Occasionally, I’d hang out with a girl at a dance, pretty much ignoring my friends except to stop by and show off my latest catch. My friends were always cool about that, and they would’ve done the same thing if they had girlfriends.
Most nights, though, my friends and I remained in the cafeteria, part by choice, part by fate. The dance floor was so dark and stuffy that there was hardly a chance to hear a girl say her name, never mind have a conversation. Some guys grabbed complete strangers off the floor and jumped around like a bunch of monkeys. They’d dance all night, most of the time with people they knew all of two seconds beforehand, or didn’t know at all. Not me and my friends, though. We’d sit there all night and hang out, striving to block out the hip-hop music emanating from within the gym, quietly ranking out the jerks and their chicks as they passed by.
Late September of last year, while sitting in the cafeteria jabbering about the oppressive heat, the awful music, or some other bullshit, I was introduced to Maria. I’m trying desperately to recall the name of the guy who introduced me to her. I recollect his greasy blonde hair and chubby face so well, but his name: Jeff Something… Jeff Rifkin…?
…Ripken! Jeff Ripken! Christ, does that name conjure up some memories!
I sort of knew Jeff before the dance; he’d sat next to me in Physics class that year. But it wasn’t until this dance that I really started to talk to him. I’ll never forget him approaching me by the soda machine in the corner and saying, “Hey, guess what? My sister thinks you’re cute.”
It’s funny how a minor event, the smallest detail, can shatter lives. My sister thinks you’re cute. That single innocuous sentence moved my world. What if I had been in the bathroom taking a piss when Jeff brought his sister around? Would Rick or Mike or Paul or Kyle be sitting in their rooms right now, writing what I am writing, doing what I’m about to do?
Probably not. But it’s an interesting thought.
Anyway, until that point, I’d never bothered to speak to Jeff in school unless I was asking him for an answer on a test or something. But dances, like drugs, changed personalities. Sometimes, they made even the weakest kids feel confident and bold. Jeff was one of the least popular guys in school. But arriving at the dance with a girl—even though it was his sister—thrust him into the spotlight, and made him somebody other than he was: a big shot. From a distance, most people probably assumed his sister was his girlfriend. I’m sure he did little to change their minds. That assumption was enough to make him strut around like a cock on a farm. And to impress his sister, he made believe that he was buddies with the whole goddamn school. The sorry fat-assed bastard.
Uncharacteristically cool, Jeff introduced his sister to my group and we all bull-shitted for a few minutes. I checked out Jeff’s sister. She was fat. Well, not fat, but certainly not thin. And she was pretty flat-chested, which sucked. What a combo: fat and flat. And she didn’t seem to be capable of closing her mouth. She wasn’t talking or anything; she just stood there, right near my chair, with her rumpled mouth drooling like she was a Basset hound waiting for a biscuit. I guess she was nervous, because she was so close to a guy that she was hot for, namely me.
We sat there for a while, me and my friends, Paul, Rick, Mike, and Kyle, while Jeff and his sister stood next to us, with Jeff doing all the talking. What he said I can’t remember exactly. I just recollect thinking that if he kept his mouth open any longer he was going to eat someone—or French kiss his sister, whose own lips seemed propped open by toothpicks, as if she were about to say something and then froze when she forgot what it was.
Somehow we all wound up on the dance floor. It was fucking pathetic. There we were, me and my friends and Jeff, dancing around this one fat chick. Boy was she happy to get all that attention. That’s what the dance floor could do to you. All that music and murkiness and people shouting and having a grand old time makes it easy to forget that you’re a big fat girl being shared by five horny Guidos.
What’s worse is that I didn’t even know how to dance. What’s worse than that is that I hated trying to make believe I knew how to dance. But I did it anyway, because, like I said, those dances really make you act like another person.
We were a solar system revolving around an expanding sun close to supernova. I prayed she would explode and end my misery swiftly. Finally, in a way, she did. Along came the final dance—it was always the biggest dance of the night—the dance to the slow song at the end when every loser that hooked up that night dances with his loser girlfriend or whatever you want to call her. Somehow I wound up dancing with Jeff’s sister to this dreadful ballad that always blared at the end of dances called In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel. Usually, by the time it started, I was upstairs lunging for my coat in a math class-turned-coatroom. Not that night.
There we were, dancing in the dark, me bored as hell, and Jeff’s sister gazing into my eyes, loving every goddamn minute of it. Just like when you see a retarded person at the mall, I didn’t want to look at Jeff’s sister, and yet I couldn’t look away. Smiling her foolish smile her mouth looked as though it was trying to expel its tongue, like her face was smashed against a pane of glass and she was suffocating to death. This, apparently, was how she expressed joy. She had no clue that I was making fun of her in my mind. I could tell that she thought I liked her.
It revolts me to this day, but after the dance was over I kissed Shamu goodnight. Right there on the dance floor. I don’t know why I did it. I really don’t. I guess I just wanted to make a homely girl happy. Maybe Jeff will be happy, too, I thought, and he’ll weasel me some answers on the next Physics test.
My bloated admirer and I rejoined Jeff shortly following the last dance. My friends had gone home by then. On the way up to get our jackets, Jeff started waving happily at a bunch of people descending the stairs. At first, it seemed like he was attempting to show off in front of his sister. You know, keep acting like he was best buddies with every guy in St. Ann’s. Then I realized that the group consisted of a few girls. The only person at my high school with tits was Jeff, so, if he knew them, they had to be from his sister’s high school. As he introduced me to them I remember being so bored that I wanted to run toward the door.
“This is Nicole,” Jeff said. “And that’s Jessica. And that’s Maria.”
“Hey, what’s up?” we all said to one another.
“Uh…” Maria said, cupping her hands over her mouth as she giggled and stared at my crotch. “You’re fly’s open.”
You’re fly’s open. She exposed me. Literally. Imagine that being the first sentence your fated lover ever says to you. More embarrassing, however, was that Maria announced her discovery to everyone within earshot, not just our little group. And then she started pointing and laughing at me. No polite glance in my direction. No whisper—Psst… you’re fly is open… Only a public exhibit. I felt like Michelangelo’s David.
Jeff chuckled like a madman. His pudgy sister cackled and drooled like a mule. Everyone surrounding us gaped toward my cock. What’s the big fucking deal? I thought.
Maria was a spicy little dish burning me up with shame. Long black, wavy, greasy hair. Not naturally wavy—I was sure of that. It costs about 60 bucks to make hair look like that. Not naturally greasy, either, but loaded with hair spray and mousse like it was going out of style.
She not only had all this shit in her hair, but a seven layer makeup cake on her face. Right then and there, I wanted to yell at her: Wash it off, you bitch!