The Oscar Hour

Someone else's August kiss in the rain

August 2009

Actually, a kiss had been the reason Oscar wanted to move to New York City in the first place. Not a kiss that Oscar participated in, no. He visited the city with friends, and at nighttime, when he was walking down the street, he was caught behind two men who were holding hands. Oscar wondered if they were friends, but one of them laughed, and they stopped and kissed. In the middle of it all, a tender moment belonging to two lovers. 

The kiss, so meaningful, inspired Oscar to pick up his small-town South Carolina life and aspire to New York City. Where he could hold a lover’s hand just like that and kiss him just like that as if it were so easy and nobody around him cared. Oscar knew then that he would do whatever it took. He would sing in the subways, he would couch surf, and he would work wherever he could find employment. And he would do this all so that he could live. So he did not have to be afraid anymore.  

August 2015

Oscar played his mom’s voicemail in his empty apartment at night: “Oscar dear, I have another phone number for you. It’s a good Christian girl I think you’ll like. She’s the local hairdresser’s daughter, very pretty. You’d better be getting married someday before grandma dies. She wants to see grandkids, you know. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’ve got to go pick up meds from CVS. You’d better not send me to voicemail again!”

*

 New York City had delivered on many of its promises. The day Sam looked at Oscar so tenderly and said “I want to run errands with you for the rest of my life” was a rainy one. It was not a marriage proposal, just a statement. They were too young, too unsure of themselves for lifelong commitments. It happened out of the blue. Sam just turned to Oscar as they were waiting for the bus in the storm and said it as if it were not the most intimate thing that anyone had ever said to Oscar. 

Oscar felt caught between terror and joy. He had wanted to let go of Sam’s hand and run away and never look back. But he had also wanted to kiss Sam full on the lips in front of everyone, which he had never done before. But what if someone saw them? Oscar recoiled, ignoring Sam’s hurt expression. 

“Not here,” Oscar said. “Not now. Not yet.”