so I roll the window down and he says, "ok, let's

see a license, your registration and proof of

insurance." I can't remember all the things he's

asking me for so I just give him my permit. He

says, "I told you I need to see your registration

and insurance card too, aren't you paying

attention?"

"Not really," I say. Besides, I've never seen those

things he's asking me for before, how would I

know where they are? But the little girl says she

knows where they are and reaches into the glove

compartment and hands them over to the

policeman. I just hope she got the right ones. I

don抰 know how she knew they were in there. I

thought that's where my mom kept her gloves.

The policeman looks at my drivers' license real

funny and he says, "this is a restricted learner's

permit and that sure as hell don't look like your

mommy sitting over there. How the hell old are

you anyway?" I tell him, "seventeen." My mom told

me that when I go for a job I'm supposed to say

I'm eighteen, but if I get caught doing something

wrong then I'm supposed to say I'm seventeen so

they'll try me as a juvenile and let me off easy. "

It's ok to lie if it keeps you out of jail," she says.

Unfortunately, I'm never exactly sure when I'm

supposed to say I'm eighteen and when I'm

supposed to say I'm seventeen, and by the way

the policeman keeps looking at my learner's

permit I think I must have guessed wrong. "It says

here you're eighteen, not seventeen, which

makes you an adult," he says. "And, what do you

think you're doing kissing a little girl like that for

anyway? She looks like she can't be more than

twelve. How old is she anyway?"

"I don't know how old she is," I tell him. "I just

met her. She was standing in the park under an

oak tree in the rain and knocked on my window

so I let her in."

The policeman is looking at me now like he thinks

I just went to the toilet on his shoes and he says,

"why don't you step out of the car so you and me

can have us a little talk, alone." I say, "ok, but I

don't know what we're going to talk about. We

don抰 really know each other and my mom says

I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

The policeman is really angry now and he puts his

hand on top of his gun like John Wayne does in

the movies right before he takes it out and plugs

somebody and he says, "ok you lying little shit,

step out of the car, and I mean right now!"

I've never heard a policeman swear before so I

get right out and he says, "spread em, perv." I tell

him my name's Pete, not perv, and he's really

mad now and jams me up against my mom's Buick

and goes through my pockets and takes all my

stuff out. Then he puts hand cuffs around my

wrists and puts me in the back of his police car

and says, "don't you even think about going

anywhere." I don't know where he thinks I'm

going to go with these handcuffs on.

He makes a call to somebody on his phone and

pretty soon another policeman comes and takes

the little girl out of my mom's car and puts her in

his police car and we all drive through the park in

the rain to the police station.

When we get there the policeman tells me, "you

get one phone call, Mac, and make it quick." I

guess I'm not the only one who gets things mixed

up because he can't ever seem to get my name

right. But I don't say anything to him about it.

I know my mom won't be happy about me getting

arrested for not having her with me like it says

I'm supposed to on my restricted license, so I call

my boss instead and tell him that I won't be

coming back to work today. But I get the numbers

all forwards and backwards and don't know who

the guy who finally answers the phone is. He says

his name's Albert and I ask him, "do you know my

mother, Charlene?" And he says, "sure, doesn't

everybody?" I ask him if he'll call her for me and

tell her where I am and he says, "ok, I've got the

number." This town is so small I guess everybody

knows everybody.

After I get done talking to Albert, the policemen

comes over and he puts me in a jail cell with

metal bars on the door and the window just like

on Kojac. About twenty minutes later my mother

comes in and looks through the bars on the door

at me and she says, "what did you do, honey, rob

a bank?" She's smiling a lot more than usual. I

think she's trying to make a joke, but she doesn't

look very happy. I tell her everything that

happened and she starts crying and crying and she

says "poor baby, what have you done?" So I have

to tell her everything I did all over again and she

starts crying some more so I stop talking and she

stops crying.

The policeman comes back and takes me and my

mom down a long hall into a room where some

lady is writing in a notebook and she tells us to sit

down in front of a judge in a purple robe who抯

sitting behind a big desk. He looks like Moses but

he doesn't look very friendly and I keep going

over everything in my mind, trying to remember

what I did wrong in case he asks, but I can't think

of anything except for having the wrong kind of

license and for driving myself to Arby's without

my mom.

After awhile the judge asks me, "ok, young man,

what do you have to say for yourself?" I tell him

that I'm sorry that I don't have the right kind of

license but I couldn't pass the test for the regular

one on account of I get numbers mixed up and

don't remember anything for very long and can't

seem to pay attention long enough to write the

answers down right but I have to go to work so I

drive anyway. That's about it I guess.

He looks at me for a long time, and then he asks

me, "is that all you have to say in your defense?"

"Defense of what?" I say. And he says, "does

kidnapping, child molestation, and inappropriate

sexual contact with a minor mean anything to

you?" I just make myself as small as I can and don't

say anything. "Well?" the judge asks real loud. And

I say, "maybe you should ask my mom. I don't

know anything about sex." The judge looks at me

like I just farted and doesn't say anything. His face

is red and he tells the policeman to bring the

little girl and her mom in.

The little girl sits down and puts her purse in her

lap just like she did in my car in the park except

her hair's dry now. I don't know what she did

with my shirt. I don't see it anywhere. Her

mother keeps looking over at me like she's real

mad at me about something but I don't know

what. I wish somebody would tell me what's

going on.

The judge looks at the little girl and tells her that

he wants to know the truth. "Do you promise to

tell the truth?" he asks her. And the little girl says,

"Why would I lie? I don't have anything to lie

about." The judge is talking to her like she's about

four years old and he says, "Betty? That is your

name isn't it, Betty?"

"Yes," she answers, "You should know. It's written

down on that paper right there in front of you."

"Well yes, I can see that. Now, Betty, tell me

what happened to you in the park today, ok?"

"Well, I was standing under a tree in the park in

the rain thinking about what I was going to do

about getting back home, and that nice boy who's

sitting right over there in that chair let me in his

car so I wouldn't get wet. That's about it."

The judge doesn't seem to like the answer to his

question very much. He looks at the policeman

that brought us here like he was the one in

trouble. Then he turns back to the little girl and

asks her, "don't you know what this is all about?

Didn't the officer explain to you what you're

doing here?" And the little girl just says, "no. He

was more interested in knowing what kind of

things that boy over there stuck up my privates."

The judge's face is really getting red now. "Well?"

the judge asks. "Well what?" she says. "What did

he stick up there?" the judge asks. "Did he do

things to you? Sexual things?"

"For crying out loud," the little girls shouts. "What

do you take me for, a hooker? It's not like I

charged him for sex or anything. Jesus H. Christ,

it wasn't nothing but a kiss!"

The judge just stares at the little girl with his

mouth open and doesn't say anything. His face is

getting redder and redder, and finally he says, "

just how the hell old are you anyway, little Missy

."

"I'm sixteen," she says, "and my name's not Missy.

It's Betty. I thought you knew that."

I can tell the judge is really angry about

something because when he jumps up he steps on

his purple robe and knocks his chair over and

then he shouts something at the policeman that

brought us here and tells him and my mom and

the little girl's mom to follow him through a door

into another little room. "And I mean right now,"

he says.

I'm still sitting here in my chair and the little girl

is still sitting over there in her chair in her blue

dress with her white purse in her lap just like in

the car in the park in the rain. I still don't see my

shirt anywhere. After a while, my mom comes

out of the little room and takes my hand. "Let's

go," she says, "it's time to go home." I tell her, "

ok, but I better tell Betty goodbye." And my mom

says, "I don't think that's such a good idea, honey.

Let's just get in the car and go home, ok?" And I

say, "ok. I'll drive." My mom says, "well, dear,

maybe it's best if you don't."