She smelled of sweat, a sharp tang that smelled great. I knew I smelled of sweat too. My nose was pointed into the top of her head, and her face was right at my collarbone. She moved her hands to my neck and tugged.
“Get down here, I didn’t bring a stepladder,” is what she said and I tried to smile, but it’s hard to smile when you’re kissing.
Like I said, I’d kissed three girls in my life. Two of them had never kissed anyone before. One had been dating since she was 12. She had issues.
None of them kissed like Ange. She made her whole mouth soft, like the inside of a ripe piece of fruit, and she didn’t jam her tongue in my mouth, but slid it in there, and sucked my lips into her mouth at the same time, so it was like my mouth and hers were merging. I heard myself moan and I grabbed her and squeezed her harder.
Slowly, gently, we lowered ourselves to the grass. We lay on our sides and clutched each other, kissing and kissing. The world disappeared so there was only the kiss.
My hands found her butt, her waist. The edge of her t-shirt. Her warm tummy, her soft navel. They inched higher. She moaned too.
“Not here,” she said. “Let’s move over there.” She pointed across the street at the big white church that gives Mission Dolores Park and the Mission its name. Holding hands, moving quickly, we crossed to the church. It had big pillars in front of it. She put my back up against one of them and pulled my face down to hers again. My hands went quickly and boldly back to her shirt. I slipped them up her front.
“It undoes in the back,” she whispered into my mouth. I had a boner that could cut glass. I moved my hands around to her back, which was strong and broad, and found the hook with my fingers, which were trembling. I fumbled for a while, thinking of all those jokes about how bad guys are at undoing bras. I was bad at it. Then the hook sprang free. She gasped into my mouth. I slipped my hands around, feeling the wetness of her armpits — which was sexy and not at all gross for some reason — and then brushed the sides of her breasts.
That’s when the sirens started.
They were louder than anything I’d ever heard. A sound like a physical sensation, like something blowing you off your feet. A sound as loud as your ears could process, and then louder.
“DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY,” a voice said, like God rattling in my skull.
“THIS IS AN ILLEGAL GATHERING. DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY.”
The band had stopped playing. The noise of the crowd across the street changed. It got scared. Angry.
I heard a click as the PA system of car-speakers and car-batteries in the tennis courts powered up.
“TAKE IT BACK!”
It was a defiant yell, like a sound shouted into the surf or screamed off a cliff.
“TAKE IT BACK!”
The crowd
“
The police moved in in lines, carrying plastic shields, wearing Darth Vader helmets that covered their faces. Each one had a black truncheon and infra-red goggles. They looked like soldiers out of some futuristic war movie. They took a step forward in unison and every one of them banged his truncheon on his shield, a cracking noise like the earth splitting. Another step, another crack. They were all around the park and closing in now.
“DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY,” the voice of God said again. There were helicopters overhead now. No floodlights, though. The infrared goggles, right. Of course. They’d have infrared scopes in the sky, too. I pulled Ange back against the doorway of the church, tucking us back from the cops and the choppers.
“TAKE IT BACK!” the PA roared. It was Trudy Doo’s rebel yell and I heard her guitar thrash out some chords, then her drummer playing, then that big deep bass.
“TAKE IT BACK!” the crowd answered, and they boiled out of the park at the police lines.
I’ve never been in a war, but now I think I know what it must be like. What it must be like when scared kids charge across a field at an opposing force, knowing what’s coming, running anyway, screaming, hollering.
“DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY,” the voice of God said. It was coming from trucks parked all around the park, trucks that had swung into place in the last few seconds.
That’s when the mist fell. It came out of the choppers, and we just caught the edge of it. It made the top of my head feel like it was going to come off. It made my sinuses feel like they were being punctured with ice-picks. It made my eyes swell and water, and my throat close.
Pepper spray. Not 200 thousand Scovilles. A million and a half. They’d gassed the crowd.
I didn’t see what happened next, but I heard it, over the sound of both me and Ange choking and holding each other. First the choking, retching sounds. The guitar and drums and bass crashed to a halt. Then coughing.
Then screaming.
The screaming went on for a long time. When I could see again, the cops had their scopes up on their foreheads and the choppers were flooding Dolores Park with so much light it looked like daylight. Everyone was looking at the Park, which was good news, because when the lights went up like that, we were totally visible.
“What do we do?” Ange said. Her voice was tight, scared. I didn’t trust myself to speak for a moment. I swallowed a few times.
“We walk away,” I said. “That’s all we can do. Walk away. Like we were just passing by. Down to Dolores and turn left and up towards 16th Street. Like we’re just passing by. Like this is none of our business.”
“That’ll never work,” she said.
