The crime of a kiss

Tuesday 12 January 2010

I first learned about it when I was summoned to the assistant principal's office. Here in the US the assistant principals (we have two at this school) are responsible for maintaining attendance and discipline. As you might figure the worst-behaved people are most familiar with them. I had never been called to see them before today. A student arrived in my 4th-period maths class bearing a pass and I got up amidst the teasing and jeering feeling like I was about to be guillotined in the square.

I stepped into the office and Mr H-- gestured for me to sit down. I sat, crossed my ankles, arranged the skirt in my lap, and exhaled to calm my breathing. If I felt awkward at least Mr H-- felt more so. He looked about himself for a long moment and then stared straight at me. 'Janine,' he said to me.

'Yes, Sir.'

'Do you have any idea what this is about?'

I shook my head. 'None at all, Sir.'

He looked oddly at me then, as though he had expected a simple No. I suppose I was long enough at HOH (in England) that know how to answer a proper question from a senior school administrator. So he went on to tell me that Sherry, one of my friends (who is in our girls' club) was 'caught' (his word) kissing a boy in the school cafeteria, which is against about three or four school rules (including, if you can believe, the health code) and is facing disciplinary action as soon as Mr H-- can figure out exactly what happened and, as he admitted, who the boy is.

I stared straight at him the whole time he told me this, not out of respect nor anything else but in total disbelief. I know that kissing in the school is against policy. We've discussed what's known as 'PDA' (public displays of affection) in our club meetings. I am very strongly against it, as anyone who knows me can verify. For one thing, it makes other people feel awkward. Just because you can get a date doesn't mean you should ever flaunt in front of other people. Then of course it's form of possession, as though the guy is saying, 'Look what I get to have, and kiss, in front of you, and you don't.' And of course a girl will feel the same thing about a guy. And for another thing it's never really a good kiss-- it's a polite kiss, or more importantly a gesture, being shown to other people, not intended to be particularly pleasant. If you want really good kissing, go somewhere where you're both more comfortable (like a Halloween party in an angel costume-- okay, that's somewhere else in this blog). And, for another, it's disruptive-- it makes people pay attention, not much better than a car wreck on the highway. Also, I guess, from the school's point of view, they don't want to be put in the VERY awkward position of having to determine where a simple 'see you later' kiss ends and where 'making out' begins, so they have to ban all of it-- which I am totally in support of. So I guess the next issue is, if Sherry is in our club-- and had participated in that discussion-- why one of 'us' (if I may say 'us') was 'caught' kissing a boy in the cafeteria.

'And so,' Mr H-- was saying, 'I asked you down here because I have a little problem with getting a straight answer out of her.' He looked straight at me then. 'Who is Sherry dating right now?'

I looked straight back at him. 'Sir--?'

'It's a simple question. You're friends with Sherry-- you must know whom she's dating. What's his name?'

'Sir, I really don't think--'

'Just an answer. Do you know who her current boyfriend is?'

I went red. I did know. I have met him often. He came to our Christmas party. He's been helping to organise our Valentines' Day dance. He hangs out with the other two boyfriends who date girls in our club at the moment. 'Sir,' I said, 'if you will forgive me-- I think that's a question for Sherry, and not--'

'I'm asking you, right now.' There was no awkwardness left in him now. 'Do you think you'd like to answer, or--?'

I waited. He did not finish. I swallowed and said bravely, 'Or--?'

He let out a long sigh. 'Oh, so I get it,' he said. By now the respect was gone too. 'It's not just a girls' club, then. It's a little gang you've got here. One for all and all for one-- is that it? All go down together? --something like that.'

'Sir, I don't think that--'

'You'll START thinking, young lady, and you'll start now. I've got your little lady-friend in the next room' (he meant the detainment room where they put people for the period, or the day, or after-school detention) 'for insubordination at the moment, for refusing to co-operate with administration, but it can very easily go to more than that. So start using your pretty little head right now. Do I have to bring every member of your little skirt-wearing gang in here to find out one little piece of information? How many is that? --a dozen girls? And will I be able to get a straight answer out of any one of them?'

I stared straight at him. I mean-- I was not going to back down, not now, not at all. 'Sir, I haven't said I won't co-operate.'

'I'll be the one to define co-operation here, Janine.'

'Yes, Sir,' I said, ignoring that. 'You should know, Sir, that we girls-- in our club, I mean-- don't condone "PDA". We've talked about it. We all agree it's pretty crass and tasteless-- not to mention against school policy.'

He made a smirk then. 'If what you say is true, if "PDA" is against your... principles, then why was Sherry caught doing this?'

I shrugged. 'I am as surprised by it as you are,' I said. He didn't seem to believe that-- he definitely didn't care. 'Sir, if I may ask something-- If Sherry was kissing this guy in the cafeteria... do you know which of them started it?'

'Started it? It's a public display of affection. It takes two. What difference does it make who started it?'

'Well, Sir, if you were to ask a girl, I would say it makes a lot of difference.' That seemed to stump him and it gave me a chance for another breath. 'I mean, Sir, not to be too tedious about it, but it's entirely possible that this guy just came up and kissed her.'

'From what I hear she didn't seem to repel him very much.'

I made a smile. 'If it were a good kiss, I don't think it would repel me either, Sir. And even so, you could hardly accuse me of initiating it. After all, Sir, some of the best kisses are by surprise-- and any guy knows that.'

Mr H-- sat back in his chair, made a cathedral of his hands and pressed his fingertips together over and over, staring at me as though his stare could make me feel intimidated. I was far from feeling intimidated. He had got my ire up and I wasn't going to back down. What does Lizzy Bennet say in 'Pride and Prejudice'? --'I always rise to any attempt to intimidate me.' So we sat there staring at each other for a long moment. Fortunately Mr H-- is not a bad-looking man of his age-- he has the ex-Marine build and close-cut hair and a pleasant, if serious-looking face. Unfortunately (probably because of being an ex-Marine) he is virtually impossible to out-confidence. 'You're very clever, aren't you?' he asked me.

I cocked my head a little at that-- maybe I should not have looked like I would flinch. 'Sir--?'

'You bring up these philosophies of yours-- very confidently, very smoothly. You, and your holier-than-thou clique, with your slogans and carwashes and charities, and it's really just all for one and one for all, isn't it? Not much better than a gang-- maybe a better-looking gang, but a gang-- as I suspected. Not much difference at all.'

'Lots of difference,' I said.

'You have gang colours,' he said, 'and initiations and creeds and even a form of territory. Gangs are illegal in this school, Janine.'

'We are not a gang, Sir. For one, we are not self-serving. We are not violent. We don't rebel against authority. And you allow other non-school clubs to wear "colours" here. You have non-school clubs here who wear team colours-- that's not considered a gang. You have clubs here that wear "Jesus" t-shirts, clubs that wear "Darwin" t-shirts, paintballers, Boy Scouts, the black-t-shirt groups and cliques-- Sir, you have a club at this school who wear colours and get together only to smoke pot and play Warcraft.'

'Do we?' he wondered.

'And you cannot compare that to a bunch of decent girls who practise good manners and chastity and honesty and raise money to feed poor people-- and, I might add, Sir, help hold up the reputation of this school, especially in behaviour and even in grades.'

'"Especially in behaviour",' he said back at me. 'And by that, you mean co-operating with school administrators in upholding school policy?'

I drew a breath and nodded. 'In everything good, Sir.'

He smiled smugly at me. '"In everything good",' he repeated. 'Who is your friend Sherry kissing these days?'

I sighed. Had he not heard anything I'd just said? 'Sir,' I said, speaking quickly and firmly now, 'I think what I've been trying to say is that it's very possible the guy who kissed her in the cafeteria and the guy she's currently dating are not the same guy.'

This completely threw him. His eyes went suddenly wide as if he had just been caught by an ambush. Then he smiled smugly at me. 'So, your little friend is a bit of a player, then?'

'A player, Sir?' I had never heard a school administrator say something so disrespectful about someone I knew.

'Two boys at once? Is that one of your club's core values?'

'Sir, I hardly think--'

'I'm still wondering if you think at all. Any of you.' He leaned forward to his desk. 'I'll write you up for insubordination right now, and we'll see about resolving the issue with your little player friend in the other room--'

'Sir?' I asked, suddenly getting an idea, 'will you allow me the benefit of the doubt? May I go in and ask her myself? Confidentially, of course. If it's any news that will... absolve her, I will tell you everything I know. If not....'

He nodded. 'If not, you'll plead the fifth... and take this.'

I nodded seriously, seeing the discipline referral form on his desk. 'Yes, Sir.'

He rose at once. So did I. 'You have two minutes. This isn't legal strategy. You can tell her I'll call every last member of your little gang in here if I don't get an answer out of her. I'll start with your little sister.'

I met him in the eye. 'Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.'

There was another student in the detention room, a boy in a black hoodie with his head down on the desk who, apparently, had been sent down for the day for failing to dress for PE. I stepped right past him and went to Sherry in the corner. She leaned down on her arm, with her long reddish hair spilled out all over the desk, her knees together, her ankles crossed, in a cute black-and-grey speckled wool skirt and black tights and an off-white sweater. She didn't see me at first. I crouched down beside her-- in a skirt and tights-- so that our heads were less than a foot apart. She was surprised to see me but I told her what was going on at once.

'He says,' I said quietly, 'that he'll pull us all in here, one-by-one, and interrogate us till he finds out. Whoever doesn't tell will get the same thing you get.'

She made a face. 'That's unfair,' she said sadly.

I nodded. 'I know, but what would be worse is not showing you the respect you deserve. I mean, it's your life-- he shouldn't interrogate us about it, like it's a matter of public record.'

'If we're talking about respect,' Sherry said then, 'then I shouldn't let any of you go down for anything I've done.'

I shrugged. 'That doesn't matter, if it's important to you.'

'Are you going to make that decision for the rest of us? --all the others?'

'We do love you,' I said quietly. 'All for one.'

Sherry shook her head. 'Then I guess I'd better tell you,' she said. In a near-whisper she explained that her boyfriend's best friend ('Mike') had often been teasing her by saying that he has a crush on her, that she looks hot (she does), that he would go out with her if she were not dating his best friend, and so on. And yesterday in the cafeteria 'Mike' came up to her and got her aside for some kind of 'private conversation'-- the topic of which I will NOT go into here, but it was very disrespectful towards a guy he has been claiming is so much his best friend that he wouldn't disrespect him by following his heart, or whatever such bile boys like to spew out as though some dumb chick will believe it. And Sherry had told 'Mike' she would not change her mind and said she thought it was better they did not have any such 'private conversations' any more. And so, I am sure mainly because 'Mike' felt it was appropriate (though we will all agree here that it wasn't), he needed to give her a 'goodbye and good luck kiss', right in the corner of the cafeteria, behind the big square column, where no one (except the teacher on cafeteria duty) would see.

'And I can't say anything, because [boyfriend] will get upset,' she told me, 'and there's nothing going on, there never was anything going on, and there never was anything going to be going on, but you know how guys are-- I mean sometimes they just don't accept that.'

'So it's a simple case of a guy unable to resist his best friend's girlfriend,' I said.

'Please don't tell [boyfriend],' she said. 'I swear I will, Janine, when the time is right, when I should. I just don't think--'

'"What's right to be done can never be done too soon",' I quoted. (Too much Jane Austen in one day, I know.) 'The right time is the very next time you see him.'

She blotted her eye. 'I know. You're right. I will.'

I stood up. 'Well, let me go tell Mr H-- that, so we can get you out of here.'

Mr H-- probably hearing his name in my regular voice then-- appeared in the doorway. 'No,' Sherry said, catching my hand. 'I wouldn't say a word-- It would get back to him and I couldn't bear that.'

I nodded. 'It means you're going to have this lunch detention,' I said. 'For like three days this week.'

She nodded. 'I'll take the lunch detention.' She looked past me at Mr H-- then. 'Mr H--, it's not her fault. It's mine. I'll take the lunch detentions.'

'Is that your plea, counsellor?' he asked me.

I stood up straight before him. The boy in the black hoodie looked up. The other assistant principal appeared in the door behind Mr H--. And another boy was just signing in from having been sent out of his class, and he looked up too. In front of this audience I said, 'Yes, Sir.'

He beckoned me with his finger and I followed him out. Behind me, Sherry put her head down on the desk again. The detention room is like jail. For someone like Sherry-- for anyone of our club, for anyone at all, really, it must be humiliating. I do not know how I would ever choose to be here. But somehow I just did.

I explained to Mr H-- that the boy had kissed Sherry without her permission, and that because of the circumstances she felt guiltier than she should, and she was choosing the punishment rather than giving up his name to keep the whole thing quiet and just put it behind her somehow. 'She's not a "player",' I said, 'as you called her, Sir. She's actually being very noble about it.'

'Noble? And now you know the guy, and you're not giving him up either?'

I stood my ground. 'No, Sir.'

He nodded, looked down at the discipline-referral form on his desk, and picked it up to read it over. 'All right,' he said past me to our other AP. 'She gets the three LDs, and the counsellor here-- I'll decide on her later.'

The other AP nodded and went out. My heart pounded. I did not want lunch detention nor anything else. 'Thank you, Sir,' I said, because I did not know what else to say.

'Thank me for what? I haven't decided on you yet.'

I nodded. 'Yes, Sir. But-- thank you for considering it.'

He made that disrespectful smirk again. 'Get out of here,' he said, and called over me towards his assistant who would write a pass for me to return to class.

I have thought a lot about it all afternoon and still don't know what the sin is in 'all for one and one for all.' If Sherry is wrong, it's because as a lady she allowed herself to be kissed by her boyfriend's best friend in school. And she really is being noble by taking the punishment to protect someone she loves and someone he cares for as a best friend in turn. I have to respect that. But she is being mistrusted and mistreated-- I probably am too-- and Mr H--, who should be a role model of fairness and noble behaviour, is being obstinate and arbitrary.

I texted everyone in our group this afternoon and not one of us, if we are asked, will be giving over 'Mike''s name, even if it means we are all sitting in lunch detention-- and not being allowed to talk or even communicate with each other-- for the rest of the week.

I have not told my parents, but I know what they will say. 'Do what you believe is right, Janine.' -- and I have done, and will do. Thanks be to God.

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