Barry at the Festival in Love

BARRY at the FESTIVAL in LOVE

       "Mari, try this."

       "Why?"

       "Because it's good, duh!"

       "How would you know?"

       "Obviously, just look at me!"

       Barry slapped his ample belly, once, twice, and many times after to make it shake.

       "Ha, of course, you'll know." The girl called Mari took the fried shrimp sticking from the end of his chopsticks and ran back to her mother.

       The summer bred sweat faster than flies, and Barry's pores were put into double time after Mari opened wide in front of him and took his offering.

       Would she even know that was his way of saying "I love you" without the words.

       He stood and watched as she rammed into her mother's behind face first, chopsticks still suspended in the air.

       Barry was all of ten years old, but had already been in what he knew was love half his life.

       He knew it, his brothers suspected it, his parents knew but acted ignorant of it, and Gummy--what he called his friend from India, Gupta--knew it five days a week, but this summer he wanted Mari to know it too.

       That fried shrimp had been an offering, She had taken it, and as far as Barry was concerned that meant things were serious between the two of them now.

       The summer season coming again was as expected as the sun returning to the sky following night. This one still felt special, a boon that it brought the festivals of summer along with it. There had been times Barry thought it may never come; that instead the leaves would only grow greener and the rabbits more numerous without the heat breaking acceptable limits into something more than good weather. When it finally did, he knew their marriage was one step closer to being in the works.

       Because, naturally, as all small boys will tell you, being married is what happens directly after you like someone a whole lot and get them to say the same.

       Mari's mother turned around as her daughter hid herself in her skirts, finding Barry and giving a big smile before the crowds broke the field of vision. Barry took that warming look to mean "You have excellent chopstick abilities, and will surely make a fine husband for my only daughter."

The fact of the matter was Mari held a place as the youngest of four daughters. Barry could tell, however, with that glance and grin, that, at the time, there had been only one daughter she was thinking of and only one Barry who could possibly be fit to wed her sweet girl.

       Barry new to play it cool, and ran back to his own mother and father seated at a far table taking in the entertainments of the night, and dug in to the plate of deep friend chicken left on the table. His father had his fill of both chicken and beer and now fell victim to a world where only falsely nostalgic beach guitar on stage could be heard, but his mother saw and knew.

       "Oh Barry, how red your face is now. Been running with your friends in circles around the festival here have you?"

       "Yeah," Barry said from behind the grease of a leg bone, "sure have."

       "Gupta was here a minute ago looking for where you'd been."

       What a fool! Barry must seek counsel, and quickly.

       He burst through the crowd forming the back audience with no tables, leg bone firmly in hand, until he found the familiar brown skin of Gupta's clan.

       "Gupta?" He inquired with a word. A quick finger from one of his friend's sister pointed him in the direction of a shiny rock booth, where Gummy would be scooping all a small bag at $2 for all the false agates it could carry.

       He moved past the doubled over figures of grandpas and grandmas, and ignored a number of boys from his grade at school who saw him, one of whom waved but he pretended not to notice as more important things were at hand now.

       "Gummy! I did it!"

       His deep-tanned friend spun around, loosing a few agates from his bag, saying in a quick breath, "Kiss her?"

       Barry slapped him across the shoulder and Gupta laughed, "Yeah, I thought so." Knowing that his friend wouldn't be in such rushed high spirits unless it was good news, Gummy grew a grin across his face and slapped him back.

       "I'm going to do it," Barry announced for one person to hear, "I'm going to say… you know, that stuff."

       "Good. Give this." Gupta extended an ochre-green agate the color of magic to his breathless friend, gap-tooth grin never ceasing on his face.

       "Thanks. You're the best!" And with that, Barry was back off.

       He hustled by another group of boys in his same grade but another class as they howled over a game; someone had won and Barry intended the next winner to be him. He slowed his pace back to the walk of a boy who didn't have the prospects of his entire life set into a stone. In a gaggle of middle school girls he caught sight of one of Mari's sisters, and tried to avoid the judgment of her gaze. He was already very familiar with the taunts, "fat boy," "fatty cheeks," "heavy hitter," and didn't need to be reminded with an off look. He moved past and almost came face-to-upskirt with an unknown older girl pushing by a group of 50-somethings, clapping in tune with the wailing guitar on stage a mile away. Barry suppressed the strange surge of coming that close to a short skirt gave him, refocusing to the goal at hand as he picked Mari's Mom out a head above the crowd.

       She was a bigger lady, and had a big front part of her along with the extension of her waist line, and somehow Barry thought that was a fine thing. When he scoped the skirt beneath the figure of motherhood he spied no little girl between the legs of people trudging here or there for less important reasons. The image of the short skirt he saw on the older girl flashed in front of his mind again, as a small boy's conscious however pure couldn't help but be curious of what lies beneath, but he shook his head until his cheeks flapped and made a sound of getting knocked back against his face in attempt to focus on the mission.

       He cautiously trotted over to where Mari's mother stood talking to a teacher of a lower grade, his actions to deliberate to not be obvious to her, and when he came wandering aimlessly, she pointed. He followed in the direction of the goldfish stand, where a deft hand and sympathetic booth runner could score you a ten cent pet for a number of days until you learned a lesson of what death was in life.

       He picked her out of the crowd immediately, black and white summer dress striped with parapendicular lines just like they talked about in math class earlier that day, though it hadn't been the most riveting conversation. He'd make good on his fried shrimp and show that he was interesting and kind and smart and had all the best of intentions.

       Barry began to advance, throwing the slimy leg of chicken beside the booth in the grass.

(He'd come get it later, he told himself).

She was watching, just watching, as a couple of older boys hooted and hollered while their friend lost, again, and cursed, throwing the weak fish skimmer into the water in a show of defiance and false anger.        He got a quick reprimand by the booth runner, saying he was an imbecile and that's why the fish wouldn't come to him, they could smell it, though he still accepted his next dollar to play again all the same.

       Mari was startled when Barry tapped her on the shoulder. She got an expectant look on her face when she saw who it was. With all the composure she gained from having older sisters, she gave her face a aloof look that said "Oh, Barry, didn't notice you over there" without words.

       "Here!" Barry announced aloud, and loud enough that the booth runner glanced over. "It's for you! I got it for you. Or, er, Gummy said, uh, this is what I wanted to give you, like I said!"

       She looked at the pudgy fingers and open palm in front of her face, and then back to the round cheeks of the boy who offered the stone to her. "Thanks" she said, as she swiped the stone with two fingers, gingerly plucking it without making contact with the sweaty palm of the boy who offered it.

       "Y-Your welcome!" Barry bellowed, loudly enough that the boys skimming for fish noticed, and one missed his catch, the small feeder breaking the limp wafer that would never net a one of them unless the booth runner felt like it. Cursing loudly he threw the skimmer back into the water, this time with enough force to splash some water up an onto to the booth runner and Mari. The booth runner took his festival flyer and smacked that boy in the head with it (he was his younger brother, after all) and sent him running with a hurl of curses and insults as his compadres let peals of laughter into the night.

       Barry was there in an instant, stiff handkerchief out of is pocket, "Let me--"

       "It's fine, I got it" and the girl lifted the stripes on her black-and-white dress to wipe her own face so that Barry, who wouldn't admit it until years and years after, saw her underwear for the first time.

       "D-D-Do-Did you like the fried shrimp?"

       "Yes, thank you. And thank you for your rock too. It's very pretty."

       "Thank you" Barry said, pretending in his own mind that the sweat was just summer heat.

       "My Momma says they're gonna do a barbecue tomorrow after the festival, because the boys aren't done having fun. That's what she said."

       "Oh yeah?"

       "You're going to be there too, right?"

       "Yeah."

       "Cool. So, I'll see you there. You're the nice boy. Thanks Barry."

       "Yeah, sure."

       "Thanks for being the nice one. I know what my sisters say, but I still think the same. This greenish rock, I'll show it to them if they say anything else but that."

       "Yeah. Thanks."

       With that, Barry turned around, ready to walk away, thoroughly embarrassed though over what he couldn't decide. It was then Mari grabbed him from behind. He felt her skin and bones close to his flab and flesh and swore it lasted an hour or more. He could tell she would grow to be just like her mother, and he thought that was grand.

       When she let him go, he set off running without looking back.