LJ – ch. 5

 

Chapter 5:  Spring Dance 

4/2

I can’t believe what I did.  It was wrong.  But it was so thrilling!  I’m not even going to write about it here because if anyone finds out, it’s going to be big trouble!!!!!!!!

 

The more formal dances were held at The Rose Garden, a banquet hall about three miles from the school in Northeast Philly, which is considered to be one of the nicer sections of the city.  Those dances were always catered affairs; tickets sold for about $20 and included a buffet dinner.  The problem with those dances however was they were always set up as a “couples” event.  You didn’t get in unless you were with someone, and that was rather unfair to the people who very much liked such events but didn’t have a date.

In recent years some protesters came up with the idea of having same-sex couples.  If two guys or two girls wanted to attend the dance but didn’t have a date, they’re proclaim themselves a “couple” and insist, under threats of discrimination lawsuits, that they be allowed to enter.  It worked for a while, but there was a drawback:  stupidity.  The “haters,” homophobes and gay-bashers, were not smart enough to realize that these couples weren’t actually gay but just finding a creative and politically correct way of getting into a dance.  The haters would get word of these different “couples” and send threatening messages to them, informing them of the beating they’d get if they showed up or what would happen to their cars while they were inside the dance.  The likely outcome was that the haters were all talk and the “couples” would not be afraid.  But those were the formal dances.  This was just an informal bash in the cafeteria.

Mr. Ross and Ms. D’Amico always attended dances not only to help as chaperones but also to spot drunken kids in the crowd and hustle them out before trouble could start.  Ross and D’Amico would also be seen in the middle of the kids dancing along with them, which the vice principal did not appreciate because it meant that they couldn’t possibly be supervising the crowd.  Their argument was that they could better watch the crowd by being in the middle of it, but the administration didn’t push the issue because they recognized how difficult it was to get any teachers to voluntarily chaperone anything on a Friday night.

There was no official dress code for dances.  There was only Mrs. Hagerty, the student council advisor.  Dances were fund-raising events for student council.  The money went to the council, the fun went to the kids, and the mess on the floor went to the custodians.  You didn’t get into the dance without walking past Mrs. Hagerty at the door.  She and Betz had three purposes for standing guard at all dances.  First and foremost was so that the parents who dropped off their little darlings would know that there were smiling, happy, chaperones there to make sure everything was being run by responsible adults.  Second, they would always stop students and engage them in a very short conversation just to get a whiff of their breath in case there was some alcohol intake prior to arriving.  Third was dress code enforcement.  Shirt too revealing?  Skirt too short?  Heels too high?  Jeans too ripped?  You’re not getting in.  Sometimes girls would leave home with a very short, sexy outfit but cover it up with something more conservative.  Then they’d enter the school, go into the bathroom, toss off the disguise, and hit the darkened dance floor in what they really wanted to wear.  This was not Jane’s plan.

Jane arrived looking not too conservative to raise suspicions and not too revealing to be denied.  It was the same black t-shirt with “Good Charlotte Sucks” scrawled across the front, and “Spear Britney” on the back, the usual red plaid skirt with suspenders hanging to the sides, black socks, red sneakers.  Mrs. Hagerty smiled as always, took Jane’s money, wished her the best of luck in her new school, and lie about how she would miss Jane’s smile every day.  The only notable thing was too much perfume.  On most nights, too much perfume could be a clue that someone was likely smoking pot and needed to cover it up, but being polite about Jane leaving school was foremost on Mrs. Hagerty’s mind.

Dances were in the cafeteria so the soda and snacks could be easily stored and mops were readily available for spills.  The room had decent acoustics for the DJ, a standard linoleum floor that was good for dancing on, and a handicap ramp at that entrance so equipment and supplies could be easily brought in and out.  The room was kept dark for the rainbow of flashing lights and strobes that were synched with the music.  There were student council volunteers who continuously poured soda into cups at a big table in one corner of the room, opposite the DJ, so the kids could take a break, take two sodas, and be gone for fifteen minutes before coming back for more and a handful of chips too.  Nobody touched the pretzels much because there wasn’t enough fat and oil in them.  Almost half of the room was filled with table and chairs for the shy who didn’t dance but still wanted to be there, the not-so-shy who were too cool to dance but still wanted to be there, and the couples who couldn’t find any other place to kiss while grinding their hormones against each other until a teacher told them to break it up.  The DJ was set up on the other side of the table, chairs, and food, leaving the middle for the dance floor.

The kids basically were a herd of human animals doing a mating dance ritual, just the same way a male peacock struts with its feathers spread or the masculine lemurs leap about to attract a female.  Another prehistoric element to school dances was the unity.  Schools were populated by kids who liked rock, metal, rap, country, techno, punk, grunge, and other types of music.  They had their own types of clothes to match their own types of music.  Even though most dances were filled with club/dance/disco type music, everyone would dance to it.  They had their own dances for their own types of music, but they came together anyway.  Everyone crowded in front of the speakers where they could physically feel the pulse of the bass because even someone with absolutely no hearing, totally deaf, would feel the thump and still be able to dance with the rest of the crowd.  Every time a new song started, there was a cheer from the kids who liked it and a grunt from those thinking oppositely.

Some people drank to escape, and some drank to let go.  Those who needed to escape had a crappy life and issues they couldn’t deal with, so the alcohol helped them forget about reality and dream up fantasies about what they wanted to be, where they wanted to go, how they wanted to live.  Unfortunately, all those fantasies would remain only that.  Others drank because they needed guts.  They needed “beer muscles,” when you suddenly believe you’re stronger, tougher, smarter, and braver because the beer has taken away your inhibitions along with better judgment.  When the hesitant boys wanted to ask a girl for a date, it took a couple of beers first.  When a girl wanted to confront one of her friends because she learned her boyfriend was cheating with that other girl, she would open and empty one or two bottles first.  Most kids noticed at weddings and family parties that there were a lot more people dancing as the night went on because some people needed to get a “comfort buzz” to overcome the fear of looking foolish when dancing in front of relatives who would never let them forget it.  Jane needed that too, but the problem was getting past Hagerty and Betz.  Wearing too much perfume helped cover up the beer breath.  Drinking almost every weekend gave her the ability to walk without stumbling.

Every dance had a crest, a range of about a half hour when the most people, and the most popular people, were dancing, the DJ was pulling out the best songs, and kids were letting go with their best moves.  The guys and girls were starting to eye each other up to get an idea of who might pair up for a slow dance, who they might walk home with, and which couples were likely going to be talked about all weekend and asked on Monday morning, “So?  What happened?  Where’d you go?  What did you do?”  This weekend, this Monday, all discussions would be about Jane.

She waited for the crest of the dance to rise and stepped over to the DJ to request a song, “Lady Marmalade” with Christina Aguilera and Pink, whose roots were from the same city.  Nobody noticed because the crowd was in a hype.  There were two girls standing against the wall in their bare feet because their shoes were hurting a little too much.  Jane kicked off her sneakers and asked one of the girls if she could borrow some shoes.  They didn’t know Jane well and gave the typical teenage shrug with meant anything from “I don’t know” to “I don’t care” to “whatever.”  Jane moved into the crowd and did nothing out of the ordinary.

But things looked different.  Walking in the shoes instead of sneakers made her move differently.  Her skirt didn’t just hang there.  Now it swayed with her hips as she started to strut instead of walk, and the guys took immediate notice.  Some of them hesitated, even stopped dancing as they watched Jane’s ass part the crowd.  Once it parted, the other end swallowed up the back to surround Jane with students and leave her invisible to any of the teachers who were talking, munching, and almost watching.  Guys wanted to dance close, maybe get a chance to touch her as they did when they bumped against other girls, but there was something stronger about Jane at the moment that was untouchable.  She moved like a stripper in a south Philly go-go bar, twisting her body, bending her knees to a crouch and slowly swaying back up again.  She put her hands on her ass and teasingly pulled her skirt up before dropping it back down again.  She leaned forward, inviting someone to grind up behind her before turning, pouting, and posing for their hormones.  The music had been loud enough so that the chaperones couldn’t hear or distinguish these “oooohs” and “aaaahs” from any other, but not even loud music would cover the rest of her performance. 

She grabbed Zach, the tallest guy within reach, and told him to kneel down so she could get on his shoulders.  Only a freshman, he was thrilled just to have a junior girl talk to him, so he instantly complied.  The whole room could see Jane when Zach stood up, but the chaperones who suddenly paid attention but would not get there in time.  As Zach bounced slowly because of the extra person he was carrying, Jane took her dance to a new level.  Each of her hands grabbed each opposite side of the bottom of her shirt and pulled it up over her head to expose her breasts.  She twirled her shirt a few times before tossing it to the crowd of screaming kids below.  She wasn’t big, wasn’t small, but she was there for everyone to see.  Ross and D’Amico pushed through the crowd as Jane unbuttoned her skirt and pulled it from around her waist.  The twirling was followed by the tossing, same as with the shirt, and the screams were great enough to draw the attention of every adult in the nearby hallway.  Jane raised her arms above her head “Rocky” style as her teachers were careful to pull her down without either dropping her on her head or touching her anyplace that they shouldn’t.

Within a minute a table cloth was wrapped around her, she was hustled to the principal’s office, the lights were flipped on, the teachers started funneling the crowd toward the exits, the dance was over, and the stories were just beginning.

The phone at her home was ringing and would not stop until her mother answered.  Before Monday morning, the story would be stretched to the point that Jane had sex with four boys on the dance floor and Mr. Ross grabbed a feel.