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All of the following is true.
Every first Friday of the month, the town district has a dance for 6th to 8th graders at the Township Center, in the gym they have there. My friend's parent drives me there with him, and most of the time we just fool around, rarely dancing with anyone of the opposite gender, if at all during the dance. This all changed when I went to the March dance.
I wore one of my "sexy" (any brand name clothing, like Hollister) and my friend, during the cart ride, whispered "You look like a stud, man", in a mildly sarcastic tone. We didn't talk at a high volume unless it didn't involve something our parents could turn it into conversational firepower. I shrugged. Everybody always say that I'm good-looking and a likeable guy (okay, maybe only my mom), but I have a hard time believing it until I get some ass.
So we get there, and my friend keeps telling me how much of a stud I look like, and decide to focus the topic on his fave collegiate team, Kansas (I call them the Kansas Jackoffs instead of the Kansas Jayhawks). We argued till we got out of line, said bye to my mom, and walked into the gym.
Since we get there early, my friend and I usually set out to the nearest wall, waiting for the rest of our class to appear. Most of our 8th grade goes, except for a few obese nerds and ugly girls. As the gym begins filling up, we stand in a spot nearest the door, high-fiving people we vaguely know from other schools, sports, etc.
When everybody gets there, around seven, the pop music monopolizes the dj's play list (of which requests usually are left to rot on the platform floor). I lip-synch the ones I can't sing in tune to, and badly sing any rock song I know. My friend doesn't do any of that, just stares at me like I made a shitty joke. But he always tells me "Man, you know I love you" and slaps me on the back. I have to say, I'm a better brother than the one he has.
I look around constantly. I am at my infautuously silent at the dance. I sometimes make abrupt quips to my friends, but since the music is too loud anyway, I just look around and let them yell "Hi!", "WHAT?" to each other. I walk around, look around, get around to the opposite side, then walk back, with my friends, since they aren't dancing with any of the girls from other schools yet.
About halfway into the dance, I see this girl. (No shit) Long, brown, curly hair, great teeth, deep eyes, a beautiful face. I had some Lifesavers in my mouth, and popped one in. (I was having a big Lifesaver craze that month; when I ran out I was harassed by my classmates for more, which they claimed I had kept in secret, "under lock and key", which I was exaggerating when I said that). I stood in that crowd for a little, moved on.
After I came back from a refreshing drink of agua, I come back to the spot of the crowd, and the girl is presented before me; her friends and one of my classmates are trying to find her somebody to dance with. Earlier, I had thrown a Lifesaver wrapper in my classmate's face while he was dancing with her, (jokingly, of course, I'm always joking about shit), so she knew me, sorta. I put on a show of "Oh, who wouldn't want to dance with me?", flashing a bright smile. We begin dancing together.
Every few moments, she would look up at me, and smile. (I had a huge boner by now, but that was a given) It was a spectacle to my classmates; just short of reporters swarming around taking pictures. They would fool around, ask me if I had a boner, push me into her. I kept saying "Sorry, they’re from my school". We went on; I got slaps on the butt, respecting nods from other girls from my school. Eventually, a whole committee of the "cool" kids assembled behind her, directing my hands to her ass. The ringleader threw his arms up whenever he thought she was moving in for a kiss. (Which obviously was not the case) So, after a barrage of my friend's embarrassing gestures, I asked as politely as I possibly could, "Do you wanna kiss?", and when she said "Yeah.", I moved in for it.
I could hardly believe that we had tongued, since it was a surprise she wanted to kiss in the first place. The committee cheered silently, and practically lined up to give me butt slaps. I felt weird. Since I hadn't asked her name, I probably should have been. My friend gave me fist in the air from a distance, but he hadn't seen it, only was told by the committee, after they had gone in random directions to tell everybody about it. I nodded back. Really weird.
At the end of the dance, we kissed again, and hugged for a long time. Then I waved goodbye, and left the gym with my friend, who also slapped me on the butt. "Told you you looked like a stud". I felt great, but still weird. We drove home, and I waved to my friend with a big smile. Once I got into the bathroom, I started jumping around, in the shower too. I went to bed, still feeling great, and fell asleep.
I woke up at 3:00 AM. I had a terrible headache and stomach ache. So I went to the bathroom and tried to shit out whatever was ailing me so I asked my mom if I could have some breakfast. “You didn’t take any drugs, did you, honey?” she asked in a sleepy haze. I said no, (although it did smell like marijuana when they opened the doors at the back of the gym) and went down to the kitchen to get some Coco-Puffs out of the cereal cupboard. I ate them slowly, but they only made me feel sick, and I went back to the bathroom. After I was unsuccessful in defecating, I asked my mom if I could have an Advil, since I had an evil headache. I went back into bed around 5:00 AM.
Since I had a band competition at nine, I woke up around seven, to get ready and go to the school that was hosting the competition. My parents wondered if I was okay. But I told them otherwise, and we went to the competition.
I got into the setup room and my band friends (who were at the dance, and go to the same school as me) asked all about what happened. I told the stupid obese one he should have gone to the dance (which he never did, even after I told him he could dance with her), some of the less serious guys that it was very fun, (while giving a goofy face and making them giggle), the girls that I didn’t know it was that easy to tongue, and my better friends more about the experience. I eventually told them I didn’t know what her name was, and to this day I get criticized for it. I got a lot of “studs” and “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”. I retreated with my friend to the gym where the bands were playing.
I told him that I hadn’t asked her number or her name because I “wasn’t thinking about it at the time”. We weaved in and out of awkward points in the conversation in which he would just do his weird nodding up and down while saying “No”. I told him about what it had felt like, who was being an asshole at the dance, what I felt like. We talked like the friends we were.
The month after was tough. Since I had gotten suspended a few days before the dance, I had bad grades, since they gave you incompletes for everyday you missed. The principal even gathered the grade into the two rooms, (the walls had been rolled back and we could see the opposite room) and went off on everyone about what had happened. When a few guys laughed quietly at another guy, who must’ve made a funny facial expression, the principal came back in and told the guys to empty their lockers. So we sat in complete silence until a girl who was the ringleader of the incident (she also sat behind me in Math class) was called to the office. When she came back she had to empty her locker too, even though her suspension was up. Silence, until we had the afternoon prayer and went back to our classes.
I had to buckle down and study hard to get my grades back up. Also, I hadn’t told my parents about her; I was afraid of how they would react. I was lovesick, and unhappy about how people talked about her. “They’re probably just jealous” said many of my friends, which I had known from the start. “At least you did it.” said one of the “cool” kids, which I thought was a stretch for him to make a kind gesture like that. I was anxious of what she would say when we saw each other at the next dance.
It got to the first Friday of April. I wore the same Hollister polo I had worn the previous month. My friend didn’t talk to me during the ride, but we gestured about what we thought was going to happen. We arrived with my dad this time, and talked about the NCAA basketball tourney. My friend and I made fun of the player’s names on the teams that we liked. Once we got out of my father’s intrusive presence, I power walked to the gym, and waited.
I lurked by the wall with my usual band of cronies. I stared near the gym entrance for most of that time. I was anxious, mostly because a). I didn’t want her to ignore me, as if last month never occurred b). I would forget what she looked like c). She would refuse to dance with me and walk away. I was scared of c). the most; it was my worst nightmare of what would happen, the complete abandonment of the person I “loved”. Only an induced infatuation, of course. Fortunately, none of this happened; when she saw me, she ran up and hugged me, relief flooded into my mind, and we danced.
At once, I pulled out a piece of a Post-It note I obtained especially for this occasion, and a pen, asked her to write her number and commented to one of my friends how small her handwriting was. As a safety precaution, I gave her my number, and we continued dancing. We were so close that one of the chaperones smacked me with a rolled up flyer. I joked to her, talked about which schools we went to, about people we knew at the dance. An obese kid then walked up to us, strumming on his air guitar (despite the pop music blasting, no guitars at play in the recordings) then gave me a look like he smelled a fish that was three days dead and had been asked to have it for dinner. Unfortunately, she said “Hi!” with an enthusiastic tone, and he yelled an unintelligible garble of “Let go of her!” which I did not understand when he said it. I leaned her to the side opposite of “John” (I called him this so he could have a name, since I didn’t want to ask) and asked “What the hell did he say?” She laughed, “I have no idea!” Other than that, I was pretty happy.
We kissed at the end (“I need a goodbye kiss” I cleverly stated) and hugged (“I’ll call you”). I left with my friend, he gave encouraging nudges in the car, and he said to me with a whisper, “She’s a keeper.” I’ll remember those words forever. I went to bed after jumping in the bathroom and shower again, staring at the number she had written down, in that small handwriting. I didn’t remember that phone number for long, however.
The next morning, I woke up to get ready to go to my cousin’s house in Wisconsin for community service. I told her and her husband about my new “girlfriend”, and they thought I should call her soon. But I couldn’t call her the entire day. I was afraid of what I would say, how we were going to get together, such and such. I stayed up till one the next day playing Rock Band on their PS3. (My cousin always let me stay up late playing when I visited) I went to sleep looking at the number on my contacts, looking forward to the next day.
We went to IHOP with my parents and talked about family stuff. I famously quipped about the “Horton Hears a Who” breakfast menu. (“This looks like a colored laxative on a plate. This would make you poop like crazy”) When we got home, my parents went shopping to give me a time period to talk with her. I went up to the bathroom, collected what I was going to say, and called her.
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Well...
Posted Aug 19, 2008
It was a good length, and it had a good amount of humor in it...
It was a reminder of the good old days in middle school...
The writing in this piece feels very immature, in language and style. That really detracts from a piece. This seems like it would be something you'd put... (
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