Becky Sue walked straight up to me on the playground. Without even a scratch of preamble she asked, “You want to go to the caliche pit after school and kiss?” 

To say I was surprised would understate the case dramatically. I didn’t know up to that moment a single word had ever passed between us. And it wasn’t just that this invitation was proffered by a near stranger. Kissing to that point in my life had never been high on my list of priorities. Truthfully, it had never been on any kind of list I had drawn up. 

Now there were all manner of female relatives I had kissed on the cheek as part of social protocol. I had kissed a young girl under the steps of Will Rogers Elementary when I was in the first grade. At least that is the report. I don’t have any memory of it. Nonetheless, it raised a great fuss among some of the family and all.  

My mind was not focused on kissing. I was obsessed with baseball. Thus, I astounded myself when I said “yes” to Becky Sue without hesitation. 

A word about the venue of this romantic encounter. The landscape on the Llano Estacado does not offer a lot of geographic opportunity for unobserved activity. Picture a large brown billiard table, say 37,000 square miles. There was certainly little to offer in terms of places to carry on covert activities nefarious, amorous or otherwise.  

That’s where the caliche pit came in. A geologist could explain this better, but here is something close to accurate. Caliche is a kind of rock that is useful in binding other stuff together, like gravel, sand, and clay. It has a lot of construction applications.  

There was a location pretty near the school where caliche had been dug out. What was left was just an immense hole. You could have parked a few school buses in the bottom with room to spare and you wouldn’t have seen them unless you were right up close to the pit. This pit had set there empty for a long time. Eventually the town would grow out that way, someone would buy the property, fill it in and build on it. But that day had not dawned. Around the edges of the pit desert shrubbery had taken a tenuous hold.   

So after school, Becky Sue walked me right to a spot where we could nestle up under and between two bushes. She seemed to know right where to go. I was glad. I had no clue as to how to proceed. 

We sat there a few minutes. Being protected from the sun meant a coolness settled down over us. 

Eventually I looked over at Becky Sue. Lord, I can see her yet. Dark, rich hair. Shiny green eyes. A beautiful smile.  

We leaned toward each other and I tried to perform what I thought was a kiss. We had trouble at this first attempt. First, I was a green novice right to the core. Second, a passel of leaves from a drooping limb got right there in the middle of our kiss. We both spit and laughed. Becky Sue took charge.  

We would have still been there today if she hadn’t eventually jumped up and said, “Got to get home!” She smiled and sped away, her feet flying. 

I sat there for a moment. “So, that’s what kissing is about,” I thought wondrously. 

When I walked in the back door of our place my Mother was clearly worried. “Where you been?” she barked. 

Like a fool, I instantly told the truth. “Been down at the Caliche Pit kissing with Becky Sue,” I reported and turned toward my room. 

She followed me down the hall. “My God!” she exclaimed. “Did anyone see you?” Her face was twisted up in a scowl, a picture of fear and anger. 

I wanted to report that I had not the least knowledge or concern about whether anyone had seen us, but a sense of self-preservation was dawning. “No!” I said with certainty. And I thought to myself, “Won’t be going down that trail again.” By that I meant reporting to Mother, not the part about kissing. 

Years later, when my son was born, I assume she concluded that some kissing had been involved.  But she never heard about it from me. 

© 2019 Carlos Declan Pharis