June 1984 was hot.
Yes, I know. Every Arkansas summer is hot and getting hotter. However, this summer’s heat in particular I remember because it’s when I had my first kiss.
Southwest Little Rock in the 1980s was a great place to grow up. We had the Southwest City Mall, the UA Four (before it was a dollar theater and showed stunners like Flowers in the Attic), PuttPutt Golf (next to the UA Four), and cruising (yeah, Pleasant Valley, Lakewood and The Heights: you were there. We saw you.). It’s when MTV showed videos, Osco’s (in the Southwest City Mall) sold black rubber bracelets just like Madonna’s, and you could acquire the requisite Def Leppard, Duran Duran and Hank Williams Jr. cassettes at Target (also in the Southwest City Mall). The Western Sizzlin, Harvest Foods and Al’s Video were THE places to work, and you spent your free time making sure your bangs were perfectly curled and scamming a ride to the University Mall because it had Express, Spencer’s Gifts and a food court.
To this day, I don’t know how I came to be in PuttPutt Golf. The cool kids — the edgy, kinda dangerous ones — hung out at the PuttPutt. It had to be because it was dark and you could smoke without getting hassled. Mama and Daddy kept a tight rein on me then, and I’d love to say it was because I was cool, edgy and kinda dangerous myself. But, the truth is I was a 15-year-old, naïve nerd with glasses, braces and a spiral perm from the JCPenney Salon. I didn’t even have jelly shoes, much less smoke.
But, there I was, and so was he. One of the edgy, cool kids, you know? Muscle shirt, red hair, with his own quarters. To this day, I still have a thing for ginger men with their own money. I was playing Galaga, and he challenged me to a two-player game. But, he upped the ante right from the start: if I won, he’d pay for my next game. If he won, he got to kiss me.
My head spun. I can’t play Galaga! I’m gonna lose! Let’s do this thing!
“Yeah, well,” I said, flipping my moussed curls over my shoulder, the picture of feminine indifference. “We’ll see.”
He didn’t smile so much as smirk knowingly. He slid two quarters into the machine — oh, yeah, he paid. A gentleman — and we set about dueling to the finish. It didn’t take long, and I was never so happy to be a loser in my life. He kissed me, and I have no idea what happened after that. What I do remember is thinking, “He’s a bad boy. I’m a good girl. I kissed a guy, and he’s edgy, and cool, and not my boyfriend, and I am HOT.”
That feeling lasted all summer, and to this day, it’s one of the sweetest memories I have.
Three years later, I saw him at McCain Mall, pushing a baby stroller. Apparently, someone else took him up on a dare. I never saw him again.
In the years afterward, they tore down PuttPutt Golf, and the Southwest City Mall is now the Arkansas State Police Headquarters. The UA Four became Ron Sherman Productions, and by all accounts, there is no plaque commemorating my first kiss anywhere to be found. My only hope is there’s a Galaga game in the lobby.