"[b posted:

Death and Despair on the Cape[/b]"]

I was walking through Logan, on my way to Cape Air. It was after my junior year, and I was making my first steps towards independence with a waitressing job, staying with my friend Celia, in a cottage billed optimistically as charming. Free of curfews, two hundred miles from home and safe from parental supervision.

As I approached my gate, the t-shirts and jeans slowly dwindled. Instead, there was a businessman still in his sportcoat calling his wife who’s already on the island with his two year old son, wishing he could work less. There was a boy with perfectly flipped hair in a quiet blue polo on top of his nantucket reds and dark topsiders. There were tennis whites, piles of Death and Despair on the Cape (the author’s eleventh murder mystery, the cover pleaded), two Goyards (tragically out-of-place), and a thorough disconnection from reality. That’s when I first ran into him.

And yes, I do mean ran into him. He was standing there, and I was just clumsy enough to make something as cliche as that happen. I was puzzling out the mechanics of my thermos (which I swear could serve as a lockbox) and all of a sudden his back was there. It handily solved the issue of getting the coffee out. I’m afraid that I threw off his perfect coordination -- somehow, brown didn’t mesh very well with pink and blue. He was polite, and carrying a copy of Infinite Jest. I have no idea what he said at this point -- kind of sad, isn’t it, that I can’t remember the first words he said to me but I can remember the book he was reading? -- but it was certainly polite. He got paper towels, he apologized, he cleaned up the spill. I muttered my way off to a newsstand and got my nose stuck in anything, the first magazine I could grab. We spent the rest of the time waiting for the flight on opposite sides of the gate, my doing. I didn’t board until the very end, to avoid him and further embarrassment. By the time I got onto the tarmac, he was out the chain-link fence that was that airport’s concession to security and out of sight.

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I trekked a tentative half mile to what the lady at the ticket desk assured me was a bus station. Along the way I passed one-of-a-kind quaint country home after quaint country home, all in elegantly disheveled rows. Eventually, next to a sedate Smokey the Bear who declared that the fire danger was “Moderate to High”, I found it. A rickety little thing, with VTA stamped across the side and a decrepit bike rack hanging from the side, the bus still managed to mosey along quickly enough to the half of the island I was staying on. Given that I was the only passenger, when it turned out the route didn’t quite pass by my road the bus driver obliged and dropped me off in front of my mailbox. I was met by a hug from Celia, and a tour of my home for the summer.

The house definitely had character. The bat droppings alone occupied us for most of the first week. There were two rooms, and twice as many mounted bass on the walls. The kitchen went unused, but a sad pile of 100 calorie snack pack wrappers grew in the corner (necessary preparation for college, Celia said). We had a boxed set of The Gilmore Girls, sans the second season, a subscription to Harpers, and the peculiar sort of enthusiasm that every “final summer” practically drips with. Our house was on a small island, famous for a long-dead political scandal and the enthusiasm of its few residents for ironclad zoning laws. There was one store, aptly named “The Only Store On Island”. Once connected via a tenuous land bridge to the main island, we now relied on a ferry adorably (and, I would argue, ironically) dubbed the “On Time”. The service started promptly at six in the morning and made sure that it was over by midnight, a situation that led Celia to dub us fairy princesses, a la Cinderella (never mind that our pumpkin happened to spew fossil fuels and shed metal that was undoubtedly at one point viewed as essential to its function).

On the island proper there were a handful of towns. The nearest was colonized by “those closest to God” as Celia put it: the elderly and babies. The farthest was billed as the classiest African American vacation spot on the East Coast, whatever that means, and the rest were a mix of fairytale architecture, overpriced clothing stores, and social stratification. One of the main attractions for young, adventuresome people of our age were the three bookstores on island. After work, the second week of our stay, we decided to investigate one, which advertised itself as having the largest collection south of Falmouth (assuming you constrain it to bookstores that also happen to be north of Nantucket, west of Plymouth, and east of Chatham, but I don’t dwell on that). Upon our arrival, a chalkboard sign sternly announced that there was an author of some top-quartile of the New York Times bestseller list coming to sign their book on the difficulties of rectifying cultural Judaism with some universally relatable everyday challenge, so we decided to form a short-lived book club.

As I was wandering the bottom aisles, roaming from “Fiction” to “Popular Fiction” to “Hot Off the Grapevine!” (the classic gradation) I heard a tentative ‘Hey’ drift from the stacks behind me. I turned around and there he was, still in his element, camouflaged in madras this time. It was awkward. I mean, who is honestly presumptuous enough to actually strike up a conversation with someone based on the common bond of airplane travel? I stumbled through it. He was staying in Vineyard Haven, with his family, was off from school, was a soon-to-be senior, enjoyed sailing, tennis, and fulfilling stereotypes (or so I surmised) and unexpectedly brought up public assembly laws, as they pertain to beaches. I learned that even though ocean side gatherings are disallowed after midnight, if anyone in the party has a fishing rod in the water than suddenly drunken teenagers become budding Twains in the eyes of the law. This subtly segued into an invitation to one of these illicit bonfires, and of course Celia and I were invited. The quickest way to exit the conversation was to accept, so I plunged ahead and then promptly excused myself to the bathroom.

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I never intended to go. However, I’ve found that it is just about impossible to convince two high school girls (yes, of course I’m including myself here) who’ve been cooped up in a cottage with nothing but the Gilmore Girls for weeks, facing the prospect of quite a bit of time in their future and a dwindling DVD case, to refuse an offer to go out. Besides, as Celia put it, he did remember me from the plane and, I mean, who just asks some random girl if they want to go to a party, unless, well, you know, and after all, he looked kind of cute and so on and so forth. It was the upcoming weekend, so of course there were preparations that entire week -- bathing suits to buy, return and buy again, along with a second suit just in case (I mean you know, complexion changes), some mostly imagined acne to eradicate ruthlessly, and lots of speculating.

When the night finally came I admit I was nervous. I mean, Celia had hardly any pressure -- she didn’t know anyone, why should they be nervous? Although, frankly, neither did I. We left the house, clothing stuck between swimwear and sexy (not that those are by any means mutually exclusive). The path down to the beach was freshly mowed, ticks and lyme disease briefly at bay, which seemed to generally bode well for our evening, as if God (well, a gardener) had decided that it was going to go particularly well from the very start.

It was a rowdy fire, stuck high enough up on the beach that the tide wouldn’t extinguish it over the course of the evening, but low enough that it would occasionally ignite a fire-cracker string of seaweed. I’d tell you how many people there were, but I’m not the sort to remember those things, or even notice. Suffice to say the beach was flush with flame-dappled faces, shadowy figures paralleling them on the sand behind and running off into the grass and marsh. Celia slipped off with a wink at me and a determined, I-will-have-fun grimace mirrored set on her lips. I forced out a smile and went to go look for him, because, hell, why not?

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I found him reclining on a towel -- he rose up from the sand with, ‘Hey’.

Hey, I’m happy you could make it.

Linen shirt, precisely undone to a rakish degree. Rainbowed feet, careless scab dropped on the left knee, swim trunks swung onto hips, torso bending down, lips puckered on the left and right and left again. Smick smack smick. Two seconds to regain my composure.

Oh. Thanks. It’s very... warm. Of you. It’s very nice of you to invite us.

Yes, I realize I’m a smooth operator. Anyway, that’s how that first real conversation began -- I’d hardly count the bookstore small-talk as anything worse noting. Three pecks and a struggling response on my part. He offered a drink, and I diagnosed myself as in dire need of a social lubricant. A Coors Light, and a where are you from? Connecticut and Western Mass, a city, well town, even as a native Connecticuter I can’t pass it as anything more than what it is and a farmhouse that had long outlasted any livestock that might have once lived there. Another beer, and a quick jaunt into childhood and growing up and the terrifying events of childhood that now make for good stories. An awkward mixed drink, the type that every teen uses to make the most of voldka’s alcohol content, and school, New Hampshire and Boston. A second -- whatever they called it, corkscrew, twist, orange juice, whatever, and then liquid applied as necessary.

A kiss, he left, he came back, three more. Celia stopped by, alone and then in a group and clucked and giggled and congratulated and then slipped off. Dancing and splashing into the water, crawling across the sand, a towel. Exploring the driftwood and reliving childhood vacations to tiny castles. I was alone again, with the stars sketching out tiny paintings. Then Celia came and she had to leave and she wanted me to go but I didn’t, she was sorry about -- about something and she shouted and was gone. The last thing I remembered was him coming back, wet, and smiling at me.

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The clerk’s office was on the second floor of the town’s victorian city hall, up the second set of stairs, past the water fountain. There was a metal detector on the way in, that the matronly guard would switch off if it looked like you might actually have metal on you, to avoid the hassle. He’d called me there at 9 in the morning, saying that there’d been some sort of confusion about what had happened on the beach yesterday, and since I’d been there with him, why didn’t I come in and give them a quick reassurance and then he’d take me out for coffee or something. Having chugged an incredible amount of grapefruit juice (I must have been drat well swimming in electrolytes at that point), I of course obliged. I came into the office, and there he was. It was the sort of waiting room whose criminal element consisted of a gaggle of sheepish boys, wearing their blazers from college convocation, still not sure whether they were independent enough to handle these sorts of summer time shenanigans.

He grinned when he saw me and explained that he needed someone to vouch for his whereabouts over the previous evening, and that I was certainly the most qualified to do so. Never mind that I couldn’t remember much of what happened the night before -- I sure as hell wasn’t going to say that. After all, I could hardly leave him in lockup. I joined him behind the oak door leading to the clerk’s office. She was petite, the sort of woman who decides halfway through college that although she wants to do law she’d really rather avoid litigation and tries to find an important but passive role. She asked, Where are you going to college? She asked, do you have a criminal record. She asked me, where was he last night? I tell her he was with me. She moved to ask more, but turned a light pink instead and declined. With a gruff nod, she dropped the charge entirely.

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He held my hand on the way to Mocha Madness -- romantic, I know. I told him I didn’t normally do, you know, that sort of thing and he made a joke about not having run ins with the police very often and I told him that wasn’t what I meant and he said he knew. Over a vanilla, well, something and a croissant I tried to work my way up to what I felt was a more appropriate level of intimacy. I told him that I was afraid of starting in on life. He told me he was thought he already he had, and it wasn’t so bad, I shouldn’t worry. I talked about how my parents weren’t entirely fine with me living on my own. He asked if I’d heard “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Every family is different” and I said that I wasn’t sure that was exactly right.

Who knows, he smiled, maybe not, but I like it. We talked for a while, about being sad and being happy. Our conversation began to drift into the intellectual examination of feelings and beliefs that you always have with people before you’re comfortable telling them about what’s actually happened to you. When you don’t feel comfortable giving them free reign to experience your life. Then Rihanna burst in, belting out a song about how lonely she wanted her man to make her feel, and I answered my phone. Celia was missing. We didn’t finish our coffee.

She hadn’t made it back from the bonfire -- I’d assumed that she’d slept elsewhere. Instead, they’d found her in the grass, wet and very, very cold. She wasn’t going to have the chance to unveil her 100 calorie pack figure at college. My parents made me quit my job that day, leave the cottage as it was, security deposit be damned, and take the first ferry off-island. It didn’t really hit me for a while, and it’s really not the sort of thing that I think is at all relevant to this story. Suffice to say that I left the island with one less friend, and one more friend request on Facebook to replace her.

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I’d never broken up with someone over Skype before. I mean, I’ve never had a long-distance relationship like that before either. After the summer, he’d messaged me and we’d facebook chatted for a while and he’d told me he thought I was alright. It was flattering. Throughout the confusion of crying and funeral proceedings that was the last few months of my summer he’d bee a constant. I think it helps to have someone who knows what you’ve experienced to talk to. We got pretty close. He visited once, for a week. A bit weird, I thought, but I didn’t really mind. By the end of the visit we were Facebook official, whatever that means.

Anyway, we’d been “dating” for three months when he broke the news. He said he was going away, I asked where and he didn’t tell me. He told me that it meant he couldn’t see me any more. I pointed out that we didn’t really see each other anyway, not really, and didn’t see why it should make any difference. He refused to budge. I cried a little, more out of confusion and because it seemed like I should than any definite emotion. He said not to worry, he’d visit. I asked when. He unconvincingly muttered something about the connection breaking up, and said he’d write. And that was that. Not exactly the most climactic experience, but I suppose it’s one of those things that you should try at least once in your life.

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He made good on his promise to write. Postcards wishing I was here. Here was a nondescript red brick mill, there was a moss-covered railroad bridge and a collection of other scenes of generic Americana. He’d write the most asinine little stories, talking about buying milk or reading the newspaper or going on a bike ride. Occasionally he’d tell me about a girl he’d met, and how much he’d liked her, but would always end by making sure I knew that she didn’t match up to me. I wasn’t sure if he was sarcastic or just stupid. With every few postcards he’d staple a newspaper clipping about a disappearance or some other gruesome killing, trying to help me find closure on the summer, he said. I didn’t appreciate it. As the autumn faded into winter, I slowly began to forget about him, the individual, and began to view him as nothing more than a string of postcards, from a time I’d much rather forget.

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Have you ever been smack-dab in the middle of a real winter? On one side lies black ice, on the other the first growls of slush and March lions. It’s the type of winter that tucks you in with a generous blanket. It’s the type that’s been taking painting classes, and dabs damp patches of sodium light on streets and sidewalks. It’s the type that playfully breaks off clumps of icy hair, plops castles down among the pines, and plumps out fog with every breath to let you know you’re drat well alive.

One night, after the winter had gone to bed, leaving the world with a starry night light, he visited. He’d trekked past the stately moose statues guarding the airport, taken a Greyhound across the quaint towns sprinkled on the side of the highway, and finally gave me a shivery surprise in my dorm room. He suggested that we go on a walk. I couldn’t think of a good reason not to.
So we stood there, with a cold-bonneted lamppost caressing my face with all its boxy frame could muster. The light set the snow drifts in towering relief. In a valley of precipitation and light, we tentatively hugged. I talked about the summer, though at this point the last vestiges of it were tattered memories and a similarly tenuous set of court orders and warrants. I asked him what he was doing, since he’d evidently failed to make it to college. He said, this and that. We talked for a while, without any particular conclusion. He told me stories about his childhood, I confessed my own. He said he’d come visit again. Finally, he left.

“From there, you all know what happened. He walked off of my campus and into the history books. But that’s not the man that I want to remember today.”

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“I looked for a joke about police cordons at funerals, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find any.”

The crowd let out an obligatory chuckle.

“I’m sure most of you don’t know me very well. Hi. I loved Kennedy, just as I’m sure all of you did as well. I guess you’re probably wondering why I was chosen to deliver this, out of everyone he knew. Me too. But he chose me, so I’m going to do the best I can.”

“I know there are a host of allegations and rumors and court suits and posthumous this and that flying around, and who knows what people will think of Phil in ten years, next week, or even after the casket is finally interred. For now, though, just think of him as he is now. Keep him like that, somewhere.”

“Anyway. When I tried to think of something to tell here, I had a lot of trouble. I thought of story after story, but there’s quite a bit to his life, and I don’t know that I could ever really do him justice. So instead, here’s a story he told me once, that I think, well. I think you should hear it. You can decide for yourself what it means.”

She cleared her throat, and began.

He'd visited Newton, Mass for six days in tenth grade, a place entirely alien despite it’s geographic proximity to Cambridge. There, amongst his distant relatives and red, green and white painted streets, he'd acquired the very European habit of kissing the cheeks of acquaintances. Louie, a third generation Italian with mannerisms as stereotypical as his name, introduced him to the concept at one of the many awkward family get-togethers. A bellow of, “Kennedy, it's been forever! How the hell are you?” prefaced a staccato one-two-then a third rhythm of quick pecks. The actual conversation quickly died once the “How's high school? Never went myself, but I'm happy you're sticking it out” and “So, porking any ladies? What, is that not how you kids say it these days?” ran out, but the greeting itself stuck with him.

As he left, one hand on the faux-mahogany gate, the other reached out and grabbed his great aunt by the shoulder. A moment's hesitation, and Kennedy kissed back and forth twice, paused, and added a third for good measure on her bewildered left cheek. And that's how it started. For all the time I've known him that's just been what he does. Without any true cultural foundation to look to, he had to improvise his technique. He decided that the number of times he would kiss you would be directly linked to how much he liked you. So you could always know his intentions, he said. He told me that he’d kissed Celia six times the very first time he met her. I’d only gotten up to five. Funny how the world works sometimes.