Edge Of Seventeen

Illustration by Milano Chow

Vice: How long have you been writing?

Blaise: Oh my gosh, forever. Since as long as I can remember.

What kind of stuff did you write when you were younger?

Fictionalized memoir-type pieces. The day John Lennon died, I was with my mom in the car and heard it on the radio. She was really upset, so I got really upset. I went home and wrote a story about it. I didn’t really know who he was, so I made up stuff about who he was and what he meant to me.

Cute.

ou and Katherine are drunk on wine coolers and you’ve forgotten all about stabbing Ziggy with the Ginsu knife and running for your lives. The three of you cozy down in the dark, Ziggy in the middle, beneath several layers of blankets and unzipped sleeping bags, and you listen to the sounds of the leaves rustling in the trees outside. Then Ziggy turns and puts your face in his hands and kisses you. For a second you worry about Katherine and how it must feel to be her in that moment. It occurs to you that if you were a better person you might stop him but you’re not. You were just lying there doing nothing and suddenly this beautiful man starts kissing you. And he kisses you like no one ever has kissed you before. Perhaps this is because every boy you’ve ever kissed before is a child. Ziggy’s hair smells like apple butter and Suave conditioner and you think that this is probably what it would be like to make out with Michael Hutchence, which you’d totally do if you ever met him. Ziggy gently pulls away from you. He smiles and sighs sweetly but you wonder why he’s stopping. Maybe he didn’t like it. Maybe you have cigarette breath. Maybe you kiss like a juvenile. The answer comes back to you in aural form: You hear Ziggy and Katherine slobbering all over each other. Now you’re confused. He must sense this because he reaches back and pulls you close behind him. He’s totally reading your mind. Now you are thinking, “Holy fucking shit,” and when he kisses you again and then kisses Katherine again you are freaking out all over yourself and you are reminded of that movie Summer Lovers starring Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher about a three-way love affair in Greece, but you are in Newton, Massachusetts, in the woods behind a public playground, and that is so fucking unbelievably kick-ass. Now you’ve got one hand on Ziggy’s belt buckle. Buzzing and floating in a teen-dream trance you try to mount him. In so doing, you learn through the coming together of the layers of your jeans and his, that IT IS HARD AND IT IS HUGE. This is scary and intriguing at the same time. You know that wanting to dry-hump him is not in the best interest of your friendship with Katherine but you are overcome with the need to let Ziggy know that if you were alone with him you would totally go all the way. He keeps going back and forth between the two of you until you realize he’s kissing her while his fingers are down your pants. When you reach over to rub his thigh your hand lands on an arm that isn’t his. You’re not about to start caressing Katherine. To you, this is what a threesome must be. It’s all about taking turns. This tryst goes on for what seems like forever and that’s still not long enough. When you wake up in the morning it’s to the sound of rain drizzling on nylon. The sun is barely up. Katherine stirs, then Ziggy. He starts a slow-motion replay of the night before and none of you have even brushed your teeth. The world is timeless, the birds are singing, your pants are still on you and so are all of your limbs. You’re a little worried about what your hair looks like but it is a beautiful morning and you make a secret silent vow to be cosmically connected to this moment for the rest of your natural-born life. Part of you can’t wait to be alone with Katherine for the essential comparing of notes and to go over every bit of minutiae starting from the moment Ziggy picked the two of you up from where you sat curbside, certain that he wouldn’t show. The three of you drive back to your house. Your parents aren’t home so you invite Ziggy in. You and Katherine sit on the floor against your bed and Ziggy sits on the floor across from you. You’re quiet and a bit disoriented and you can’t believe that the hot guy from the Coffee Connection is in your room. You offer tea. You don’t even drink tea. No one you know drinks tea. You drink sugar with a tablespoon of coffee in it and shotgunned cans of Golden Anniversary but you think that Celestial Seasonings is appropriate. While you put the kettle on in the kitchen you imagine Ziggy coming in to tell you that he really wants to see you again and he kisses you and you squeeze his ass and he fondles your left breast which you only recently realized is a little bit smaller than the right one. But before the Lemon Zinger has a chance to cool down Ziggy says he should probably get going and you’re instantly nervous for all of you because good-byes are always weird. You know you’ll never hang out with him again but that’s fine because you are mature enough to be OK with that. Besides, when you and your best friend have spent a night in a tent with a 20-something Michael Hutchence look-alike from out of nowhere, you have truly been blessed. You have your serious one-on-one with Katherine (“Could you hear it when he fingered me?” she asks you), and you both agree not to tell anyone about camping with Ziggy except for your closest friends. This means within 24 hours everyone knows. You both curl up in front of the TV and watch Saturday-morning cartoons until you fall asleep. Ziggy stops working at the Coffee Connection just as mysteriously as he started, but the fact of him breathes new life into your old scene, so much so that you wish you had one more summer before high school graduation. You are left with a sense of something you can’t quite name; a feeling that meeting him would somehow turn out to be one of the milestones that paves the road to something like adulthood. Two years and two intense boyfriend-type relationships later, you’re home from college and you’ve even possibly declared a maybe major. One warm July night you trudge back home from a 21+ rock show at the Paradise. You find a folded-up piece of paper sticking out of the mailbox. It has your name written on it and inside it says, “Hey. If you’re around call Ziggy.” BLAISE KEARSLEY