The Skokie Theatre

THE SKOKIE THEATRE / Edward Hirsch Twelve years old and lovesick, bumbling and terrified for the first time in my life, but strangely hopeful, too, and stunned, definitely stunned—I wanted to cry, I almost started to sob when Chris Klein actually touched me—oh God—below the belt in the back row of the Skokie Theatre. Our knees bumped helplessly, our mouths were glued together like flypaper, our lips were grinding in a hysterical grimace while the most handsome man in the world twitched his hips on the flickering screen and the girls began to scream in the dark. I didn't know one thing about the body yet, about the deep foam filling my bones, but I wanted to cry out in desolation when she touched me again, when the lights flooded on in the crowded theatre and the other kids started to file into the narrow aisles, into a lobby of faded purple splendor, into the last Saturday in August before she moved away. I never wanted to move again, but suddenly we were being lifted toward the sidewalk in a crush of bodies, blinking, shy, unprepared for the ringing familiar voices and the harsh glare of sunlight, the brightness of an afternoon that left us gripping each other's hands, trembling and changed. The Missouri Review -227 ...