The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Alone in the Crowd

Previously: "What Happens in the Warehouse" 

"Look, do you wanna dance or not?" you ask Sara. When she looks dubious, you look at her friend. They look at each other. Then Sara shrugs.

It doesn't really fix anything between you, and when she takes out her phone, you take out yours. And you keep yours out—pretending to scroll through social media—even after Sara goes back to chatting with Felicia. They must be gossiping about other people there, because they keep looking around and pointing.

Eventually the band comes back out and starts a new number with a drum roll like a machine gun. You and Sara dance. She's more enthusiastic than graceful. You're neither. You are soon frustrated, mostly with her, but a lot with yourself, because it's just not working. The song isn't even over before you suggest—shouting in her ear to make yourself heard—returning to the bar to get something to drink. She nods.

But on the way out she grabs your jacket and point off to the side. It takes you a moment to realize she's telling you she's going to go talk to someone else and she'll catch up to you later.

You're not at all surprised when she doesn't.

* * * * *

You really should have gone home when your mom texted, you bitterly decide later. But you wanted to stay, and had the bright idea of telling her later that you didn't see her message because your phone died, and that you'd got caught on the town with friends. For that excuse to work, though, your phone has to be dead when you get home, and it's charged up so well that it's gonna take hours to wear it down. You wind up slumped in a booth with a rotating cast of characters you hardly know—Patrick; Dean; Jonas and Bree; Toby; and their various friends—as you read your phone. The beer is so expensive you can only afford one more, and you are very cautious with the joints that get passed around.

And the place gets louder and busier and more and more raucous as the night goes on.

You see a lot of people that you know from school, who stop by to chat briefly with you: guys like Connor Davis and Dean Stratton and Andy Tackett, who feel like they belong here and who aren't scary. But there are a lot worse, as well, particularly the crew of muscle-bound meatheads in red shirts—football players and lacrosse players and similar assholes—who seem to be everywhere, watching the saloon alertly. Every couple of minutes, it seems, a hard whistle sounds from somewhere in the building, and these guys go scurrying. But not until a fight breaks out near the bar, and the red shirts swarm over a couple of guys who started throwing punches, do you realize that they are security. And they're not nice about it either. You cringe in your seat when the red shirts separate the fighters, then in front of the whole saloon start beating them up. The guys are each held by two security members while a third—one of them Roy Nelson, a football player who used to give you a lot of grief your sophomore and junior years—cracks them across the face a couple of time with his fist, then punches them double in the stomach and kicks them in the side once they are down. Once the fight is out of them, they are hauled off the floor by a quartet and rushed from the room to much hooting and cheering from the crowd.

You are asked to dance once, by a giggling girl who is surrounded by a posse of her giggling friends. They look very young despite having their hair and faces made up, and you guess they sophomores, but you oblige and follow them onto the floor. You dance with the one girl for awhile, and then one of her friends steps in, and then another friend. There is a sudden decision on their part, though, to stop dancing, and they make a rush together for the restroom. You follow and loiter outside for a moment, before a feeling of foolishness overwhelms you, and you return to the saloon. You recognize none of the people now sitting at the booth where you and the others had been hanging out. When you can't find anyone, you text Patrick to see where he's gone, but he never replies, and he doesn't pick up when you call him direct.

Fuck this, you decide when your phone is finally down to a fifteen percent charge. You make a couple of circuits of the saloon and the atrium until you finally find someone you recognize: that Toby guy, standing just outside the dance floor, dancing semi-drunkenly in place with his eyes half shut. You put your hand on his shoulder, waking him up, and shout at him that you're taking off. He grunts blearily at you and nods, then goes back to dancing. Fuck this, you tell yourself again, and go out the door.

There's a lot of people hanging out in the parking lot, standing in knots or perched on the hoods of cars. A number of cars are running, with their headlamps lit, without going anyplace. You make a half-circuit of the lot, peering at faces, looking for someone you know but without success. You give up, get in your truck, and after a slow crawl through the lot—during which you have to stop and honk at crowds who won't get out of your way until after they've flipped you off—you get out onto the street and drive off.

Your phone still isn't dead, so you drive around town for the better part of an hour, cussing yourself out for your folly in going out to the Warehouse, for going out at all with Patrick and his friends. You cuss out yourself, you cuss out them, and you end by cussing out Kim Walsh, who put the idea in your head that you might meet some girls if you only went out and looked.

When your phone finally dies—you cuss out its stubborn battery life as well—you head home, parking down at the end of the street first to change into your old clothes. The porch light is still on when you park, and there's also a light in the living room window. With sinking dread—made worse because you know your punishment will be out of all proportion to the fun you got in return—you go inside.

Your mom, in her nightgown, is dozing upright on the sofa with a Kindle in her hand. She jerks herself awake at the sound of the door. Her eyes widen when she sees you. Then her mouth curls down in a frown.

You raise your hands defensively.

"I know, I'm sorry," you tell her. "I was with these guys, and I went with them someplace and left by truck behind, and I couldn't get them to bring me back," you tell her. "And my phone died, so I couldn't text you."

"Couldn't you borrow someone else's phone?" she asks.

"I didn't think of that."

She looks deeply aggravated, but also too exhausted to argue.

"Just get to bed," she tells you. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

"I'm really sorry," you tell her.

"Set your alarm. You've still got church," she replies.

* * * * *

Your punishment isn't light—you're grounded for a week—but your dad lets the punishment speak for itself and doesn't even raise his voice when he gives it to you. You're almost glad of it, because after the disaster that was Saturday night you doubt you'll be in a mood to go out any time soon anyway, and the grounding will be a further excuse to stay in. When you ask your dad if the grounding extends to not having friends over, he studies you closely for a moment before telling you that it doesn't. So it's almost a win-win.

It's even more like a win-win-win when Patrick texts you that afternoon to invite you to hang out. cant grounded missed curfew, you text back. That sounds too curt, so even though you're not happy to hear from him, you soften it with a follow up text: see you Monday.

Maybe you should have kept it curt, because he calls you direct a minute later.

"Dude," he croons, "it was totally worth it, wasn't it? How long you in jail for?"

"A week."

"Including Saturday?"

"Yeah."

"That sucks, 'cos I'm hittin' the Warehouse again next weekend. Dude, I got me some last night!"

You wince hard, but aloud you say, "Yeah?"

"Yeah! This girl from Eastman, I danced with her, we smoked some weed, I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs, and she said no. But we did go out in the parking lot an' I talked her into waiting for me till I could go inside and get some keys from someone, so we could get in his car. Were you upstairs? 'Cos I couldn't find you an' I was looking for you."

"No, I wasn't," you say. Upstairs, you're pretty sure, refers to some rooms that (so you've heard) are rentable at the Warehouse for ... "private parties." "I was probably dancing."

"Oh man, how much action you get last night? But I was saying, I finally got Ryan's keys, and me an' this girl hung out in his car, making out, and I got a blow job outta it! Yaaaagghhh!" He snickers contentedly, then asks, "What'd you get out of it?"

* To pretend you got laid: "Slick 'n Slide" 
* To confess you got nothing: "Confessions and Concussions" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"