art by @woveninsanity
Flashes of memory blips in time I catch dark smoky glancing looks from big sister not mine eyes dark lips narrow nose sharpish cheekbones and the wiry strong arms legs shoulders of every other cheerleader gymnast ballet tomboy chick I ever knew growing up. My first girlfriend she was a year older maybe a hair taller but otherwise she and I treated each other as equals from first glance. I met her the summer I was 10 a pale blue gray year but solid. Ten is a square number a box on the edge. I was her little brother’s new best pal from up the street with fading new kid mystery sheen and she was his older sister. Kelly had a sweet smile dark scowl wild curly dirty blonde hair she was never quite perfectly pleased with and pale eyes hazy somewhere in the green hazel spectrum. The first time I saw her in a slim white bikini long skinny tan baby horse legs and tiny barely there tits with dark nipples long neck sharp collar bones that snap never fades. Kelly had the body and the tough don’t fuck with me attitude of a tomboy but also the mercurial eye roll the sigh the disdain the easily bored of stupid boys vibe that came with most big sisters I never had. I often wondered how it might be to tangle with one daily. Exactly how different life might be to have a big sister to be the little brother not the big. Kelly was fascinating. And yeah I knew every afterschool special was pushing storylines similar to the one I was walking headfirst into and those movies always ended a bit grim but with a lesson learned so I kept an eye on Kelly.
I watched Kelly whup her little brother at least a half dozen times the first couple summers. Little brother Pat was a sweet kid the family clown the goofball the baby so he was easy to beat up and sister did so whenever he pushed her last button and a beatdown was needed. I never intervened when Kelly had Pat pinned shoving his face into the orange shag rug or punishing him with whatever lick your eyelid spit in your mouth kid guantanamo games were in vogue plus the whatever mental warfare mind fuckery of the day she cared to inflict on him. Pat was bigger the next summer as was I and Kelly was blossoming less interested in fighting but never didn’t hold her own and if ever brother Pat was on top of her too long torturing her taking it too far on those days I did step in because she was Kelly because hey come on that’s your sister dude. In the south the rule was don’t hit girls unless she’s your big sister. Murky ethics but simple. I liked Kelly was fascinated by her haunted by her. I was a little scared of her. Kelly bossed me around sniped and snarked sometimes threw her big sister mean girl mojo at me whenever I slipped into acting being feeling just another brother she never wanted not a crush so I wrestled and fought Kelly a few times too but always won. Or she let me.
The point being I watched her whup her brother and fought her myself a dozen times before I ever kissed her and some seven years before we had the most fast times at say anything breakfast club high first time ever proper sex ages 17 the phantom and 18 the warm brown teenage sex with blushes giggles hushed whispers but it holds up in a memory snowglobe as well and cool and sweet as it was ever going to happen for us however our story was going to close. Two shadows twisting together half undressed in front seat the eyes the cowgirl mount half torn buttons lost kissing thrashing coupling and the quiet shattered silence of seven years hormonal warfare hours of stolen kisses hours more exploring groping touching private places under the blanket on the couch watching Star Trek or a dodgers game and a half dozen dangerous smashing pumpkins 1979 tweener slumber parties with brothers Ethan and Pat and one of Kelly’s friends who had an adorable thing with Ethan. The goofy strange awkward bashful strip poker and spin the bottle days you know the Tom Petty she’s an american girl games all those summer days nights making out on the stairs in the treehouse sorted finally in the front seat of her father’s I want to say the El Camino but might have been the Monte Carlo. Doesn’t matter it was a cool pearl white boss whip with red leather seats. FM radio crackling and the three songs I remember were all chosen eerily rather too cleverly by cosmic algorithm perhaps but they never fail to conjure decades later. Pink Floyd comfortably numb Journey small town girl and blue oyster cult Mary don’t fear the reaper and you still get a faraway rush a dizzy spin to this day when the first droning chords of reaper emerge from the FM ether.
Where am I going with this. I also fought and wrestled Pat over the years those fight it out hug it out sudden fierce murder struggles that always went to the ground. I never liked to fight. Definitely had a temper and a habit of getting froggy with bullies and in those days wrestling with Pat and brother Ethan it strikes me now that we were learning how to hurt each other and how not to. The elbow bash. The head butt. The Johnny sweep the leg. The half nelson and the sleeper. The choke out. I broke my wrists both of them a couple times over those years never liked busting up my knuckles but I was a soccer player born with the legs for it. Took a few million practice penalty strikes over the years and could kick the legs out from under anybody. Drop a bully a loudmouth jackwipe wannabe thug like a bag of rock salt. My father once or twice made us put on boxing gloves and go three minutes and that always shut things down. Fighting is hard the most exhausting the most brutal intimacy. Fighting will gas you out faster than chopping firewood or digging a grave. But traveling back through time eyeballing it all from this vantage and what pops brightest is the reminder the long held notion that the difference between fighting and fucking is hazy razor fine a damn near invisible ever shifting line at that. I don’t remember who it was first asked me hey man does your dick ever get hard during a fight think that means I’m gay or what. This was the age of boys talking about their dicks all the time. Like all day every day. Talking about jerk off sessions and foraging for porn. No dude that’s normal. Adrenaline and hormones and physical contact equals hard dick sometimes and come on. At that age what didn’t make your dick get hard.
I don’t know. I’m looking to tunnel deep into the archive travel down the ether the internal gravity well travel back through time to visit some of the coolest baddest toughest prettiest most don’t give a fuck tomboys I ever came across. The ones I kissed and didn’t. The ones I loved the ones I spent one magic 24 hour spin with then poof never saw again. The ones I hurt or damaged or never apologized to. And the ones I feared. The tomboys who crossed my path who altered my trajectory somehow changed me and were changed by me. The dark strangers on the trains the cool girls who knew how to do cool shit the allies the rivals the sweet crushes the blood sisters the might want to kill me girls with assassin eyes. Not all the tomboys but the ones who burn the brightest the ones who still smolder still teleport into dreams unannounced. The girls of tomboy nation I’d argue are the glue who hold the center. The cooler heads who steady the widening gyre. The girls who watch out for the lost boys and the smaller cubs and grommets the girls who are good with dogs the girls who can throw a spiral or whup you at a game of horse but also be soft sweet gentle and make you blush in a heartbeat. The tomboy girls translate and negotiate between the others between the stupid the silly the unobservant boys and the bored girly girl mean girls among us. The tomboys and their stardust brethren the androgynous boys the cool poetic the tragic the femme ponyboys who live in the ever fine sliver of pale space the unsteady unraveling center between the rest of us they are always never not my favorite fellow passengers. Lost touch with most of them my tomboys and ponyboys over the thousand crossings but I aim to pay homage to the ones who changed me saved me taught me something the ones who trusted me the ones who never failed to forgive me. All love grace respect undying loyalty to them the tomboy nation.
*note first draft still in progress. plenty more tomboy nation and pony boy theory to come. thoughts questions comments welcome.
Usually when I have 8 minutes to read your stuff cocomelon is on in the background because it’s a really good distraction... it’s a weird combination.