I never could dance, I'm just not one of those dancer types, sure I can boogie-woogie with the best drunkards in the room but dancing like a shy girl at the prom is something that I have never been able to achieve. I avoided anything that meant I had to twirl around like a dashboard princess unless I was dancing with my father in the living room whenever he played one of his old 45's but even that had become something left to way back when I could stand on his shoes like a tow haired dwarf.

The three last times that I got to play in the great American ritual of the high school dance went by quietly, sure I helped out and spent my after school times helping to put chairs out in the gym, sure I spent my spare time helping the committee organise the votes and take care of the food arrangements but like everybody else on the committee we were so busy getting ready that when it actually took place we weren't really interested unless it went wrong. If things went shitty we were there with our knives at the ready, when something crashed and burned we stood like Brutus multiplied.

I sat on two committees but I only went to one actual dance, it was the last winter before I graduated and it was the first dance of the school year I had been invited alongside my neighbour Frances Whitford, I hated Frances but when your neighbour seems to get ahead at everything despite the fact that she has a head full of saw dust hate becomes reasonable.

Frances was a neighbour of ours so naturally her mother was friends with my own. I used to sit in on Mrs Whitford's little talks while she lectured my mother about the need for some male influence around the house. She was forever frothing on about her wonderful husband or her daughter's boyfriend Michael, who had dumped Frances earlier that summer I might add, had done some act of daring manliness and then right in the middle of her ode to Whitford masculinity just for fun or maybe in a moment of overwhelming mania she looked at me and dropped her revelation.

'Why Louise dear, are you going to the school dance next weekend?'

'She's grounded' my mother added quietly.

'Louise' Mrs Whitford loved not to listen, she was a one person at a time conversationalist anytime a third person entered she cut them out till it was back to one on one. 'You know that Frances is going don't you? Well how about you go along with her, kind of as a friend, she's been a little moody lately I don't know why but she's been acting strange sitting up in her room listening to her stereo on headphones.'

'Maybe its drugs' my mother added quietly.

'You know it would just be fantastic if you could go with her to the dance it will give the pair of you a chance to talk and maybe make friends, why the last time that you came over to see Frances was when you were little girls. Maybe you could catch up some.'

The last time I went to Bitchford Whitford's house was when she stole my bicycle age seven and three twelfths, after the bicycle incident I had avoided her door successfully for nine and a half years. 'I don't know Mrs Whitford, it's a little late and I don't even have a dress.'

'Dresses can be shaken out, why Frances has four that she bought yesterday; if you come over later I can let you have your pick.' And then she sprung the trap ‘don’t you worry about the young man, I have it on good authority that Robert is as of yet still without a companion for the dance and

'Mrs Whitford that's really kind of you but I don't know, I've got a lot going on next week and I don't know if I can spend the day and the night in the same school, it seems a little too much.'

Mrs Whitford looked at me as though I had three heads and six tits. I don't know if she genuinely didn't understand or if she with Christian truth believed that there weren't any young women in existence whose lives didn't revolve around the opinions of slobbering guys at the trough of a high school punch bowl 'That is just so funny Louise!' She let out a hoarse laugh from that high cheek boned prim face that wished it hadn't seen so many tanning booths. 'I'll send Frances over at seven.'

I walked out of the living room and Mrs Whitford returned to her conversation with my mother as though the last few minutes hadn't even happened.

*


'Rules. Rule number 1 you ride with me up to the school gate, I let you and Robert out there and you walk the rest of the way. Rule number two you do not approach me once we are inside the school, the rules that apply during the day also apply at night.' What a cunt I thought 'Rule number three, at eleven thirty you're to exit the building and go to the car, sit in the back and wait till I arrive, until I arrive you are to crouch down so nobody sees you getting into my car. If you fail to observe any of these rules the deals off and you can walk home.'

I was in Barbie hell. All around me was the worst nightmare of every non-lobotomized woman in the western hemisphere. The entire room was wall to wall pink and red. It was as though a mad person had robbed a Valentines Day storefront display and installed it with all the trimmings in this big tit dim-wits room one night while she slept. There were teddy bears and posters of asshole movie stars that had most probably starred in throwaway pictures about teen rebels in acetate neon James Dean mode, a child would have been offended.

The big tit goof had left me with the choice of three dresses, one looked like the dress they buried Cass Elliot in and the other two looked as though they had spent there past lives as postal uniforms in Latvia.

Bitchford Whitford was farting on as I looked over her cast off collection and even though I wasn't really paying attention I heard her mumble and laugh at the idea of Robert.

'Look I know that my mom gave you some kind of line about me being a little quiet these last few weeks and how your supposed to help me get back to normality but the truth is that you're here because she needs somebody for Gurney.'

Gurney was her name for her brother Robert who had flunked the twelfth grade; he was doing the big repeat because Mr Whitford wasn't going to stand for his only son showing up retarded in front of the whole town. Gurney, sorry, Robert was stuck with an asshole for a father who didn't believe in Dyslexia so he got shoved around in school till it turned him into a reclusive fat guy with a whole bunch of complexes. Mr's Whitford thought she could help Robert if he got a date for the dance, in her own way she was trying to reach her son in the only way she knew. Bitchford Whitford called Him Gurney because he once got run over by a Gurney on a visit to the Hospital as a child.

'Listen to me Shit head, I know that my mom sees this as some kind of humanitarian thing but for me it's a pain in the ass, the last thing I want is some loser skank tailing me around all night. So if you pull this shit off and dance with Gurney a couple of times just to shut my mom up then maybe, now this isn't a promise, maybe we can hang out.'

I smiled at the thought and then buried it. 'Sure Frances.'


I was impressed; the torture wall of the high school gymnasia that spent its days extracting sweat and tears from chubby teenagers was transformed to something unrecognisable. They had strung the climbing wall with great big streamers and plastic flowers the black sneaker marks that scarred the white walls were covered over with crepe paper, the high school committee came down with fire and fury. Someone had determinedly rearranged the school's central hell to make it look like the love god had landed in a mud puddle.

Against the far wall I had the dark corner by the fire exit. Gurney hadn't made it through the entrance his tuxedo was making him choke so he went for air. Frances was over on the other side of the gym hall with a group of clones trying to absorb every cubic inch of air in the room this was the personification of all her collaborated efforts at making the world a meaner place for the cross eyed and clumsy. In the dark lit hall while some danced and others thought about where they could be Frances wallowed and the old lines came into effect. The riser on the right side of the Gymnasia didn't look like something from Carrie thank god but there was still some kind of competition swelling in the air. They were looking to vote best dance couple, as if anyone in this school was going to make an ass of themselves for a tin foil crown and a picture for the hallway wall.

Gurney had dropped me for a line of coke and a bottle of beer behind the Tennis courts. I wanted to hide somewhere even darker than the corner I had, the Mama Cass dress that I was wearing had ripped in two places and with every step it caught on something, I looked like someone's mother had gone to town with a skin of bubble wrap. I looked like Christmas and every trimming dripped with goose fat.

Across the hall stood fourteen men in immaculate tuxedos with cups of punch and endless jokes they had culled from their fathers in an attempt to join a world that willingly opened its arms to them. I looked for someone anyone to make me feel as though I could creep out or creep backwards, I hadn't counted on this, at least if I stood next to Gurney I could hide behind his bulk, even with this dress I could hide behind his Boris Karloff looks like I imagined I would, but this was no fun at all.

My watch was only at nine forty and Mr Hesreton was looking at me as though I were caught in the hallway without a thing in my hand, shit I was in the wrong room, or through the wrong set of doors.

Frances walked past me with some blond haired peach skinned muscle head in tow, I was part of the scenery like a rock on the road to Texas, where was Gurney the son of a bitch didn't even have the courtesy to invite me out with him for a smoke or whatever it was that he was doing. On the way over Gurney had been listening to his Sony walkman and reading an airplane safety instruction manual that he'd stolen from the seat of a commercial AA flight to Seattle. I looked at him while he studied every image as though it had the secret meaning of the universe behind the exit signs. What a prick and Frances that bitch had had her hand buried deep in her dates crotch, for a minute I thought that he was going to plough into the drive through at burger king.

When Frances kicked us out and Rode off with her date Fred Darris, Gurney held my hand and kept his Flight safety manual glued to his face, he didn't say a thing. Before we hit the door I felt a bead of cold sweat crawl off his hand onto my own and he pulled the plugs from his ears. 'Please excuse me, I'm just headed this way, I'll see you inside.' And that was that here I was with hot lights chasing me further back and that fat bastard was nowhere to be seen.

Someone had started the dance off and people were pairing up. I had been safe while people were still loitering, it’s easy to loiter among loiterers but now the sidelines were clearing and dressed as the ghost of a prostitute ballerina was not the best way to look if you were the last girl standing. The music wasn't loud enough for the dancers to be consumed so I knew that on the first turn they were going to look around and see me with my head down and that would be that.

'Gurney you fat bastard, get your ass in here now, please just come in just get me the hell out of this shit' but he was nowhere to be seen the floor crowded and I found a seat in the far corner where I was strategically half hidden by a speaker box. The floor turned around with the leather and magic of a serpent's lair. The light bounced off sweaty skin and school teachers wandered through with the care of surgeons watching hands and limbs that wandered around lost 'good clean fun'? I sat and watched, and watched and watched. The music died and people wandered till the next song. Girls wandered to the tables and to mine came a pretty face under red hair. She didn't see me on the seat beside her handbag; she looked in and fumbled for a pack of gum her bare arms were pink against the red of her dress. When she looked up she traded a look with me that could have been surprise but wasn't. 'You seen a pack of gum roll around here anywhere?'

'No'

'Shit, you got any?'

'Let me look' I took some Wrigley's from my moms borrowed purse and handed over a piece to the long fingers that belonged to the Red hair over pretty features.

'Thanks.' She turned away and took a step back to the floor and then decided otherwise. 'Hey, you got a minute?'

We were up the back stairs of the fire exit, the Redhead whose name was Denise Oakmoor led me up to the far heights at the back of the gymnasium to what used to be the old store cupboard. The door was locked from the inside but she lifted the loose vent at the bottom of the door and crawled through. She opened the lock and let me in.

There was a piano with all the keys missing and balls ripped up from overplay, broken tables and hockey sticks loitered in corners and struck centre was a shaft of starlight that was flooded by a thousand dust particles swimming through the middle. Denise got atop the piano and swung a skinny leg over the other, she looked like a lounge singer in her red dress. 'Come on, the bars open.' Denise took out a pack of cigarettes and lit a sulphurous match that was sent hurtling to the floor to join a string of others that had found the floor on days past. 'Want one?'
I joined her and sucked a high tar.

'You're Louise right?'

'Yeah'

'We had an English class about a year ago; I had to switch over after I made the swim team.'
I didn't remember her but I knew of her. I'd seen her trailing around the cafeteria. I took another lungful 'How do you know about this place?'
'This is where we sit for a cigarette after gym class.'

'But you're a swimmer, isn't this a little bit'

'What?'

'Well, isn't it bad for your'

'Yeah but I ain't aiming for an athletic scholarship. Swimming is just a way out of Mrs Semekel's class, I hate that bitch. I run too'

Denise wasn't just pretty she was one of those angelic girls that looked as though she should have had Frances's spot but probably lacked that little scratch of self applying deviousness that can push someone to the top of the pile. 'Hey how come you're not up here with that guy you were dancing with?'

'Who Richard? Please, the only reason I even turned up with him was to make Christine Reichsmann jealous. Christine has been obsessing over that Richard guy for the whole summer so I thought it would be fun to see the look on her face while he wandered around with his tongue out.'

I knew Christine Reichsmann, she was another one of the bubbleheads but she wasn't exactly a MENSA member in high heels 'Isn't Christine your friend?'

'Christine is a devious little wet end who acts as though she keeps her brain in her moms refrigerator, that little slut has spent the last six weeks living out of my wardrobe and then had the nerve to accuse me of trying to steal her Prada's.'

'So you’re dancing with a guy you don't even like over some shoes.'
'Yeah, pretty dumb huh?'

'What about you, No one in the universe would wear a dress that ugly unless someone had some serious dirt on them? Come on who is it, whose wrangled you into the snake pit, whose the party with the knife at your back.'

'No one, I got invited by Gurn, Robert Whitford.'

'Who's Robert Whitford?'

'Big Guy, glasses, wears a Breaker forty seven t shirt.'

'Don't know him.'

'Frances's brother, Frances Whitford.'

'Frances doesn't have a brother?'

'Course she does, He's in the twelfth grade, he's repeating. You don't know him?'

'Look, I know Frances, she doesn't have a brother, I've been to her house plenty of times I've never seen a brother.'

'Well I've been her Neighbour since I was two year's old trust me she has a brother called Robert, he's a year older than her.' I couldn't believe that Frances had kept it going for this long, she had that much power that she could convince an entire school that she didn't have a brother even though he had come through the same school's since the beginning.

Denise sent the embers of the cigarette sailing to the floor. 'I've never seen you at these things before, what made you venture out this year?'

'I don't know, I guess I kind of got pushed in to it. Frances's Mom twisted my arm.'

'She's such a house whore, one time I went over and she was like Mrs Brady or something, that woman is immune or just plain deaf to sarcasm. You ever saw such a nut job.'

'Not really no.'

'What are you doing after this?'

'Going home, I've got a ride at eleven thirty and that's that.'

'That's that, what are you a punch clock or something, hey if your really game how about we sneak out and come back when your ride gets here.'

'Where are you going?'

'Just over to the Boar.'

‘You mean the bar.'
'No I meant the Boar seminary, of course I mean the bar.'

'I don't drink.'

'Shit, I was thinking about Vodka but if you're a Jesus freak than we can skip that. Looks like the entire evening is going to be spent here then' She kicked off a shoe 'Hey Louise you still a virgin?'

'What?'

'You heard.'

'That's a little personal don't you think.'

'So you are.'

'Well I'm not a slut if that's what you mean.'

'Well neither am I, if that's what you mean.' She upped her tone and sounded like a child

'That isn't funny'

'What'

'You shouldn't be cruel to people you hardly know.'

'Whatever, You want another cigarette.'

I smelled my finger tips and decided to pass 'Maybe later, so you and that Richard guy?'

'What about him?'

Are you going to?'

She giggled through blue smoke, 'You must be joking, Richards a closet homo, He got caught a few weeks ago with some guy on Route 42, apparently Garry Traynor's brother the cop caught him with his head in the lap of some old guy in the back of a Transam. Garry's brother caught a speeding car and drove up beside it and who lifts his head out of the drivers lap but Richard.' She let out a stream of a laugh, if it had colour it would have been red and green 'Shit, Garry's Brother went straight around to Richard's dad's house and spilled the entire story, Richard's got a curfew at ten o clock and spends his weekends with Pastor Phelps down at the Methodist. Of course I haven't yet shared the story with Christine so I'll let it simmer before I serve it up.'

I'd already heard the story, it was in the study hall but nobody least of all Christine believed it. Richard Hart was a renowned hound, it was no secret that his last girlfriend Rebecca Moorhouse had been to an abortion clinic because of Richard Hart 'That's old news, who doesn't know that story. And what about last year and that girl'

'You're thinking of Becky right, well what you don't know is that Becky wasn't even dating Richard when she got pregnant, In fact no one knows who it was that got Becky knocked up. I know Becky I even asked her about it and believe me when I asked her she said she couldn't remember can you believe that. Princess Moorhouse couldn't remember who it was that left her spending her mornings looking into the bottom of a porcelain toilet bowl.'

Rebecca Moorhouse occupied the Frances spot in the graduating class of the year ahead of us, she had disappeared into the college system but last spring she was the topic of conversation throughout the school. 'Well, so what, it's not a crime.'

More laughter 'You believe what you want, but Richard might as well be in the chorus line.'

'What is your problem? Why is everything you say some kind of slur against somebody.'

'What?'


'Everything that comes out of your mouth is an attack on someone, what are you really as much of a bitch as you pretend to be'

‘I'm all surface Louise, surface is everything, you know why because that's all that people see, surface and more surface I mean look at you your wearing Frances's cast off's and you have spent the last ten years ploughing through every book you have ever laid hands on, you've spent your time trying to put a square peg in a round hole, while I've been doing whatever has been expected of me and look where I am. Right now down there are people wondering where I've gone, while I wandered up here at least five pairs of eyes were watching me, ever since I was twelve its been that way, I'm like fucking royalty around here. Then I look at you and I just had to spend five minutes to know what you are. You'd been standing in the corner for a half hour and from the way you just slid into stance you might as well have been born there. You're going to spend your whole life in the dark bumping into things and that's going to be that.'

I slid off the piano 'fuck you' I kicked a half a basketball and stormed off but before I reached the exit Denise was in front of me blocking the doorway.

'Where are you going?'

'Get out of my way'

'Why'

'Just get out of my way Denise.'

'Why so you can go and warm the corner till eleven thirty. Or is Gurney calling you?'

'What'

'Frances's brother Gurney.'

'But you just said.'

'Don't be such a clown, do you really think that I wander around this school with my eyes closed, of course I knew that Frances had a brother, and of course I know that you're here because no one would go near that retard loser unless Mrs Whitford twisted their arm. Shit, do you think you're the only person that got asked to take Gurney out? Mrs Whitford called my mom about a month ago, if it wasn't for that little homo downstairs I'd be dancing with Gurney while he slobbered down my dress.'

'So what'

'So what' She smiled wide 'So I'm just saying thank you, I'm initiating you into this little part of the ritual as a little thank you, of course you wont be able to tell anyone that I spoke to you but nonetheless you do have the option to hang out with me for a while. That Richard guy is such a fucking blowhard.
Come on let’s go back and have another smoke.'

Denise was full of shit, but underneath all of the shit was a completely different person. 'Did you know that the smartest people in the room are usually the ones you expect, and nine times out of ten those same people will cut off your ankles just to save their own skin. The smarter a person the more susceptible she is to deceit and treachery, you know why? Because they can always reason their way out of it, no matter how screwed up a situation might be they can always weasel there way out of it by finding some excuse that they can logically see right through and then put down to averages like 'Better her than me' that's why I surround myself with idiots. The idiot has a heart that won't allow her to perform treachery; idiots will always walk off a cliff in the hope of a glorious downfall.'

'Your confusing intelligence with cunning, anybody can screw someone over it isn't hard, but only a smart person will find a conclusion that benefits everyone equally.'

'Now your confusing smarts with compassion. If you want to get ahead you have to be ruthless in everything you do, you have to be able to see through every situation as though you are looking through a pane of glass. If you sit there and try to make out so everyone makes out the same you know what happens? You get shafted, you know why because you have wasted the opportunity to get ahead, its like having everything in your hands and then deliberately throwing it away and that is a sin against yourself.'

'You're an evil bitch you know who you sound like? That Italian guy, Nichovelli'

'Machiavelli'

'Right that's him.'

'Machiavelli's got a bad rep but he's alright and he had a point, if you have the opportunity to get one over those that surround you then what's so bad about that. As long as you aren't out to become Cesare Borgia at the weekend it's all peachy.'

'You really are evil aren't you?'

'Depends on what you mean by evil. Look Louise My dad has more money than he knows what to do with, do you know what he does on the weekends, he plays golf and spends as much time as he can away from the house, I see him at night when he's sitting with a cigar in the yard I give him a kiss and then ask him how his day was. Do you know why I do this, because it’s routine and it's what he knows and loves, do you know why he loves it? He loves it because it gives him satisfaction because it allows him to believe that he can predict the future and he can control the situations that he is in, but do you know who the real victor is? Not my dad that's for sure, the routine keeps him in check I've known that for years, the routine is all there is but the routine allows him to act as though he is in control when in reality he is molly coddled by something that is far beyond him. Shit my mother has been cheating on him for over twelve years but do you know what keeps him distracted? The routine, the little things that are there and already decided. It's the routine that keeps him sane and on track, if my dad didn't play Golf on weekends he'd catch my mother with one of her numerous houseguests and do you know what would happen then? I would lose my house and the sanctity of a two parent family, and the last thing I need to deal with is a divorce.'

'I don't get it; you know that your moms screwing around but you still don't really see it as a problem because it's convenient?'

'Were you even listening to a word I said?' She slowed down her speech and dragged out a wave of blue cigarette smoke 'People like to have their decisions made for them but their ego wont allow them to accept other people pushing the button. Did you know that 90% of adults choose childhood as the best time of their lives do you know why? Well I'll tell you why its because there wasn't any pressure of decision making, all of your decisions were made for you all of the things that you had to choose were reduced to whether you wanted chocolate or vanilla ice cream, in childhood the choices you make aren't really choices at all their just variations, either way you are going to get ice cream you just get to choose what artificial flavouring its filled with.' She gave me half a smile as though she'd just scratched her name into a tabletop. 'It's the same thing in every situation, you manipulate a situation till the only option left is the one that you wanted in the first place you manoeuvre the mark and then push them through the cattle pen and all of their own free will.'

'You really are Satan.'

'Maybe, but that doesn't mean that every dress I own is red, I can do little Bo-peep with exactly the same ease.' She shook another cigarette from the pack


I walked to the car and spotted the shadow of Gurney in the distance, his shirt was out and his coat was thrown over his left shoulder, I got in the rear side and Gurney got in the other side.

'Where did you go?'

'I was around, what was the dance like,'

'Why didn't you come and have a look for yourself?'

'Didn't feel like it.'

'Robert can I ask you something'

'What do you want to ask?'

'Why do they call you Gurney?'

He laughed and spat out the window 'didn't the princess tell you?'

'She said something about a hospital accident.'

'That's right, when I was a kid I was in a hospital corridor and a Gurney knocked me out cold while I running through the cardiac ward.'
'What were you doing in the Cardiac ward?'

'I had an enlarged ventricle so I spent about six months in Coddsen memorial. They thought I was going to die before I hit ten years old, but instead I got left with a migraine on hot days. if I don't take seven horse tablets like clockwork my head feels like its going to explode, if I eat a candy bar I cant sleep for three days, I cant even think for longer than fifteen minutes on anything because if I do I forget what I was thinking about, its called enhanced retinal paralysis, my brain cant process large chunks of information without sending a stabbing pain into my forehead. The glasses are all that stop me from having an epileptic fit if I stare at a strobe light for longer than a glance.'

'That's why you didn't come inside.'

'Sort of, Manny Kupkist had a bowl of the finest china I've seen all week, there was no way I was passing up on that just because my mom thinks I should spend the night dancing with a chick dressed like a birthday cake.' He took his Sony walkman from his coat and took out the cassette. 'Is that dress one of Frances's? It looks like something that she was wearing last week.'

'Yeah,' I did look like a birthday cake. 'So what now?'

He looked at his watch 'Now? Oh you mean now. Well we should get our stories straight. We danced the last dance while Frances crept out with that Dork Garrity. And after that we came to the car and waited.'

'Garrity? I thought the guy she came with was called Darris'

'The shit head who was getting a dick rub, that's just Frances's sideline.' He looked at me like I was a complete idiot. 'Frances was just getting friendly for the kick, Frances isn't even loyal to her toothbrush, and if she isn't stringing along six guys she's stringing seven. She's living the high life so is it fair for mere mortals like us to point fingers? Now lets look as though we really are enjoying each others company, the last thing I want is the princess to tell her stories out of school and have mom all over me for ditching you at the doorway.' Frances walked toward the car and Darris stumbled along drunkenly.

I sat quietly through the ride home thinking of blue smoke and red hair.

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