Brooklyn.
Tuesday.
July 2007.
As another prom season fades from memory I recall, with much the same fondness as an ingrown toenail, my own prom...
London.
Sunday.
May 1990.
I don't want to be here.
Home.
I wish I were home.
I used to want to be here. Back when I was still feeling groovy. Earlier. Before the sun came up. Last night is over and the morning after was never something we ever really touched upon. But here I am. On a barge. Wearing a cummerbund.
The water of the Thames is a slippery brown before me. It smells. The limo that picked me up a few hours ago was a few shades darker than the water I'm floating on right now. Nothing could touch me then. I of freshly cut hair, tortoise shell glasses and smooth skin.
I have been wearing this tuxedo for 12 hours. I've never worn one before and have certainly never worn anything this formal for so long. "Nice tux. Where did you rent it?" With the sun hitting the fabric I begin to see how cheap the suit is. Daylight makes the whole ensemble look a bit shit.
I hate my shoes. I can't wait to take them off. I've never seen anything so ungainly. I bought them at the Ft. Lauderdale Galleria. When I tried them on I was wearing shorts and white socks. I barely glanced at myself in the mirror knowing exactly how foolish I looked. I will only wear them this one evening. They will be banished to the back of my closet where the other items of clothing which dare not be mentioned reside.
I'm never doing this again. I'm never going to dress formally. That'll be my thing from now on. I'll be Mr. Casual. People will accommodate me and respect me for it. I don't like the way a suit makes me feel. Like a reluctant peacock. Like I'm showing off. I hate dressing up.
I am trying so hard to turn this loser feeling into some Kerouac cool. A kind of loner, stone alone trip. I furrow my brow and gaze out at the muck and squint my eyes. "No one understands me," I try to convince myself. "They just don't know how deeply I feel."
It doesn't work. I don't feel like anyone other than me. And right now I'm the last person I want to be. I don't hate myself; I just don't want to be me. More self-avoidance than self-loathing. I am well and truly in the moment and it is appalling.
My feet hurt.
Madonna is playing on the stereo in the disco. The DJ has disappeared and the mix he left in his wake has been repeating since 4am. For the 3rd time in two hours Madonna is again urging all of us who can hear her to "express yourself!" It is beginning to seem like a threat.
I recognize only a couple of the dozen or so people still on the boat. I've never before tonight seen the people who are still owning the dance floor. How these strangers continue to rage against the dying of the disco light. Because the ceiling of the dance floor is so low the disco ball is the size of grapefruit.
Birds begin flying down and pulling nuts off the sticky floor. I take this as my cue to walk around the boat.
I haven't seen any of the crew for more than an hour. We're still moving though so someone must still be in charge.
The bar is closed. A peek into the wheel room reveals the lone conscious crew member steering the boat. He uses only the thumb of his right hand. Two legs of his co-pilot protrude from beneath a mound of coats on the chair next to him. He glances over. He knows how I feel. He can see that I'm not like the others, that I "get" the poetry of his position and place. My smile of the knowing and compassionate is entirely lost on this salty dog. He might be distracted by the size of my shoes.
In the living room I find a girl crying against her friend's shoulder. Streaks of mascara are writ large across her puffy cheeks. There is always a Crying Girl at something like this. Someone whose hopes were raised a bit too high. And now all of those hopes have wilted like the carnation lying limply atop her wrist. Were it not for her friend she would be all alone.
This post-prom event was advertised as a Magical Mystery Cruise. Almost anything is magical and wonderful on a May London night. But this is pushing it. This is a barge with linoleum of the floors and carpet on the ceiling. We docked once at 2am and again at 4. Anyone with a bit of sense is long gone. 2am was too soon for me and 4am was lost to the inexplicable excitement of watching the sunrise. I'm on this heap for another 90 minutes.
I clean my glasses for the first time since I left home.
Earlier in the week, when there was still hope and excitement for last night, I'd been combing my hair in the mirror thinking about the prom. My dog was watching me and I looked at him and said, "After Saturday night I might not be a virgin anymore." Pugsley wagged his tail and I took that to be a sign that I was on the right track. But at 2am I pretended not to see my date leaving arm in arm with John Hultgren. I knew then that there would be no joy in Mudville as the mighty Casey had struck out.
And just when I can't squint, furrow my brow, wander and dare to dream any longer we dock for the third and last time. An offer is made to join a bunch of fellow travelers for breakfast at the Inter-Continental. I thank them for offering but walk the opposite direction in search of a way home.
The realization that I don't look as cool as I thought I did last night comes on slowly. Perhaps it started when I was standing in a 1/2 inch deep pool of urine in the bathroom of the boat. Or later, wandering along the embankment looking for a cab. However and whenever it started it definitely ended shortly after I get home. There, standing in front of a mirror, my tuxedo in a heap beside me empty and reeking of lies told and cigarette smoke. Through clenched teeth, barely above a whisper, sincerely and softly, I meet my own eyes and utter, "wanker."