What I did the night of prom

He sits in the corner quietly imagining the night go by the way he'd like it to. He notices every little detail of the surrounding world, but trembles at the thought of the embarassment at hand were he to even attempt to play the part he'd like. No, he's no young heart throb. He's life's spectator, and his part is to be as seldom seen as possible. Be grateful to be invited to the places he goes, and hopeful that perhaps by some dumb luck someone will notice him in the corner.

He blinks, and he is Johnny Spectre, dancing just perfect enough to get the attention of every girl in the room. He smiles at one, and asks her how her night is. She says she could use a pick me up. "Right this way," he motions to the most bearen corner of the room, just beyond the booming speakers blasting house beats re-sampled from modern billboard chart toppers. He brazes her left shoulder with his arm, and places his hand gently on her back, and pulls a bag no bigger than his palm yeilding faded red pill tablets. He hands her one, and whispers something to her. In the spectator's mind, it would preferably be "you are beautiful, and I've been falling in love with you since I've seen your face appear in my life. I never want to be without it again."
Another part of him thinks he's saying "I've got millions in the bank from these little red tablets we're about to roll on," and yet another part think's he's saying "You don't need money, but you owe me for that ex."

The spectator's eye falls upon an aged woman laughing hysterically. She is at least forty, and the boy holding her can't be more than 19. He is not fully grown into himself, and his facial hair is patched. On her finger is a daimond ring. She's old enough to be his mother, yet their kisses are not that of a maternal bond. His hands move up and down her back, and her left one is rubbing his chest as the sweat builds between them.

This is where they all come to get away from the public. They come to get away from the people that judge them. The gay couple making out between tranced out juveniles who've gone far too far and flail about with neon sticks grasped between clenched fists are beautiful in the way of knowing the extent of this place's acceptance, but then other places it goes too far.

The girls who've hardly arrived yet into high school being ushered through the exit; pupils large as marbles, and bras already removed by their late 20-something escorts, to whom give fake names for just such a purpose. The spectator shakes his head, and ignores this whole action. It makes him feel awful, but then, perhaps they really do both know what they're doing. Perhaps they'll be safe, and perhaps they're friends, he argues to himself in his mind, as the image of her a year later; youngest mother in the school.

He thinks of all these things going on around him, and awaits himself to be given a reason to step into the glory. A light is coming, he thinks, as he feels his head lifting up. Suddenly the beats aren't so old and musty. The music isn't just some thrown together pile of trite pop garbage. These people are not scoundrels. They are not drug dealers. These people are everyone. These people are everywhere, hidden amongst everyone else; all the sex addicts, and heroin den mothers throwing themselves at each other to trade fixes, all of the bible thumpers and aging generations telling them that there's nowhere to go from here.

These people are the world, they are here, and they will continue to exist, the spectator thinks, as the foot twitch which began only moments ago evolves into a full blown, dance, away from the chair, away from the corner, and into the world. Into the people and the music of life. Into the wild times and places of this world, and into the questionable acts of this evening. After this evening, the world will end. After this evening, the world will become something new. Nothing will ever be the same, he thinks.

Hours pass by where he experiences everything. The handjob in the car from the questionable teen he later spotted in the corner; his name, he decided, would be Dylan Thomas... as a joke he would later tell his friends. He had experienced cocaine, exstacy, and a slew of drugs hardly worth naming or remembering. He'd experienced the fleeing from the building upon closing time; 7 in the AM, as he recalled, but then, he recalled very little. The sun coming up over the city lights were lethargic to his carload, as they passed on their way to their dealer's house to crash. Upon arrival he would offer them xanax. "I don't do hard drugs," the spectator replied, giggling to himself as lines were snorted, and his associates crashed in separate rooms of the house. The hours later his mind exploded in a fit of dissapointment. Nothing would ever change.