Starched Collars and Picket Fences

Three innocent boys in the brink of their adulthood, talking about the girls they like- for girls aren't the only ones who talk about kissing.

The familiar scent of dried paint and hard-to-wash turpentine permeated the air, a pleasant backyard smell under an afternoon sun. The rickety wood picket fence unfinished, two enthusiastic pair of arms wielded two aged paintbrushes as if its a fencing weapon. With eager sunburned faces and T-shirts dirtied with lemon-green paint, yard sawdust and good loam earth from Matthew's brother's Scottish rose bushes, Gilbert and Carlos grinned widely when they surveyed half of their work.

"This baby's going to be awesome!" Gilbert remarked as he eyed the fence. He brushed the sweat from his forehead with a starched handkerchief worn from use. "I bet a dollar, it'll be alright." Planted in a very neat row, they were tasked to labor over the Williamses' back garden. They'll earn ten bucks each over the work.

Carlos' grin faded overtime. He coughed when he inhaled the sharp scent of paint. "Ugh, Gilbert. Its just a fence."

Gilbert nodded happily, still unconvinced. "Hell yeah it is! Look," He pointed on three sets of names painted in an illegible writing. "Its our names in there!"

Carlos rolled his eyes, incredulous "Matthew's mother simply asked us to paint their fence. Its not as if we're Picasso by doing it. Good thing they allowed us to even put graffiti there."

Gilbert put out his tongue and thumbed his nose. "Gee, Carlos. You're no fun!"

"And let me remind you you're thirteen."

They both dipped their brushes on the half-filled paint can. The bristles made a scratching sound and Carlos' face scrunched, not liking it. Gilbert though is unmindful of his surroundings and is happily humming a tune. Their hands are synchronized as they both painted in a vertical manner. Up. Down. Up. Down. Dip. The dust motes danced around them, a flighty company. Their sweat trickling as they worked, they would occasionally stop and dry their face with their faded handkerchiefs or collars, starched both at home.

They didn't realize that they have been working for an hour now, not then when they heard the creaking sound of the long-oiled hinges of the back house door. Carlos looked back his shoulder and welcomed the newcomer with a nod. Gilbert though is more chirpy with new company.

"Matthew, my good man! Is that Spring Bubble soda I see?"

Matthew Williams smiled as he handed two refrigerator chilled sodas to his friends. His lithe form and natural corn-wheat curls made people often mistake him as a girl. He learned to live with it by ruffling his hair and ruining the curls. Right now, they were stashed in an ugly 1978 Yankee baseball cap. "I'm sorry I can't help you with the painting today: the curse of dog allergy." Truly, Matthew's arms are patched and dotted of rashes. Gilbert eyed them ruefully.

Carlos understood. "Yeah. About that, sorry I forgot warning you about Jojo."

"Don't mention it."

The two boys downed the soda as if Manna from heaven while Matthew looked on. Carlos grew up burly and with brawn. Long arms and capable arms as he dipped the brush. Muscled legs half-exposed with his knee-high khakis. His dark skin and and athlete's built made him the perfect pitcher for their school's baseball team. Gilbert is the total opposite. Pinkened skin that doesn't tan easily and his eyes and hair a very rare shade: a cross between platinum and blond. The only thing that doesn't fit him is his loud mouth.

Matthew's eyes downcast, he called attention to himself with caution. "Um, hey..."

Carlos and Gilbert stopped drinking. Both wiped their lips with their wrists.

Matthew's eyes shifted, not meeting theirs. "I have a ...secret."

Gilbert's voice took an animated tilt. "Really? Out with it then!"

Carlos, curious but not in an overbearing way added, "We have been sharing secrets since we're all in kiddy walkers."

Matthew's hands are obviously sweaty as he opened and closed them. "I have a crush on someone."

Gilbert's eyes rounded. "Who? Who?"

Carlos' calm. "Yeah, who?"

"Katyusha, Ivan's sister."

Silence.

"What do you like about fat girls?" Gilbert dared asking.

"Don't you dare call her fat!" Matthew's face reddened with unsuppressed anger. "Katyusha is plump! Plump!"

Carlos smacked Gilbert's head with a knuckle. "To call a girl fat is crime."

"I'm sorry, sorry!" Gilbert rubbed his swollen head. "I'm just joking."

"Oh yeah?" Carlos dared. "What if someone called Elizaveta a tomboy?"

Gilbert's happy face turned grim. His left hand closed over the brush in an incredibly painful grip. "No one get away insulting my girl and gets away with it." His rare-hued eyes took a murderous gleam."I'll bloody the bastard's nose."

Carlos sighed, used with the reply. "So there." He regarded Matthew. "So, what do you like about her?"

Matthew's head tilted as he pondered for words. "She's very kind and sweet…"

"…and she's five years older than you."

"You like her because of her age?" Gilbert joked, his face cracking.

"Hell no!" Matthew shouted, his voice bouncing back, resounding. "I like her because she's pretty and kind and honest. I've seen the way she cared for her brother and sister. She helps children in the community orphanage and she works part-time as a tutor. She's an angel!"

The two boys eyed Matthew in a new light. "You really are nuts about her!"

Matthew's eyes shied under their prying gaze. "So yes. I am."

"Hey, Matt?"

"Hmm?" Matthew hummed a reply as he shaded his eyes from the noon sun. After his outburst, he dare not cause another calling-attention-to-himself-again scene.

"What if girls tried approaching us and we don't know what to do?"

"What are you mean?"

"About ki..ki..." Gilbert stuttered, a rare occurrence.

"You're stuttering, man." Carlos said as he eyed the unfinished picket fences. Both he and Gilbert stopped working since Matthew came in to join them. The sun angled just right would dry the paint midday.

"Kissing!" Gilbert's cheeks flushed.

"Mama said such things will come naturally." Carlos said, as if such topic is normal.

"Yeah, but what if they decided to simply come and give a come-get-me message sort of thing."

"Well, did you try kissing?" Matthew wants to know.

"No."

"Really?"

"The only things I kissed so far are my mother's cheeks and my grandma's papery ones." Carlos confessed.

"Is it nice?"

"Matthew Williams, you never kissed someone before?" Carlos' voice unbelieving.

"Well, Mom and Dad are always away and Alfred's disgusting." Alfred is Matthew's older brother.

Carlos laughed in glee. "Haha! You're right! I never imagined any girl kissing Alfred."

Gilbert though is unconvinced. "I think a girl from eighth grade like Alfred."

"I don't believe you!"

"Yup it's true! Her name's Alice and she have twin pigtails. Her accent's cute too."

British. A passing thought over their heads.

"So you never really tried kissing anyone, Matthew?"

Matthew shook his head.

"I tried it once." Carlos said, taking courage.

"Really?" Matthew's and Gilbert's eyes zeroed on him. "With whom?"

"A pillow."

The other boys' shoulders slumped. "You're pathetic, man"

"What do you want me to do? Grab a girl in the cafeteria and kiss her and walk away as if nothing happened? My grandmother will certainly box my ears!" Gilbert snickered.

"Besides, I'm committed to the Portuguese girl with the lopsided braid."

"You don't know her name?"

Carlos colored. "She's from eighth grade."

"Looks like you guys like older women."

"Am not!" Matthew defended himself.

"How about we try?" Gilbert suggested.

The whole yard is silent. No noise can be heard. A passing breeze rolled in, ruffling the branches and making leaves fall. A butterfly passed, alighted on few selected magnolias and immediately took off. Three still forms, unmoving. Unaware of the word 'breathing'.

"We can try kissing," Gilbert said, uncomfortable now. "We can practice so that we won't look like monkeys when the time comes." He gave Matthew a meaningful glance.

Matthew caught the drift and gasped, "Hell no! Not me!"

Carlos raised a knuckled hand. "I'll beat you black and blue, Gilbert."

"I can kiss you Matthew." Gilbert grabbed his friend by his shirt. "You have no choice."

"I can't look," Carlos replied as he closed his eyes and hid behind his palm. "I think we're committing a sin."

"Why me?" Matthew asked, hiding his lips.

"Because you look girly."

"Fu-"

"Effeminate then." Gilbert amended carefully. "Imagine me as Katyusha, Matthew. What if girls simply asked us to kiss them? I don't want to look like an idiot in front of Elizaveta!" Gilbert exclaimed as he forced Matthew, pulling his friend by the collar. "Go on!"

Matthew's face is a hundred-shaded red, including his ears "You're the most unfeminine partner I ever had."

"Kiss me now!" Gilbert challenged. "We want to know now, didn't we?"

"Is this even legal?" Carlos wants to know.

"This is embarrassing!" Matthew panicked, trying to recall his mother's soaps that she frequently watch in Friday nights. "Do I really have to pucker my lips like that? Like a fish's?"

"The time has come, press it to mine!" Gilbert said, closing his eyes, his lips resembling a draw-stringed raisin.

"Hell, I don't know what to do! This is too sudden!" Matthew's eyes are gleaming, near ears. "Wait! Wait! Where should my nose go?"

"Beats me."

"I think when you kiss, you bump your nose with your partner." Carlos' said, remembered reading a part like that in a paperback novel in his grandma's bookshelf. "I also heard from Francis that you also put tongues in kissing."

"Eww." Gilbert's reply.

"Yuck!" Matthew scarred.

"Who told him that?"

"He said it was a secret."

"If kissing is like that, I'll prefer eating cucumbers." Matthew exaggerated.

Everybody stilled. The sound of the church bells from a distance accompanied the birds' cawing. A bicycle passed, the rider not sparing them a glance. The next-door neighbor's Schipperke was furiously barking over a passing scavenger feline. The plaster that dried last week complements the stained glass window near the porch.

"So..." Gilbert said, noticing the quietude. "Let's do this now to get over with."

Matthew gulped and cleaned his lips with a handkerchief. Gilbert went as far as to clean his tongue with a starched collar.

"Ready?"

"Yeah...I guess."

Gilbert and Matthew diminished the centimeters between them. Carlos' eyes became dazed.

They closed their eyes. Their noses touched. Their breaths fanned each others' cheeks. Slowly and carefully, they pressed mouth-to-mouth. After two seconds of contact, they pulled away.

"That was horrible!" Matthew complained, vigorously wiping his lips with his sleeves. "I'm never going to kiss you again, Gilbert!"

"Same here." Gilbert took the warmed Spring Bubble soda and gargled with it.

Carlos released a huge breath of relief. "Thank goodness that's over. Now," he motioned for the three of them to huddle together in a circle. "Let's all promise that all we've done here will remain a secret."

They all nodded in agreement.

Gilbert and Carlos resumed finishing painting the picket fences on Mathew's backyard every Friday. On their way home they concluded that the first kiss doesn't taste like strawberries or peppermint just like what pocketbook romances claim them to be. It tasted more like starched collars.

They are three thirteen-year-olds in the brink of adulthood, frightened with the new experiences they may encounter and strike them bizarre. Afraid of taking the initiative with the girls they like. Wondering when they could start kissing girls and holding their hands. Questioning themselves if sixteen is the right age to confess and perhaps kiss. They thought of the unexplored mystery behind relationships and tried reasoning what is right and proper, wrong and scandalous.

Years came and went. They all forgot the memory overtime as they shared their first sweet kisses with their brides. All except the yellowed picket fence mellowed by age that looked on everything inside the Williamses' backyard painted by amateur inexperienced hands of three thirteen-year-olds.

A/N: Whenever I look at my two younger male cousins, I often wondered if they ever thought of kissing. Girls are charmed by them overtime. I wonder how boys take them. I wonder if they talk about their friends about it in an innocent totally un-maliced type of way. That is what I tried portraying here. Thinking about kissing after all is a part of growing up.