My Gal
What her name was, I can’t recall; only that my sister called her Pancake Face. We met in kindergarten. She was much more than a pancake face; she really killed in her velcro shoes and Julia-Louis Dreyfus haircut. This gal was the talk of the teeter-tots back in the early nineteen-nineties.
I liked her a lot. One morning before kindergarten I waited atop the playground for her.
“Why are you waiting for her?” asked my best friend, Sam. Sam didn’t yet get girls.
“Because I like her,” said I. I needed not explain myself any further, and Sam left to play soccer. I continued to wait, gazing across Old Yale Elementary School’s field to her house. She had once pointed out to me that her house was visible from my perch. It soon became our perch.
When she arrived I dug through my pocket for the gift I was waiting to give her.
“Here,” I said. I put the ring in her hand. It was a Ninja Turtles ring. She loved it.
Fast-forward your VCR’s to the next year, Grade One. Our teacher, Mrs. Bouche (Boob-Shag, we called her) had decided we’d sing a song in class. As we sat on the floor singing, my stomach began to hurt. The pain got worse and worse until I started crying.
My gal put up her hand. “Curtis is hurt,” she said.
The song was stopped and I was taken to the nurse’s office. I sat there in pain, alone and shivering for quite a while, I remember it very well, actually. Scared and in pain is how I remained until my gal waltzed into the room, escorted by Mrs. Bouche.
“The nurse should by here any second,” Mrs. Boob-Shag announced as she closed the door and left us alone.
I turned to my gal, she now sat right beside me on that big sheet of paper they roll over the bench in a doctor’s office. Without me needing to ask, she explained.
“I told the teacher my stomach hurt so I could stay with you.”
What a gesture! What a fond memory. I only wish I could remember more of Pancake Face. I moved to a new school the next year, and a new province of Canada four years after that. I would later learn more about women, but never again would I know such simple kindness. I’m sure she got in trouble when her parents came to pick her up and discovered that their daughter was not sick at all. I know, as I remember seeing her the next day, that she didn’t care. She asked me if I was okay.
Recently I realized that what I’m looking for in life is what I had in kindergarten. Thanks, my gal. I wish I could remember your name, I’m glad I remember your kindness.
